# Judgement calls vs "railroading"



## pemerton

Some posts, threads etc have triggered this question in my mind:

[size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​
In the context of 5e, GM "judgement calls" can also fall into the domain of "rulings not rules."

By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)

My feeling is that the answer is a complex one.

In a FRPG session I ran yesterday, the action was in a bedroom in a mage's tower, where a wizard had been lying unconsciousness on a divan recovering from a terrible wound, but then was rather brutally decapitated by an assassin. One of the players, whose PC ran into the room just as the decapitation took place, asked whether there was a vessel in the room in which the PC could catch the decapitated mage's blood.*

I resolved this by setting a DC for a Perception check - and because, as the player argued with some plausibility, it was likely that a room for convalescing in would have a chamber pot, jug/ewer, etc - I set the DC fairly low. The player succeeded, and the PC was able to grab the vessel and catch the blood as desired.

Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.

But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.

On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.

I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!


[size=-2]* If you want to know why, the answer is in this thread.[/size]


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## Gardens & Goblins

The disconnect for me is 'By railroading I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative.'

Our lot doesn't really plan narratives in a linear manner, a path if you will that is to be followed. The system is set, the key agents put into play and the characters are free to pick or set a goal as they choose. As such, DM Judgment calls are simply part of play, arbitrating the events on the behalf of the world around the players with DCs being set according to what amounts to logic in a fantasy world.

But yes, I can see how that if a DM has a specific route or path they wish players to follow, described as a narrative, then such calls can and will influence the path of play -the order and manner in which players engage with and are involved with the events pre-planned by the DM.

The degree of influence simply depends on the nature of the narrative. A linear step-by-step narrative will be greatly effected by any deviation from the planned path and as a result, it seems to me a DM is less likely to be able to respond to spontaneous changes that occur during play, and as a result is more likely to veto or attempt to directly influence the outcome of an event, be a DC check, combat or what have you. I'd also argue that such a setup is rather dull, or at least would not be welcomed with our group. _(We have video games for such antics!)_

However, are cleverly constructed narrative can include branches which are then tied together at key stages along the path. In this way, players enjoy _(often the illusion of) _choice and the DM can almost guarantee things coming together when they need to at a given point along the path. And with practice, they can add branches spontaneously. This style of narrative seems much more open to setting 'logic' 'realistic' DCs and more ready to accommodate the wacky antics most players seem to enjoy initiating. As such, DCs, combat, social interactions and the like are less likely to be fudged in favour of the narrative because while they can lead to branches in the narrative, as mentioned, the paths are designed to come together at key points.

Much like in the classic 'Choose your own Adventure' game books. _Which, incidental, are typically designed by working backwards - why do we end the adventure? Ok, what happened before...?_


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## pemerton

Gardens & Goblins said:


> The disconnect for me is 'By railroading I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative.'
> 
> Our lot doesn't really plan narratives in a linear manner, a path if you will that is to be followed.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I can see how that if a DM has a specific route or path they wish players to follow, described as a narrative, then such calls can and will influence the path of play -the order and manner in which players engage with and are involved with the events pre-planned by the DM.
> 
> The degree of influence simply depends on the nature of the narrative. A linear step-by-step narrative will be greatly effected by any deviation from the planned path and as a result, it seems to me a DM is less likely to be able to respond to spontaneous changes that occur during play, and as a result is more likely to veto or attempt to directly influence the outcome of an event, be a DC check, combat or what have you. I'd also argue that such a setup is rather dull, or at least would not be welcomed with our group. _(We have video games for such antics!)_
> 
> However, are cleverly constructed narrative can include branches which are then tied together at key stages along the path. In this way, players enjoy _(often the illusion of) _choice and the DM can almost guarantee things coming together when they need to at a given point along the path. And with practice, they can add branches spontaneously.



I'm not sure what the "disconnect" is. Do you just mean that you disagree?

But then, I would have thought an _illusion of choice_ is, among other things, an _absence_ of _actual_ choice. And I don't quite get the notion of "things coming together when they need to at a given point along the path". Why do things need to come together? Who has the need? Not only to I not get the "disconnect", I'm not sure that you are even disagreeing with me. If the GM ensures events fit a pre-conceived storyline (and offers only an illusion of choice in bringing this result about) then it is exactly what I described as a railroad. The player's (seeming, but not genuine) choices seem to make no difference to the downstream narrative.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Krachek

Once you let the PC be at an event, you must let them alter it, or at least try to alter it. Then build on any consequence that may emerge.
If you want to impose an event, better simply reports the news. Yesterday the mage was assassinated and is body is missing.


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## robus

Hmm - once the player made the excellent case for why there would be a vessel in the room, it would be very unfair for a DM to rule that there was not in order to save their precious storyline, IMHO.

As far as rolling would go I think I would have had the player roll to determine how much blood they were able to catch in the vessel rather than whether they could find one.


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## Jer

pemerton said:


> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)




As an aside - I think that this is WAY too broad.  By my read this would include, for example, plots where there's a time limit where an event is going to happen and there's nothing the PCs can do to stop it, but they can mitigate its effects.  It would also include any GM-run NPCs having plans and counter-plans that take into account possible interference to keep their plans on track.  In fact if the PCs are up against a big bad mastermind then by the definition that you give here any adventure against him/her would be a railroad as they react to the PCs' actions to get their plans back on track.  And given that your post uses "railroad" as a derogatory term for "roleplaying through a narrative", I assume that you didn't mean either of those things to count as a "railroad".

My definition of a railroad requires that there is one linear path through the adventure that the PCs must follow.  A narrative that the PCs are working through is just fine as along as there are choices along the way that allow them to affect the story in a meaningful way.  But if there's really just a single narrative path that they are allowed to take and the "choices" that they make just drag them through the same scenes they would see regardless of what choices they make, then it's a railroad.  It's the linearity that makes it a railroad.  And railroads aren't always negative things - certain groups of players are just in the game to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and if that's the case they like to have the story laid out like breadcrumbs that they can follow to get to the next ass kicking session.  Nothing wrong with that if that's how you like to play the game.

Anyway - onto your example:

By my definition of railroad, neither choice would be "railroading".  You could decide there was a cup there, you could decide that there wasn't and in no way would either choice be forcing the PCs onto some linear path through a storyline.

By your definition of railroad above, I don't think either answer is "railroad" either, so long as the GM didn't have a pre-determined narrative in mind at all for the PCs' course of action.  The GM could just think through the inventory of the room, decide that there's no reason that a cup would be there, and so say no.  Or they GM could shrug and not care and just say yes (my preferred method when players ask me "is there an X here in the room" is to say yes unless it's ludicrous, in which case they get a raised eyebrow and a "what do you think" response).  Or the GM could decide to do as you did and leave it to the whims of chance and throw some dice to decide.  

But the point is that none of these choices as a GM affects whether the scenario is a railroad or not.  In this particular case I can take any of the choices and use them later on my railroad scenario - if I want to make it a railroad, then I can say no and not worry about it.  Or I can say yes and then later, when they try to use the blood to do something in the story, I could either say "doesn't work" or I could say "it works!" and let them use that as their "plot key" to move from one station on the railroad to the next station.  Or I could roll some dice to decide whether it'll be the plot key that works to move from one scene to the next.  This particular choice has no bearing at all on whether it'll be a railroad or not - it's what happens downstream that matters.  Likewise I can justify all three possible choices in a sandbox environment as well.

So to the bigger question - GM judgment calls absolutely relate to "railroading", but only when deciding how the PC's actions will shift the storyline.  If the GM's judgment call consciously neuters the PC's actions to keep them on the one path that the GM has in mind for the story (by either cutting the PCs off and saying "no" or by saying "yes" but the yes just takes them to the next station in the railroad that they were going to get to anyway) then it's railroading.  Otherwise it's just a judgment call.  (And bear in mind that a decent "say yes" GM can make a railroad feel like a sandbox to the players.  I know that I've run more than one "investigative horror" scenario that is actually a fairly linear scenario of using clues as plot keys to get from scene to scene where the players involved have told me that it felt like they are playing in a far more open sandbox than they actually had in front of them.)


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## Tony Vargas

lowkey13 said:


> First, a little science. We are all aware of how in our daily lives, we are constantly confronted with the illusion of choice- even the illusion of consciousness. Our body will react to something, and then our mind will, later, fill in the false belief that we chose that action.



 Science?  Last I checked (c1989, I think it was - wow, I should keep more current, but philosophy of mind just isn't high on my list of interests), the Behaviorists were a school of philosophy, and not a very well-regarded one, at that. 

 




pemerton said:


> How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?
> 
> In the context of 5e, GM "judgement calls" can also fall into the domain of "rulings not rules."



 As does so much.  And, that's a big stone in the foundation of 5e's DM Empowerment, as it calls for DM judgement (rulings) constantly, right there in it's rules, making it natural for players to expect such calls and to accept them with far less debate than they'd've tended to under the opposite-extreme 'RAW' zietgeist of the 3.x era.



> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know.)



 Yeah, it is.  Most of us would probably go with Railroading meaning presenting no choices, or only one valid choice (all others dead-end quickly and badly for the players).  And, of course, it's viewed very negatively.  so maybe some other term, or just spelling it out, as you have, without using a term that means something else to most of us?  



> My feeling is that the answer is a complex one.



 I disagree.  It's a simple one.  DM Empowerment does, as the name suggests, give the DM a lot of powerful tools.  The opportunity to make judgement calls often and all but arbitrarily is one of them.  It could be used by a DM who wants to be an engineer or conductor on the RP Line to 'railroad' the party either in the sense you use it, or the usual, less pleasant sense.  That's up to the DM.  

I'd also argue that a directive style is not as negative as it's made out to be.  You can run a very enjoyable game that's comparatively linear, where the players have few real choices about the direction of the 'story' (adventure), (nor the outcome, beyond being free to screw it up if they play badly enough).  That can be with player connivance, if you lampshade that they're all climbing aboard the train to story town (I've had players who lampshade it "where are the rails, anyway?  I look for rails, we need to find the plot!" for that matter).  Or it can all be kept behind the screen, to preserve some other desired feel on the part of the players.  

Being suitable for that method of DMing (I say method rather than style, because it can be used in the service of fitting the game to many different styles) is perhaps one of 5e's greatest strengths. 



> I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.
> 
> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.
> 
> I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!



 I see the distinction as unimportant, or at best academic.

Except for the use of the 'railroading' label, which carries, as I pointed out, negative connotations for many.


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## Satyrn

I would think that Railroading is a thing the DM will do (or not do) regardless of which tools he is using, whether that's making judgement calls or parsing the rules like a lawyer.


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## Gardens & Goblins

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure what the "disconnect" is. Do you just mean that you disagree?
> 
> But then, I would have thought an _illusion of choice_ is, among other things, an _absence_ of _actual_ choice. And I don't quite get the notion of "things coming together when they need to at a given point along the path". Why do things need to come together? Who has the need? Not only to I not get the "disconnect", I'm not sure that you are even disagreeing with me. If the GM ensures events fit a pre-conceived storyline (and offers only an illusion of choice in bringing this result about) then it is exactly what I described as a railroad. The player's (seeming, but not genuine) choices seem to make no difference to the downstream narrative.




I'm handing all further discourse, aside from the parts that I don't, over to my lawyer and bartender *lowkey 13*.

And aye, I'm not disagreeing with you, in part because you you seem to be sharing your thoughts, which I enjoyed reading. I think I chose a poor term to describe my thoughts - perhaps not 'disconnect', but simply a 'lack of current exposure to'? due to the state of play with our group. 

[sblock]We've been experimenting with seeding the campaign with NPCs and making liberal use of encounter and other tables, to create a loose simulation of the world the characters are exploring - as such, the DMs don't really prepare narratives as much as they create NPCs with their own objectives, wants and whims - sites with a history and purpose/function and the characters, through their choices, bounce around/off/between them. As a consequence, the player's choices and the events that unfold because them create the narrative, rather than the DM attempting to shape or craft a specific story based upon a prepared/planned narrative. So, to cut an already long story short, a/the discussion relating to choices, DCs, outcomes and their effect on narrative, from a DMs perspective is a problem/phenomenon I'm currently not experiencing. _Player agency, campaign information communication and how to encourage player initiative though? Oh heck yeah![/sblock]_


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## Guest 6801328

For the record, I'm 100% fine with "illusion of choice" instead of genuine choice, as long as the illusion is impenetrable.


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## FormerlyHemlock

lowkey13 said:


> First, a little science. We are all aware of how in our daily lives, we are constantly confronted with the illusion of choice- even the illusion of consciousness. Our body will react to something, and then our mind will, later, fill in the false belief that we chose that action.




That illusion isn't necessarily as false as it's sometimes made out to be. Brains are neural networks; almost every decision is made by weighing multiple factors against each other. When you ask someone "Why did you do X?", it's not obviously true that you must be asking them "which factor tipped the balance?" and indeed, figuring out what tipped the balance may be very difficult to do. A simpler, more intuitive question would be "What was the biggest factor in favor of doing X?" and it's possible that it is that question which people were answering.

Why am I eating a cheeseburger? Because cheeseburgers are delicious.
Why am I not eating a cheeseburger? Because I want to get fit.

These are both valid lines of reasoning, and yet only one of them will come to pass, perhaps based on whether or not my co-worker asks me to join him for lunch. Will that mean that the the co-worker's invitation was the deciding factor? Nope. It might only be 5% of the reason--and there are other days when that 5% won't be enough to tip me one way or the other, and I'll do my thing regardless of what he does. Arguably it would in fact be FALSE to say that my co-worker is responsible for me eating that cheeseburger, especially if he is 5% of the reason and their deliciousness is 30-40%.

Even if you are 100% rational, it's very tricky to ever pick a single dominant reason why you did something, because there usually isn't a single dominant reason.


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## The Crimson Binome

It seems like a pretty clear divide. If the DM is using the best of their ability as an impartial adjudicator to determine the truth of a situation, then they are making a judgment call. If the DM is letting their personal preference factor into that, then they are railroading.

As the DM, you know everything about the state of the world, because the world _exists_ as you see it. The other players can only potentially know as much about the world as you tell them. As such, it is only fair that you are honest in your presentation, and tell them what you _actually_ imagine to exist, rather than what you _want_ to imagine to exist.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Eric V

Tony Vargas said:


> Science?  Last I checked (c1989, I think it was - wow, I should keep more current, but philosophy of mind just isn't high on my list of interests), the Behaviorists were a school of philosophy, and not a very well-regarded one, at that.




Neuroscience, Benjamin Libet and quantum physics all seem to back up the behaviorists.


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## pemerton

Saelorn said:


> As the DM, you know everything about the state of the world, because the world _exists_ as you see it.



Well, clearly this isn't true as a general proposition about RPG refereeing.

For instance, in the episode of play that I described neither I, nor anyone else at the table, knew whether or not there was a vessel in the room suitable for catching blood until after the player had made a check that established that his PC had spotted one.



Satyrn said:


> I would think that Railroading is a thing the DM will do (or not do) regardless of which tools he is using



Well, some GMing tools/techniques are not consistent with railroading. For instance - just to pick one example - if a GM is running a game using Dungeon World or some similar PbtA system, then there can't be railroading, because the GM doesn't have enough control over (i) the consequences of action declarations, and (ii) the introduction of new content into the shared fiction.



Krachek said:


> Once you let the PC be at an event, you must let them alter it, or at least try to alter it.



By "must", I take it you mean "must, if the game is going to be one that you want to participate in"? Clearly there are some tables where the PCs are present at events but the events can't be altered - and not just because (i) the PCs already tried and failed, and (ii) the game has a no-retries rule.



lowkey13 said:


> all D&D by its very nature has some elements of railroading. Are you sitting down to play a module or an adventure path?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And the DM will regularly make judgment calls to move the narrative along. So long as the DM is making those calls to move the table's narrative along, and not his own, that's fine. It's all about the illusion.



I'm not sure that things must always be illusion, however.

Not _all_ RPGing involves narrative at all. A classic dungeon crawl - I'm thinking, say, White Plume Mountain or Hidden Shring - might just involve the GM running the monsters and adjudicating the traps. That sort of game doesn't really have a narrative (beyond a sequence of events) but doesn't seem to have illusion, either.

And if the game does have a narrative, but the referee is overt about the context and reasons for framing some particular scene, then that also might mean that there is no illusion. In the episode of play I described, I don't think there was any illusion. The presence of the (decapitated) wizard in the (other) wizard's tower, the assassination, the collecting of the blood - all were established at the table through open processes.

I think an AP is a different kettle of fish, but that's why I personally don't care for them.



Jer said:


> As an aside - I think that this is WAY too broad.  By my read this would include, for example, plots where there's a time limit where an event is going to happen and there's nothing the PCs can do to stop it, but they can mitigate its effects.  It would also include any GM-run NPCs having plans and counter-plans that take into account possible interference to keep their plans on track.  In fact if the PCs are up against a big bad mastermind then by the definition that you give here any adventure against him/her would be a railroad as they react to the PCs' actions to get their plans back on track.  And given that your post uses "railroad" as a derogatory term for "roleplaying through a narrative", I assume that you didn't mean either of those things to count as a "railroad".



I hadn't intended the usage to be derogatory, but clearly (with a nod to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]) it signals a preference.

The things you describe I would consider railroads, unless - with your first example - the time limit is established either at the start of the game (so it's not just _the GM's_ pre-conceived story) or is the result of some prior action declaration by the players, in a context of no re-tries (in which case it wasn't pre-conceived at all but was established by the players as part of their play of the game).

To elaborate with respect to NPC counter plans, etc - I would use these as the _result _of (failed) actions declared by players, not as _inputs _into the resolution of declared actions.


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## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> I hadn't intended the usage to be derogatory, but clearly (with a nod to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]) ...



 Possible alternatives to 'railroad' for "the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative " we might try (just brainstorming):


 linear 
 directive 
 DM-driven
 tailored campaign
 phantasmal protagonism
 DM authorship
 Storytelling
 DMing (or "GMing D&D")
 Narativistic
 Simulationist
 Not Gamist Enough by Half
 None of that Forge Stuff
or, of course..
 Really D&D

Obviously, in descending order of seriousness.


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## The Crimson Binome

pemerton said:


> Well, clearly this isn't true as a general proposition about RPG refereeing.
> 
> For instance, in the episode of play that I described neither I, nor anyone else at the table, knew whether or not there was a vessel in the room suitable for catching blood until after the player had made a check that established that his PC had spotted one.



Yeah, I probably could have worded it better. I just meant that there is nothing which is known, which is unknown to the DM. The vessel definitely existed within the room (or did not exist within the room) _before_ you-as-the-DM became aware of it, but there was no higher authority that you could have consulted in order to find out the truth of the matter. The only possible sources that you _could_ consult are your unbiased determination of what _should_ be there, and your biased determination of what you _want_ to be there.


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## Saeviomagy

Was there one and only one path through the adventure with no deviations?
If no, then not a railroad.
Did the players notice there was only one path through the adventure?
If no, then not a railroad.
Did the players dislike the adventure because of that?
If no, then not a railroad.

So no, altering probabilities for individual events is not necessarily railroading. It might be if you do it to a high degree with no finesse and it upsets your players.


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## transtemporal

pemerton said:


> the action was in a bedroom in a mage's tower,




Roleplaya! 

It might be getting close to railroading just by deciding there is a chance there _isn't_ a vessel in the room. Its a bedroom inhabited by a humanoid. Logically there is a container of some kind, or someone is carrying a container that can hold liquid. That shouldn't require a roll IMO.

The only "GMing crime" you're committing here is possibly making your railroading too obvious. The point at which you stubbornly dig your heels in for no logical reason is the point the players can see the metamachinery of the gameworld which may not be a good thing.


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## Reynard

I do not believe I have ever encountered the use of the term "railroad" in such a narrow, momentary context before. I am not sure it is an appropriate term for deciding whether a thing in a given moment is true or false or possible.

Beyond that I think what constitutes railroading is simply the PCs actions having no impact on the next step of the adventure. If the party finds of split in the trail in the forest but the DM decides they run into the Old Witch regardless of which direction they choose, that's railroading.


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## Lanefan

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] My first thought on reading your initial post here is that you're perhaps looking just a bit too closely for errors in the brushstrokes and thus not enjoying the whole picture as much as you otherwise might.

Micro-railroading, as in whether there's a cup in the room or not: who bloody cares?   Just tell 'em there's a cup or there isn't (having determined so by whatever means you like) and get on with it.

Personally, I don't see anything all that wrong with more or less running a railroad as long as the players willingly (or unknowingly) get on and stay on the train - everyone's happy and the game chugs along.  The problem comes when they want to either change trains or get off entirely; and here it falls entirely on the DM to be able to adapt.  In other words, railroading only becomes an issue either a) if-when the players and-or their characters try to make a choice or perform a normally-allowed action and the DM somehow disallows it, or b) when the DM forces something that should in theory be completely under character-player control e.g. treasury division method.

A bad DM fails to adapt.  A merely competent one succeeds in adapting and thus keeps her game running smoothly.  A good one melds the adaptation in so seamlessly that it appears to the players (and all outside viewers) to have been planned that way all along.

Lan-"hitting (most of) these curveballs since 1984"-efan


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## FrogReaver

There is no way to play D&D that doesn't contain rails.  The good DM's hide the rails.  The bad ones allow them to stand out apparent.  Some may even have multiple rail lines open at all the times but the PC's still must get off their current train at the next station and get on the next.  

Just because you are on rails doesn't mean you can't move along the train from car to car or stop at the next station and get off the 2:30 train to Yuma and hop on the Midnight train to Yuma.  Same destination but slightly different train and details.


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## Reynard

FrogReaver said:


> There is no way to play D&D that doesn't contain rails.  The good DM's hide the rails.  The bad ones allow them to stand out apparent.  Some may even have multiple rail lines open at all the times but the PC's still must get off their current train at the next station and get on the next.




This isn't true, at least insofar as the broadly accepted definition of "rails" is concerned. It is, however, a lot of work and requires a lot of prep for defining the starting condition of things as well as an ability to adapt things on the fly.

Let's say you start a campaign in a town with a dungeon nearby and a crazy old wizard in a tower that likes to transform young men in to owl bears. You detail all these elements meticulously without worrying about any plot. Then, the PCS arrive in the back of a turnip caravan and begin to explore the town, it's people and it's issues. If you did your prep work right and you are able to use that prep to respond to player initiated action, you can run D&D with no rails.

Now, some would argue just including the dungeon or the wizard is the inclusion of rails. But I think that is far too broad a definition. The game is not on rails merely because the PCs have things with which to interact. Rather, it is simply playable.


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## Tony Vargas

Reynard said:


> If the party finds of split in the trail in the forest but the DM decides they run into the Old Witch regardless of which direction they choose, that's railroading.



 That particular example is the classic "Magician's Force," and it's a legitimate technique, IMHO.



FrogReaver said:


> There is no way to play D&D that doesn't contain rails.



 Sanboxing.  No Rails.  Just sand.  And a box, of course...  

...possibly a gynosphinx wondering what you're doing there.


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## Manbearcat

Elfcrusher said:


> For the record, I'm 100% fine with "illusion of choice" instead of genuine choice, as long as the illusion is impenetrable.




This is an extremely important comment (that really gets to the nub of a lot of issues here) that doesn't seem to have gotten much run.  A couple quick comments and a couple of questions for you if you don't mind?

So what you're talking about here is "Illusionism" GMing and "Participationism" playing.  It has a history dating back to the late 80s, so it is a long-tenured, very legitimate playstyle.  

The GM exerts "Force" over much/most (or at least the seminal ones) of the play outcomes in order to ensure control of the trajectory of the plot.  However, through a variety of techniques, s/he does this covertly in order to create the illusion that what emerges at the table is being driven by the players (through their PCs).  

The players may be just fine with this (in fact, they may prefer the GM do the heavy lifting in directing play), so long as (a) they get to flex their characterization/acting muscles (and maybe/likely pull out some Fiasco shenanigans now and again), (b) they get to crack some skulls and look cool, (c) the GM does a good job presenting a "living, breathing, world" + interesting metaplot, and (as you mention) (d) the GM does a professional job of keeping the Wizard behind the black curtain.  Overall so long as its a fun story and they have a laugh with their mates, its all good.

So my questions are:

1)  Do you think this "must not reveal the Wizard behind the curtain"/covert nature of the GM's techniques leads to an inherent aversion to system/technique/play anecdote analysis?  

2)  Do you think this leads to a "system doesn't matter" perspective on games?

3)  Do you think this leads to an aversion of resolution mechanics clarity, transparency, or codificaion?

4)  Do you think this leads to an aversion of player authority within PC build mechanics (eg - I have this ability that just says this happen...you get no say GM)?


----------



## GMMichael

pemerton said:


> [size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​
> In the context of 5e, GM "judgement calls" can also fall into the domain of "rulings not rules."
> 
> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)



Um, adjudication is required for playing, but railroading is not?  Don't go broadly defining railroading, or you'll get a set of broadly defined answers to your question.



FrogReaver said:


> There is no way to play D&D that doesn't contain rails.



Been watching Matt Mercer, have you?  There's a way to play D&D without rails right here on ENWorld: the Online Generic Randomizer Engine.  Or if you're really feeling froggy (which I assume you are), give each player a percentage of the DM's responsibility...


----------



## Reynard

Tony Vargas said:


> That particular example is the classic "Magician's Force," and it's a legitimate technique, IMHO.




I am not saying it is wrong, I am just saying it is railroading.  There's a negative connotation to the term that while not unearned does ignore some of the nuance.  Some groups at some times want a story. That is what railroading is good for. Especially in the hands of a skilled DM, a railroady adventure or campaign can provide the same enjoyment as a linear adventure game like, say, Uncharted. We should decouple the conversation from value judgements and talk about how to make a great railroad or a great sandbox.


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## billd91

pemerton said:


> I resolved this by setting a DC for a Perception check - and because, as the player argued with some plausibility, it was likely that a room for convalescing in would have a chamber pot, jug/ewer, etc - I set the DC fairly low. The player succeeded, and the PC was able to grab the vessel and catch the blood as desired.
> 
> Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.
> 
> But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.
> 
> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.




Is there something wrong with making judgment calls? The way you're referring to them, they seem suspect (though perhaps not as suspect as railroading). 
A DM isn't likely to think of everything when describing the action of a scene or the room or anything. When players ask questions whether to clarify the situation or to see if something is available for taking action, the DM's going to need to make some kind of judgment call whether it's to take partial responsibility for the answer to the question by setting a DC and letting the die roll make the final decision or to take full responsibility by saying "Yes" (or "No"). 

As far as whether or not judgment calls relate to railroading or not, I suppose that depends on what the judgment call is and why. 
1) Is there some kind of container in the room because it's entirely reasonable for there to be one? 
2) Is there not some kind of container in the room because it's entirely reasonable for the ones one might expect to be there to be currently absent (like the chamber pot having been taken for a rinse-out since, with the man in the room unconscious, he isn't currently using it)? 
3) Or is it reasonable to say there is/isn't one to present a particular challenge or complication for that player and see what they come up with under pressure? 
4) Or is it being done to fulfill the DM's outcome (whether yes or no)?

Of those 3 rationales, only 1 of them is really railroading, as I see it.


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## Xetheral

Saelorn said:


> It seems like a pretty clear divide. If the DM is using the best of their ability as an impartial adjudicator to determine the truth of a situation, then they are making a judgment call. If the DM is letting their personal preference factor into that, then they are railroading.




There are other metrics for making decisions besides "impartial adjudication" that aren't railroading. Here are some examples:


What would be more fun?
What would interest the particular players who are losing focus?
What would tie this detail to a dangling plot thread?
What would tie this detail more firmly into the game world?
What would adjust the energy level at the table in the preferred direction?
What would set the desired tone of the scene?
What would tie this detail to a PC's backstory?
What would help distribute spotlight time more evenly?
What would prompt an under-used skill check?
None of these are impartial, and all of them involve personal preference (or at least, personal style). And yet none of them involve railroading.



Reynard said:


> Beyond that I think what constitutes railroading is simply the PCs actions having no impact on the next step of the adventure. If the party finds of split in the trail in the forest but the DM decides they run into the Old Witch regardless of which direction they choose, that's railroading.




There is the important caveat that the choice in question had to be a significant one. If the party chose a particular fork in the hope of avoiding the witch, then having them encounter her regardless could be railroading. But if the choice of path was utterly arbitrary in the first place, placing the witch on the chosen path doesn't frustrate the party's choice. In other words, if the players weren't _trying_ to have an "impact on the next step of the adventure" at that moment then it isn't railroading to prevent them from having one.

For example, if a party is exploring a dungeon they haven't scouted and have no knowledge of, and are thus deciding which hallway to take at random, it isn't railroading to use a mirror image layout of dungeon instead of the original, since which way the party went was chance anyway.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Xetheral said:


> There are other metrics for making decisions besides "impartial adjudication" that aren't railroading. Here are some examples:
> 
> 
> What would be more fun?
> What would interest the particular players who are losing focus?
> What would tie this detail to a dangling plot thread?
> What would tie this detail more firmly into the game world?
> What would adjust the energy level at the table in the preferred direction?
> What would set the desired tone of the scene?
> What would tie this detail to a PC's backstory?
> What would help distribute spotlight time more evenly?
> What would prompt an under-used skill check?
> None of these are impartial, and all of them involve personal preference (or at least, personal style). And yet none of them involve railroading.



If the DM is choosing the outcome based on their own personal preference, rather than their honest interpretation of the underlying reality, then it is _very_ much still railroading. If the DM makes something happen, because they want to change the tone of the scene or share the spotlight, then that _is_ railroading - they are making something happen because they _want_ it to happen, without regard for their responsibility as the impartial adjudicator!

Perhaps you mean to say that some railroading can be a good thing, and wish to present these as examples? If so, then I can only say that you have a preference for certain types of railroading, which is not universally shared. If a DM tried those kinds of shenanigans around these parts, then they would quickly find themselves without a group.


----------



## Imaculata

FrogReaver said:


> There is no way to play D&D that doesn't contain rails.  The good DM's hide the rails.  The bad ones allow them to stand out apparent.  Some may even have multiple rail lines open at all the times but the PC's still must get off their current train at the next station and get on the next.
> 
> Just because you are on rails doesn't mean you can't move along the train from car to car or stop at the next station and get off the 2:30 train to Yuma and hop on the Midnight train to Yuma.  Same destination but slightly different train and details.




I think that once you define 'railroading' as any campaign that has multiple choice options, you've probably reversed what most people think of when talking about railroading. And I don't feel that's a useful definition.

For example, in my Call of Cthulhu campaign I had a plot thought out, with multiple ideas of how it could possibly end, depending on the choices of the players. Certain events would always happen, because as a DM I occasionally move the plot forward. But within this setting, the players were free to hunt for clues, decide where they want to go next, and they could succeed or fail in their quest miserably. Any npc could die, none of them had plot armor. Any event could be stopped by the players without disrupting the course of the plot.

And yet I didn't railroad when I ran this campaign. Just because your campaign has a plot and a direction, does not mean that the players are on a rail. When I think of "railroading", I think of a DM blocking what a player wants to do, because it is not in the script. _That _is railroading in my book. 

For example, if the players are about to be arrested by the guards, and they get arrested no matter what, against all logic and reason. And are then taken to what ever important plot location or npc that the plot desires. That is my definition of railroading. Or a player always getting caught when sneaking, regardless of how stealthy his character behaves. Railroading is a disruptive act where the DM blocks player action, to force them and the plot on a linear path.

Having branching paths in your storyline is not railroading, unless it involves the above disruptive action.


----------



## transtemporal

Saelorn said:


> If the DM is choosing the outcome based on their own personal preference, rather than their honest interpretation of the underlying reality, then it is _very_ much still railroading. If the DM makes something happen, because they want to change the tone of the scene or share the spotlight, then that _is_ railroading - they are making something happen because they _want_ it to happen, without regard for their responsibility as the impartial adjudicator!




Then surely any adventure hook is railroading because the DM is forcing something to happen at a particular point in time that might not happen in the normal course of events? 

It seems like in the maximum-verisimilitude campaign, nothing happens because the apocalypse realistically has a 1-in-a-million chance of occurring in the PCs lifetime. Or if it does happen, the PCs don't stop it because in their player-driven, impartially-adjudicated sandbox campaign, they were more interested in running a mine or opening an inn.


----------



## pemerton

Saelorn said:


> The vessel definitely existed within the room (or did not exist within the room) _before_ you-as-the-DM became aware of it



Agreed: in the fiction there either is a vessel or is not. No one is creating one at that moment.



Saelorn said:


> there was no higher authority that you could have consulted in order to find out the truth of the matter. The only possible sources that you _could_ consult are your unbiased determination of what _should_ be there, and your biased determination of what you _want_ to be there.



Well, there seems to be at least one more source, because in my game we were able to settle the question without doing either of the things you describe. I set a DC for the Perception check and then the player rolled the dice.


----------



## pemerton

transtemporal said:


> The only "GMing crime" you're committing here is possibly making your railroading too obvious. The point at which you stubbornly dig your heels in for no logical reason is the point the players can see the metamachinery of the gameworld which may not be a good thing.



I don't get what this is referring to. What "digging in" are you referring to? And what is the "metamachinery" that you refer to?



transtemporal said:


> It might be getting close to railroading just by deciding there is a chance there _isn't_ a vessel in the room. Its a bedroom inhabited by a humanoid. Logically there is a container of some kind, or someone is carrying a container that can hold liquid.



I don't follow this either. My bedroom is inhabited by a humanoid (me). But typically it does not have any containers or vessels in it. (Unless you count shoes. But that's still not a matter of logic. There have only been shoes in my bedroom for the last couple of years since I ran out of room on the shoe rack downstairs.)


----------



## The Crimson Binome

transtemporal said:


> Then surely any adventure hook is railroading because the DM is forcing something to happen at a particular point in time that might not happen in the normal course of events?



It depends on when that hook happens. If it happens _before_ the game, then it's just part of the premise. When you start a campaign with the relevant events already set into motion, then carrying out those events faithfully is simply being true to that premise. One of the tenets of good world-building is to design a setting which is conducive to interesting things happening, specifically so you _don't_ need to contrive anything later on in order to keep things moving.

If you try to hook someone _after_ the game starts, so that the contrived coincidence is not part of the premise you're exploring, then _that_ is railroading. It's the difference between choosing to play the campaign where Waterdeep is under attack from Tiamat (or whatever), and Tiamat conveniently showing up to Waterdeep whenever the party gets there. If you want to contrive a coincidence, then it needs to happen _before_ the game starts.

It's kind of like judging a movie or book based on its own merits, depending on how well it follows its premise. Your choice in which story you want to see has no bearing on how _well_ that story is executed.


----------



## pemerton

Reynard said:


> I think what constitutes railroading is simply the PCs actions having no impact on the next step of the adventure. If the party finds of split in the trail in the forest but the DM decides they run into the Old Witch regardless of which direction they choose, that's railroading.





Xetheral said:


> There is the important caveat that the choice in question had to be a significant one. If the party chose a particular fork in the hope of avoiding the witch, then having them encounter her regardless could be railroading. But if the choice of path was utterly arbitrary in the first place, placing the witch on the chosen path doesn't frustrate the party's choice. In other words, if the players weren't _trying_ to have an "impact on the next step of the adventure" at that moment then it isn't railroading to prevent them from having one.



Reynard refers to "PCs". Xetheral refers to "players". I think Xetheral has the right reference, in the context of a discussion about railroading.

We're not talking about the (imagined) causal powers of the (imagined) PCs in the (imagined) gameworld. We're talking about the actual causal powers of actual people - the players - who are sitting at the gaming table.

In my OP I said "By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative." Is an utterly random or unmotivated choice an _outcome_? I tend to agree with Xetheral that it's not. It follows that "We go left" or "We go right", in a context where - from the players' perspective - there is nothing at stake in the choice is not an event of action declaration, any more than "My boots are frilly" is an action declaration. It's just colour and performance.



Xetheral said:


> if a party is exploring a dungeon they haven't scouted and have no knowledge of, and are thus deciding which hallway to take at random, it isn't railroading to use a mirror image layout of dungeon instead of the original, since which way the party went was chance anyway.



I am going to disagree with this, but it may be a disagreement that you (Xetheral) agree with!

In a classic Gyagxian dungeon, although the players may not have any knowledge of the dungeon, they have the _possibility_ of having knowledge (eg by rumour gathering, scrying/detecting magic, etc). Failure to use that capacity, in the context of Gygaxian dungeoneering, is just a mark of poor play. So at least in a Gygaxian game, changing the dungeon might be shaping an outcome and hence (in my view) railroading.

One of the differences between the Gygaxian dungeon case and the "witch down the forest path" case is that D&D has rarely supported the same sort of information gathering etc in the context of outdoors adventuring (eg due to spell ranges, different conventions around how wildernesses are "stocked" with encounters, etc; I think this is why Luke Crane refers to "the poorly implemented ideas of the Expert set" in comparison to Moldvay Basic). Thus it's much harder for me to envisage a context in which choosing to have the witch at the end of an arbitrarily chosen forest path would count as railroading.



FrogReaver said:


> There is no way to play D&D that doesn't contain rails.  The good DM's hide the rails.



I don't think this is true at all. If someone runs White Plume Mountain or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan as originally conceived and presented, where are the rails? The module parameters are all set in advance; the players make their choices; a mixture of GM judgement call and the outcomes of the dice rolls tell the players whether their PCs live or die.

Or to point to a completely different style of game, I don't think my 4e games have any "rails". Eg in this session, the PCs reached an understanding with the djinni and Yan-C-Bin, then established powerful evidence that the Dusk War is not about to take place. I didn't know these things were going to take place until the players declared actions for their PCs and we resolved them.

I also don't see why a GM would "hide the rails". Or, more generally, why would a GM hide his/her techniques? In the session I referred to, the PCs track their lost Thundercloud Tower to Yan-C-Bin's palace on the Elemental Chaos. There is no mystery among the players as to why I've made this choice as to where the tower is located: they know that one of the PCs is sworn to the service of Chan, Queen of Good Air Elementals and hence sworn enemy of Yan-C-Bin, who has already tried to tempt that PC to change loyalties; they know that another PC has just recently taken on the mantle of god of imprisonment, and hence has a special interest in ensuring that bound primordials don't escape; etc.

So why would I want the players not to know my reasons for making this choice? I want them to be fully aware of them, so that they see the full scope for engaging the situation via their PCs. The context that informs my choice is what gives the outcomes dramatic significance.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> [MENTION=42582]Micro-railroading, as in whether there's a cup in the room or not: who bloody cares?



Well, in a context where the PC's main goal is to deliver the blood of the decapitated mage to his dark naga master, so that it can be spilled as part of a ritual to bind the spirits to the naga's service, it could be pretty important!

I'm not the one at the table who raised the question - the player did, because of that PC goal. So it actually turned out to be quite important - and the fact that the PC is carrying a chamber pot and a jug full of blood, and with the decapitated head also sitting in the chamber pot, also turned out to inform subsequent play.



billd91 said:


> Is there something wrong with making judgment calls? The way you're referring to them, they seem suspect



I don't think there's anything wrong with making judgement calls. I don't think they're any more suspect, nor any less, than other GM decisions that influence the outcome of action resolution.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> So my questions are:
> 
> 1)  Do you think this "must not reveal the Wizard behind the curtain"/covert nature of the GM's techniques leads to an inherent aversion to system/technique/play anecdote analysis?



I don't even know what this means, so...no answer.  



> 2)  Do you think this leads to a "system doesn't matter" perspective on games?



I don't think so.  Whether or not there's a railroad, an illusion, or neither does not depend on system; and people will still have their system preferences thus yes, system still matters.



> 3)  Do you think this leads to an aversion of resolution mechanics clarity, transparency, or codificaion?



That might be a table-by-table thing and again might not have a direct correlation with the presence or absence of a railroad or an illusion.



> 4)  Do you think this leads to an aversion of player authority within PC build mechanics (eg - I have this ability that just says this happen...you get no say GM)?



This one might have a correlation, in that a DM running the illusion style is probably a bit more controlling than one who is not.  But note that I say 'probably'; as I don't think the correlation is always present.

==================================



			
				Saelorn said:
			
		

> Perhaps you mean to say that some railroading can be a good thing, and wish to present these as examples? If so, then I can only say that you have a preference for certain types of railroading, which is not universally shared. If a DM tried those kinds of shenanigans around these parts, then they would quickly find themselves without a group.



But what if you don't even realize it's happening?



> It depends on when that hook happens. If it happens before the game, then it's just part of the premise. When you start a campaign with the relevant events already set into motion, then carrying out those events faithfully is simply being true to that premise. One of the tenets of good world-building is to design a setting which is conducive to interesting things happening, specifically so you don't need to contrive anything later on in order to keep things moving.
> 
> If you try to hook someone after the game starts, so that the contrived coincidence is not part of the premise you're exploring, then that is railroading. It's the difference between choosing to play the campaign where Waterdeep is under attack from Tiamat (or whatever), and Tiamat conveniently showing up to Waterdeep whenever the party gets there. If you want to contrive a coincidence, then it needs to happen before the game starts.



What reading this tells me is that a DM who doesn't plan things out in advance and maybe even makes it all up as she goes along - perhaps with the specific intention of leaving herself able to react to what the party do in order to give a more interesting game for the players - is by your definitions always going to be railroading in the negative way.  Seems a bit over-the-top.

You state "One of the tenets of good world-building is to design a setting which is conducive to interesting things happening", with which I agree.  But the unspoken part of that would logically go on to say something like "and it really helps game play if those interesting things tend to happen when the PCs are around to notice and-or interact with them, rather than always happening somewhere else.".

Further, it's close to impossible to contrive a coincidence before the game starts unless it's intended to happen in the first session.  Let's say your idea is to plan a coincidence that in two years (i.e. time enough for the party to gain levels enough to deal with this) on midwinter's night they will see what looks like a meteorite crash into the side of Mount Steepsides, and if they follow it up you'll run them into Expedition to the Barrier Peaks - but tell me, at campaign start do you as DM have any idea where your party will be on midwinter's night two game-years hence and will they even be on the same continent/world/plane as Mount Steepsides?

No.  That meteorite is gonna crash into whatever mountain the party can see at the time, and if they're nowhere near any mountains on midwinter's night it'll stay in orbit for a few days/weeks/months until they are.

The other option is to leave it baked in as is: the meteorite hits Mount Steepsides on midwinter's night no matter what, and half a year later when the party wander by again all they hear is "Oh yeah, something crashed into the mountain last winter.  Too bad you guys weren't here - I heard the group that went up to investigate made a fortune at it!"  Yeah, how much fun is that? 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Well, in a context where the PC's main goal is to deliver the blood of the decapitated mage to his dark naga master, so that it can be spilled as part of a ritual to bind the spirits to the naga's service, it could be pretty important!



Then the characters need to think of something else quickly - like grabbing one of the many cloth items that are guaranteed to be in the room (if nothing else, a large shred of their own clothing would do), soak it full of the blood, fold it up and put it on something hard like the back of a shield.  The naga then just has to wring out the cloth later and...look at that!  Blood!

Taking the head is a fail-safe: carry the head upside-down, then later if there's not enough blood in the cloth the naga can tip the head upright and see what comes out.



> I'm not the one at the table who raised the question - the player did, because of that PC goal. So it actually turned out to be quite important - and the fact that the PC is carrying a chamber pot and a jug full of blood, and with the decapitated head also sitting in the chamber pot, also turned out to inform subsequent play.



I still don't see how anything this minor (even though important in context) gets into railroading territory at all.  There's a container, or there isn't; and if you-as-DM haven't determined that ahead of time (I know I wouldn't have!) then you just have to wing it.  Seems the opposite of railroading to me; railroading would more indicate you'd either predetermined there was no container for reasons of your own, or predetermined there was a container and then tried to influence or force the PC to use it.

Lan-"were it me, I'd be wondering why I'm working for a dark naga in the first place instead of trying to kill it"-efan


----------



## Imaculata

Xetheral said:


> There is the important caveat that the choice in question had to be a significant one. If the party chose a particular fork in the hope of avoiding the witch, then having them encounter her regardless could be railroading. But if the choice of path was utterly arbitrary in the first place, placing the witch on the chosen path doesn't frustrate the party's choice. In other words, if the players weren't _trying_ to have an "impact on the next step of the adventure" at that moment then it isn't railroading to prevent them from having one.




This is I think an important distinction. Railroading, is when a DM takes away choice, and forces the campaign to go one way, despite the player's best efforts to go in a different direction. This can relate to the flow of the story, the locations the players go to, and how certain scenes play out.

*If the players know where the witch is, and they decide to go the other way, and encounter her anyway... that's railroading.*

*If the players don't know where the witch is, and happen to run into her (because the DM placed her on their path), that does not have to be railroading. After all, DM's place interesting encounters on the path of the players all the time.

If the DM has decided that at some point in the campaign, the players will encounter the witch. That is also not railroading.

If the DM has decided that the campaign ends with the players fighting the witch, that is not railroading either.*

I run a sandbox pirate campaign, in which I've thought up the broad outline of the story (which will probably span several years of playing time). I know a large fleet is coming to wipe out the pirates, and that the campaign is building up to an epic finale in which the pirates and the imperial fleet duke it out. But anything in between, can go in any direction. The campaign is basically a long series of sub plots that are loosely tied to the main plot. As long as your players are free to influence the plot, and make their own choices, you are not railroading your campaign. Having a plot, doesn't mean you are railroading. Having multiple endings, or just one ending, also doesn't mean you are railroading. Railroading is a disruptive act that makes the players feel like their choices do not matter, and like the DM must have his way.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I still don't see how anything this minor (even though important in context) gets into railroading territory at all.  There's a container, or there isn't; and if you-as-DM haven't determined that ahead of time (I know I wouldn't have!) then you just have to wing it.  Seems the opposite of railroading to me; railroading would more indicate you'd either predetermined there was no container for reasons of your own, or predetermined there was a container and then tried to influence or force the PC to use it.



Deciding on the spot that there's no container, in order to shut down the blood-collection shenanigans, would also be railroading.



Lanefan said:


> "were it me, I'd be wondering why I'm working for a dark naga in the first place instead of trying to kill it"



Because it has dominated the PC with a Force of Will spell.


----------



## pemerton

Imaculata said:


> Railroading, is when a DM takes away choice, and forces the campaign to go one way, despite the player's best efforts to go in a different direction. This can relate to the flow of the story, the locations the players go to, and how certain scenes play out.



I find that "takes away choice" is a bit too narrow. _Negating choice_ is also an important aspect of railroading - eg the players decide that their PCs will subdue and ransom a villain, they successfully do so, and then the GM has the villain come rifght back at them.

I can imagine some circumstances in which that does not negate the players choices; but in most circumstances I think that it would - it undoes the choice both morally and prudentially. 



Imaculata said:


> *If the DM has decided that the campaign ends with the players fighting the witch, that is not railroading either.*



I don't see how this is not railroading (unless the players have agreed to that particular story arc). I mean, what if the PCs befriend the witch? Or kill her in the second session? If the GM has already decided that the campaign will have a certain climax, s/he is committed to negating these sorts of choices by the players.


----------



## transtemporal

pemerton said:


> I don't get what this is referring to. What "digging in" are you referring to? And what is the "metamachinery" that you refer to?




For example, say you decided that you didn't want the PCs to be able to carry the NPCs blood. You say "theres nothing to carry the blood in" notwithstanding reasonable suggestions from the players. Vases, bowls, cups, chamberpots, boots, buckets, chests - the NPC has none of those things, not because those aren't things that could conceivably exist in the guys room but because you decided it would screw up your story. At that point you'd be very clearly saying to the players "*I* do not want you to carry the NPCs blood anywhere so stop trying" which exposes the players in a very jarring way to railroading. 



pemerton said:


> I don't follow this either.




I'm basically saying who cares, a container isn't exactly a rare item so just roll with it and decide there's a container. 

If they start searching for a faberge egg, then sure, have them make a roll.


----------



## chaochou

Xetheral said:


> There is the important caveat that the choice in question had to be a significant one. If the party chose a particular fork in the hope of avoiding the witch, then having them encounter her regardless could be railroading. But if the choice of path was utterly arbitrary in the first place, placing the witch on the chosen path doesn't frustrate the party's choice.




Yes, I think this starts to get at the heart of the issue.

In general terms, railroading is *a mismatch *between *a player's expectation of their impact* on a given facet of play *and their actual impact* on it.

The intrinsically subjective nature of it - because we each have individual expectations in any given moment in play - creates a lot of argument and divisiveness, as well as creating a broad range of responses as already seen in this thread.

From a theory or discussion point of view, I think railroading is a distinctly unhelpful term - it looks like it's an objective thing, but it's simply playerspeak for 'Personally, I wanted and expected more say in the matter.'

Where the conversation could be useful is to take that statement: 'Personally, I wanted and expected more say in the matter' and develop language which describes *the matter*.

Early rpgs taught us that we got to make tactical decisions about when to use spells, when to run and hide, when to sneak and when to fall into a spiked pi.... I mean check for traps. But very soon we got games like Traveller, where the players could easily decide against whatever a 'patron' said and be in a different planetary system within minutes.

The sandbox - describing everything, everywhere, either through prep or tables - was one way of coping with player expectations of broader, more fundamental decisions about their characters' lives. There are other ways: for example, Burning Wheel (the game described in the OP) allows each player a set of written beliefs. In setting those beliefs, it offers the players not control, but a significant say in the topics of play and the broad landscape of the game - it lets them tell the GM what they consider *the matter*.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.
> 
> But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.




I have some questions here... I agree that setting the DC is a judgement call and that the action is likely to unfold one way or another depending on whether the DC is set high or low...

That said I have to ask, you say it had not occurred to you that the blood might be caught in a vessel and that there was no preconception on your part of any ultimate destination... but you knew that the players were there for the blood (or am I mistaken here?)  and you purposefully set the DC low.  So are you at this point influencing the action to go in a certain direction.  Something like a soft/hard push as opposed to a blatant railroad?  



pemerton said:


> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.




I'm curious as to what you see as the difference from setting a DC so high it is virtually guaranteed failure (though one still has a very small chance to succeed) or so low it is almost a guaranteed success (though still with a very small chance of failure)?



pemerton said:


> I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!




I agree an absolute decision is railroading but where it gets murky for me is at what point is it not a railroad...if you give the PC's a 5% chance to find that vessel... is that still for all intents and purposes railroading or is it not since there is a chance, however small that it could happen?


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> you purposefully set the DC low.



Yes. Most of the time when you look for a vessel in a sick person's room you will see one. So it's not a very hard check.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Yes. Most of the time when you look for a vessel in a sick person's room you will see one. So it's not a very hard check.




So the setting of the DC was influenced by realistic expectations and/or concerns around verisimilitude?  Well then I have to ask why didn't you just say yes there's some kind of container in this room you could collect blood in as opposed to making them roll?  Basically what [MENTION=6777693]transtemporal[/MENTION] stated...


----------



## smbakeresq

I suggest every DM try this for a session:  no DM dice rolls or D.C. Checks.  Roll the dice behind the screen and ignore them, and when players need to make a check just decide success or failure.  When combat occurs just decide wether the player was hit or not.  For a Skill check just rely on how good a player plays it.

You would be surprised how fast things go and how well they go.

After that you will know what railroad means.


----------



## Manbearcat

> 1) Do you think this "must not reveal the Wizard behind the curtain"/covert nature of the GM's techniques leads to an inherent aversion to system/technique/play anecdote analysis?






Lanefan said:


> I don't even know what this means, so...no answer.




More or less, (a) the machinery of play is transparent and fully on display and (b) play has overt structure and integrated micro-principles.  Through this, play outcomes emerge.

Both (a) and (b) serve to constrain the GM (typically by removing the option of applying Force/Illusionism...while, if systematized well, removing the need for it).

The inverse of that is (c) the machinery of play is obscured or opaque and (d) play has GM discretion and a broad agenda in the stead of tight, overt structure and integrated micro-principles.  Through this, play outcomes emerge.

Both (c) and (d) serve to embolden/empower the GM (in various ways, one of which is by enabling the option of applying the techniques of Force/Illusionism).

An example of (a) and (b) would be Dungeon World  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] mentioned above:

* The GM asks leading questions of the players to find out who the PCs are and to agree upon what is going on as the game opens.

* Everyone, GM included, plays to find out what happens (so prep is to be light - no metaplot).

* The GM must follow the rules.

* Players roll all the dice.

* The participants have a structured conversation.  Through that conversation, the game's principles/agenda, and the resolution mechanics, dangerous stuff is introduced into the fiction to fill the PCs' lives with adventure and challenge their thematic portfolio. 

* The resolution mechanics are overt and consistent.  A thing happens, a thing doesn't happen, or we consult the dice to find out what happens.  Roll 2d6 + modifier.  10+; you get what you want.  7-9; you get what you want with a worse outcome, a cost, or an associated hard choice (a GM soft move).  6 or less; the GM escalates things considerably or introduces a new obstacle (a GM hard move), but you mark 1 XP.

* Through this mesh, play snowballs.

* After a session, we reflect on/take inventory of what happened together.  Then we do it again.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Some posts, threads etc have triggered this question in my mind:
> 
> [size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​
> In the context of 5e, GM "judgement calls" can also fall into the domain of "rulings not rules."
> 
> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)
> 
> My feeling is that the answer is a complex one.
> 
> In a FRPG session I ran yesterday, the action was in a bedroom in a mage's tower, where a wizard had been lying unconsciousness on a divan recovering from a terrible wound, but then was rather brutally decapitated by an assassin. One of the players, whose PC ran into the room just as the decapitation took place, asked whether there was a vessel in the room in which the PC could catch the decapitated mage's blood.*
> 
> I resolved this by setting a DC for a Perception check - and because, as the player argued with some plausibility, it was likely that a room for convalescing in would have a chamber pot, jug/ewer, etc - I set the DC fairly low. The player succeeded, and the PC was able to grab the vessel and catch the blood as desired.
> 
> Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.
> 
> But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.
> 
> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.
> 
> I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!
> 
> 
> [size=-2]* If you want to know why, the answer is in this thread.[/size]




I wouldn't have even required a roll.  A chamber like that would have a chamber pot, and less likely, an inkwell or decanter for water/alcohol.  What I would have had the player roll for, was whether or not the chamber pot had been used.  If it had been used, it would foul any blood captured.

My biggest issue with what you said is this.

"the action was in a bedroom in a mage's tower"

Do you have any idea how rare it is for there to be action in a mage's bedroom?!?!?!?  It's just not done man!


----------



## Maxperson

Tony Vargas said:


> That particular example is the classic "Magician's Force," and it's a legitimate technique, IMHO.
> 
> Sanboxing.  No Rails.  Just sand.  And a box, of course...
> 
> ...possibly a gynosphinx wondering what you're doing there.




After walking through the sand for days, I'd probably be more interested in finding the orthosphinx.


----------



## Krachek

pemerton said:


> Some posts, threads etc have triggered this question in my mind:
> 
> [size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​
> In the context of 5e, GM "judgement calls" can also fall into the domain of "rulings not rules."
> 
> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)
> 
> My feeling is that the answer is a complex one.
> 
> In a FRPG session I ran yesterday, the action was in a bedroom in a mage's tower, where a wizard had been lying unconsciousness on a divan recovering from a terrible wound, but then was rather brutally decapitated by an assassin. One of the players, whose PC ran into the room just as the decapitation took place, asked whether there was a vessel in the room in which the PC could catch the decapitated mage's blood.*
> 
> I resolved this by setting a DC for a Perception check - and because, as the player argued with some plausibility, it was likely that a room for convalescing in would have a chamber pot, jug/ewer, etc - I set the DC fairly low. The player succeeded, and the PC was able to grab the vessel and catch the blood as desired.
> 
> Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.
> 
> But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.
> 
> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.
> 
> I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!
> 
> 
> [size=-2]* If you want to know why, the answer is in this thread.[/size]




DM can play cat and mouse with its player. That can be frustrating for the players.
If you allow a player to be there, he may change the path of the history. It is the core of the fun in DnD.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> I don't see how this is not railroading (unless the players have agreed to that particular story arc). I mean, what if the PCs befriend the witch? Or kill her in the second session? If the GM has already decided that the campaign will have a certain climax, s/he is committed to negating these sorts of choices by the players.




Or he just has to make the plot hooks irresistible to the PCs, in which case, they deal with them at their own choice.

But honestly, with every campaign that isn't strictly sandbox, there's at least an implicit agreement to be somewhat amenable to the overall thrust of the campaign, whether the GM actively pushes or pulls the PCs in a particularly direction or just sets the NPC plotting in motion (to be interacted or interfered with at PC choice).


----------



## pdzoch

Gardens & Goblins said:


> The disconnect for me is 'By railroading I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative.'
> 
> Our lot doesn't really plan narratives in a linear manner, a path if you will that is to be followed. The system is set, the key agents put into play and the characters are free to pick or set a goal as they choose. As such, DM Judgment calls are simply part of play, arbitrating the events on the behalf of the world around the players with DCs being set according to what amounts to logic in a fantasy world.
> 
> But yes, I can see how that if a DM has a specific route or path they wish players to follow, described as a narrative, then such calls can and will influence the path of play -the order and manner in which players engage with and are involved with the events pre-planned by the DM.
> 
> The degree of influence simply depends on the nature of the narrative. A linear step-by-step narrative will be greatly effected by any deviation from the planned path and as a result, it seems to me a DM is less likely to be able to respond to spontaneous changes that occur during play, and as a result is more likely to veto or attempt to directly influence the outcome of an event, be a DC check, combat or what have you. I'd also argue that such a setup is rather dull, or at least would not be welcomed with our group. _(We have video games for such antics!)_
> 
> However, are cleverly constructed narrative can include branches which are then tied together at key stages along the path. In this way, players enjoy _(often the illusion of) _choice and the DM can almost guarantee things coming together when they need to at a given point along the path. And with practice, they can add branches spontaneously. This style of narrative seems much more open to setting 'logic' 'realistic' DCs and more ready to accommodate the wacky antics most players seem to enjoy initiating. As such, DCs, combat, social interactions and the like are less likely to be fudged in favour of the narrative because while they can lead to branches in the narrative, as mentioned, the paths are designed to come together at key points.
> 
> Much like in the classic 'Choose your own Adventure' game books. _Which, incidental, are typically designed by working backwards - why do we end the adventure? Ok, what happened before...?_
> 
> View attachment 82019




This is how I design my adventures.  I only account for major decisions and the minor choices created by the players are ad-lib according to the story/setting at the time.  For some encounters, especially combat encounters, I have several variation depending on the choices.  These are not minor variation, but major changes in the encounter itself. 

 For example, I know my players like combat encounters.  But I do not want to be so predictable that everything is going to turn into a combat encounter.  I also do not want them to turn every situation to a combat encounter.  The combat needs to come naturally in the story based on the decisions the characters make during the game.  As part of my build, I want my characters to have an encounter that is an easy combat encounter.  Depending on the "branches" in the story / decision of the players, that easy encounter will occur in different places in the adventure.   The combat encounter may also not be the same encounter, but will be something that happens at the level of difficulty designed.  One one branch, the party would encounter a band of bugbears in a den, in another branch the party would encounter instead a cabal of spies in the city, while another decision would cause them to encounter dire wolves in the woods.  This assumes that these encounters are exclusive, meaning that encountering one would imply that the others would not be encounters because of the choice they took (such as the road to a castle - through the woods on one side of a castle, or through the hill country on the other side, or through the undercity sewers running beneath the castle).  

I have designed more than a few encounters that never get used.  Exchanging monsters in an encounter is one way for me to reduce workload while still creating a flexible dungeon design while STILL providing the combat encounter the players want.

I think the closest I've come to railroading a party could be in the adventure itself.  I can only have one adventure in the can at a time.  Once it's prepared, they either play it or we don't play at all.  The creation of multiple adventure hooks allows them to choose their motivation of completion the adventure, which shapes a lot of decisions within the game.  But the hooks are a bit of an illusion.  Even though they may look different, they will all lead to the same adventure (it just may be a different starting point or path they will take to complete it).


----------



## Imaculata

pemerton said:


> I find that "takes away choice" is a bit too narrow. _Negating choice_ is also an important aspect of railroading - eg the players decide that their PCs will subdue and ransom a villain, they successfully do so, and then the GM has the villain come rifght back at them.
> 
> I can imagine some circumstances in which that does not negate the players choices; but in most circumstances I think that it would - it undoes the choice both morally and prudentially.




I agree with that. I think yours is a better definition: "Negating choice". It has to do with the influence that the players expect, and the DM's ruling of their choices not meeting those expectations.



pemerton said:


> I don't see how this is not railroading (unless the players have agreed to that particular story arc). I mean, what if the PCs befriend the witch? Or kill her in the second session? If the GM has already decided that the campaign will have a certain climax, s/he is committed to negating these sorts of choices by the players.




If the witch has befriended the players under false pretenses, then that is basically the DM setting up a plot twist for her inevitable betrayal. I don't think that is negating the player's choices.

I'm trying to convey the difference here between laying out a plot line, and railroading. I think we can agree that these two are very different things, otherwise the word "railroading" becomes a bit meaningless.

Sometimes a villain was always meant to be a villain. I don't feel that the DM is railroading if he makes Cthulhu the final boss, despite the player's best efforts to be nice to him. If however the big bad ends up being befriended by the PC's, then I would say that is the opposite of railroading. The DM is allowing a villain to become an unexpected ally. But does that mean that the DM is railroading the moment the befriended-villain turns on the players? I don't think so.

But I can give you an example of what would be railroading:



> A few years ago I played a peaceful wizard in a LOTR campaign. Our party was jumped by bandits. And rather than throwing fireballs at the bandits, my wizard surrendered, and offered the bandits his money. Because my character believed that magic should not be used carelessly, and he also did not dress as a wizard. He dressed as a normal harmless and unarmed traveler.
> 
> But despite this bit of roleplaying, the DM ruled that the bandits attacked anyway, and they also automatically knew my character was a wizard. They attacked despite having no reason to attack. They were bandits, and they already had my money, so what was the point of bloodshed? The DM railroaded the party into a fight.
> 
> So, being forced into a battle, we defended ourselves. But one of the bandits fled on horseback. So one of the players decided to give chase on a horse. The DM ruled that the fleeing bandit was gone instantly, and there was no way to catch up to him.
> 
> That was the moment the entire group called bullsh*t on his railroading. And it ended his campaign on its first session! No one wanted to continue playing.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Lanefan said:


> What reading this tells me is that a DM who doesn't plan things out in advance and maybe even makes it all up as she goes along - perhaps with the specific intention of leaving herself able to react to what the party do in order to give a more interesting game for the players - is by your definitions always going to be railroading in the negative way.  Seems a bit over-the-top.



Railroading isn't inherently good or bad. It's an acquired taste, which has strong vocal detractors, but there are still plenty of people who see nothing wrong with it. Around where I am, we don't look too favorably upon railroading, but there are entire games built around the concepts of scene-framing and yes-and improvisation. Pre-published adventures and convention games are traditionally heavy on railroading (which is one of the major criticisms against them).



Lanefan said:


> You state "One of the tenets of good world-building is to design a setting which is conducive to interesting things happening", with which I agree.  But the unspoken part of that would logically go on to say something like "and it really helps game play if those interesting things tend to happen when the PCs are around to notice and-or interact with them, rather than always happening somewhere else.".



I know of two ways around that: 1) In a setting like Forgotten Realms, there are a million adventures happening everywhere, all the time, so there's going to be something interesting no matter where you look; 2) In a setting like Golarion, there is an organized society of quest-givers which is readily available to direct adventurers where they are needed. In either case, it doesn't take a contrived coincidence for the party to find an adventure.



Lanefan said:


> Further, it's close to impossible to contrive a coincidence before the game starts unless it's intended to happen in the first session.  Let's say your idea is to plan a coincidence that in two years (i.e. time enough for the party to gain levels enough to deal with this) on midwinter's night they will see what looks like a meteorite crash into the side of Mount Steepsides, and if they follow it up you'll run them into Expedition to the Barrier Peaks - but tell me, at campaign start do you as DM have any idea where your party will be on midwinter's night two game-years hence and will they even be on the same continent/world/plane as Mount Steepsides?



If you start a new campaign by saying that a meteorite crashed into a nearby mountain, and the PCs happen to be in the area at the time, then I don't think anyone is going to question that premise. If you've been playing the campaign for years of game time, and the party just finishes their long quest to slay a dragon which was terrorizing the countryside, and then as soon as they get a chance to rest, on their way home, there is suddenly a meteorite crash near wherever-they-happen-to-be? You're going to get some eye-rolling and train noises.

I'm not saying that you can't do it, or even that you _shouldn't_ do it, but it's definitely a form of railroading and some people may be put off by that.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> I don't even know what this means, so...no answer.



 I believe that constitutes an emphatic 'yes.'  

I don't agree, but I'll get into that with Manbearcat, below...



> What reading this tells me is that a DM who doesn't plan things out in advance and maybe even makes it all up as she goes along - perhaps with the specific intention of leaving herself able to react to what the party do in order to give a more interesting game for the players - is by your definitions always going to be railroading in the negative way.  Seems a bit over-the-top.



 To me it seems the opposite of railroading.  If you don't have the track laid, how can it possibly be a railroad?



> The other option is to leave it baked in as is: the meteorite hits Mount Steepsides on midwinter's night no matter what, and half a year later when the party wander by again all they hear is "Oh yeah, something crashed into the mountain last winter.  Too bad you guys weren't here - I heard the group that went up to investigate made a fortune at it!"  Yeah, how much fun is that?



 To hear some folks talk, it's so much fun that all other forms of fun are wrong & bad in comparison.  ;P



Manbearcat said:


> Do you think this "must not reveal the Wizard behind the curtain"/covert nature of the GM's techniques leads to an inherent aversion to system/technique/play anecdote analysis?



 I don't think it necessarily does, it just means you don't engage in it at the table, at the very least - maybe not even (with the players) during the campaign.  OTOH, there's nothing adverse about analyzing system(to the extent it even matters)/technique/play-anecdotes with other DMs or disinterested third parties.  



> More or less, (a) the machinery of play is transparent and fully on display and (b) play has overt structure and integrated micro-principles.  Through this, play outcomes emerge.



 Sure, running a system 'above board,' I'd call it.  I generally ran 4e that way, for instance.  Now that I've run some 5e, when I come back to my 4e campaign, I'm finding myself getting back into the swing of improvising more and maintaining more 'mystery' (right now I have a Mercurial Assassin working against them, and no rolls or passive checks have been made as he does his stuff in the background, I'll wait for a player action/question that I think brings the plotting to their attention - before, I'd've at least made sure the Assassins checks could beat the party's passives before hand-waving like that).  



> Both (a) and (b) serve to constrain the GM (typically by removing the option of applying Force/Illusionism...while, if systematized well, removing the need for it).



 Constrain, yes, but also simplify the task of GMing, FWIW.



> The inverse of that is (c) the machinery of play is obscured or opaque and (d) play has GM discretion and a broad agenda in the stead of tight, overt structure and integrated micro-principles.  Through this, play outcomes emerge.
> Both (c) and (d) serve to embolden/*empower the GM.*



 Yes.


----------



## Harzel

Saelorn said:


> I know of two ways around that: 1) In a setting like Forgotten Realms, there are a ,million adventures happening everywhere, all the time so there's going to be something interesting no matter where you look;
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If you've been playing the campaign for years of game time, and the party just finishes their long quest to slay a dragon which was terrorizing the countryside, and then as soon as they get a chance to rest, on their way home, there is suddenly a meteorite crash near wherever-they-happen-to-be? You're going to get some eye-rolling and train noises.




How is the meteorite crash not one of the 'million adventures happening everywhere, all the time'?


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Harzel said:


> How is the meteorite crash not one of the 'million adventures happening everywhere, all the time'?



I guess if there are a million meteorites crashing every day, then it's _not_ actually a coincidence when you happen to see one. I don't play in the Forgotten Realms, specifically for because there's too much going on, so I can't say how that philosophy applies to this situation.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> So the setting of the DC was influenced by realistic expectations and/or concerns around verisimilitude?  Well then I have to ask why didn't you just say yes there's some kind of container in this room you could collect blood in as opposed to making them roll?





Maxperson said:


> I wouldn't have even required a roll. A chamber like that would have a chamber pot, and less likely, an inkwell or decanter for water/alcohol.



There are two ways to look at this.

From the ingame causation point of view: even if the vessel is there, the PC may not notice it in the hubbub of the situation (decapitated mage, assassin trying to flee, two wizards trying to stop said assassin fleeing and one of those two also trying to stop the other from killing the assassin).

But that just establishes the _possibility_ of a vessel not being noticed.

The more important perspective, for me, is the real-world, pacing-the-game-at-the-table perspective. I GM along the lines of "say 'yes' or roll the dice". Here is how Luke Crane describes the idea (BW Gold, p 72):

Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.​
In the episode of play I described, the character wanted a vessel to catch the blood so he could take it back to his dark naga master. Something was at stake in the story we have created; the character wanted something (a vessel) that he didn't have (his equipment list was clothes, shoes and a stick carved into a staff); and so the dice had to be rolled.



Saelorn said:


> If you've been playing the campaign for years of game time, and the party just finishes their long quest to slay a dragon which was terrorizing the countryside, and then as soon as they get a chance to rest, on their way home, there is suddenly a meteorite crash near wherever-they-happen-to-be? You're going to get some eye-rolling and train noises.



I'm not 100% sure who the "you" refers to - someone GMing for you and your friends? Or any GM in general?

I look at it this way: if the group isn't dissolving, then more adventures are going to be played. If that particular campaign isn't done, then some of those adventures are going to involve these PCs. That means that something is going to happen that frames those PCs into their next adventure.

Such framing can be done more or less deftly, but it has to be done. A meteoroid falling through the sky doesn't seem particularly worse than any other way of doing it.



billd91 said:


> with every campaign that isn't strictly sandbox, there's at least an implicit agreement to be somewhat amenable to the overall thrust of the campaign, whether the GM actively pushes or pulls the PCs in a particularly direction or just sets the NPC plotting in motion (to be interacted or interfered with at PC choice).



Where does "the overall thrust of the campaign" come from?

If it comes from the players, then the implicit (or explicit) agreement runs in exactly the opposite direction from what you seem to be suggesting: the GM agrees to frame the PCs into situations that engage the thrust that the players have established. (This is what  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] mentioned in the final paragraph of his post upthread.)

So it is not the case that in _every_ campaign the GM either "pushes or pulls the PCs in a particular direction" or "sets the NPC plotting in motion". In my games, the main way that I work out NPC plotting is either (i) in response to the resolution of player action declarations for their PCs, or (ii) in the context of framing the PCs into some sort of conflict. In the latter case, it's not sitting there in the background as something the players might (via their PCs) take a peek at should they be so inclinde. It's a core part of _the action_.

I still think Paul Czege articulates this best:

I frame the [player] character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​
(Why was there a dark naga in the campaign at all? Because one of the players wrote it into a PC's backstory. Why did this particular PC end up ensnared by the dark naga? Because the player chose to create a snake-handling healer who is obsessed by all things snake-y, who therefore went into the cave partly in hope of meeting the naga. Etc)


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> I look at it this way: if the group isn't dissolving, then more adventures are going to be played. If that particular campaign isn't done, then some of those adventures are going to involve these PCs. That means that something is going to happen that frames those PCs into their next adventure.
> 
> Such framing can be done more or less deftly, but it has to be done. A meteoroid falling through the sky doesn't seem particularly worse than any other way of doing it.



 I think the difference between you and  [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] on this point is just one of 'deftness' and could be resolved with an insertion of downtime.  That is:

"As soon as you finish your quest, a meteorite crashes into a nearby mountain!" "Choo Choo!" "Ow! my eyes! I rolled them too hard!" "I'll get the Visine.."

vs

"Three years after you completed your quest, a meteorite crashes into a nearby mountain..."  "Oh wow, I should drop a Sending to my old questing buddies and check it out."  "I'm in." "Ooh, meteorite iron, I can make some magic armor...."


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## Lanefan

Saelorn said:


> Railroading isn't inherently good or bad. It's an acquired taste, which has strong vocal detractors, but there are still plenty of people who see nothing wrong with it. Around where I am, we don't look too favorably upon railroading, but there are entire games built around the concepts of scene-framing and yes-and improvisation. Pre-published adventures and convention games are traditionally heavy on railroading (which is one of the major criticisms against them).



Well, convention games kinda have to do this - you only have a certain amount of time to get through the adventure, after all.



> I know of two ways around that: 1) In a setting like Forgotten Realms, there are a million adventures happening everywhere, all the time, so there's going to be something interesting no matter where you look; 2) In a setting like Golarion, there is an organized society of quest-givers which is readily available to direct adventurers where they are needed. In either case, it doesn't take a contrived coincidence for the party to find an adventure.



And in a setting like neither of the above...a homebrew that pretty much exists only so I can run my game in it...almost anything that happens is either going to be a contrived coincidence now or be the result of a contrived coincidence sometime during its back history.



> If you start a new campaign by saying that a meteorite crashed into a nearby mountain, and the PCs happen to be in the area at the time, then I don't think anyone is going to question that premise.



They'll question it quick enough when it leads to an adventure designed for 6th-8th level characters and they're all raw 1st.


> If you've been playing the campaign for years of game time, and the party just finishes their long quest to slay a dragon which was terrorizing the countryside, and then as soon as they get a chance to rest, on their way home, there is suddenly a meteorite crash near wherever-they-happen-to-be? You're going to get some eye-rolling and train noises.



Maybe.  Or maybe they'll choose to ignore it and keep going back to town to spend that dragon hoard they just scooped.  Their choice.  And if they ignore the meteorite then doubtless some other adventuring group will go out and see to it; meanwhile I'll either bait some different hooks or just wait and see what they do next, dependent on the feedback I get.

But I'm not (usually) going to bait an adventure hook that leads to something they just can't handle...or, conversely, that leads to something so trivially easy they might as well not have bothered.  Thus, when they get somewhere close to a level that makes sense for that adventure down comes the meteorite.

That said, if they decide to ignore the baited hooks and go off in their own direction (which is fine) then down come the safety nets; they very easily could blunder into something they can't handle, or something they could have done 6 levels ago, or not find anything to do at all.

Lanefan


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## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> More or less, (a) the machinery of play is transparent and fully on display and (b) play has overt structure and integrated micro-principles.  Through this, play outcomes emerge.
> 
> Both (a) and (b) serve to constrain the GM (typically by removing the option of applying Force/Illusionism...while, if systematized well, removing the need for it).
> 
> The inverse of that is (c) the machinery of play is obscured or opaque and (d) play has GM discretion and a broad agenda in the stead of tight, overt structure and integrated micro-principles.  Through this, play outcomes emerge.
> 
> Both (c) and (d) serve to embolden/empower the GM (in various ways, one of which is by enabling the option of applying the techniques of Force/Illusionism).
> 
> An example of (a) and (b) would be Dungeon World  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] mentioned above:
> 
> * The GM asks leading questions of the players to find out who the PCs are and to agree upon what is going on as the game opens.
> 
> * Everyone, GM included, plays to find out what happens (so prep is to be light - no metaplot).
> 
> * The GM must follow the rules.
> 
> * Players roll all the dice.
> 
> * The participants have a structured conversation.  Through that conversation, the game's principles/agenda, and the resolution mechanics, dangerous stuff is introduced into the fiction to fill the PCs' lives with adventure and challenge their thematic portfolio.
> 
> * The resolution mechanics are overt and consistent.  A thing happens, a thing doesn't happen, or we consult the dice to find out what happens.  Roll 2d6 + modifier.  10+; you get what you want.  7-9; you get what you want with a worse outcome, a cost, or an associated hard choice (a GM soft move).  6 or less; the GM escalates things considerably or introduces a new obstacle (a GM hard move), but you mark 1 XP.
> 
> * Through this mesh, play snowballs.
> 
> * After a session, we reflect on/take inventory of what happened together.  Then we do it again.



OK, I think I get it now - thanks!

Put me in the c) and d) camp:

- my games always have at least one and usually several metaplots going on, either behind the scenes or as the scene 
- I roll the dice where the outcome has multi-uncertainties (e.g. find traps - I roll because the character has no way of knowing whether a "nothing found" result comes from a successful check determining there really is nothing or a failed check where a trap is in fact present).

The example you give sounds more like a co-operative story-telling type of game than what I think of as a traditional D&D-style game...which is what I play and run.

Lanefan


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## Lanefan

Saelorn said:


> I guess if there are a million meteorites crashing every day, then it's _not_ actually a coincidence when you happen to see one. I don't play in the Forgotten Realms, specifically for because there's too much going on, so I can't say how that philosophy applies to this situation.



The coincidence in this case is that the meteorite seen by the party is in fact a spaceship (thus, off we go to EotBP) regardless of whether it's the only meteorite this year or but one of millions.

Then again, a crashing meteorite wouldn't be much use as bait for the adventure hook if it happens ten times a night. 

Lanefan


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## The Crimson Binome

Lanefan said:


> But I'm not (usually) going to bait an adventure hook that leads to something they just can't handle...or, conversely, that leads to something so trivially easy they might as well not have bothered.  Thus, when they get somewhere close to a level that makes sense for that adventure down comes the meteorite.



Going back to the topic of the thread, any time that you bait an adventure hook, that's a form of railroading - you're making something happen, because you _want_ it to happen, rather than because it is your honest and unbiased judgment that the thing _would_ happen that way. Whenever the DM decides that _anything_ happens (or doesn't happen) within the game world, it is always _either_ because that's their judgment call on what makes sense to happen, _or_ they have an ulterior motive where they _want_ something to happen. In this case, it happens because you _want_ to provide your players with a level-appropriate adventure.

What I'm getting from this thread is that a lot of people in here seem to be okay with certain forms of railroading, but they don't necessarily want to use that label because it has negative connotations.


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## Lanefan

Saelorn said:


> Going back to the topic of the thread, any time that you bait an adventure hook, that's a form of railroading - you're making something happen, because you _want_ it to happen, rather than because it is your honest and unbiased judgment that the thing _would_ happen that way. Whenever the DM decides that _anything_ happens (or doesn't happen) within the game world, it is always _either_ because that's their judgment call on what makes sense to happen, _or_ they have an ulterior motive where they _want_ something to happen. In this case, it happens because you _want_ to provide your players with a level-appropriate adventure.



Seems like your definition of railroad falls squarely under most other peoples' definition of normal game play.

So let me ask this: in Saelorn's ideal game, how much power (if any) does the DM have in determining what happens in her game world during the run of play (as opposed to before play actually begins)?

Is she within her rights to steer the party towards published module X because it's all she has available and she doesn't have time to dream up something else, without telling the players?

Is she within her rights to get an idea (be it a scenario, an encounter, an adventure, whatever) from somewhere, think "hey, this could be cool!", and try to somehow work it in to her game?



> What I'm getting from this thread is that a lot of people in here seem to be okay with certain forms of railroading, but they don't necessarily want to use that label because it has negative connotations.



Where what I'm getting is that some people hear trains every time a DM speaks, regardless of what she says.

Lanefan


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## Reynard

Saelorn said:


> If you start a new campaign by saying that a meteorite crashed into a nearby mountain, and the PCs happen to be in the area at the time, then I don't think anyone is going to question that premise. If you've been playing the campaign for years of game time, and the party just finishes their long quest to slay a dragon which was terrorizing the countryside, and then as soon as they get a chance to rest, on their way home, there is suddenly a meteorite crash near wherever-they-happen-to-be? You're going to get some eye-rolling and train noises.
> 
> I'm not saying that you can't do it, or even that you _shouldn't_ do it, but it's definitely a form of railroading and some people may be put off by that.




yeah. That damn DM decided to make it so we had an adventure to go on next week. Sunuvabich.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> There are two ways to look at this.
> 
> From the ingame causation point of view: even if the vessel is there, the PC may not notice it in the hubbub of the situation (decapitated mage, assassin trying to flee, two wizards trying to stop said assassin fleeing and one of those two also trying to stop the other from killing the assassin).
> 
> But that just establishes the _possibility_ of a vessel not being noticed.




I do something similar to this.  For me and my group, realism plays more prominence.  If a vessel for the blood would be there(certain success), it will be there regardless of importance to the character.  We don't feel that it lessens the importance to the PC just because no roll was involved.  If the vessel for the blood would not be there(certain failure), it won't be there regardless of the importance to the character.  We feel that it would cheapen the PC's story to include something that should not be there.  Only if the result is uncertain is there a roll involved.



> The more important perspective, for me, is the real-world, pacing-the-game-at-the-table perspective. I GM along the lines of "say 'yes' or roll the dice". Here is how Luke Crane describes the idea (BW Gold, p 72):
> 
> Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.​
> In the episode of play I described, the character wanted a vessel to catch the blood so he could take it back to his dark naga master. Something was at stake in the story we have created; the character wanted something (a vessel) that he didn't have (his equipment list was clothes, shoes and a stick carved into a staff); and so the dice had to be rolled.




How would it lessen things for you if no roll had happened and the vessel had been there because one would be present in a room where a man is convalescing?


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> How would it lessen things for you if no roll had happened and the vessel had been there because one would be present in a room where a man is convalescing?



If the PC is at a crunch point - "I need a vessel NOW to catch all that precious blood" - and success is automatic, then where is the drama going to come from?

In sole-authored fiction, the author deliberately introduces failures and successes as part of the modulation of the pacing of the story.

In RPGing that is not just authored by the GM, the pacing has to come from somewhere else. The dice do that job. A principle of "Say 'yes' or roll the dice" ensures that sometimes, at the _crunch_ moments, the PC will fail.

A further consequence of rolling the dice is that the player can expend resources to modify the dice roll, and thereby both (i) express the urgency felt by the PC, and (ii) signal his/her own, real life, investment in the outcome.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> If the PC is at a crunch point - "I need a vessel NOW to catch all that precious blood" - and success is automatic, then where is the drama going to come from?




First, drama shows and movies show that plenty of drama can happen without random chance being involved.  I also get that sometimes a great deal of drama can hinge on a single die roll.  Most of the time, however, die rolls for things that affect my character just leave me wondering if the die is going to screw me this time or not.  There's no true drama.



> In RPGing that is not just authored by the GM, the pacing has to come from somewhere else. The dice do that job. A principle of "Say 'yes' or roll the dice" ensures that sometimes, at the _crunch_ moments, the PC will fail.



I can see that.  The same applies to my method as well.  Usually things are uncertain, so a roll has to happen.  It's rolling for every single crunch moment that feels off to me.  It defies credulity that every single thing of importance to the PC is uncertain.  Especially at times when if it wasn't something of importance, there would be no chance of failure.



> A further consequence of rolling the dice is that the player can expend resources to modify the dice roll, and thereby both (i) express the urgency felt by the PC, and (ii) signal his/her own, real life, investment in the outcome.



This also applies to situations in my game.  As most situations involve uncertainty, players will often invest resources at moments when important and uncertain events happen.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Lanefan said:


> So let me ask this: in Saelorn's ideal game, how much power (if any) does the DM have in determining what happens in her game world during the run of play (as opposed to before play actually begins)?
> 
> Is she within her rights to steer the party towards published module X because it's all she has available and she doesn't have time to dream up something else, without telling the players?



The DM is a world-builder and impartial adjudicator. The DM plays all of the NPCs. In games of D&D that I have run, and would like to play in, the natural course of events which the DM has set in motion before the game starts will result in the end of the world if the PCs don't do something about it. If events don't proceed as expected (which is likely, given the presence of PCs in the world), then the NPCs will adjust their plans and methods accordingly. By the time the Big Bad has been dealt with and the world has been saved, the PCs have been level 20 for at least a few sessions, and the campaign is over.

My ideal game wouldn't involve a published adventure at all, but if it came down to either that or not playing, then steering the game in that direction might be the lesser of two evils. In that situation, I would prefer if the DM actually told the players that it was happening, instead of pretending that everything was still progressing organically. It seems more honest.


----------



## Campbell

Here's the way I look at things: During the course of play players of role playing games (including the GM) are going to make innumerable judgement calls. This moment to moment decision making is the very heart of play. As a GM, you are ultimately responsible for making judgements about the fiction that will have a significant impact on the play that follows. I consider that a given and take that responsibility very seriously. What is most interesting to me is what guides you in those moments - the principles you depend upon that inform your decision making. I do not take it as a given that you will shape events to occur in the manner that you want them to. The impulse will always be there, but I believe manipulating outcomes as a GM does not make for better or more meaningful play. I enjoy role playing games far more when all participants are genuinely surprised by the resulting fiction. I like *playing to find out*.

There are multiple ways to play to find out, including one way that is far older than the hobby. Examples include:
*Free Kriegsspiel.* Kriegsspiel was a very detailed Prussian wargame developed in the 1800s in order to train junior officers. Playtesting revealed that Kriegsspiel war games took entirely too much time to resolve and removed much of the immediacy of decision making required on the battlefield. In order to get around it, a variant named Free Kriegsspiel was introduced. In Free Kriegsspeil, rather than an elaborate rule book to resolve military matters an experienced senior officer would take on the role of Game Master and rely upon their knowledge to resolve maneuvers. Play depended on detailed scenarios and the historical warfare knowledge of the Game Master. Free Kriegsspeil formed the foundations of the war gaming tradition that Dungeons and Dragons grew out of. Rather than taking on the role of military commanders, players would play individual adventurers. The fundamentals of this playstyle are relatively simple: The GM or referee utilizes scenarios that players are free to engage with in any way, and the GM makes judgement calls based on his own knowledge of the fiction, based on what would be most likely. In cases where he is uncertain he utilizes random rolls to disclaim decision making. We simply play the fiction out. The weakness of this method of play is that it leans heavily on scenario design and the expertise of the Game Master. Think of a dungeon is a front on a war against civilization. Games that embrace this method include Stars Without Number, OD&D, Moldvay D&D, Traveller, and RuneQuest. Playing at the World does a very good job of explaining how this play style came about, and how it generally functioned.
*Scene Framing.* This method depends on a GM to create shorter, punchy scenarios that are quickly resolved. We call these scenes. The important part here is that scenes are developed based on the results of previous scenes. Within the context of a given scene, the GM functions in a similar matter to a Free Kriegsspeil GM, making judgement calls in accordance with the fiction and determining where the rules apply. Generally, we lean much heavier on the rules to resolve scenes though. The GM is not assumed to be an expert and we expect resolution of scenes to be short and punchy. Examples of games that embrace this style include Burning Wheel, InSpectres, and Marvel Heroic Roleplay.
*Principled Game Mastering.*In this style of play we assume that a GM is not a neutral arbiter, but in fact will play a very active role in shaping play. They are not, however, interested in determining outcomes - only in setting up interesting fiction for players to react to. Play is based on moves and counter moves. Players do something - GM responds with fiction that will prompt the players to make decisions. In any given moment the GM is guided by a set of considered principles that serve to reinforce the type of fiction we are all interested in seeing play out. There is considerably less distance in this method of play between the GM and other players. Players play characters with drives, connections, and things they are expected to go after. The GM plays the setting in opposition to those characters with restraints based on his principles. This discipline allows the GM and other players to play hard. While this type of play is seen readily in Apocalypse World and its derivatives, it was first used to play games like Moldvay D&D in a very different, but functional way. Examples of game that embrace this style include Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, and Blades in the Dark.

I enjoy playing in all of these ways, but when running games I am particularly partial to *Principled Game Mastering* because reliance on Game Mastering Principles gives me the freedom to take a more active hand without having an overwhelming influence. When I run Apocalypse World I feel free to be an active participant while valuing the contributions other players make just as much. *Being a fan of the players characters* means I can place the players in a tough situation and be genuinely interested in how they will get out of it if they can. I do not feel the need to hold back anymore than what my principles demand out of me. I have also had success using these methods to run RuneQuest and Chronicles of Darkness.

I know [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] generally favors scene framing. It used to be my jam, but not really anymore.

These categories are not necessarily separated by iron walls. One of the great things about being exposed to a wide variety of techniques includes the ability to be guided by different sets of principles in different situations as play demands. What is important to me is understanding that decision making process and understanding its impact on play.


----------



## transtemporal

pemerton said:


> I don't get what this is referring to. What "digging in" are you referring to? And what is the "metamachinery" that you refer to?




For example, say you decided that you didn't want the PCs to be able to carry the NPCs blood. You say "theres nothing to carry the blood in" notwithstanding reasonable suggestions from the players. Vases, bowls, cups, chamberpots, boots, buckets, chests - the NPC has none of those things, not because those aren't things that could conceivably exist in the guys room but because you decided it would screw up your story. At that point you'd be very clearly saying to the players "*I* do not want you to carry the NPCs blood anywhere so stop trying" which exposes the players in a very jarring way to railroading. 



pemerton said:


> I don't follow this either.




I'm basically saying who cares, a container isn't exactly a rare item so just roll with it and decide there's a container. 

If they start searching for a faberge egg, then sure, have them make a roll.


----------



## Lanefan

Saelorn said:


> The DM is a world-builder and impartial adjudicator. The DM plays all of the NPCs. In games of D&D that I have run, and would like to play in, the natural course of events which the DM has set in motion before the game starts will result in the end of the world if the PCs don't do something about it. If events don't proceed as expected (which is likely, given the presence of PCs in the world), then the NPCs will adjust their plans and methods accordingly. By the time the Big Bad has been dealt with and the world has been saved, the PCs have been level 20 for at least a few sessions, and the campaign is over.



And if I read rightly the NPC villains are only reactive, not proactive, once play begins?  And, just one storyline or plot arc - kind of like an adventure path?

And even in your ideal game noted above there's still specific events and NPCs and stuff the party has to (or is certainly expected to) deal with, the only apparent caveat being that they are put in place before play begins rather than after.  But the characters still have to go to places a then b then c and do things p then q then r to prevent events y and z from occurring...which on the face of it sounds more railroady than baiting hooks at the right moment.



> My ideal game wouldn't involve a published adventure at all, but if it came down to either that or not playing, then steering the game in that direction might be the lesser of two evils. In that situation, I would prefer if the DM actually told the players that it was happening, instead of pretending that everything was still progressing organically. It seems more honest.



How's this: in my current campaign I ran what amounted to an adventure path embedded within it.  It was 5 adventures long...

[sblock]The first took various somewhat-disparate threads of backstory: the party had involved themselves in a foreign war by acting on behalf of both sides, they then picked one side who sent them into the adventure proper which was the 4e module Marauders of the Dune Sea.  During this two of the PCs got captured and stuck into slavery, which provided me the perfect hook to get them into the next (homebrew, this time) adventure which involved busting up an archaeological dig (think Indiana Jones) as that's where the PCs had been taken.  So they bust this up, meanwhile learning that a third PC - without anyone else realizing it - had picked up an artifact during Dune Sea for and quietly stowed it away, and she'd been completely dominated by it and acting on its orders for an adventure-and-a-half...never mind this was in fact what the archaelogical dig had been set up to look for, 80 miles away from where it was found.

By now they realize there's more to this, and between one thing and another they conclude they should probably take out the original owner of this artifact; long thought dead but apparently not as dead as he should be.  This lets me run another published module.  Party take this guy out, meanwhile realizing he's just the head cleric and in fact their real goal should probably be to try and take out what's left of his deity. (the ongoing war ties in to this: one side is fighting to bring the dormant deity back and the other side wants it destroyed).  So they learn where this deity might be and go there...wrong place, but it represents a homebrew desert-wilderness adventure I can run.  Then they try another place - this one has the deity in it and so I get to run 1e's Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun with some modifications.  Deity destroyed, everyone's (mostly) happy. 

So, that's three published adventures and two homebrews that I was able to reasonably well tie together into a coherent organic sequence that, once begun, almost ran itself.[/sblock]
Another thing to keep in mind is that not all railroading is done by the DM.  Sometimes the players railroad themselves in that on finishing one adventure they have already decided what the next one will be whether it's what the DM had in mind or not.  As DM I love it when they do this! 

Lanefan


----------



## Imaculata

Lanefan said:


> Another thing to keep in mind is that not all railroading is done by the DM.  Sometimes the players railroad themselves in that on finishing one adventure they have already decided what the next one will be whether it's what the DM had in mind or not.  As DM I love it when they do this!




My players also have a habit of doing this. They'll come across something that they just can't leave alone, and place themselves on this quest. This makes it very easy for me as a DM to prepare for the next session (because I know where they want to go), and it makes it easy for me to set up plot developments.

For example, I had a circus come into town, with an epic magic show in a harbor. I knew my players would want to go see it, and this is where I planned an assassination of their closest ally, the Marquis, along with a big battle.

The Marquis was always going to die, because they had no way to know the villains had set up explosives underneath where he was sitting. But the villains were also trying to get away with a valuable chest, which wasn't guaranteed to succeed.

The Marquis had to die, because it moved the plot forward. Sure, the players could attempt to resurrect him. But it would be my call if his spirit would want to return. And I know the players understand that his death makes for a much more exciting story. But is this a railroad? I don't think it is. Not all scripted events in a campaign are a case of railroading. Because none of the players' choices are being obstructed by me. That is what railroading is in my opinion: A form of obstruction.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Regarding events in the world and their relation to the party, I used a technique referred to as Displacement, which we've all experienced to some degree or another.

While the traditional 'adventuring hook' could be considered  displacement, I believe it has become associated with a more literal  style of motivation - active/direct, if you will. 'Press A to continue with Fun.' Actual displacement is  more of a passive/indirect form of motivation, something often quite  literally ticking away in the back of the player's mind. 

In a nutshell, displacement is any device that provokes action from the player. It can be as simple as movement or as complex as plotting a revolution. _The example typically used is the timer in Super Mario. Without it you're free to jump around till your heart's content. Another example would be an criminal who has taking hostages and threatened to kill one every hour, on the hour, until their demands are met. _

With this in mind, our campaign world is populated by forces that, left to their own devices, will follow a general course of action. The specifics are not mapped out, simply the intent. Each force is, essentially, an NPC but on a macro scale. An NPF, if you will._ For example, Faction A wants to control all lumber production across the sky islands surrounding the native's sacred site. How they do it is not mapped out, but we know what they want to achieve - their intent._ Monsterous races also get the same treatment, depending on their character._ For example, the cyclops are a peaceful race of hedonists, who wish to simple be left alone. The Sky Whales are curious and look to migrate their herds twice a year. _

Likewise, an NPF comprises of NPCs, each with their own intents._ For example, Freddy 'Woodking' Englewood wants to ensure he's the Master of Projects and is willing to sabotage his own NPF's efforts, if it will help him realise his intent. _

All of this is mapped out before hand in a relationship chart and where applicable, geographically. 

So, in a way, the world is full of 'adventuring hooks'. However, and this brings us back to displacement - the 'hooks' of the campaign are not reliant on the adventuring party in order to function. Rather, they continue to develop, achieve and change with or without the adventuring party. Conceivably, a player could have their character sit back and simply observe the events unfold around them. What actually happens is, the players travel around, socialising and exploring until they find something that interests them and then take action._ For example, the group recently encountered a source of a certain poison and decided to try and set up a supply line, allowing them to sell the poison through proxies at a settlement. They've also attempted to overthrow a criminal organization, save a town from an NPF attempting to conquer it and explored a fair number of ancient sites in the hope of finding treasure._

To my mind, this setup does not feature railroading in the generally understood sense/use of the word - and to be clear, I have no problems with railroading to an extent and have enjoyed many a campaign that makes good use of it. The DM, in this setup, is still making use of hooks to entice the players - each NPF/NPC/site/local/etc is designed to be as fascinating as possible. 

The 'trick' is, to let the events continue without them, otherwise we have found that players become reliant on the DM 'feeding them the fun'. If the players choose to sit on their bums and do nothing, so be it. The world continues around them. Once it becomes clear to the players that the world will continue with or without them then they tend to believe (quite rightly so) that they could be 'missing out' - and that sense is the displacement, driving them to take action.

_ And then, off they go, to annoy some minor official/start a conflict/get taken to court for the murder of a pixie._


----------



## Imaculata

Gardens & Goblins said:


> With this in mind, our campaign world is populated by forces that, left to their own devices, will follow a general course of action. The specifics are not mapped out, simply the intent. Each force is, essentially, an NPC but on a macro scale. An NPF, if you will.



_

This is how I run my campaign as well. I have various factions, each with their own agenda, and I have ongoing events, that develop as time passes. The players are able to influence all these forces, but if they don't, it has consequences. 

I provide my players with hooks, which they are free to ignore or respond to, and then that affects the story. For example, my players discovered the moving underwater fortress of some of my villains, and decided to return to it later. Will the fortress still be in the same place if they wait a week to do other things? Probably not. And in the mean time my villains could be hard at work with their new evil plans.

Of course these 'forces' behave in a way that not only feels logical in regards to their agenda, but also makes for an exciting story. In other words, plot convenience: The players happen to be witness to a new plot development, and now have another choice to respond._


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## Maxperson

Imaculata said:


> The Marquis had to die, because it moved the plot forward. Sure, the players could attempt to resurrect him. But it would be my call if his spirit would want to return. And I know the players understand that his death makes for a much more exciting story. But is this a railroad? I don't think it is. Not all scripted events in a campaign are a case of railroading. Because none of the players' choices are being obstructed by me. That is what railroading is in my opinion: A form of obstruction.



If it's unavoidable, it's a railroad.  They're trucking along on rails with none of their choices able to take them off of that track.  You are obstructing choices by the way.  Each and every choice that would allow them to save the Marquis is obstructed, as are all choices that could bring him back.  

For my game, I'd allow the possibility of saving him if they could come up with an idea that would work.  The plot would still move forward with an attempt on his life.  It would just move forward a bit differently.  Instead of trying to solve a murder, the PCs would be trying to solve an attempted murder.  Perhaps with the resources of the Marquis if he and the PCs could get along.  The group making the attempt might or might not plan another go at it.  Maybe they go get more powerful help.  

It isn't that the Marquis had to die to move the plot forward.  It's that he had to die so that the plot could move forward the way YOU wanted it to go.  That's sticking the PCs on rails.


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## Warmaster Horus

A lot of entitled players here.  A DM is not there to be an impartial arbiter of a story they just tip over and allow the players to roam about at will.  As players you are inhabiting their world and they provide most of the content.  Yes, players make lots of choices that add to the story and their narrative is crux of the whole thing.  But the DM has the right to prod the story to where they want it to go if they feel like it.  Some do that better than others, of course.  In LotR Frodo can't just hear about the One Ring from Gandalf and go, "Sounds dangerous.  Find someone else."  What fun is that?


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## Maxperson

Warmaster Horus said:


> A lot of entitled players here.  A DM is not there to be an impartial arbiter of a story they just tip over and allow the players to roam about at will.  As players you are inhabiting their world and they provide most of the content.  Yes, players make lots of choices that add to the story and their narrative is crux of the whole thing.  But the DM has the right to prod the story to where they want it to go if they feel like it.  Some do that better than others, of course.  In LotR Frodo can't just hear about the One Ring from Gandalf and go, "Sounds dangerous.  Find someone else."  What fun is that?



You're missing the point.  The point is not that the DM is not allowed to set things up.  It's that he shouldn't force things down the path HE wants.  Let's go back to your LotR example.  Frodo was given the ring to carry the entire way to Mt. Doom.  However, Sam took the ring when he thought Frodo died.  That was a change of plot.  The DM could have railroaded Sam's player and refused to let another PC take up the ring, since he knew Frodo wasn't dead, but chose not to allowing the plot to change.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Imaculata

Maxperson said:


> If it's unavoidable, it's a railroad.  They're trucking along on rails with none of their choices able to take them off of that track.  You are obstructing choices by the way.  Each and every choice that would allow them to save the Marquis is obstructed, as are all choices that could bring him back.




True for the latter, but I disagree on the former. See, the Marquis died in an instant, due to a violent explosion that would kill any normal mortal. Now, technically I could have decided that he was wounded, and allow them to roll heal checks. But I decided that it killed him instantly, and also buried him underneath a lot of rubble. So, I don't feel I was taking options away from them. The guy simply died before they could act, which is kind of how an assasination often goes.



Maxperson said:


> For my game, I'd allow the possibility of saving him if they could come up with an idea that would work.  The plot would still move forward with an attempt on his life.  It would just move forward a bit differently.  Instead of trying to solve a murder, the PCs would be trying to solve an attempted murder.  Perhaps with the resources of the Marquis if he and the PCs could get along.  The group making the attempt might or might not plan another go at it.  Maybe they go get more powerful help.




Normally I would agree, but in this case, I disagree. Sometimes the players can start to feel a little bit too safe, and it becomes necessary to raise the stakes, and pull a George RR Martin on your players. The villains wouldn't feel much like a threat if they didn't succeed, and sometimes characters need to die to move the story forward. Often things will happen, where the characters are simply not present, or they are not in a position to prevent it from happening. Is this railroading? You would probably say yes, but I disagree. I think there's a difference between just having things happen in your campaign, and obstructing the players. If one country decides to go to war with another country, the players may very well be unable to stop it, but is that railroading? Is every time the DM lets something happen in the campaign, a moment where the players are being railroaded?



Maxperson said:


> It isn't that the Marquis had to die to move the plot forward.  It's that he had to die so that the plot could move forward the way YOU wanted it to go.  That's sticking the PCs on rails.




No, I don't think it is. If any time the DM takes the plot in a particular direction is railroading, then that makes almost everything railroading.


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## Warmaster Horus

Maxperson said:


> You're missing the point.  The point is not that the DM is not allowed to set things up.  It's that he shouldn't force things down the path HE wants.  Let's go back to your LotR example.  Frodo was given the ring to carry the entire way to Mt. Doom.  However, Sam took the ring when he thought Frodo died.  That was a change of plot.  The DM could have railroaded Sam's player and refused to let another PC take up the ring, since he knew Frodo wasn't dead, but chose not to allowing the plot to change.




It's completely in a DM's purview to provide paths and encouragement on where they want the story to go.  If the players don't groove with that direction then the DM can change what they're doing to better accommodate the players wishes.

I'm not saying that railroading doesn't exist.  I've been down that road a few times.  But the idea that the DM is an impartial arbitrator there only to serve the whims of the players in their game is too far the other way.  DMs typically put hours into creating their game so they can tell a story they thought of.  They have a right to promote that story in play.


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## Gardens & Goblins

Warmaster Horus said:


> I'm not saying that railroading doesn't exist.  I've been down that road a few times.  But the idea that the DM is an impartial arbitrator there only to serve the whims of the players in their game is too far the other way.  DMs typically put hours into creating their game so they can tell a story they thought of.  They have a right to promote that story in play.




Depends on what we mean by story. For me, when crafting our campaign elements, the story is the forces at play, the NPCs, the sites of interest. I get a real kick out of how the players choose to interact with them. What do they go for? What do they ignore? Will they go this way or that. Love it! Of course, we do spend a lot of time with our players, gathering feedback and suggestions for the content, so as best to populate the campaign with as many interesting and exciting things - that may or may not be discovered!

And as a player, I detest games where the DM is trying to develop a more traditional narrative, akin to a book or movie. I prefer to choose what my character engages with.


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## Reynard

Railroads lead somewhere. Ergo, if there's no predefined endpoint, there is no railroad. GM fiat? Sure. Arbitrary constraints? Ok. But terms have meaning and if we ignore the meaning then the discussion is, unsurprisingly, meaningless.


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## pemerton

Warmaster Horus said:


> A lot of entitled players here.



As far as I can tell, most of the posts in this thread is posting from the perspective of GMing.



Warmaster Horus said:


> players make lots of choices that add to the story and their narrative is crux of the whole thing.  But the DM has the right to prod the story to where they want it to go if they feel like it.



I don't know what the language of "right" is doing here. We're talking about techniques for engaging in a consensual leisure activity.

If a GM "prods the story", that may or may not conduce to the enjoyment of that leisure activity, depending on the details of the prodding and the preferences of the participants.



Warmaster Horus said:


> In LotR Frodo can't just hear about the One Ring from Gandalf and go, "Sounds dangerous.  Find someone else."  What fun is that?



The framing of this seems pretty telling - you are assuming that the GM narrates Gandalf, telling Frodo's player what the adventure is to be about.

But if Frodo's pleasure starts the campaign by saying "OK, I've inherited this magic ring, and it's got some sort of curse that means I'm going to have to destroy it", then the whole framing changes. Now the GM isn't "proding the story where they want it to go" at all. By introducing Gandalf and the backstory he relates to Frodo, the GM is fleshing out the details of _the player's_ story.


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## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> drama shows and movies show that plenty of drama can happen without random chance being involved.



Yes. In the post to which you replied, I said that "sole-authored fiction, the author deliberately introduces failures and successes as part of the modulation of the pacing of the story". But a RPG, at least as I prefer to play it, is not sole-authored fiction. There are multiple participants (GM, players) performing different roles, and the emergence of drama is a function of the interaction of those roles.



Maxperson said:


> I also get that sometimes a great deal of drama can hinge on a single die roll.  Most of the time, however, die rolls for things that affect my character just leave me wondering if the die is going to screw me this time or not.  There's no true drama.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Usually things are uncertain, so a roll has to happen.  It's rolling for every single crunch moment that feels off to me.  It defies credulity that every single thing of importance to the PC is uncertain.



I'm not sure what you mean by "thing", here.

In the scenario I described in the OP, it's not uncertain, once the PC has the blood in the vessel, whether or not the blood stays there. That is to say, success is binding as far as the fiction is concerned, until the player declares some other action, itself of significance, that puts that success at stake. 

Thus, carrying the blood downstairs in the chamberpot does not require a roll. Nothing new is at stake - having the blood be downstairs rather than upstairs does not have any dramatic significance - and the player has already established the PC's success in obtaining the blood. 

But when a player declares an action that does put something of significance at stake, then I don't see that rolling causes a _lack_ of drama. Eg, as happened in my session, carrying the vessels of blood through the town while one's companion is lugging two bodies, one decapitated, can put the original success at stake. The player has declared some new action of dramatic significance - getting the blood from A (the tower) to B (somewhere where the character can take the next step in respect of it) - and so the dice come out again. (There are complexities here arising from party play. Eg who rolls the dice when two PCs are moving through town, only one is lugging bodies, but the two PCs are resolved to stick together. I'm eliding that complexity for the moment.)

I'm not at all clear what sort of example you have in mind where rolling does not cause drama. And as far as the idea that "wondering if the die is going to screw me or not", that sounds like an issue with GMing. (Which goes back to the idea of GM judgement calls.) Eg if the GM calls for a die roll when you walk down the stairs with the blood, then the GM is not following "say 'yes' or roll the dice", because s/he is calling for a roll even when nothing of stake is at issue. (As I've said, it makes no difference whether the blood is in a chamber pot upstairs or a chamber pot downstairs. Of course if that did make a difference - if the summoning cirle was downstairs, and so getting the blood down to the circle was crucial, then calling for a roll might be quite appropriate, but equally it would be quite dramatic.)

The idea of being "screwed" by the dice also suggests the GM may need to work more on narrating consequences of failure. 



Campbell said:


> There are multiple ways to play to find out, including one way that is far older than the hobby.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> *Scene Framing.* This method depends on a GM to create shorter, punchy scenarios that are quickly resolved. We call these scenes. The important part here is that scenes are developed based on the results of previous scenes. Within the context of a given scene, the GM functions in a similar matter to a Free Kriegsspeil GM, making judgement calls in accordance with the fiction and determining where the rules apply. Generally, we lean much heavier on the rules to resolve scenes though. The GM is not assumed to be an expert and we expect resolution of scenes to be short and punchy. Examples of games that embrace this style include Burning Wheel, InSpectres, and Marvel Heroic Roleplay.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> *Principled Game Mastering.*In this style of play we assume that a GM is not a neutral arbiter, but in fact will play a very active role in shaping play. They are not, however, interested in determining outcomes - only in setting up interesting fiction for players to react to. Play is based on moves and counter moves. Players do something - GM responds with fiction that will prompt the players to make decisions. In any given moment the GM is guided by a set of considered principles that serve to reinforce the type of fiction we are all interested in seeing play out. There is considerably less distance in this method of play between the GM and other players. Players play characters with drives, connections, and things they are expected to go after. The GM plays the setting in opposition to those characters with restraints based on his principles. This discipline allows the GM and other players to play hard. While this type of play is seen readily in Apocalypse World and its derivatives, it was first used to play games like Moldvay D&D in a very different, but functional way. Examples of game that embrace this style include Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, and Blades in the Dark.
> 
> I enjoy playing in all of these ways, but when running games I am particularly partial to *Principled Game Mastering* because reliance on Game Mastering Principles gives me the freedom to take a more active hand without having an overwhelming influence.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I know [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] generally favors scene framing. It used to be my jam, but not really anymore.
> 
> These categories are not necessarily separated by iron walls. One of the great things about being exposed to a wide variety of techniques includes the ability to be guided by different sets of principles in different situations as play demands. What is important to me is understanding that decision making process and understanding its impact on play.



Your distinction between "scene framing" and "principled GMing" is intriguing to me, because it's not one I would readily have drawn myself.

My first response is that what is going on is somewhat orthogonal. After all, when GMing Burning Wheel (as in the OP), I'm certainly not a neutral participant. And everything you say about _constraint by principles_, _playing hard_, etc seems apt. I haven't got a lot of Dungeon World experience (the only PbtA game I've played), but those aspects of it didn't strike me as different from BW.

MHRP, on the other hand, does seem rather different from BW, and probably closer (as I experience it) to some of the features you highlight in your "scene framing" description - resolving the "short, punchy scenario" by way of the rules. So maybe rather than doubting your categorisation I'm doubting your location of BW in one category rather than the other. (I would think of 4e as being more like MHRP in combat, and more like BW/PbtA in skill challenges.)

Anyway, building on those preliminary reflections - which as you can tell are somewhat half-formed - here is my best attempt to explain my intuition of orthogonality: _scene-framing_ seems mostly an idea/technique around the relationshp between backstory, player protagonism and the inducing of checks; whereas _principle GMing_ seems most importantly about the resolution of checks and narration of consequences. So when the PCs race against the assassin to stop the unconcsious wizard in the tower being assassinated, that's "scene-framing" (no failure off-screen; going to where the action is); when the question of who gets to the unconscious wizard first is resolved by opposed checks, when the presence of a vessel is resolved by a Perception check, when a failed check results in the PCs escaping across the city with blood and bodies encountering the night watch, that's "principle GMing" (let it ride; say 'yes' or roll the dice; fail forward).

And here's a passage on the "standard narrativistic model" that has shaped my thinking a fair bit:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . .

The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. . . . [T]hey naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants. . . .

Once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes [eg in BW character burning, estabishing believes etc; in MHRP establishing distinctions and milestones as well as powers, etc], the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end. . . .

The GM . . . needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​
This description seems to run together aspects of "scene framing" (framing interesting situations, ie mini-scenarios) with aspects of "principled GMing" (provoking choices by speaking to PCs' clearly established dramatic needs).

None of the above is intended as an attack on your post (and I hope it's not one in spite of my intentions). I think it's an invitation to elaborate the contrast you see. One thing I'm thinking of is the idea of a clean break between scenes, but BW doesn't have that by default (I think MHRP does, and probably 4e moreso than BW), and that doesn't seem to go as "deep" as the sort of distinction I take you to be making.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> Some posts, threads etc have triggered this question in my mind:
> 
> [size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​
> In the context of 5e, GM "judgement calls" can also fall into the domain of "rulings not rules."
> 
> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)



I would argue that the distinction of sandbox vs railroad applies a macro level of the entire campaign or even an adventure, but isn't very useful on a scene or encounter design level. The distinction comes down to whether or not the actions of the Player Characters and the choices of the Players have a fundamental impact on the narrative. 

Rails apply when there is only one story, when the outcome of the actions is set and predetermined. In this instance, either the players will always manage to gain the blood because that's what the story requires, or they will always fail. 
The story is on rails if there's no cup and anything the players think of to serve as an alternative vessel fails. If they had their own cup, it gets spilt; if they drain a potion it breaks; if they empty a wineskin then the last few drops of alcohol taint the blood. 

For an individual scene the DM just has to make a call. Which can work with the rails or not. Even if the DM's plot requires the blood not be recovered, they could still have some vessel found and the include some other reason the recovery fails. They just have to decide one way or another. Even if their story needs the blood recovered they could say there's no container available, just to see what the players do and add some drama and tension. 

I think most DMs run games that are a mixture of sandbox and rails having elements of both. For the presence of an item or not, that's often DM fiat. Either they decide in advance or decide at the time, either way it only exists at the leisure of the DM. When they didn't pre-decide, they simply need to determine if something exists or not; I think most Dungeon Masters would just make that decision based on what seems logical at the time. They'd ask themselves if it's reasonable. 
Or they roll. I love a good random determination. I tend to go with 4e saving throw rules. 10+ is favourable, while 9 or less is unfavourable. Sometimes I'll tweak it to >15 or >5 based on the odds. 

This is for D&D though, and wouldn't necessarily apply to other games. Many games have a Plot Point mechanic that gives some narrative control to the player. They can spend a Plot Point and just declare there's a goblet in the chamber. 
(As a house rule, I let Inspiration be spent for some narrative tweaking in this manner.)


----------



## robus

Lanefan said:


> Another thing to keep in mind is that not all railroading is done by the DM.  Sometimes the players railroad themselves in that on finishing one adventure they have already decided what the next one will be whether it's what the DM had in mind or not.  As DM I love it when they do this!
> 
> Lanefan




While this is great, it is the opposite of a railroad  We have enough trouble discussing things on this forum as it is!


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## robus

Reynard said:


> Railroads lead somewhere. Ergo, if there's no predefined endpoint, there is no railroad. GM fiat? Sure. Arbitrary constraints? Ok. But terms have meaning and if we ignore the meaning then the discussion is, unsurprisingly, meaningless.




I gave XP but then I retracted it when I thought about this some more. 

Having an endpoint does not imply a railroad. Having only *one route* to the endpoint *is* a railroad. I.e the PCs can't have any impact on the way to the endpoint. They have to go through all the obstacles that the DM sets up - no deviation, no upsets, everything running as planned in advance.

Your definition would imply that every published adventure is a railroad and yet the stories told about what happens in individual games makes me think that players (and GMs) have a lot of leeway to go off the rails at any point and rejoin if/when it suits them.


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## Reynard

robus said:


> I gave XP but then I retracted it when I thought about this some more.
> 
> Having an endpoint does not imply a railroad. Having only *one route* to the endpoint *is* a railroad. I.e the PCs can't have any impact on the way to the endpoint. They have to go through all the obstacles that the DM sets up - no deviation, no upsets, everything running as planned in advance.
> 
> Your definition would imply that every published adventure is a railroad and yet the stories told about what happens in individual games makes me think that players (and GMs) have a lot of leeway to go off the rails at any point and rejoin if/when it suits them.




You are misreading what I wrote. I said that regardless of anything else, it is not a railroad if there is not an endpoint to the rails. I did not say (nor do I believe) that an endpoint means it automatically is a railroad. A given GM can interfer with play a lot and still not be railroading the party if the point of that interference isn't to force a singular conclusion to the adventure/campaign/whatever. Based on generally accepted definitions, I don't think you can railroad an action or even a scene. Certainly the premise of the thread is flawed -- that GM decision making is the same as railroading.

Similarly there is a lot of mislabeling of sandbox play as well. A sandbox doesn't mean that the GM doesn't influence outcomes or make decisions or even that there aren't any predefined plots (side quests). It means that the player characters are free to explore what is there without the constraint of an "adventure path." There can still be a big bad and a "victory condition" but the PCs have freedom to engage it however they will (or not).

Nor should we ascribe value judgments based simply on whether a thing is a railroad or a sandbox. A railroad can be great fun if presented correctly, and sandboxes can be terribly boring and frustrating if mishandled. And, of course, these are extreme ends of a continuum and most campaigns land somewhere in the middle.


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## robus

Reynard said:


> You are misreading what I wrote. I said that regardless of anything else, it is not a railroad if there is not an endpoint to the rails. I did not say (nor do I believe) that an endpoint means it automatically is a railroad.




Cool - apologies


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],

That's the danger of categorization and simplifying things down for ease of communication. It fails to capture the nuances of play effectively. The three schools of *Play To Find Out* I outlined are not mutually exclusive and can be combined in various ways to create compelling experiences. When I say that I am not generally focused on scene framing anymore I am mostly focused on the closed circuit nature of scenes. I absolutely use elements of scene framing in my own Apocalypse World games - framing scenes is something I believe we do naturally as GMs. Every time we elide certain details to focus on others and make determinations about the fiction to provide for a more compelling play experience that's scene framing. The degree to which we embrace scene framing is impactful and important. I would also say that Principled Game Mastering is not really a binary. The degree to which we depend on our principles and what those principles are is also impactful. I believe it is obvious that we also follow the fiction to its logical conclusion to varying degrees. The shape of actual play is far more complex than general theorycrafting. 

I believe that typical Burning Wheel play is fairly principled. The same goes for Moldvay D&D as described. Both offer a GM more latitude than Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, or Monsterhearts which are more specifically about certain stuff as typically played. Marvel Heroic and D&D 4e as I understood it lean more on the GM to provide their own principles, but can absolutely be played in a more principled way. The same is largely true for most games. When I have run Demon - The Descent or Vampire - The Requiem 2e I have had to borrow some principles and techniques from Apocalypse World and make some of my own in order to focus play and provide the constraints which allow me to GM in the manner that works best for me.

Dungeon World is an interesting example here. While Dungeon World takes some cues in its design from Apocalypse World it is a very different game. It was designed to provide an experience very similar to Adam Koebel and Sage Latorra's memories of old school D&D without much of the rules cruft that they did not enjoy. Part of making that happen is providing for more latitude and discretion in the hands of the GM. The principles are more lax and less discipline is required to run the game as written. It also is more focused on Free Kriegsspeil style playing the fiction. I'm not sure where I say it, but in one of Adam Koebel's Youtube videos he explains that trying to not trigger moves was a valid strategy for Dungeon World play in the same way that OSR play styles often attempt to not involve the rules and dice rolling because when the dice come out you might lose.

Dungeon World is not my favorite Powered By the Apocalypse game. In many ways it leaves me with more latitude than I would like when running the game. I'll happily play it, but when I run games I prefer to have a stronger idea of what exactly I should be doing in any moment of play.


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## Warmaster Horus

Gardens & Goblins said:


> Depends on what we mean by story. For me, when crafting our campaign elements, the story is the forces at play, the NPCs, the sites of interest. I get a real kick out of how the players choose to interact with them. What do they go for? What do they ignore? Will they go this way or that. Love it! Of course, we do spend a lot of time with our players, gathering feedback and suggestions for the content, so as best to populate the campaign with as many interesting and exciting things - that may or may not be discovered!
> 
> And as a player, I detest games where the DM is trying to develop a more traditional narrative, akin to a book or movie. I prefer to choose what my character engages with.




My favorite kind of game is a collaborative effort between the DM and players all contributing to the story and the lore.  DMs that allow me as a player to develop something outside my character in their world in a creative way is something I really like.  However I always acknowledge that it's the DM's world and that though I might want things to work the way I see them working it may not be what the DM wants to happen.  

I also like games that have a plot.  A bunch of murder hobos trouping around gathering loot just 'cause is a royal snoozefest for me.  But a legendary dragon being resurrected by a cult of undead sacrificing the souls of entire elven nations to fuel the effort and how our PCs work to thwart them over an entire campaign, that I like.  As a player I respect a DM who takes the time and effort to put that story framework in place.  I work with them in bringing it to life by playing my character and adding to that story however they would do so.  

As a DM I want to provide a space for players to enjoy and interact with the world.  I love interweaving their inventions and interactions in with my story to embellish, expand and change it's course.  I like providing reveals and clues to the main plot in a way that may intrigue them and entice them to learn more.  I like unexpected tangents, too, but I don't want to run a game of tangents unless they are satisfying to both me and the players.


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## pemerton

Jester David said:


> I would argue that the distinction of sandbox vs railroad applies a macro level of the entire campaign or even an adventure, but isn't very useful on a scene or encounter design level.



This seems to rest on a distinciton between "adventure" and "scene" which I think is unstable. What individuates adventures?



Jester David said:


> Rails apply when there is only one story, when the outcome of the actions is set and predetermined. In this instance, either the players will always manage to gain the blood because that's what the story requires, or they will always fail.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For an individual scene the DM just has to make a call. Which can work with the rails or not. Even if the DM's plot requires the blood not be recovered, they could still have some vessel found and the include some other reason the recovery fails. They just have to decide one way or another. Even if their story needs the blood recovered they could say there's no container available, just to see what the players do and add some drama and tension.



To me, it seems that the existence of something called []the DM's plot[/I], which has certain _needs_/_requirements_, entails that _there is only one story_.

This is why I don't feel the force of your scene/adventure distinction. When you talk about the GM making a judgement call because that's what the plot _needs_, you seem to me to be talking about a railroad. There is a pre-authored outcome (or series of outcomes), and the GM is adjudicating in such a way as to bring that about.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> When I say that I am not generally focused on scene framing anymore I am mostly focused on the closed circuit nature of scenes.



OK, so I wasn't too far off in my reading of your post!

Of the games I GM regularly, this is a big feature of MHRP. And a bigger feature of 4e than of BW.



Campbell said:


> I believe that typical Burning Wheel play is fairly principled. The same goes for Moldvay D&D as described. Both offer a GM more latitude than Dogs in the Vineyard, Apocalypse World, or Monsterhearts
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Dungeon World is an interesting example here.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The principles are more lax and less discipline is required to run the game as written. It also is more focused on Free Kriegsspeil style playing the fiction.



In GMing BW, I find that the hardest part is framing the action. There are principles, but they certainly can't be applied algorithmically and even beyond that (fairly obvious) aspect they rely on a high degree of intuitive sense of drama/pacing, or GM's "gut".

Actually adjudicating checks and narrating consequences is, by comparison, pretty straightforward.

MHRP is almost the opposite. Framing the action is easy, but the system (every check is opposed, and must be adjudicated in terms of an effect die) makes narrating consequences sometimes quite challenging - not in fights or even social conflict, but in "exploration" or other circumstances where it's not always intuitive what the asset is that's being created, or what the Scene Distinction is that is being degraded.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Let's go back to your LotR example.  Frodo was given the ring to carry the entire way to Mt. Doom.  However, Sam took the ring when he thought Frodo died.  That was a change of plot.  The DM could have railroaded Sam's player and refused to let another PC take up the ring, since he knew Frodo wasn't dead, but chose not to allowing the plot to change.



This is strange. LotR isn't the output of a RPG session. There were no players, no GM, no railroading and no "changes" to the plot.

If we want to imagine some parallel thing that might be an RPG, we've got to ask questions like "Who decided to make the ring the focus of the game" (as per my post 87), "How was it determined that Shelob stung Frodo", "How was it determined that Frodo lived or died, and who knew that at what moment of play?", "What parameters governed Sam's picking up of the ring?", etc.

We can't tell anything about railroading or RPGing techniques just from being told a story of what happened.

Here is a concrete example that addresses some of my questions: Frodo's player fails at some sort of check or extended contest that has the result of betrayal by Gollum; it's already established at the table that one of Gollum's "traits" is Servant of the Mistress of Cirith Ungol; hence the GM frames Frodo into conflict with Shelob; Frodo loses suffering both a "poisoned" and a "webbed" complication; some sort of 4e-style "death save" system applies for sheding conditions, although over a longer in-fiction time-line; Sam's player declares that Sam takes the ring; Frodo's player makes the save vs poisoned but not vs webbed; Frodo's player invokes a "last ditch" mechanic to trade a loss of gear (mail, cloak) for not losing the game (all the orcs kill one another fighting over the gear); the GM frames Sam into a conflict with the last couple of orcs in the tower; Sam's player wins the conflict and so Frodo is freed of debilitating conditions and the two are united. Sam's player chooses to hand back the ring to Frodo.

Notice how there's no "plot" that the GM allows to be changed. There is just framing, action declaration and/or spending of player resources, and resolution.


----------



## Campbell

Warmaster Horus said:


> It's completely in a DM's purview to provide paths and encouragement on where they want the story to go.  If the players don't groove with that direction then the DM can change what they're doing to better accommodate the players wishes.
> 
> I'm not saying that railroading doesn't exist.  I've been down that road a few times.  But the idea that the DM is an impartial arbitrator there only to serve the whims of the players in their game is too far the other way.  DMs typically put hours into creating their game so they can tell a story they thought of.  They have a right to promote that story in play.




What is and is not in a GM's purview is something that I feel is up to debate. That depends entirely on the group. Part of that comes from the game we are playing, but in every moment of play we depend on the consent of other players. No authority is granted except that which is freely given. Trust is something that must be earned on a continual basis. This is something that applies to all players.

I would also say that GM preparation does not entitle their contributions as more meaningful than the contributions of other players. When you prepare a specific narrative you are putting the game on your back, privileging your own contributions, and taking sole responsibility for the game. This is a choice that a GM *chooses to make*. This might be how your group likes to approach the game, but it is not a given part of running a game. Neither is investing hours outside of the game in preparation a necessary part of GMing. I regularly run games with minimal to zero preparation. The game does not fall apart if you do not spend hours on world building and plotting. This is a choice. 

Another player may choose to prepare specific plans for the game - particular actions to take, groups to build alliances with, groups to oppose, etc. That does not mean they necessarily have the right to have their contributions taken more seriously than players who just show up to play.


----------



## Campbell

So, one of the things that informs my views on role playing is that in any given moment all of the players (including the GM if there is one) are both participants and audience. That is why playing to find out is so important to me. I have a genuine interest in not knowing how things will shake out. I am a fan of the other players' contributions and genuinely want to know what they have to say, how things will go for their characters, and how they will be changed as a result. As a participant I have some stuff to say and expect what I say to really matter, but I also expect that other players have stuff to say too. Part of my responsibility as a player is to value that stuff they've said.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> If we want to imagine some parallel thing that might be an RPG, we've got to ask questions like "Who decided to make the ring the focus of the game" (as per my post 87), "How was it determined that Shelob stung Frodo", "How was it determined that Frodo lived or died, and who knew that at what moment of play?", "What parameters governed Sam's picking up of the ring?", etc.
> 
> We can't tell anything about railroading or RPGing techniques just from being told a story of what happened.



 I suspect we might.  If the story is full of plot-inconvenient screw-ups, dead ends, anti-climaxes, and just ends abruptly with the death of everyone you thought might have been a protagonist, or maybe sort of trails off ambiguously, chances are it was a 'sandbox' run by a DM 'by the book' with dice in full view, world/NPCs/&c set before it started, and no tweaks or adjustments, illusionism nor DM-force. 

If it was a cool story (or even a cliched story), with plot, pacing, a climax and denouement, chances are it was a total 'railroad' or 'illusion' (or maybe some sort of collective-storytelling exercise).  Or, y'know, an actual story written by someone who remotely knew what they were doing.  

'Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense,' and all that.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> This seems to rest on a distinciton between "adventure" and "scene" which I think is unstable. What individuates adventures?



I'm thinking in narrative terms. Very broadly, because you can't determine "railroad" or "sandbox" from a single encounter or moment. What happens in an encounter or scene is a single data point. There's no context. No frame or reference. You don't know if it's the norm or an anomaly. You have no scale. 

For example, something like a villain escaping will occur more in railroads. They're a scripted scene. But it's not impossible that a villain is just in a position to flee and does. The DM is just taking advantage of positioning.



pemerton said:


> To me, it seems that the existence of something called []the DM's plot[/I], which has certain _needs_/_requirements_, entails that _there is only one story_.



The catch being there is *always* a plot. Even in a pure sandbox there is one story, albeit one scripted entirely by the players' actions. It's just a matter of perspective and how much it was planned. 
Similarly, a DM can have a hard plot going on (a villain, a motivation, scripted events, etc) *and* the story can still not be a railroad provided the players have a choice whether or not to involve themselves in the plot, how to deal with the problems, etc. 
_Skyrim_ and _Fallout 3_ and 4 are very much sandbox games but they still have a "plot". D&D is similar but with a twist, as the plot can change and advance in the background.

*What determines if a campaign is a railroad or not is if the players can deviate from the plot or ignore the presented plot's existence. *



pemerton said:


> This is why I don't feel the force of your scene/adventure distinction. When you talk about the GM making a judgement call because that's what the plot _needs_, you seem to me to be talking about a railroad. There is a pre-authored outcome (or series of outcomes), and the GM is adjudicating in such a way as to bring that about.



"Pre-authored" and "improvised" are really irrelevant to this discussion. In either instance the Dungeon Master is making a decision. Whether or not they do so before the session begins, during the session but before that scene, during the scene, or retconning after the fact is all the same. Either way the Dungeon Master is making that decision. 

If the DM is making the decisions because it's what the plot requires, that is generally a sign of a railroad. But, again, single datapoint. 
DMs often make decisions on what does or does not exist based on plot and narrative. That's literally their job at the table. That doesn't mean the plot is a railroad, but could instead be what makes the most narrative or dramatic sense. If there's a good couple hours left in the session, the DM might make a call that extends the adventure a little longer. If they're nearing the end of the session, then the decision becomes one that wraps up that story so the next session can be focused on what happens next OR serves as a cliffhanger so the next session is anticipated. Similarly, if things have been going smoothly, the plot might require a complication to create tension. None of the above necessarily denote a railroad. They just denote good storytelling.


----------



## robus

pemerton said:


> This seems to rest on a distinciton between "adventure" and "scene" which I think is unstable. What individuates adventures?




Did see the AngryGM's break down of the major components in RPGs? Here's a relevant sample:



> Scenes and Encounters
> 
> Actions happen within the context of scenes and encounters. Scenes and encounters begin with a dramatic question, a statement of the character’s goals in the form of a question. The GM then presents the scene to the players, usually in some way hinting at the dramatic question or goal. If the answer to the dramatic question is uncertain because of a source of conflict within the scene, the scene is an encounter. The scene or encounter plays out as a series of actions until the dramatic question is resolved. Then, the GM provides a transition to the next scene or encounter.
> 
> Adventures
> 
> An adventure is a series of scenes and encounters that comprise a single, complete story. Adventures begin with a motivation or goal and a scene that presents that motivation or goal to the players. Adventures then play out as a series of scenes or encounters as the players pursue the goal. Once the players have accomplished the goal or definitively failed to accomplish the goal, the adventure ends.


----------



## Lanefan

Maxperson said:


> If it's unavoidable, it's a railroad.  They're trucking along on rails with none of their choices able to take them off of that track.  You are obstructing choices by the way.  Each and every choice that would allow them to save the Marquis is obstructed, as are all choices that could bring him back.



If the PCs have no way of knowing an assassination is coming until it happens, they can't exactly be expected to do anything about it.  The only difference between the Marquis getting killed now as opposed to last night is the dramatic effect of having the PCs see it happen.



> For my game, I'd allow the possibility of saving him if they could come up with an idea that would work.  The plot would still move forward with an attempt on his life.  It would just move forward a bit differently.  Instead of trying to solve a murder, the PCs would be trying to solve an attempted murder.  Perhaps with the resources of the Marquis if he and the PCs could get along.  The group making the attempt might or might not plan another go at it.  Maybe they go get more powerful help.



  [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] can correct me if I'm wrong, but my guess is that your plot would immediately become different from his.  We don't yet know why the Marquis had to die (maybe he's supposed to reappear as an undead somewhere down the road); but your plot says he doesn't have to die.  Different plot.



> It isn't that the Marquis had to die to move the plot forward.  It's that he had to die so that the plot could move forward the way YOU wanted it to go.  That's sticking the PCs on rails.



No, it's sticking the world's backstory on rails...which is right where it should be.  As I said above, the only difference is that this particular bit of backstory takes place in full view of the PCs.  It's a more up-close-and-personal equivalent to my idea of the meteorite crashing into the mountain...the PCs can't prevent it, they can only react to it after the fact.

And that's the crux: your plot makes the PCs proactive in a situation where they're supposed to be reactive.

Lan-"if one train leaves Waterdeep at 3:35 and another leaves Neverwinter at 4:10, at what time does the Marquis die?"-efan


----------



## Imaculata

Lanefan said:


> @_*Imaculata*_ can correct me if I'm wrong, but my guess is that your plot would immediately become different from his.  We don't yet know why the Marquis had to die (maybe he's supposed to reappear as an undead somewhere down the road); but your plot says he doesn't have to die.  Different plot.




Exactly. Its the equivalent of letting the players prevent the red wedding. Sometimes a plot needs to go in a specific direction, and that has more to do with storytelling, than with railroading. 

The players are in a reactive position, rather than one where they can prevent the event from happening completely.

I don't feel that a DM is taking choice away from the players, if he decides that a specific thing happens in the campaign. It's only railroading in my opinion, if the DM is obstructing what the players are trying to do, in a disruptive way, because he is unwilling to alter the course of his plot.



Jester David said:


> DMs often make decisions on what does or does not exist based on plot and narrative. That's literally their job at the table. That doesn't mean the plot is a railroad, but could instead be what makes the most narrative or dramatic sense. If there's a good couple hours left in the session, the DM might make a call that extends the adventure a little longer. If they're nearing the end of the session, then the decision becomes one that wraps up that story so the next session can be focused on what happens next OR serves as a cliffhanger so the next session is anticipated. Similarly, if things have been going smoothly, the plot might require a complication to create tension. None of the above necessarily denote a railroad. They just denote good storytelling.





I agree with this as well. Often a DM will decide that something dramatic happens, to end the session on a cliffhanger.

As a DM, I try to think of what is most interesting narratively, and what makes the most sense given the situation. I may decide that an unexpected character suddenly enters the inn, because it adds more drama to the scene. I may decide that a specific npc loses his life, because it makes sense, and because it adds the drama and stakes that the campaign needs at that particular moment. Sometimes I want my players to just react to what is happening, like when my players arrived at a harbor town, and saw smoke rising from it. Something had happened in their absence, as a consequence of choices they had made earlier in the campaign. Something bad had happened while they were away, and now they could only react to it... or ignore it.

Scripting a scene, is not the same as railroading. Obstructing your players is railroading. Forcing your players to go fight the dragon, is railroading. But having the dragon suddenly attack a nearby village, that is not railroading, -even if you had been planning it for weeks.


----------



## Campbell

The medium impacts storytelling techniques.  With the Marquis example, it depends on a couple of factors for me. Under the principles I operate under the most critical consideration is how the players see the NPC. Is he our guy or your guy? If the players have invested significant effort to make him an ally, and their conception of their characters is rolled up in the relationship killing him off summarily without a chance to do anything about it feels like a cheap shot. If they are not emotionally invested, screw him. He dies to prove a point. If they are you want to make whether he lives or dies the result of player action or inaction. It will feel more impactful if their decisions had an impact. Being a fan of the players' characters means you don't just take away the things they have earned through play lightly.

Apocalypse World has this concept of hard and soft moves that I think applies to this situation. A hard move has finality of resolution. Something happens that changes things forever. A soft move serves to threaten, change things momentarily, or reveal possible consequences. Generally it is a good idea to use soft moves first. It's a way to apply foreshadowing in a game where we cannot know what will happen. It gives players a chance to think about their actions, and emotionally prepare for those hard moves. Soft moves make the hard moves feel right. It is also important that the hard move actually comes to pass. Threaten, then deliver.

For me, this comes down to _bleed_, the idea that player and character emotions influence each other. You are playing with people's emotions here and should have enough respect for the other players to treat that responsibility very seriously.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> The medium impacts storytelling techniques.  With the Marquis example, it depends on a couple of factors for me. Under the principles I operate under the most critical consideration is how the players see the NPC. Is he our guy or your guy? If the players have invested significant effort to make him an ally, and their conception of their characters is rolled up in the relationship killing him off summarily without a chance to do anything about it feels like a cheap shot. If they are not emotionally invested, screw him. He dies to prove a point. If they are you want to make whether he lives or dies the result of player action or inaction.



Absolutely agreed.

Not all RPGing involves story (eg playing through White Plume Mountain in the classic style). But when it _does_ involve story, there can be no consideration of how an event of significance to the story might come about without thinking about that in the context of the investment and orientation of the participants. This is the basic idea of "no failure offscreen" - and what counts as a _failure_ for the PCs is obviously dependent primarily on the _players'/I] conception(s) of the situation, not the GM._


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> in any given moment all of the players (including the GM if there is one) are both participants and audience. That is why playing to find out is so important to me. I have a genuine interest in not knowing how things will shake out.



Definitely this.

The session I talked about in the OP opened with the PCs and the NPC mage whose tower they were in bursting into the bedroom just as the assassin decapited the unconscious, recuperating mage. This was established from the close of the previous session.

So we all knew that the session would, in some fashion, involve this confrontation in the tower. But the stuff that actually happened: the collecting of the blood; the escape of the two PCs from the tower, carrying the decapitated body and also the body of the unconscious assassin (who collapsed from the strain of trying to cast a spell to escape); the apprehension of the PCs by the night watch as they fled across town with their bodies and blood; the details of their (unsuccessful) attempts to talk their way out of that apprehension ("It's OK! I've got the head!"); none of these was known or even knowable before we actually played the game.

Next session I expect we will learn some things, like what happens to the bodies, the head and the blood. But no doubt new things will happen which take the game in a direction that was not known, and not knowable. (By definition, as it were, I can't usefully speculate about them in advavnce.)



Tony Vargas said:


> If the story is full of plot-inconvenient screw-ups, dead ends, anti-climaxes, and just ends abruptly with the death of everyone you thought might have been a protagonist, or maybe sort of trails off ambiguously, chances are it was a 'sandbox' run by a DM 'by the book' with dice in full view, world/NPCs/&c set before it started, and no tweaks or adjustments, illusionism nor DM-force.
> 
> If it was a cool story (or even a cliched story), with plot, pacing, a climax and denouement, chances are it was a total 'railroad' or 'illusion' (or maybe some sort of collective-storytelling exercise). Or, y'know, an actual story written by someone who remotely knew what they were doing.



Well this is pretty much the crux of it, isn't it?

If the only two ways to do RPGing were sandbox or railroad, then what you say would be correct. But they're not. We know they're not because we have actual, concrete examples of RPGs that are intended to be played in neither of those ways. I have further additional evidence, in that I've actually GMed RPGs (both the "modern" ones I just alluded to, and more "trad" ones drifted) in ways that are neither sandbox nor illusion/force/railroading, and the result has been cool (if cliched) story.

(The possible exception being denouement. Like other forms of serial fiction, I tend to find episodic RPGs a bit light in the denouement department. I think you have to depart more radically from traditional models than I have ever done to get that. I have done denouement via campaign-wrap-up-narration, having been inspired by the Nicotine Girls idea of the PC getting her dream, but that's not really RPGing - it's free storytelling between GM and players.)

To elaborate: if we unpack your examples, we see an implicit assumption that "by the book" with dice in full view means poor (or no) dramatic pacing, dead ends and random protagonist death. But none of thes assumptions need hold true. Consider the dramatic pacing inherent in a game like MHRP or 4e, with their scene-based resolution and in the first case the Doom Pool, in the second the "comeback" narrative ensured by the combat mechanics. Consider "fail forward" resolution in the context of "say 'yes' or roll the dice"-type approaches to calling for checks; consider various devices, from fate points to stake-setting practices, for modulating the risk of PC death and correlating it with dramatic stakes.



Tony Vargas said:


> 'Truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense,' and all that.



Again, this seems to assume that all systems are, more-or-less, process sim, modelling the ingame causal processes ("truth") and hence that to get story (ie "fiction") we need the GM to use force at various points to suspend or override the mechanics.

But that apparent premise about system is just false. It's now 25 years since the first publication of Over the Edge, and nearly 35 years since the James Bond game was published.

Which takes me back to . . .



Campbell said:


> As a participant I have some stuff to say and expect what I say to really matter



A lot of discussion about railroading and the like focuses on what the GM will or will not permit in terms of action declarations. But that's to focus on only one small part of the overall picture, which I tried to get at upthread with my reference to the _negation_ of player choices.

If the stuff a player has to say is going to matter, then it helps if there are devices that support that: eg mechanics that allows players to _try harder_ when the stuff that really matters is at stake; and principles around the finality of results, such that if a player succeeds on some check, the GM is not just at liberty to undo that outcome by free narration, or to introduce into the shared fiction some other story element that defeats the player's success.

(On the issue of _trying harder/I]: one reason wizards are so popular among experienced players of classic D&D is not just their power, but the fact that they have a built-in mechanic that allows the player to try harder - by using spells, which are handily scaled in a way that roughly correlates difficulty of using to significance of impact on the ingame situation. If not much is at stake, a 1st level magic-user doesn't cast at all, and a high level one uses a low level spell or a charge from a wand. If the stakes are high, however, then the 1st level MU unleashes the Sleep spell, or Charm Person, or similar; and the high level one lets fly with 10 dice fireballs, Death Spells and the like. A big part of what distinguishes 4e from other versions of D&D is that all PCs have mechanics that enable the player to try harder when the stakes are higher.)_


----------



## Imaculata

Campbell said:


> The medium impacts storytelling techniques.  With the Marquis example, it depends on a couple of factors for me. Under the principles I operate under the most critical consideration is how the players see the NPC. Is he our guy or your guy? If the players have invested significant effort to make him an ally, and their conception of their characters is rolled up in the relationship killing him off summarily without a chance to do anything about it feels like a cheap shot.




In my campaign, befriending him did not take any effort by the players. He was pretty much their ally right from the start of the campaign. And he was very much my guy. His daughter on the other hand is a love interest and a close ally. His death was basically the push to make his daughter a part of their crew. A reason for her to say goodbye to her old life, and join them on their future adventures. It also added an emotional side to the story, and to her character.



Campbell said:


> If they are not emotionally invested, screw him. He dies to prove a point. If they are you want to make whether he lives or dies the result of player action or inaction.




If you kill him off and they are not emotionally invested, then what's the point? Sometimes a death has to hit home, and actually feel sad. You can't do it often, but if you do it at least once, it gives the story a bit of emotional weight. It's like killing off Gandalf at the end of Fellowship of the ring, but then not bringing him back.



Campbell said:


> Being a fan of the players' characters means you don't just take away the things they have earned through play lightly.




Of course, but in this case, this didn't feel like something they had actually earned, and it had made them feel a little bit too safe. For the story to carry some weight, it felt necessary to me to kill off a character that had been their trusted ally since the start of the campaign. This paved the way for the players to actually get politically involved in who would be his successor, with some possible bad consequences if it was the wrong person.



Campbell said:


> Apocalypse World has this concept of hard and soft moves that I think applies to this situation. A hard move has finality of resolution. Something happens that changes things forever. A soft move serves to threaten, change things momentarily, or reveal possible consequences. Generally it is a good idea to use soft moves first. It's a way to apply foreshadowing in a game where we cannot know what will happen. It gives players a chance to think about their actions, and emotionally prepare for those hard moves. Soft moves make the hard moves feel right. It is also important that the hard move actually comes to pass. Threaten, then deliver.




This I sort of agree with, but I don't feel that every hard move needs to be foreshadowed. Sometimes you want to hit your players with a punch in the guts; -with a shocking twist that came totally unexpected... and yet made sense given the story. The red wedding is a good example. You can sort of see how events were building up to it, but it still came very unexpected when it happened.



Campbell said:


> For me, this comes down to _bleed_, the idea that player and character emotions influence each other. You are playing with people's emotions here and should have enough respect for the other players to treat that responsibility very seriously.




Of course, but this is also why I feel that the players should care when you kill off an important npc like that. It should be a catalyst for greater things that push the story forward. The villains in my campaign had already affected the lives of other characters in the campaign, but no one they were very close to. By killing off a character who was both a close ally, and the father of a character they really cared about, this was a very powerful moment. And while the players were triumphant in defeating the villains during their attack, they also suffered a great loss, that would instigate a whole new chapter in the story.


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> you can't determine "railroad" or "sandbox" from a single encounter or moment. What happens in an encounter or scene is a single data point. There's no context. No frame or reference. You don't know if it's the norm or an anomaly. You have no scale.



One can tell, from a single event of play, whether that event of play was driven by the GM or the players (assuming one has all the relevant information). And given that that is what I'm interested in when it comes to the content of a railroad, that's enough to answer my question.

(There might be other questions - is the occurence of GM force atypical? or (perhaps more likely) is allowing an episode of play to unfold in a player-driven way atypical? But these are questions that would be relevant, say, to deciding whether to join a group. They don't seem to help me analyse the play that is taking place, or how various approaches and techniques are informing that play.)



Jester David said:


> something like a villain escaping will occur more in railroads. They're a scripted scene. But it's not impossible that a villain is just in a position to flee and does. The DM is just taking advantage of positioning.



This goes back to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s comments about the assassination of the marquis. Without telling me more about what is at stake, I can't make the call. To relate it to my OP, is the villain's escape an _outcome_ in the relevant sense? Or mere colour. If it's an outcome, then I would never just declare it (ie the GM can't "say 'yes'" to him-/herself!) The dice would have to be rolled.



robus said:


> Did see the AngryGM's break down of the major components in RPGs?



I'm familiar with the concepts. My point is that I don't think they can bear the explanatory load that is being put on them.

For instance, we're told that "An adventure is a series of scenes and encounters that comprise a single, complete story." But what marks a story as complete? Who gets to decide that nothing more is at stake? If it's the GM, then we're right back in the realm of GM force - so the idea of an _adventure_ as a meaningful unit of play brings railroading with it per se; if it's the players, then when they decide that there's nothing more at stake for their PCs presumably the campaign is done.



Jester David said:


> The catch being there is *always* a plot.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> *What determines if a campaign is a railroad or not is if the players can deviate from the plot or ignore the presented plot's existence. *



This seems to assume that "the plot", if it is to exist at all, must be authored by the GM - and hence that there is no difference between "the plot" and "the _GM_'s plot" - the latter being the phrase you used in your earlier post, to which I responded.

But that assumption is simply false. And not just false in an abstract or theoretical "it might be otherwise" fashion, but in the very concrete "I am currently GMing 5 campaigns - two 4e, one MHRP, one Cortex Fantasy hack and one Burning Wheel - in which there is no such thing as "the plot" in your sense.

For instance, as I wrote up here, on the weekend I GMed a session of Cortex Plus fantasy. The session involved the (fantasy viking) PCs travelling into the northern hills and mountains to learn about a curse/doom befalling their land.

How did we establish that that was why they were travelling north? Because the players determined it: one explained how there were perturbations in the northern light, a sign of trouble among the gods; another told how his PC had heard cries of anguish from the great spirits of the spirit world, and for that reason had come to the village to seek aid, despite normally being a solitary traveller; a third talked about the need to investigate the Dragon's Curse. So the core elements of the plot were settled by the players, not the GM.

The first encounter the PCs had was with the steading of the giant Loge? Is Loge a friend or foe - an ally in the quest, or another force bringing blight to the land? That wasn't known at the outset. There was no "plot" in this respect. We learned that Loge had a shaman in his steading who thought that the PCs were right to be concerned about dire portents, and who therefore urged Loge to align with them rather than eat them, because one of the PCs spent a plot point to establish that shaman as a resource. And we learned that Loge was able to be persuaded by his shaman because in the resolution of the social conflict the PCs who achieved the final victory had the d6 representing the shaman as one die in his pool.

There is no "presented plot" here, which the players might deviate from or ignore. There's a set of tropes - eg everyone knows that the land of vikings is full of giants in their halls, who sometimes can be allies but ultimately are not to be trusted; there is an overall orientation chosen by the players - a curse or blight or doom that needs to be lifted/prevented; there is a situation that engages the players - will they treat with Loge, fight him, or (perhaps, but in my experience less likely) ignore his steading altogether? But that is a series of premises or thematic elements. It's not a plot.



Jester David said:


> "Pre-authored" and "improvised" are really irrelevant to this discussion. In either instance the Dungeon Master is making a decision.



Well, the whole point of the OP is to put this claim under scrutiny, by asking "Which GMing decisions in the adjudication of the game tend towards railroading, and which don't?"

(In passing: "improvised" is ambiguous between "no prep" and "no pre-authored plot". The latter doesn't entail the former. For instance, I din't make up stats for the giant on the spot - I used a stat block from the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide, which is to say I relied on (someone else's) prep. But the story wasn't pre-authored.)

If the GM has already decided how things will turn out, that is a railroad.



Jester David said:


> DMs often make decisions on what does or does not exist based on plot and narrative. That's literally their job at the table. That doesn't mean the plot is a railroad, but could instead be what makes the most narrative or dramatic sense. If there's a good couple hours left in the session, the DM might make a call that extends the adventure a little longer. If they're nearing the end of the session, then the decision becomes one that wraps up that story



What you describe here might be one approach to the GM's job at the table. It is not the only one. For instance, it depends upon there being "a plot", "a story" which the GM is (quite literally, in your examples) curating and parcelling out to the players. I personally don't see how that doesn't count as railroading. It's certainly not a case of the players determining outcomes in the fiction.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> Well this is pretty much the crux of it, isn't it?



 In the context of this, the 5e D&D forum, I think so, yes. 



> If the only two ways to do RPGing were sandbox or railroad, then what you say would be correct. But they're not.



 I offered two other alternatives besides sandbox or railroad (though I do think they're a fair dichotomy to impose on 5e D&D campaigns, in general, not the only one, of course, there's 'tailored' vs 'status quo' as well, for instance - and with similar sorts of results).  To wit:  an actual story with an author (OK, not an RPG), or "some kind of collective storytelling exercise" (which, I think, describes, however flippantly and dismissively, quite a lot of RPG and RPG-like activities).


> ... Consider the dramatic pacing inherent in a game like MHRP or 4e, ...



 Two examples.



> Again, this seems to assume that all systems are, more-or-less, process sim, modelling the ingame causal processes ("truth") and hence that to get story (ie "fiction") we need the GM to use force at various points to suspend or override the mechanics.



 Not all systems, but at least the one this forum is about.



> It's now 25 years since the first publication of Over the Edge, and nearly 35 years since the James Bond game was published.



 More examples of RPGs that I premptively dismissed from consideration as "collective storytelling." 



Not that there's anything wrong with that.


----------



## pemerton

Imaculata said:


> If you kill him off and they are not emotionally invested, then what's the point?



Just to give a couple of possibilities - they might care about the organisation the NPC leads, or some family member who will be left grieving or impoverished by the death. Or it might simply be a device for managing the unfolding of the fiction - an unexpected assassination can be a useful tool for making the emergence of some other conflict, which the players are invested in, seem plausible within the fiction.



Imaculata said:


> Sometimes a death has to hit home, and actually feel sad. You can't do it often, but if you do it at least once, it gives the story a bit of emotional weight. It's like killing off Gandalf at the end of Fellowship of the ring, but then not bringing him back.



 [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is not saying that there shouldn't be deaths of NPCs which make the players feel the force of it. He's saying (or at least, I'll paraphrase him as saying) that if the players are invested, then he would have the death be a consequence of the action in which they participate (presumably a consequence of failure in most cases, but not necessarily always).

For instance, let's try to imagine how the Moria scene might emerge from resolution in a RPG in which Gandalf is an ally or resource that Frodo's player brought into play (Gandalf the White would then be an instance of Aragorn's player "reactivating" that resource). In that case, Gandalf dying to the Balrog would be a consequence of failed action resolution, probably on Frodo's part but perhaps on Aragorn's (eg maybe Aragorn's player fails a check, and Frodo's player activates some mechanic that lets him/her give Aragorn some retrospective bonus, but at a cost - and so Frodo's player sacrifices Gandalf to pay that cost).

Or if you envisage a more traditional set-up, where Gandalf is a self-standing NPC ally, then Gandalf's death will be the result of combat resolution in which the players took part, and failed to adequately ensure the survival of their ally.

In these sorts of scenarios the players feel the NPC's death - it's far from nothing - but it's not the sort of "cheap shot" that Campbell referred to. It's a tangible outcome of the players' failed action resolution.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> this seems to assume that all systems are, more-or-less, process sim
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not all systems, but at least the one this forum is about.
Click to expand...


5e has a non-sim Inspiration mechanic, which enables players (and their PCs) to try harder in a context where stuff they are committed or connected to in some fashion is on the line.

It has a non-sim damag mechanic (hp), plus non-sim action economy which allows some characters (eg fighters, via action surge) to try harder.

I think the main obstacle to using 5e to play a non-sandbox game that generates story without railroading/illusion would be non-combat resolution system. I see three issues, which I'll address from easiest to hardest to sort out:

(1) The guidance on DC setting and when to call for checks is a bit vague. But the latter can easily be resolved by treating "uncertain" as going to dramatic uncertainty rather than causal uncertainty, and so running the game in a more-or-less "say 'yes" or roll the dice" style.

(2) The rules around re-tries are even vaguer. But it would be very straightforward to use "let it ride", in just the same way as Stephee Radley-MacFarland advocated for 4e in a "Save My Game" column.

(3) Bounded accuracy makes non-combat resolution very dependent on the swing of the d20 rather than the investment of the player (via the play of his/her PC). This is an issue for "say 'yes' or roll the dice". Liberal use of the inspiration rules might help with this, however - advantage is a strong buff to try to take the focus off the d20 alone and back onto the PC's connection to the action.​
At higher levels there is the perennial risk of spell-casting drowining out all other considerations, and so "(mostly) vanilla narrativist" 5e might work best from (say) 3rd level to (say) 10th or so, but the bulk of play seems to happen in that level range in any event.

So even confined to consideration of 5e I don't see that your implicit assumptions hold good.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> stuff



Are you *actually* interested in people responding to the question in your first post, or is that just bait so you can argue with them about how they're wrong? Because it really feels like the latter. It feels like you have a pretty firm idea of what *you* think plot and railroading is already in mind.


----------



## Emerikol

Interesting thread.  Same old characters for the most part making the same arguments.  Still it's good to see how different folks pass time.

To me it comes down to the fact that roleplaying conceptually has fractured.  Some nice terms to help us communicate would be helpful.  I'm sure if I attempted to describe the various styles someone would argue with me.  The key of course is having fun and if your group is having fun then the rest of the world can bug off you are doing it right.

I prefer a rules light, DM empowered, moderate to heavy options game that is ran in a decent sized sandbox where the world is either designed up front or The DM understands it well enough to make judgments or call for probabilistic die rolls.   I want the players to be able to change the world and arrive at different outcomes.  I want them to do so by defeating their enemies and overcoming the challenges of the game.  I generally do not like styles that involve players inventing the world and/or it's contents themselves.  Perhaps with some minor leeway on backstory at character creation.

But that is just what I like.  I'm sure those who traditionally love to oppose me will point out how much more fun I or my friends would enjoy their style more.  I wouldn't.  But I'm glad there are styles to suit all tastes.  My love of pizza does not burden me with the need to force it on any of you.


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## robus

pemerton said:


> For instance, we're told that "An adventure is a series of scenes and encounters that comprise a single, complete story." But what marks a story as complete? Who gets to decide that nothing more is at stake? If it's the GM, then we're right back in the realm of GM force - so the idea of an adventure as a meaningful unit of play brings railroading with it per se; if it's the players, then when they decide that there's nothing more at stake for their PCs presumably the campaign is done.




Well one hopes that the party has some objective that want to accomplish: rescue the dragon from the prince, find the lost treasure of Pemerton, whatever, and when they accomplish that (or fail in some obvious manner - there's nothing worse that an aimless session!) then that adventure is complete.

Of course if you prefer games without objectives that's cool but, for me, when I was playing in a PotA game we soon became completely unrooted from any objective. At the beginning of each session I would find myself asking, what are we trying to do and why? It was quite unsatisfying


----------



## FrogReaver

Jester David said:


> Are you *actually* interested in people responding to the question in your first post, or is that just bait so you can argue with them about how they're wrong? Because it really feels like the latter. It feels like you have a pretty firm idea of what *you* think plot and railroading is already in mind.




 There is nothing wrong with having an opinion and starting a thread to get other opinions and see how others respond to your opinion.  Why do you always accuse others of starting a thread to tell others they are wrong?


----------



## pemerton

robus said:


> Well one hopes that the party has some objective that want to accomplish: rescue the dragon from the prince, find the lost treasure of Pemerton, whatever, and when they accomplish that (or fail in some obvious manner - there's nothing worse that an aimless session!) then that adventure is complete.



But will all their objectives be satisfied simultaneously? If so, then presumably the campaign is at an end. If not, then what marks out the adventures in any strong way?



robus said:


> Of course if you prefer games without objectives that's cool



The issue is not a lack of objectives. It's the proliferation of them!


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> Are you *actually* interested in people responding to the question in your first post



Yes. But if there response is to say that, for a campaign to have a story there _must_ be a plot that is created by the GM, then I'm going to explain why I disagree. Because I play in campaigns with stories, and they do not have a plot that was created by me as GM.


----------



## pemerton

Emerikol said:


> I prefer a rules light, DM empowered, moderate to heavy options game that is ran in a decent sized sandbox where the world is either designed up front or The DM understands it well enough to make judgments or call for probabilistic die rolls.



That is the first style that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] called out in post 73 upthread, using "Free Kriegsspiel" as a label but pointing beyond it's literal meaning to the sort of game you describe. I associate this style especially with B/X, Classic Traveller, and Gygaxian AD&D.



Emerikol said:


> I want the players to be able to change the world and arrive at different outcomes.  I want them to do so by defeating their enemies and overcoming the challenges of the game.



I assume you think it is up to the _players_, rather than the GM, to decide who the PCs will try and ally with, and who they will oppose?

I would also guess that you tend to think of "story" as something comes out after the game has been played, as a retrospective reflection on the events of play.


----------



## Jester David

FrogReaver said:


> There is nothing wrong with having an opinion and starting a thread to get other opinions and see how others respond to your opinion.  Why do you *always* accuse others of starting a thread to tell others they are wrong?



Emphasis added. 
Always? When have I done it before?

Having an opinion is fine. Starting a thread to get other opinions is fine as well. (Admirable even.) Starting a thread to get other opinions and then shooting them all down when they don't conform to your viewpoint....that raises warning flag. 
Message boards are great for getting other people's viewpoints and getting some new ideas. But if someone wants to just espouse their own opinions, a blog is better suited to that. And if they just want to bait someone into an argument...

The OP makes a pretty bold statement, declaring that saying "no" to a player initiated idea is railroading. That's going to rub people the wrong way.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> One can tell, from a single event of play, whether that event of play was driven by the GM or the players (assuming one has all the relevant information). And given that that is what I'm interested in when it comes to the content of a railroad, that's enough to answer my question.
> 
> (There might be other questions - is the occurrence of GM force atypical? or (perhaps more likely) is allowing an episode of play to unfold in a player-driven way atypical? But these are questions that would be relevant, say, to deciding whether to join a group. They don't seem to help me analyse the play that is taking place, or how various approaches and techniques are informing that play.)




I've been out of town the last few days so I'm about behind.  I'll try to catch up and post further in the coming two days.  However, I just wanted to say one thing right quick.

Examining specific moments of play for overt GM Force or covert GM Force (Illusionism), and the implications on play, is much more compelling to me than trying to reslog through the "what is a railroad" conversation.  You can get there by examining the first, but trying to reverse engineer railroad back to Force is a much more fraught conversation.

I think maybe I'll throw up a quick play example and analyze how system enables or disables Force in that moment of play.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> Yes. But if there response is to say that, for a campaign to have a story there _must_ be a plot that is created by the GM, then I'm going to explain why I disagree. Because I play in campaigns with stories, and they do not have a plot that was created by me as GM.



I said all campaigns have a plot, not that all of them have a plot created by the DM. 

But just because the DM is the one generating the plot doesn't mean it's a railroad. A GM can create a sandbox with a plot. Or a metaplot that just unfolds in the background of the campaign. Or a flexible plot that the players can influence and alter. 
Railroad campaigns and sandbox campaigns are two ends of a spectrum. 

Previously I said 'What determines if a campaign is a railroad or not is if the players can deviate from the plot or ignore the presented plot's existence." In that statement I was implying "the DM's plot", but I guess I need to say it explicitly: 
*What determines if a campaign is a railroad or not is if the players can deviate from the Gamemaster's plot or ignore the presented plot's existence*.

thinking on the topic at hand:

From your OP:


pemerton said:


> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.



Thinking on this, this statement could be condensed to "saying no to a player initiated plan is railroading." 
But, by that logic, so would saying yes. Because both are a judgement calls. The DM making a decision.

But where is the line? They asked for a very reasonable thing: container. 
But what if it had been unreasonable? A large diamond? A stuffed capybara? A +1 sword? Would it be railroading not to say "no" and roll randomly?


----------



## Campbell

I have gotten a measure of value from this discussion. I find the intersection of player judgement calls in roleplaying games, what motivates them, and the impact those motivations have on the resultant fiction deeply interesting. For one thing, I find the clarity with which some posters have openly advocated for playing along with a GM's prepared story deeply refreshing compared to previous discussions we have had in the past. I also have enjoyed some of the distinctions we have argued about between OSR styles, scene framing, and principled play of the sort I must enjoy running interesting. This sort of deep dive into the thought processes we have while playing roleplaying games is in my opinion crucial stuff. I am personally of the opinion that we should all be aware of our decision making processes during play so we can get to what works for us. I'm not here to convince anyone that they would have more fun if they simply did the things I do. After all there is no way to determine what is fun for anyone who is not me. You cannot design for fun.

While I do prefer Apocalypse World to D&D, I am also soon going to be slated to play in a 5e game that will be run in a mostly Free Kriegsspeil/OSR way. I also play in a very GM's story focused Vampire game - mostly for the company, but also because the blank spaces between adventures has been brilliant. I'm also in an amazing Blades in the Dark game. I have also run RuneQuest, Vampire - The Requiem, Demon - The Descent, and Exalted using lessons I have learned from running Apocalypse World. I play and run a variety of games. Discussing ways to utilize techniques in different games is fun for me.


----------



## hawkeyefan

I'm curious what a game without DM judgment calls would look like. 

I mean, I'm all for shared authorship of some form, even in systems that aren't designed around that type of game, but every game requires judgment from the DM. And yes, such judgment will at times determine player success or failure.


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> I said all campaigns have a plot, not that all of them have a plot created by the DM.
> 
> But just because the DM is the one generating the plot doesn't mean it's a railroad. A GM can create a sandbox with a plot.



How so? What does it mean for a sandbox to have a GM-authored plot - which is to say, following the definition that Google provided me, GM authored _main events . . .  devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence_?

In a sandbox, more or less by definition, the GM does not author the main events, nor contrive them into an interrelated sequence. To the extent that such a thing occurs at all - and it may not - it is done by the players.



Jester David said:


> a flexible plot that the players can influence and alter.



A brown duck is a type of duck; but a fake duck is not - it's some sort of non-duck.

Similarly, on the face of it a "flexible plot" is not a plot at all. Unless the "flexibility" is confined to minor variations and colour (which is the case eg in at least some APs), in which case it remains GM authored and the flexibiity is merely superficial.



Jester David said:


> Railroad campaigns and sandbox campaigns are two ends of a spectrum.



But there are other approaches that are neither railroads nor sandboxes - [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] described some upthread, and I responded with reference to actual play experience. There are approaches to play - eg Campbell's "Principle GMing" which are neither railroads nor sandboxes.



Jester David said:


> From your OP:
> <sip>
> 
> this statement could be condensed to "saying no to a player initiated plan is railroading."
> But, by that logic, so would saying yes. Because both are a judgement calls. The DM making a decision.



Correct. That is why, as I posted somewhere upthread, I GM according to "say 'yes' or roll the dice". If nothing is at stake, say 'yes'. But if something - what, in the OP, I called an _outcome_ - is at stake, then a check is framed and the dice are rolled.



Jester David said:


> what if it had been unreasonable? A large diamond? A stuffed capybara? A +1 sword? Would it be railroading not to say "no" and roll randomly?



If the request has nothing to do with anything at stake then saying "no" is no big deal. Also, some of those may contradict established backstory. But not the large diamond - so that would call for framing a check and a roll.

Something similar actually happened in the same session - the PC mage, whose brother was the decapitated one, has been looking for his brother's spell book or scroll of the Lightning Storm spell (think Meteor Swarm but lighting). The player asked, "Can I see any scrolls or books on his person?" I set the DC high, because it would have to be something that the mage whose tower it was hadn't found and taken, yet that the PC mage could notice in the midst of a struggle. The roll succeeded, and the mage was able to notice that a piece of paper had been fused to the inside of the decapitated mage's robe by an earlier magical misadventure (that occurred two or three sessions ago).


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> every game requires judgment from the DM.



Plausible (assuming the game has a GM).



hawkeyefan said:


> such judgment will at times determine player success or failure.



Why?


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Plausible (assuming the game has a GM).




Fair enough. Given the topic, I figured that was a safe assumption...but of course there are some games that don't have a GM of any sort. 



pemerton said:


> Why?




How can they not?


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> How so? What does it mean for a sandbox to have a GM-authored plot - which is to say, following the definition that Google provided me, GM authored _main events . . .  devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence_?
> 
> In a sandbox, more or less by definition, the GM does not author the main events, nor contrive them into an interrelated sequence. To the extent that such a thing occurs at all - and it may not - it is done by the players.




Even a sandbox campaign may have various sequences of events planned by the GM that PCs may or may not interact with or that may affect them. Is there some reason those aren't plots? They just may not be the only plot or main plot.




> A brown duck is a type of duck; but a fake duck is not - it's some sort of non-duck.
> 
> Similarly, on the face of it a "flexible plot" is not a plot at all. Unless the "flexibility" is confined to minor variations and colour (which is the case eg in at least some APs), in which case it remains GM authored and the flexibiity is merely superficial.




Not really, particularly since the whole point AP-style campaigns is to resolve the conflicts that the plot of the AP sets up. Exactly how these are resolved can vary and change how some elements of the plot unfold, potentially significantly changing them.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> How so? What does it mean for a sandbox to have a GM-authored plot - which is to say, following the definition that Google provided me, GM authored _main events . . .  devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence_?



Yes, that is the definition of a plot. And if you asked your players to write down the plot of your games from the start of the campaign to the present, there'd be a series of interrelated sequences making up the main events of the game. 
In this instance, "the writer" is the entire table and not a singular individual. 
While you as the DM might not be authoring the plot, there still is a plot.



pemerton said:


> In a sandbox, more or less by definition, the GM does not author the main events, nor contrive them into an interrelated sequence. To the extent that such a thing occurs at all - and it may not - it is done by the players.



Ummmm... no. That's not what the term means.

Turning to Google myself:
_A sandbox is a style of game in which minimal character limitations are placed on the gamer, allowing the gamer to roam and change a virtual world at will. In contrast to a progression-style game, a sandbox game emphasizes roaming and allows a gamer to select tasks. Instead of featuring segmented areas or numbered levels, a sandbox game usually occurs in a “world” to which the gamer has full access from start to finish.

A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game._
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3952/sandbox-gaming

Nothing in that denotes an absence of a plot. Just not a linear plot. But, when the campaign was done, the players will be able to describe and summarise the plot of the sandbox. 

Player agency is a vital part of sandboxes. There's choice. Opposed to railroads where there is none: 
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Railroading
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=railroading


What you seem to be describing is a _*player-driven campaign*_. Which is something entirely different. It's unrelated. 
Sandbox and railroad occupy an X-Y axis on a chart. The amount of player agency in the story would be a Z axis. In theory, you could have a player-driven sandbox, but you could also have a player-driven railroad where one or all players have a campaign planned in their head and the DM is just working towards their goal. If in your game 3/4 of the table were mostly passive and one player made all the decisions and drove all the action that would very much be a player-driven railroad. 



pemerton said:


> A brown duck is a type of duck; but a fake duck is not - it's some sort of non-duck.
> 
> Similarly, on the face of it a "flexible plot" is not a plot at all. Unless the "flexibility" is confined to minor variations and colour (which is the case eg in at least some APs), in which case it remains GM authored and the flexibiity is merely superficial.



No.
Just no. You're missing the point. Completely.

The DM can present the plot. The villain, the situation, the overarching story. What the campaign is about. Say, finding the Rod of Seven Parts. Or destroying the One Ming in the fires of Mount Dread. Really, every single event occurring in the world that is happening without direct input from the players.
A railroad would be if the players have no real choice but to follow the DM's plan. The can't reject the quest or find an alternate path. There's no choices, and a best only the illusion of choice (no matter if they turn left or right they have the same encounter). 
However, the plot _*can*_ be flexible. Going left or right leads to very different results. The players might surprise the DM by doing very different things than expected and having cunning plans. They're still going to the same destination (from A to B) but they're taking a very different route than planned. It's not a railroad so much as a flowchart with a set Start and Stop, but a infinite number of branching paths.

A railroad is playing the original Dragonlance modules as written. They're railroady as eff, with even the resolution of some of the villain fights being predetermined. 
A flexible plot maintains the War of the Lance and might even start the same, but diverges when the players have other plans. The players say "eff Tarsis. Lets just head north to New Sea and get a boat there". It becomes flexible when the DM decides to run with it, changing the adventure. The overall plot might still be the same (get to the Whitestone Council, find the Dragonlances, get the metallic dragons into the fight, beat Takhisis, win the war) but the events occurring aren't happening as planned. Some of the major beats can still occur, and the DM can still lead the players to some of the major set-pieces, but the players have much more agency to make decisions. 

That's an extreme example as it's using prepublished modules and requires more rewriting. In a homebrew situation the same can occur, where the DM has the basic plot outlined in their head and the expected beats, but the players go in the opposite direction while still planning on fulfilling the overall goal presented. 
Saying "no" doesn't mean the game is a railroad. It's not taking away a player's choice, it's just limiting their options. Similarly, saying "yes" adds options. 



pemerton said:


> But there are other approaches that are neither railroads nor sandboxes - [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] described some upthread, and I responded with reference to actual play experience. There are approaches to play - eg Campbell's "Principle GMing" which are neither railroads nor sandboxes.



Again, there are not just railroads and sandboxes. Things aren't either-or. There's not neat little categories that games solely fit. Games have a range. Something can be mostly a sandbox. Or be 75% sandbox. Or start on the rails and become a sandbox. Or each session could be tightly scripted by the DM but the players make choices at the end of each session that determines the direction the next session. 



pemerton said:


> Correct. That is why, as I posted somewhere upthread, I GM according to "say 'yes' or roll the dice". If nothing is at stake, say 'yes'. But if something - what, in the OP, I called an _outcome_ - is at stake, then a check is framed and the dice are rolled.



Then why do you need a DM? 

Seriously. 

The players can determine the odds of success just as well as you. The table can agree on the probability and roll. If you're not making any decisions and just randomly determining events in the game, you're redundant. Your players can replace you with random encounter tables and agreed upon probability. 
Dump your DM screen, roll up a player character, and move to their side of the table. 

Heck, the DMG even has you covered. Read page 269. It's discussed as an option. And you can probably look at many other DM-less games for inspiration.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This seems to assume that "the plot", if it is to exist at all, must be authored by the GM



Well, unless one's intent is to run a complete sandbox with no ongoing backstory whatsoever, the plot or backstory has to come from somewhere...and in a homebrew setting that source has to be the DM, at least to start with.



> But that assumption is simply false. And not just false in an abstract or theoretical "it might be otherwise" fashion, but in the very concrete "I am currently GMing 5 campaigns - two 4e, one MHRP, one Cortex Fantasy hack and one Burning Wheel - in which there is no such thing as "the plot" in your sense.



Then how do the characters/players know what's going on and-or what to do and-or what impact their actions* may have beyond the immediate?  If there's no plot or backstory at all they're operating in a vacuum.  And if there is a plot or backstory then it's come from you, the DM, even if only to get things started.  What happens to it after that is randomly dependent on many things not least of which are dice.

* - before these actions are done.



> Yes. But if there response is to say that, for a campaign to have a story there must be a plot that is created by the GM, then I'm going to explain why I disagree. Because I play in campaigns with stories, and they do not have a plot that was created by me as GM.



Then where did the plot come from, if one is present at all?



> I would also guess that you tend to think of "story" as something comes out after the game has been played, as a retrospective reflection on the events of play.



It's a bit of both.  The DM probably has a story or plot in mind going in, and some of it even might see play, but the actual story of the played game isn't complete (and thus can't be fully told) until the campaign is over.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In a sandbox, more or less by definition, the GM does not author the main events, nor contrive them into an interrelated sequence. To the extent that such a thing occurs at all - and it may not - it is done by the players.



In which case I'd suggest the DM is doing her own game a disservice.

Here's why:

In a true sandbox the PCs are liable to explore around until they find something worth doing (i.e. an adventure of some sort) then do it, move on, explore around, repeat.  Any DM can run this.  But a good DM will dig through the many various bread-crumb elements of what happens and find connections, and thus build a story out of it...assuming the players do not; and sometimes the DM will see different connections between the bread crumbs than the players do.  In any case, to me there's never anything wrong with a DM - once she's realized a trail of bread crumbs has formed during her game - seeding a few more bread crumbs into the mix and seeing what becomes of them.

It only becomes railroading if the characters can't choose to ignore them.



> Similarly, on the face of it a "flexible plot" is not a plot at all. Unless the "flexibility" is confined to minor variations and colour (which is the case eg in at least some APs), in which case it remains GM authored and the flexibiity is merely superficial.



For the purposes of this discussion I'd suggest ignoring AP's entirely.  They're a different breed of animal, and much more familiar with boxcars than the type(s) of game we're talking about here.



> Correct. That is why, as I posted somewhere upthread, I GM according to "say 'yes' or roll the dice". If nothing is at stake, say 'yes'. But if something - what, in the OP, I called an _outcome_ - is at stake, then a check is framed and the dice are rolled.
> 
> If the request has nothing to do with anything at stake then saying "no" is no big deal. Also, some of those may contradict established backstory. But not the large diamond - so that would call for framing a check and a roll.



A small battalion of my greedier PCs just pricked up their ears at the thought of a world where they can make large diamonds appear just by looking for them. 

Lan-"diamonds are forever"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> The OP makes a pretty bold statement, declaring that saying "no" to a player initiated idea is railroading. That's going to rub people the wrong way.



Sure. In the OP I expressly stated that I imagine others will see things differently.

But in replying to your posts I haven't taken any particular issue with your differing view from mine over what is a railroad. I've objected to your claims about what _always_ must be the case (around plot, GM authorship, etc).


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> How can they [ie GM judgements] not [sometimes determine player success or failure]?



I guess it turns (in part at least) on how strongly _determine_ is being used.

I took it to be fairly strong, as in _make it the case that the players succeed (or fail, as the case may be)_. If you mean _influence_ or _condition_, then I agree. Eg as I said in the OP, in setting a difficulty for a check to notice a container in the room, I have an influence on the prospects of player success or failure.

But if you really do mean _make it the case that the players succeed or fail_, then I'm still curious as to why. For my part, and to answer "How could they not?", it seems to me that if the GM sets a DC in accordance with established principles for the game, and those principles are in themselves coherent (eg they prescribe DCs that are amenable to success on the part of the players), then the GM is making judgement calls that don't determine (in the strong sense) player success or failure.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Well, unless one's intent is to run a complete sandbox with no ongoing backstory whatsoever, the plot or backstory has to come from somewhere...and in a homebrew setting that source has to be the DM, at least to start with.



The two most recent campaigns I have started are a 4e Dark Sun game, and (last weekend) a Cortex Fantasy Hack game. Here are links to session writeups for Dark Sun and Cortex fantasy.

In the Dark Sun campaign, here is how we worked out the temporal and geographic starting point for the campaign:



pemerton said:


> As the final part of PC building, and trying to channel a bit of indie spirit, I asked the players to come up with "kickers" for their PCs.
> 
> From The Forge, here is one person's definition of a kicker:
> 
> A Kicker is a term used in Sorcerer for the "event or realization that your character has experienced just before play begins."
> 
> For the player, the Kicker is what propels the character into the game, as well as the thing that hooks the player and makes him or her say, "Damn! I can't wait to play this character!"
> 
> It's also the thing that the player hopes to resolve at the end of the game. At the start of the next game with the same character, the resolution of the Kicker alters the character in some way, allowing the player to re-write the character to reflect changes.​
> In my case, I was mostly focused on the first of those things: an event or realisation that the character has experienced just before play begins, which thereby propels the character into the game. The main constraint I imposed was: your kicker somehow has to locate you within Tyr in the context of the Sorcerer-King having been overthrown. The reason for this constraint was (i) I want to be able to use the 4e campaign books, and (ii) D&D relies pretty heavily on group play, and so I didn't want the PCs to be too separated spatially or temporally.
> 
> The player of the barbarian came up with something first. Paraphrasing slightly, it went like this:
> 
> I was about to cut his head of in the arena, to the adulation of the crowd, when the announcement came that the Sorcerer-King was dead, and they all looked away.​
> So that answered the question that another player had asked, namely, how long since the Sorcerer-King's overthrow: it's just happened.



In other words, a part of the process of a player writing his PC's backstory settled that the game started in the arena at the moment of the sorcerer-king's assassination.

In the Cortex game, the starting point was worked out in this way:



pemerton said:


> Last week I bought the Cortex Plus Hacker's Guide and, knowing that one of our players would be in the US for a couple of weeks, I wrote up some PCs to run a Heroic Fantasy session.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The PCs were deliberately conceived so as to be suitable either for a Japanese or a Viking setting; when we played yesterday the players all voted for vikings, and so that's the way it went.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> After people chose their characters, and we voted on vikings over Japan, the next step was to work out some background. The PCs already had Distinctions and Milestones (that I'd written up, picking, choosing and revising from the Guide and various MHRP datafiles) but we needed some overall logic: and the swordthane needed a quest (one of his milestones) and the troll a puzzle (one of his milestones).
> 
> So it turned out like this: the Berserker (who has Religious Expert d8) had noticed an omen of trouble among the gods - strange patterns in the Northern Lights; and similar bad portents from the spirit world had led the normally solitary scout (Solitary Traveller distinction, and also Animal Spirit) to travel to the village to find companions; and the troll, a Dweller in the Mountain Roots, had also come to the surface to seek counsel and assistance in relation to the matter of the Dragon's Curse; and, realising a need for a mission, the village chieftain chose the noblest and most honourable swordthane of the village - the PC, naturally - to lead it.
> 
> And so the unlikely party of companions set out.



So the basic logic of the game - what it is that the PCs are trying to achieve - was established by the players, again as part of the process (in effect) of establishing PC backstory.

This is why I simply don't agree that the heavy listing of setting has to be done by the GM. 



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I play in campaigns with stories, and they do not have a plot that was created by me as GM.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then where did the plot come from, if one is present at all?
Click to expand...


The plot is created _in play_, by the play of the game.

Eg the PC arrives in the bedroom just as the mage he is hoping to take back to his dark naga master for sacrificial purposes is decapitated by an assassin. Knowing that his master wants to spill the blood of this mage, the PC thinks "I need a vessel to catch the blood". The player declares, as an action, "I look around for a suitable vessel to catch the blood, like a chamber pot or a jug." A check is framed and resolved, and it succeeds. So now that player has a chamber pot, and is collecting blood.

That's plot, and it doesn't depend upon GM authorship.

After some action dominated by the other PC, the two PCs escape the tower, the first one carrying the vessels of blood (the chamber pot having been established via a check, it's mere embellishment to also allow that there a jug as well and hence two vessels' worth of blood) and the other carrying two bodies - the decapitated mage, and the unconscious assassin (whom the body-carrying PC is hoping will help summon the spirit of the decapitated mage for interrogation purposes).

The PCs are now moving through the town. As just described, one of them is carrying two bodies. I call for a check - there is definitely something at stake here, so I'm not just going to "say 'yes'". The check fails, and so I narrate an encounter with the watch. The PCs try to persuade the watch to help them carry the bodies; it fails. The watch suspect they are murderers.

That's more plot, not authored by the GM. My contributions are (i) to call for the check - which is not an act of authorship, but an act of pacing management - and (ii) to narrate the consequence of failure. (Had the initial check succeeded, the PCs would have got their bodies and blood across town without trouble; had the persuasion attempt succeeded, the watch would have helped them with their body-snatching.)

The vessel-carrying PC tries to summon a spirit of the sky to push the watch members away, so that the two PCs can flee. Again, something is at stake so I'm not just gong to "say 'yes'". I call for a roll; it fails; the angry sky spirits hurl a bolt of lightning at the PC. Another check (analogous to a saving throw) establishes that although the lightning hurts him slightly, he doesn't spill his vessels of blood (again, something is at stake and so no "saying 'yes'").

That's more plot, once again emerging from the interaction between (i) PC action declarations, (ii) GM judgement about whether or not a check is needed, and (iii) narration of the consequences of failure of the framed check.

Notice also what is _not_ happening. There is no GM decision that no vessel can be found. There is no GM decision that the bodies are too heavy to carry. There is no GM decision that persuading the watch to help with body-snatching is too implausible. There is no GM decision that the sky spirits won't hear the PC's call for help because (say) to carry blood in an open vessel is an act of desecration. At each point, the _players_ choose what response their PCs make to the situation that confronts them; a check is framed; and the check is then resolved, with the players getting what they wanted on success and the GM getting to narrate the consequences of failure.

That's one example of how a game can have a plot without the GM writing one (either in advance or on the spot).



Lanefan said:


> A small battalion of my greedier PCs just pricked up their ears at the thought of a world where they can make large diamonds appear just by looking for them.



Your PCs seem to be making a category error! If the PC looks for a diamond they might find it - after all, there are diamonds in the world and there's no apriori reason why one of them may not be right here! - but it is not looking for it that makes it appear. It is looking for it that results in it being found. (Which is a pretty typical causal process.)

At the game table, there is a question of how the group decides whether or not the shared fiction includes a large diamond here and now. A dice roll against a DC is as good a method as any, and better than some.

(This is all assuming that the presence or not of the diamond is _an outcome_ - something of significance - and hence merits a rolling of the dice.)



Lanefan said:


> Then how do the characters/players know what's going on and-or what to do and-or what impact their actions* may have beyond the immediate?  If there's no plot or backstory at all they're operating in a vacuum.  And if there is a plot or backstory then it's come from you, the DM, even if only to get things started.



Again, simply not true in my experience. 15-odd years ago, in my OA Rolemaster campaign, a major plot point was the constables of heaven seeking to arrest one of the PCs - a fox spirit - for breaking the rules surrounding his banishment from heaven to earth. The whole idea that the character had been a heavenly spirit banished to earth was made up by the player - up until the player made up that bit of backstory, I assumed that the PC was a fox who was trying to turn into a human (like the movie Green Snake).

I've posted examples in this thread of players providing the core material and focus for the framing of the game: through authorship of PC backstory and goals; through action declarations in pursuit of those goals.

How do the players know what is going on and what is possible? From the logic of the agreed setting; of core tropes; of what the mechanics permit; of what is written into their backstories. For instance, in the Cortex session the player of the party leader, during negotiations with a giant chieftain, spent a plot point (roughly = a fate point in the Cortex engine) to establish, as a resource, a giant shaman in the chieftain's hall who agreed with the PCs about the need for the giant chieftain to help the PCs with their mission. He knew this was possible, because (i) the rules allows him to spend a point to create a resource, (ii) he has the Social Expert speciality and so is adept in making friends (ie Social resources), and (iii) we already knew that shamanic types are part of the setting because (a) vikings and (b) a seer was one of the pre-gens that I had written up (although no player had chosen to play it).

I'm not saying that what I've described in this post is the _only _way, or the best way to run a RPG. But I know, from experience, that it is _one_ way. (And is my favourite way.) And it doesn't depend upon the GM being sole or primary author of backstory, and it doesn't depend upon the GM to "lead" the players to adventure, and it doesn't depend upon the GM having authority over the plot. It does depend upon the players having a solid handle on the genre/trope/theme parameters of the game, and the GM having a solid handle on what the PC goals/drives/motivations/etc are. (For a fuller elaboration of these requirements, see my quote of Eero Tuovinen in post 88 upthread.)

EDITED TO ADD:



Jester David said:


> Then why do you need a DM?
> 
> Seriously.
> 
> The players can determine the odds of success just as well as you. The table can agree on the probability and roll. If you're not making any decisions and just randomly determining events in the game, you're redundant. Your players can replace you with random encounter tables and agreed upon probability.
> Dump your DM screen, roll up a player character, and move to their side of the table.



I actually find this very hard to take seriously. It seems to completely disregard most of what I've posted in this thread.

(1) How can the players determine the odds of success as well as me? They have an obvious and deep conflict of interest.

(2) What would make you say that "I'm not making any decisions"? Narrating consequences of failure, and framing the situation, are key decisions. But they're not decisions that establish the plot.

(3) What makes you refer to "randomly determining events in the game"? No where in any post have I referred to random determination of events. In fact, it's all deliberate. Hence a thread about _GM judgement calls_. (The players roll dice, which determines whether they succeed or fail. But the consequences of success aren't random - they've been chosen by the player. And the consequences of failure aren't random - they've been chosen by the GM.)

(4) What GM screen? The only time I ever used a screen is for an hour or two of a 4e game after I got one in a GM pack. I thought I'd see what it was like: it was a pain and seemed to add nothing useful to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]'s handy cheat sheets.

(5) This particular post makes me wonder whether you have any experience of playing the sort of game I'm describing, or even have any exposure to it as a phenomenon. It makes me wonder what you think games like Marvel Heroic, Burning Wheel, Dungeon World and the rest of the PtbA stable, etc, are actually about.


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> A sandbox game is also known as an open-world or free-roaming game.



Yes.



Jester David said:


> Nothing in that denotes an absence of a plot.



I didn't say otherwise. I said that a sandbox game _may not_ have a plot. That is to say, it may not have main events, _as in a film or novel_, forming an interrelated sequence. It may be a series of largely unconnected events with little narrative cohesion. I suspect that quite a bit of classic dungeon crawling was like this. And some contemporary OSR gaming is like this also: there are events (in the sense that play occurs), but not an _interrelated sequence of main events as in a novel or film_.



Jester David said:


> Just not a linear plot. But, when the campaign was done, the players will be able to describe and summarise the plot of the sandbox.



All plots are, by definition, linear - they are sequences of main events. (I'm putting to one side extreme avant garde novels and films. No one in this thread seems to be articulating that sort of approach to RPGing.) When the players summarise the events of the sandbox, they will fit into a linear (probably temporal) order.

*******************************



billd91 said:


> Even a sandbox campaign may have various sequences of events planned by the GM that PCs may or may not interact with or that may affect them. Is there some reason those aren't plots? They just may not be the only plot or main plot.



Well, they might be "plots" in the sense of "plans made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful" (the other main sense of the word offered by Google) - in this sense, a _plot_ is near enough to the same thing as a _conspiracy_.

But from the point of view of the story elements of a RPG game, what you describe sounds like backstory. But it's only a _plot_ - in the literary sense - if it is "the main events of a play, novel, film, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence." If the PCs never interact with said backstory, it can hardly be said to constitute _the main events of the RPG considered as a work similar to a novel or film_. If no one at the table but the GM knows or cares about them, they're manifestly not _the main events_. The stuff the PCs do is what makes up the main events of a RPG campaign.



Lanefan said:


> In a true sandbox the PCs are liable to explore around until they find something worth doing (i.e. an adventure of some sort) then do it, move on, explore around, repeat.  Any DM can run this.  But a good DM will dig through the many various bread-crumb elements of what happens and find connections, and thus build a story out of it...assuming the players do not; and sometimes the DM will see different connections between the bread crumbs than the players do.  In any case, to me there's never anything wrong with a DM - once she's realized a trail of bread crumbs has formed during her game - seeding a few more bread crumbs into the mix and seeing what becomes of them.
> 
> It only becomes railroading if the characters can't choose to ignore them.



But the same point I just made to billd91 applies: if the players, and hence their PCs, ignore these "breadcrumbs" then, ipso facto, they are not elements of the plot of the game, because they are not main events. The GM may be amazed by the beauty of the backstory s/he can see, but that doesn't make it the plot of the game. Hence my remark that "In a sandbox, more or less by definition, the GM does not author the main events, nor contrive them into an interrelated sequence. To the extent that such a thing occurs at all - and it may not - it is done by the players." If the players are free to ignore the GM's backstory, then only they can bring it about that that backstory is some component of the main events of the game.



Jester David said:


> The DM can present the plot. The villain, the situation, the overarching story. What the campaign is about. Say, finding the Rod of Seven Parts. Or destroying the One Ming in the fires of Mount Dread. Really, every single event occurring in the world that is happening without direct input from the players.
> A railroad would be if the players have no real choice but to follow the DM's plan. The can't reject the quest or find an alternate path. There's no choices, and a best only the illusion of choice (no matter if they turn left or right they have the same encounter).
> However, the plot _*can*_ be flexible. Going left or right leads to very different results. The players might surprise the DM by doing very different things than expected and having cunning plans. They're still going to the same destination (from A to B) but they're taking a very different route than planned. It's not a railroad so much as a flowchart with a set Start and Stop, but a infinite number of branching paths.



If the "plot" is flexible in the way you describe, then it seems that ipso facto it's not a plot. It is one of several candidate plots. Until the actual sequence of main events is established, the plot isn't established.

But what you describe is still, in my view, a railroad. If the end point is already known to the GM, then however colourful and exciting the detours along the way, they are ultimately being driven by the GM, with a pre-given outcome in mind.

The idea that a game in which the GM chooses the villain, the overarching story, what the campaign is about, might _not_ be a railroad is extremely foreign to me. I take it for granted that the players will choose the villains (ie their PCs' enemies), that what the campaign is about will be some sort of collaborative thing, and that the overarching story will be established via play. That's how I've been GMing since about 1986.

*******************************



Jester David said:


> Player agency is a vital part of sandboxes. There's choice. Opposed to railroads where there is none
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What you seem to be describing is a _*player-driven campaign*_. Which is something entirely different. It's unrelated.
> Sandbox and railroad occupy an X-Y axis on a chart. The amount of player agency in the story would be a Z axis.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Games have a range. Something can be mostly a sandbox. Or be 75% sandbox. Or start on the rails and become a sandbox.



If player agency is a vital part of a sandbox, then I don't see how it can be on a Z-axis that is independent of the X-Y axis from sandbox to railroad.

I simply don't see the rationale (other than unfamiliarity with other RPG styles) for asserting that sandbox and railroad form a spectrum. The modern indie-RPG scene is a reaction against White Wolf-era railroading and metaplot. These games are designed to deliberately differ from those railroads, precisely in being player driven. Gygaxian dungeoneering and Traveller-style sandboxes are also alternatives to railroading. But there is no spectrum, any more than hot dogs and pizza are on a spectrum while hamburgers are on an independent axis. In the latter case, they are all contrasting forms of bread-based fast food. Two involve buns (hot dogs, hamburgers). Two involve sausage (hot dogs, pizza). In other words, there are overlapping points of resemblance and difference. But no spectrum.

Likewise in the RPG case. The indie style has something in common with sandboxing (namely, being player driven rather than railroaded). But they are very far from the same (eg the indie style aims to yield plot as an essential outcome of play; the sandboxing style treats plot as an optional extra, and doesn't try to guarantee that play will yield meaningful plot). Railroading, like the indie style, wants to yield plot as an essential outcome of play - but by very different means. And like the sandboxing style, the railroad style is likely to emphasise GM-led worldbuilding. Just as with bread-based fast foods, there are overlapping points of resemblance and difference. But no spectrum.

And the indie-style RPGs are certainly nothing like X% railroad, 100-X % sandbox. Even if that's coherent - and I'm not persuaded that it is, unless as a description of the proportion of episodes of play over time exemplifying each approach - it is nothing like an accurate description of the modes of play that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] described.



Jester David said:


> If in your game 3/4 of the table were mostly passive and one player made all the decisions and drove all the action that would very much be a player-driven railroad.



No it wouldn't. If one player drove all the action it might be a poor game, but it wouldn't be a player-driven railroad, because that player wouldn't know what was going to happen. That can't be known until the actions are declared, the dice rolled and the consequences thereby established.



Jester David said:


> In theory, you could have a player-driven sandbox, but you could also have a player-driven railroad where one or all players have a campaign planned in their head and the DM is just working towards their goal.



Can you explain how the "player-driven railroad" you describe would work?

How would the players communicate to the GM what is in their head? Who would control worldbuilding? What would the point of action resolution be? Why would the players even declare actions for their PCs, if they know in advance what the answer from the GM is going to be?

I'm having some trouble envisaging what you have in mind here.


----------



## Imaculata

I think by definition, a railroad is when the players want to do something, and the DM obstructs this by forcing something to happen that he had planned all along. 

-A good example is my wizard trying to surrender to the bandits and not fight them, and the DM forcing a battle anyway.
-Another good example is the DM declaring that the villain got away, despite him having no logical way to do so, and blocking the players from catching him.

I've seen the term railroad-campaign being thrown around a lot in this discussion. I would assume this means a campaign in which the DM is constantly obstructing the players, and making sure that nothing goes off script. I want to be sure that we all agree that this is different from just playing a linear campaign. If the DM decides to run a linear adventure module, and the players are all along for the ride, then its not a railroad campaign, because no one is being obstructed in their actions.


----------



## Maxperson

Imaculata said:


> True for the latter, but I disagree on the former. See, the Marquis died in an instant, due to a violent explosion that would kill any normal mortal. Now, technically I could have decided that he was wounded, and allow them to roll heal checks. But I decided that it killed him instantly, and also buried him underneath a lot of rubble. So, I don't feel I was taking options away from them. The guy simply died before they could act, which is kind of how an assasination often goes.



I'm not talking about after the explosion.  I'm talking about the players/PCs doing something unexpected and finding the explosives in advance.  There have been many times when I've set something up that I thought would result in a death or some other effect, only to have a player announce that they are concerned about something and will be searching the area before the event happens.  Would you allow them to prevent the death in such a circumstance?  If no, then you are railroading them.


----------



## Maxperson

Warmaster Horus said:


> It's completely in a DM's purview to provide paths and encouragement on where they want the story to go.  If the players don't groove with that direction then the DM can change what they're doing to better accommodate the players wishes.
> 
> I'm not saying that railroading doesn't exist.  I've been down that road a few times.  But the idea that the DM is an impartial arbitrator there only to serve the whims of the players in their game is too far the other way.  DMs typically put hours into creating their game so they can tell a story they thought of.  They have a right to promote that story in play.




There is a difference between providing a path and encouragement, and forcing the players down a path.  Setting up the Marquis to die is providing a path and encouragement.  Telling the player that a search of the area including the Marquis chair automatically fails to turn up the explosives so that he can die like you plan is forcing the players down that path.  Forcing the players down a path is railroading.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Yes. In the post to which you replied, I said that "sole-authored fiction, the author deliberately introduces failures and successes as part of the modulation of the pacing of the story". But a RPG, at least as I prefer to play it, is not sole-authored fiction. There are multiple participants (GM, players) performing different roles, and the emergence of drama is a function of the interaction of those roles.




I brought up sole authored drama to show you that drama can occur without the need for a die roll.  In my game, my saying yes the bedpan was there would not be sole authored drama.  Since I'm setting myself into your example, I as the DM had not considered a bed pan when creating that event.  The player brought the bed pan up and I said yes.  That's the two of us jointly creating that drama without a die roll.



> I'm not sure what you mean by "thing", here.



Whether or not an object is present, or whether an action will be successful or not.



> In the scenario I described in the OP, it's not uncertain, once the PC has the blood in the vessel, whether or not the blood stays there. That is to say, success is binding as far as the fiction is concerned, until the player declares some other action, itself of significance, that puts that success at stake.
> 
> Thus, carrying the blood downstairs in the chamberpot does not require a roll. Nothing new is at stake - having the blood be downstairs rather than upstairs does not have any dramatic significance - and the player has already established the PC's success in obtaining the blood.




I thought the roll was to see if the chamber pot/bed pan was there.



> But when a player declares an action that does put something of significance at stake, then I don't see that rolling causes a _lack_ of drama. Eg, as happened in my session, carrying the vessels of blood through the town while one's companion is lugging two bodies, one decapitated, can put the original success at stake. The player has declared some new action of dramatic significance - getting the blood from A (the tower) to B (somewhere where the character can take the next step in respect of it) - and so the dice come out again. (There are complexities here arising from party play. Eg who rolls the dice when two PCs are moving through town, only one is lugging bodies, but the two PCs are resolved to stick together. I'm eliding that complexity for the moment.)




See, if I can get a vessel with water from point A to point B without a roll, then I can get a vessel of blood from point A to point B without a roll.  Adding a roll because the blood is important to my PC is irritating, not dramatic.  The drama comes from the gathering of the blood and the later interaction with my mentor.  Will he approve of wizard blood?  Will he be angry?  Will the chamber pot be a sufficient vessel?  Those things are dramatic.


----------



## Maxperson

robus said:


> I gave XP but then I retracted it when I thought about this some more.
> 
> Having an endpoint does not imply a railroad. Having only *one route* to the endpoint *is* a railroad. I.e the PCs can't have any impact on the way to the endpoint. They have to go through all the obstacles that the DM sets up - no deviation, no upsets, everything running as planned in advance.
> 
> Your definition would imply that every published adventure is a railroad and yet the stories told about what happens in individual games makes me think that players (and GMs) have a lot of leeway to go off the rails at any point and rejoin if/when it suits them.




Having an end point is not a railroad.  Forcing the PC to hit that end point no matter what they do is a railroad.  What you are describing with your multiple routes is just a broader set of rails.  There is still nothing that the players can do to get off of the train.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> This is strange. LotR isn't the output of a RPG session. There were no players, no GM, no railroading and no "changes" to the plot.




He put LotR up as if it were being run as a game.  I went with that.  In such a situation, Tolkien becomes the DM and the company becomes PCs.  



> If we want to imagine some parallel thing that might be an RPG, we've got to ask questions like "Who decided to make the ring the focus of the game" (as per my post 87), "How was it determined that Shelob stung Frodo", "How was it determined that Frodo lived or died, and who knew that at what moment of play?", "What parameters governed Sam's picking up of the ring?", etc.




Sure we can.  We can look to see if things are allowed by the DM to change.  In the LotR, we know that Tolkien allows things to change.  The first time he ran that adventure, the PC(Elendil) was allowed to change his mind and say no he would not throw the ring into Mt. Doom and leave with it.  The second time he allowed the party to split rather than forcing them to remain together.  He allowed someone other than the ring bearer to carry the ring.  He allowed the ring bearer to change his mind.  And so on.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Maxperson said:


> There is a difference between providing a path and encouragement, and forcing the players down a path.  Setting up the Marquis to die is providing a path and encouragement.  Telling the player that a search of the area including the Marquis chair automatically fails to turn up the explosives so that he can die like you plan is forcing the players down that path.  Forcing the players down a path is railroading.




To be clear, yes, I totally agree. There should always be the option for the player not to do/choose/take action if one wishes to really claim they aren't railroading, at least by my understanding of the term. This is also where can encounter the illusion of choice, where a player is given the choice between two options but won't realistically take one of them due to practical/sensible reasons.

We can present the Marquis as someone who can be saved but in order to do so the players would need to search a room of several hundreds of people in a matter of minutes, a task that is not practically possible in most cases. Or the classic dungeon trick where they can go down Path A, a dark a dimly lit corridor, lined with cracked paving stones or Path B, a dark, dank slimy tunnel choked with noxious odours and swarming with small biting worms. Of course, players still get a choice, but a DM can certainly weight the choices to such an extent that they are, for all intensive purpose a non-choice _(inane arguments regarding semantics aside)_. As a great transvestite once said, ''Cake or Death?''.

[sblock]_Or my favourite - would you prefer your assignments submission date to be on Friday or Monday?_[/sblock]

Of course, with regards to railroading, how and when such choices are made can lead to claims of railroading. If the DM artificially construes events to create non-choices simply to keep them 'on track' then we can certainly claim said DM is railroading. And including and emphasising the danger of a choice compared to another will certainly influence some players. Likewise, a ridiculous choice _(cake or death) _ is so obviously a non-choice that some might argue the DM is simply better off not giving the choice, though you might be surprised how much even a non-choice can give the impression of choice and how even just the impression can influence the behaviour of a player. 

Like many things in life, it is the intent rather than the behaviour. I don't have pre-crafted narratives that must be followed, but I'm happy with nudging and shamelessly manipulating my players based on their wants and fears if I believe its in their best interest - and thankfully, they trust _(and expect!)_ me to do so.


----------



## Maxperson

Gardens & Goblins said:


> We can present the Marquis as someone who can be saved but in order to do so the players would need to search a room of several hundreds of people in a matter of minutes, a task that is not practically possible in most cases. Or the classic dungeon trick where they can go down Path A, a dark a dimly lit corridor, lined with cracked paving stones or Path B, a dark, dank slimy tunnel choked with noxious odours and swarming with small biting worms. Of course, players still get a choice, but a DM can certainly weight the choices to such an extent that they are, for all intensive purpose a non-choice _(inane arguments regarding semantics aside)_. As a great transvestite once said, ''Cake or Death?''.




If they have minutes, it's feasible for them to pick his chair in that time and a roll for success would be called for, even if the DC is hard.  I've also had situations where the players decide to go early to search a place just in case.  I'm not saying they should just be allowed to succeed, but there are situations where success could happen and if not allowed, would constitute railroading.  [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] seems to be saying that the death was 100% unavoidable no matter what, and that is sticking the PCs on rails.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Imaculata

Maxperson said:


> There have been many times when I've set something up that I thought would result in a death or some other effect, only to have a player announce that they are concerned about something and will be searching the area before the event happens.  Would you allow them to prevent the death in such a circumstance?  If no, then you are railroading them.




I would never block the players from searching for explosives, nor tell them that there are no explosives, when obviously there are. The assassination of the Marquis would still need to make sense. I cannot have him die to due to quantum-explosives that only appear once the players aren't looking. That would indeed be railroading, and I hate that myself.

But as a storyteller I can of course set up the scene in such a way, that the players have no reason to search for explosives. If I want the Marquis to die, then I can set the assassination up in such a way that the players will not see it coming, and so the event is pretty much unavoidable. If I don't give them any hints that the bad guys have planted explosives, or that they are planning "something", then there is no need to obstruct anything that the players are doing. 

And I think thats an important distinction. Scripting events is not the same as railroading. But a DM has to be cautious then that he frames the scene in such a way, that the script is safe from tempering by the players.

I don't think scripted events in a roleplaying session are bad. Sometimes you want your players to react to something that has happened, rather than to something that might happen. But you should never resort to railroading when that script is disrupted by the players.

To give an example: I had set up a scene in such a way, that the love interest of one of the players would get kidnapped by an evil pirate. He was pretty much guaranteed to get away with it, so they could rescue her later. He had also tied this love interest to the bow of his ghost ship, to discourage the players from trying to ram the ship, as he made his escape. 
But then one of the players did something totally unexpected: He summoned a water elemental and ordered it to save his love interest. Rather than railroading it, I decided to roll with it, because this was a very exciting moment, and a very cool action. If he succeeded, how epic would that be? And so I had the evil pirate fire his canons at the elemental, but with just 1hp left, he managed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. The maiden was saved, and the pirate captain had to flee without his prize.

And thats how I think a DM should handle a scripted scene. Sometimes the players will throw you a curveball, and you should just roll with it. Its these amazing victories that the players will talk about for months afterwards.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Maxperson said:


> If they have minutes, it's feasible for them to pick his chair in that time and a roll for success would be called for, even if the DC is hard.  I've also had situations where the players decide to go early to search a place just in case.  I'm not saying they should just be allowed to succeed, but there are situations where success could happen and if not allowed, would constitute railroading.  [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] seems to be saying that the death was 100% unavoidable no matter what, and that is sticking the PCs on rails.




Oh aye, you can give the chance of success but, in essence, the DC is set to such a high degree that barring something special, it will typically fail - or can be achieved at great cost the party/character. Which brings us back to the intent. If the DM is setting DCs and charging for choices simply to push characters to the next stage in their crafted narrative, as a player, I'd not be pleased and feel like I have lost an element of choice/agency. 

But if the DM is using such tools to shape play, then I wouldn't. For example, a player might set off on a course that will guarantee their death _('I want to stick my head in the rotating rusting mechanical portal')_ and the DM could then set the DC, choose appropriate language and commincate a cost to nudge the player away from such a choice, without directly vetoing the action. _(''You can certainly try though you'll need luck and lightning fast reflexes to dodge the razor sharp, blood encrusted mechanism if you wish to keep your head. Let's call it a very high Dex save.'' )_ 

In this example the DM could simply let the player poke their head into the portal and die. Instead, they give the player the choice - make a check and risk death. It's a non-choice really, for all but the most foolhardy players, but through framing the choice, providing the select details and setting the DC, the player is nudging the player away from having their characters take a course of action, for their own sake, without simply saying no/telling the player that such a choice is stupid/foolhardy. That kind of play/call on the DM's part I'm aok with. I don't mind be manipulated for my own good as a player _(tell me a joke sometime!)_ and can respect such a style of DMing that wishes to accommodate and support play while still providing choice. [sblock] _..and we have a player that will STILL stick their head in the rusted mechanical death portal.. because.... reasons!?_[/sblock]


----------



## Imaculata

Maxperson said:


> If they have minutes, it's feasible for them to pick his chair in that time and a roll for success would be called for, even if the DC is hard.  I've also had situations where the players decide to go early to search a place just in case.  I'm not saying they should just be allowed to succeed, but there are situations where success could happen and if not allowed, would constitute railroading.  [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] seems to be saying that the death was 100% unavoidable no matter what, and that is sticking the PCs on rails.




It was pretty much unavoidable, given the fact that I had not given them any hint that it was about to happen. But could they have stopped it? I guess technically if they had decided to search the seat of the Marquis, or managed to pull of some magical protection trick to save his life, then he could have survived. I would always roll with what makes sense. If the players search for explosives, and I'm planning to blow up the Marquis, then obviously they'll find the explosives.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> Yes.
> 
> I didn't say otherwise. I said that a sandbox game _may not_ have a plot. That is to say, it may not have main events, _as in a film or novel_, forming an interrelated sequence. It may be a series of largely unconnected events with little narrative cohesion. I suspect that quite a bit of classic dungeon crawling was like this. And some contemporary OSR gaming is like this also: there are events (in the sense that play occurs), but not an _interrelated sequence of main events as in a novel or film_.
> 
> All plots are, by definition, linear - they are sequences of main events. (I'm putting to one side extreme avant garde novels and films. No one in this thread seems to be articulating that sort of approach to RPGing.) When the players summarise the events of the sandbox, they will fit into a linear (probably temporal) order.
> 
> *******************************
> 
> Well, they might be "plots" in the sense of "plans made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful" (the other main sense of the word offered by Google) - in this sense, a _plot_ is near enough to the same thing as a _conspiracy_.
> 
> But from the point of view of the story elements of a RPG game, what you describe sounds like backstory. But it's only a _plot_ - in the literary sense - if it is "the main events of a play, novel, film, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence." If the PCs never interact with said backstory, it can hardly be said to constitute _the main events of the RPG considered as a work similar to a novel or film_. If no one at the table but the GM knows or cares about them, they're manifestly not _the main events_. The stuff the PCs do is what makes up the main events of a RPG campaign.
> 
> But the same point I just made to billd91 applies: if the players, and hence their PCs, ignore these "breadcrumbs" then, ipso facto, they are not elements of the plot of the game, because they are not main events. The GM may be amazed by the beauty of the backstory s/he can see, but that doesn't make it the plot of the game. Hence my remark that "In a sandbox, more or less by definition, the GM does not author the main events, nor contrive them into an interrelated sequence. To the extent that such a thing occurs at all - and it may not - it is done by the players." If the players are free to ignore the GM's backstory, then only they can bring it about that that backstory is some component of the main events of the game.
> 
> *******************************
> 
> If the "plot" is flexible in the way you describe, then it seems that ipso facto it's not a plot. It is one of several candidate plots. Until the actual sequence of main events is established, the plot isn't established.
> 
> But what you describe is still, in my view, a railroad. If the end point is already known to the GM, then however colourful and exciting the detours along the way, they are ultimately being driven by the GM, with a pre-given outcome in mind.
> 
> The idea that a game in which the GM chooses the villain, the overarching story, what the campaign is about, might _not_ be a railroad is extremely foreign to me. I take it for granted that the players will choose the villains (ie their PCs' enemies), that what the campaign is about will be some sort of collaborative thing, and that the overarching story will be established via play. That's how I've been GMing since about 1986.




What this is all telling me is that you have a very narrow definition of "plot" and very wide definition of "railroad". And clearly your definitions of these are out of sync with many of the rest of us.

The way I see things, there may be a main plot when you retrospectively look back on a campaign, particularly if you focus on one set of players and their PCs in a particular timeframe, but there are also supplementary plots and sequences of events occurring all the time that crisscross with the main plot. But then, I've also participated in campaigns that involved multiple groups, multiple PCs, multiple locations, all within the same campaign setting that we viewed as one campaign, not multiple campaigns. So each of these groups had main plots, some intersected with other groups, and all intersected with the advancing timelines the DM worked through his campaign from wars to summoning great demons to little quests for valuables or lost mines. So for me, in RPGs, plots are mutable, intersecting things, constantly being interfered with by both PCs and NPCs. Yet, since they all advance in time even if we do not interfere with them, they're all plots in the sense that they are all sequences of events causally linked together. 

Your definition of plot works from a literary viewpoint in which a novel presents a primary sequence of events (though a lot of multivolume serials tend push the envelope on that definition pretty hard). But in an RPG, I don't think that works very well, not if the DM is trying to present a world in which things happen that aren't simply focused around the PCs (or one group of PCs). To use a particular metaphor, it's like a 10,000 foot view of the setting, viewing the highlights, but if you zoom in to a 1000 foot or 100 foot setting, you'll see a lot more plots running at the same time.  Your definition of plot is what you get if you're running a single character-driven TV show, but mine is more like the Marvel Cinematic Universe (including the TV shows).

And as far as your definition of railroad, just because a DM has events planned out, if the PCs can choose to interfere with them or not interfere with them, I don't think it's a railroad. Plots operating in the background that affect the PCs in various ways, whether positively or negatively, aren't railroads if the choices the players make still matter. If the evil baron is oppressing the serfs particularly badly and I can choose to get involved or not get involved, then that baron plot isn't a railroad. If I came into the campaign playing a champion of truth and justice, then what that baron is doing may push my buttons enough that I can't let it pass by. But *that's my choice* because I chose to play a character who would care about such things.


----------



## Xetheral

pemerton said:


> But from the point of view of the story elements of a RPG game, what you describe sounds like backstory. But it's only a _plot_ - in the literary sense - if it is "the main events of a play, novel, film, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence." If the PCs never interact with said backstory, it can hardly be said to constitute _the main events of the RPG considered as a work similar to a novel or film_. If no one at the table but the GM knows or cares about them, they're manifestly not _the main events_. The stuff the PCs do is what makes up the main events of a RPG campaign.
> 
> But the same point I just made to billd91 applies: if the players, and hence their PCs, ignore these "breadcrumbs" then, ipso facto, they are not elements of the plot of the game, because they are not main events. The GM may be amazed by the beauty of the backstory s/he can see, but that doesn't make it the plot of the game. Hence my remark that "In a sandbox, more or less by definition, the GM does not author the main events, nor contrive them into an interrelated sequence. To the extent that such a thing occurs at all - and it may not - it is done by the players." If the players are free to ignore the GM's backstory, then only they can bring it about that that backstory is some component of the main events of the game.
> 
> ...
> 
> If the "plot" is flexible in the way you describe, then it seems that ipso facto it's not a plot. It is one of several candidate plots. Until the actual sequence of main events is established, the plot isn't established.




You refer to the dictionary definition as "the literary sense", but I think that's inacurrate. The dictionary definition is the common usage of the word, whereas the literary sense would include the extra nuance that arises when using the word in a literary context. In other words, to the extent that "plot" is _also_ a term of art in addition to an ordinary word, that more-specialized definition would be "the literary sense".

This is important, because in my experience "plot" in a literary context has a much broader definition than the dictionary provides, and is no way limited to "the main events". As evidence, consider the usage of the terms _side plot_ and _plot weaving_, both of which require the presence of multiple plots in a single work, a prospect that the dictionary definition does not allow for.

In an RPG context I think it makes sense to use the broader literary sense. Accordingly, I don't think it's right to use the dictionary definition to reject the concepts of flexible plots, breadcrumbs, or (optional) GM-provided plots within a sandbox.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I guess it turns (in part at least) on how strongly _determine_ is being used.
> 
> I took it to be fairly strong, as in _make it the case that the players succeed (or fail, as the case may be)_. If you mean _influence_ or _condition_, then I agree. Eg as I said in the OP, in setting a difficulty for a check to notice a container in the room, I have an influence on the prospects of player success or failure.
> 
> But if you really do mean _make it the case that the players succeed or fail_, then I'm still curious as to why. For my part, and to answer "How could they not?", it seems to me that if the GM sets a DC in accordance with established principles for the game, and those principles are in themselves coherent (eg they prescribe DCs that are amenable to success on the part of the players), then the GM is making judgement calls that don't determine (in the strong sense) player success or failure.




I think it's a sliding scale, largely. The DM will make a variety of judgments over the course of an adventure, and even more over the life of a campaign. Some, like the DC for a skill check let's say, will have a minor influence. Others will have a more profound impact. And while I would never say that ultimate success or failure should be determined by the DM, I do not think that every instance of DM judgment affecting PC success is some sort of transgression. 

With my gaming group, that is the dynamic that we expect; the game is at least partially subject to everyone at the table, and the DM most of all. Like I said, I'm all for allowing player authorship to some extent, but I expect that DM authorship will play a larger part in the proceedings. 

I also am not sure that I inherently value chance being the arbiter of events in lieu of DM judgment. I think there are times for each. 

I can see the possible value to limiting the amount of judgment required by the DM, depending on play style and group expectations, but there's no way to avoid it entirely. 

To go back to the example from your OP, the way I would handle that situation would be to determine if I thought a suitable receptacle was present based on the factors involved. I'm not sure I like the idea of a player skill check determining such....you described this as a way to preserve drama because the PC can succeed or fail. However, I don't know if that's really the case. Is his check to determine if he notices the item or is it used to determine if the item is actually present? The way I've read your comments is then latter; the PC's check determines if the chamber pot is present. 

So if the check isn't successful, then the chamber pot isn't there. How has the PC failed? The player has failed a check sure, but how has ther character failed? Perhaps I've misunderstood your premise.

Also, in your OP, you say that if the DM decides that "no chamber Pot is present in order to continue with the story as he wants it" (paraphrased) then that's no good. However, the DM can be just as likely to make a decision about the presence of the chamber pot without worrying about preserving his intended story. If the player does not elaborate on why he wants the chamber pot, and instead just asks if there is one, and the DM decides yea or nay, he's simply done so out of the same kind of reasoning that you used to determine the DC for the skill check. So in that sense, it is not that different.


----------



## Jester David

QUOTE=pemerton;7053743]Sure. In the OP I expressly stated that I imagine others will see things differently.


But in replying to your posts I haven't taken any particular issue with your differing view from mine over what is a railroad. I've objected to your claims about what _always_ must be the case (around plot, GM authorship, etc).[/QUOTE]
I kinda do though. 
Because it's not just a "differing view", it's redefining a phrase, which I take umbrage with. When everyone can just change the meaning of terms and phrases we lose the ability to communicate meaningfully. It's not only unhelpful, it's actively harmful to our ability to interact. Especially on message boards where we don't even have tone or body language or inflection to rely on. Language and shared terminology is super important.  


Additionally, "railroading" is almost a pejorative in the D&D community. So you coming along and saying the DM making any decision for the campaign that isn't narration (i.e. flavour), decided random, or determined by the player is railroading is poking people in a very sensitive topic. 
It's arguably the most inflammatory statement you could make without involving 4e, warlords, or hit points.




pemerton said:


> I actually find this very hard to take seriously. It seems to completely disregard most of what I've posted in this thread.



And yet some groups do it. 
There are quite a few games that exist and play without a gamemaster. The big one being _Fiasco_. And now with tools for random dungeon generators and the like it's easy to do for D&D.
Your group sounds like they would enjoy it. 




pemerton said:


> (1) How can the players determine the odds of success as well as me? They have an obvious and deep conflict of interest.



The argument could be made that how can one person determine odds of success as well as four or five? Plus, the DM is arguably biased and unable to accurately determine the odds of success. 


If one or even two players are being favourable to themselves the others can shut them down. Because they'll want things to be fair for them when they try and do something. Because everyone has a stake, it's a self-policing system.




pemerton said:


> (2) What would make you say that "I'm not making any decisions"? Narrating consequences of failure, and framing the situation, are key decisions.



Many GMs move the narration of actions to the player side. Some systems, like FATE, require it for the mechanics. The players can describe their own stress and consequences. 


If events have no unforeseen or expected consequences then descriptions of success and failure are just flavour. Like narrating a successful hit. Any PC can do that. They can take turns describing and narrating, and determining the social consequences of failure. 




pemerton said:


> But they're not decisions that establish the plot.



Actions have ripples. Unforeseen consequences. Killing a warlord creates a vacuum of power that is filled by someone. Deciding what happens for each of those actions is a decision. 
If failure doesn't have many consequences between the immediate and visible, the players can easily narrate those. 




pemerton said:


> (3) What makes you refer to "randomly determining events in the game"? No where in any post have I referred to random determination of events. In fact, it's all deliberate. Hence a thread about _GM judgement calls_. (The players roll dice, which determines whether they succeed or fail. But the consequences of success aren't random - they've been chosen by the player. And the consequences of failure aren't random - they've been chosen by the GM.)



If you set the consequences of failure and success then that's a judgement call. You're deciding what happens in each instance based on your ideas and opinions.




pemerton said:


> (5) This particular post makes me wonder whether you have any experience of playing the sort of game I'm describing, or even have any exposure to it as a phenomenon. It makes me wonder what you think games like Marvel Heroic, Burning Wheel, Dungeon World and the rest of the PtbA stable, etc, are actually about.



I have not played all those games but I have played some. But this is a 5th Edition D&D forums. We're here to talk 5e D&D. This is not a general/generic RPG forum. 
If I wanted to talk 4e I'd be posting here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumd...-1E-OD-amp-D)-D-amp-D-Variants-and-OSR-Gaming
If I wanted to talk other RPGs I'd be posting here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?2-Roleplaying-Games-General-Discussion


I don't have experience playing the exact time of game you're describing. But I have run a wide variety of d20 campaigns ranging in degree of railroading, from the original _Dragonlance_ modules and _Rise of the Runelords_ to several homebrew sandboxes, some where I established a firm plot that the players could interact with and some where the plot(s) is just events occurring in the background that can be engaged with or not. 


The campaign I'm running now is very player centric, focusing on personal goals and aspirations. Of the dozen sessions so far, 2/3rds have been based entirely on goals set by the players based on their backstories or generated spontaneously during play. 
In the last session one of the players managed some business dealings he initiated. He's involved himself in the kobold dragon blood trade (dragon blood is used to make sorcerers in my campaign setting). Another player arranged to supply a merchant with several casks of dragon blood on a regular basis in exchange for some magical items. 
Now, in this instance, there's no success or failure to negotiate. The dice barely left the table that session as I roleplayed and reacted as the NPCs. I could have rolled I suppose, but people in real life make trade agreements without dice all the time. The deal benefited both, so I say "yes".
But, there could be consequences. Now the rich, ambitious nobleman has numerous sorcerers under his control. The fallout from that is directly the result of the players and their actions. But I'm still making a decision about what the merchant decides to do next. And it's an unforeseen consequence that the players would not/ did not anticipate at the table, allowing the campaign to surprise them. 




pemerton said:


> I didn't say otherwise. I said that a sandbox game _may not_ have a plot.



It may not have a plot *in advance* but it will have a plot in retrospect. Which means it has an unfolding plot in the present.
Your life doesn't have a plot. But, if you write an autobiography, it will. 




pemerton said:


> That is to say, it may not have main events, _as in a film or novel_, forming an interrelated sequence. It may be a series of largely unconnected events with little narrative cohesion. I suspect that quite a bit of classic dungeon crawling was like this. And some contemporary OSR gaming is like this also: there are events (in the sense that play occurs), but not an _interrelated sequence of main events as in a novel or film_.



Well, we are using imperfect terms. There's no singular word to describe branching, nonlinear disociated  RPG plotlines. 




pemerton said:


> All plots are, by definition, linear - they are sequences of main events. (I'm putting to one side extreme avant garde novels and films. No one in this thread seems to be articulating that sort of approach to RPGing.) When the players summarise the events of the sandbox, they will fit into a linear (probably temporal) order.



First, "nonlinear narratives" are a thing. First example off the top of my head is _Memento_ but there are so many others. Which is hardly "avant garde". As are Choose Your Own Adventure novels. 


Sandbox RPG plots do not conform to the conventions of traditional narrative. Much like videogames. Open world video games have a sprawling net of a plot, with alternate routes and options. The first and third _DragonAge_ games were very nonlinear in the middle, as do all three _Mass Effect_ games. But they all have a plot. The experiences and life of my dovahkiin in _Skyrim_ are going to be very different from other players, but my playing still had a "plot".




pemerton said:


> But from the point of view of the story elements of a RPG game, what you describe sounds like backstory. But it's only a _plot_ - in the literary sense - if it is "the main events of a play, novel, film, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence." If the PCs never interact with said backstory, it can hardly be said to constitute _the main events of the RPG considered as a work similar to a novel or film_. If no one at the table but the GM knows or cares about them, they're manifestly not _the main events_. The stuff the PCs do is what makes up the main events of a RPG campaign.



In my sandbox game the gnolls are causing trouble, being manipulated by the yuan-ti through magic into capturing human and elven slaves. As such, the gnolls are raiding human caravans and settlements for prisoners. 
Meanwhile, because the gnolls are busing themselves with the west, the eastern human nation is being left alone and is free to fortify its borders, and is becoming expansionist. It's claiming a few satellite towns and establishing watch posts. 
And the rich merchant king of a second human nation is thinking of claiming the barony, using an army of sorcerers to seize power. 
All that is "the plot". Or, arguably, "the metaplot". It's all going on in the world, plus numerous other events and side quests. The players can *choose* to focus on those plots or ignore them and make their own quests - which they have so far. More or less. If they ignore it, the plot progresses and changes, as time passses and events transpire. The world moves on. The stories that the players latch onto become the main plot, the main events of the narrative, while the rest does just become backstory. I don't know in advance, but I'm still generating the events. 


Is it a railroad? Well, I'm determining all the world events, a generated the entire campaign setting, I have a rough idea of some of the yuan-ti's plans and seldom randomly choose if things exist or don't. I often (continually, really) make judgement calls throughout the sessions. 
And yet, if my players decide to say "eff it, I'm tired of the desert and the gnolls. Let's see what's to the south!" then the campaign moves to the south and the current story fades into the background while new ones emerge. 




pemerton said:


> If the "plot" is flexible in the way you describe, then it seems that ipso facto it's not a plot. It is one of several candidate plots. Until the actual sequence of main events is established, the plot isn't established.
> 
> 
> But what you describe is still, in my view, a railroad. If the end point is already known to the GM, then however colourful and exciting the detours along the way, they are ultimately being driven by the GM, with a pre-given outcome in mind.



That's splitting hairs. 
We're describing RPG stories with terms and definitions used for books, film, and other traditional narratives. They don't apply as well to RPGs or non-traditional stoytelling. It's always going to be an imperfect fit. 


Serialized television certainly has a plot. Sometimes it's planned and has an end set in advance. Other times they make it up as they go along. But the shows still have a continuous narrative. When they start a season, the fact that there's several "candidate plots" doesn't negate the main narrative or cancel out the final narrative at the end of the season. 
_Lost_ still has a plot. And at the end it was pretty tightly plotted. Near the end, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje decided to leave the show and the writers had to suddenly move the plot points planned for Mr Eko to other characters. Suddenly the existing plot dramatically shifted in favour of a plot that wasn't even a "candidate plot". But the show still had an overall plot.  




pemerton said:


> The idea that a game in which the GM chooses the villain, the overarching story, what the campaign is about, might _not_ be a railroad is extremely foreign to me. I take it for granted that the players will choose the villains (ie their PCs' enemies), that what the campaign is about will be some sort of collaborative thing, and that the overarching story will be established via play. That's how I've been GMing since about 1986.



It boggles my mind that you've been playing for thirty years for over a half-dozen game systems and running the same campaign for each. 
Haven't you played in games run by other DMs? Haven't you ever run a prepublished adventure with a story? 


That you haven't changed your DMing style also flabbergasts me. I think back to how I used to DM back in 1992ish and how I Dungeon Master now and it's night and day. I've run and played in so many completely different games. How I run and plan and write adventures is so completely and totally different now...


Okay… how you play is fine. You can play however you like. I'm not going to dissuade you. Or even try to. Life is short: do what makes you happy. 
But... just because you play that way and give the players that much more narrative control than the norm does not mean people who don't do the same are all railroading. 
It's not your way or the railway.




pemerton said:


> If player agency is a vital part of a sandbox, then I don't see how it can be on a Z-axis that is independent of the X-Y axis from sandbox to railroad.



I goofed there. Late night. Sleepy.
It should be sandbox/railroad is the horizontal X axis while player determination is the vertical Y axis. 
So you have a cross shape with four quadrants of gameplay styles. 


How are they independent? Because the existence/ nonexistence of player choice determines if a game is a sandbox or railroad. The player involvement in the creation of plot points determines the other.


Claiming that the DM generating plot points is railroading is akin to claiming the DM building the world rather than collaboratively generating it with the players is railroading. 
"Oh, you're using the Forgotten Realms? A prepublished campaign setting? All aboard!! Whooo-wooh!"




pemerton said:


> I simply don't see the rationale (other than unfamiliarity with other RPG styles) for asserting that sandbox and railroad form a spectrum.



Because life isn't all-or-nothing. (Only the Sith deal in absolutes.)


Because you can deprive your players of one choice in your sandbox game and a switch doesn't flip, making the campaign a railroad. How far down the spectrum of sandbox to railroad your game is depends on the percentage of choices you give your players and the percentage of the time you coerce them into a particular plot. The number of false choices and invisible walls the DM erects.


You can start with a hard scripted plot for a session or two, to establish the characters and the world, and then move into a sandbox. Or you can start with a sandbox until a plot coalesces and then moves more on the rails. Or the DM might know how the story should end, but is leaving the middle open and letting the players find their own way to the set destination. 




pemerton said:


> The modern indie-RPG scene is a reaction against White Wolf-era railroading and metaplot. These games are designed to deliberately differ from those railroads, precisely in being player driven.




That you describe the White Wolf metaplot - that is literally in the background and can have zero impact on the game - as railroading speaks volumes. 


Indie RPGs are more about narrative control than railroads. Being able to spend a Plot Point to retroactively have done something or invent a connection between the PC and an NPC is unrelated to the campaign being a sandbox or a railroad game. 




pemerton said:


> No it wouldn't. If one player drove all the action it might be a poor game, but it wouldn't be a player-driven railroad, because that player wouldn't know what was going to happen. That can't be known until the actions are declared, the dice rolled and the consequences thereby established.



If a player comes into a game with a firm backstory and motivation ("My father was murdered before my eyes by the Warlord Schell for his piece of an artifact. And the warlord is marshalling an army to conquer the known lands") they're kinda railroading. They have an arc or story for their player planned. 
Pair someone like that with a passive table of people who just want to hang out, roll dice, and play and don't have strong urges to contribute to the narrative. And you have a player driven railroad. 




pemerton said:


> Can you explain how the "player-driven railroad" you describe would work?
> 
> 
> How would the players communicate to the GM what is in their head? Who would control worldbuilding? What would the point of action resolution be? Why would the players even declare actions for their PCs, if they know in advance what the answer from the GM is going to be?
> 
> 
> I'm having some trouble envisaging what you have in mind here.



It's almost a theoretical example. An unrealistic extreme at two ends of the scale. 
Much like a true railroad where the players are just running through the game master's novel. It happens but the vast majority most games aren't remotely that bad and the presence of the dice will always cause things not to unfold as planned. 
The vast, vast, vast majority of games are going to fall in the middle of the spectrum.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The two most recent campaigns I have started are a 4e Dark Sun game, and (last weekend) a Cortex Fantasy Hack game.
> 
> ...
> 
> This is why I simply don't agree that the heavy listing of setting has to be done by the GM.



From this and other things you've posted here it seems your games are a good way down the spectrum towards co-operative storytelling.  I'm coming at this from a long history of quasi-Gygaxian dungeoneering where a plot or world backstory sticks its head up now and then, takes one look at the party, and likely runs screaming back into its cave.  So, small wonder we're talking in circles.



> Your PCs seem to be making a category error! If the PC looks for a diamond they might find it - after all, there are diamonds in the world and there's no apriori reason why one of them may not be right here! - but it is not looking for it that makes it appear. It is looking for it that results in it being found. (Which is a pretty typical causal process.)
> 
> At the game table, there is a question of how the group decides whether or not the shared fiction includes a large diamond here and now. A dice roll against a DC is as good a method as any, and better than some.



If you hadn't decided ahead of time whether there's a diamond there to be found or not, my statement that I'm looking for one and subsequent success on the roll to find it means *pop* I've just generated a diamond.  Do this often enough and hey, who needs to adventure? 



> (This is all assuming that the presence or not of the diamond is _an outcome_ - something of significance - and hence merits a rolling of the dice.)



It's significant to my character's wealth, if nothing else.



> This particular post makes me wonder whether you have any experience of playing the sort of game I'm describing, or even have any exposure to it as a phenomenon. It makes me wonder what you think games like Marvel Heroic, Burning Wheel, Dungeon World and the rest of the PtbA stable, etc, are actually about.



They can be whatever they like; but it seems you're trying to take an overall foundational basis of those systems (i.e. a strong lean toward co-operative storytelling) and shoehorn it into D&D, which traditionally has had a more DM-driven style.


> But from the point of view of the story elements of a RPG game, what you describe sounds like backstory. But it's only a plot - in the literary sense - if it is "the main events of a play, novel, film, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence." If the PCs never interact with said backstory, it can hardly be said to constitute the main events of the RPG considered as a work similar to a novel or film. If no one at the table but the GM knows or cares about them, they're manifestly not the main events. The stuff the PCs do is what makes up the main events of a RPG campaign.



Plot, backstory, and game-world history are really all the same thing, with the only differences being time (whether current or past) and level of effect on or interaction with the PCs.

The end-result story of the game may or may not have much to do with any of these.

==========================================


			
				Jester David said:
			
		

> Well, we are using imperfect terms. There's no singular word to describe branching, nonlinear disociated RPG plotlines.



Though I think we kind of need one for these purposes.  Just within my current campaign we have or have had:
[sblock]- a party going back in time to stop Ares from doing something that would have made a mess of history (6-adventure arc)
- an ongoing slow quiet takeover of (eventually) the world by Elves, unknowingly (in most cases) backed by Mind Flayers who have captured and corrupted one of the Elvish gods (at least 10 adventures so far with more to come; I can mine this plot until the cows come home)
- a party breaking up a slavers ring (5-adventure arc based on 1e's A-series); and this led directly to and kind of tied in with:
- operations against and eventual slaying of the undead emperor of a nearby realm, and dealing with the civil war that followed (5 adventures so far, still ongoing).
- a small adventure path to deal with something corrupting Poseidon (4 adventures) [by sheer coincidence this tied in perfectly with the Elvish stuff, after the fact]
- a series of adventures culminating in the destruction of an awakening Hobgoblin deity (5 or 7 adventures, depending how one counts)
- one small adventure that waved in passing at what will (I hope) become a major story arc later, to do with stuff I won't get into here in case any of my players wander by
- another small adventure that brushed against a long (as yet unplayed) adventure path that might someday become an entire new campaign
- and a bunch of side treks, let's-go-bash-some-giants trips, diversions, and so forth.

There's been a bunch of interweaving parties doing all this, it's most certainly not been the same people playing the same characters week after week for 9 years, but eventually different people from different groups meet and share stories, and thus the overall knowledge base slowly grows.

And these are just the plots the players/characters have either chosen or been recruited to engage with.  There's been others they've turned their noses up at and still others they've flat-out missed the hints for.
[/sblock]So, what is this thing you call linear plot?

One thing worth noting: to those who say the DM should have everything planned out in advance, some of those plot lines weren't even dreamed of when the campaign started.  The advantage of a long campaign, I guess: lots of time to think of new ideas. 


> It boggles my mind that you've been playing for thirty years for over a half-dozen game systems and running the same campaign for each.
> Haven't you played in games run by other DMs? Haven't you ever run a prepublished adventure with a story?
> 
> That you haven't changed your DMing style also flabbergasts me. I think back to how I used to DM back in 1992ish and how I Dungeon Master now and it's night and day. I've run and played in so many completely different games. How I run and plan and write adventures is so completely and totally different now...



I guess I'm not much different, in that I've been both playing and DMing for 30+ years in the same 1e-based system, with one long side trip into playing 3e.  I'd like to think I'm a better DM now than in, say, 1989...but my primary motivation remains the same: I try to run the sort of game that I'd enjoy playing in; and I'll know I'm doing it wrong if people stop coming out to play. 

Lan-"did this thread have a predetermined plot or are we making it up as we go along?"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Jester David said:
			
		

> If a player comes into a game with a firm backstory and motivation ("My father was murdered before my eyes by the Warlord Schell for his piece of an artifact. And the warlord is marshalling an army to conquer the known lands") they're kinda railroading. They have an arc or story for their player planned.
> Pair someone like that with a passive table of people who just want to hang out, roll dice, and play and don't have strong urges to contribute to the narrative. And you have a player driven railroad.



Which can get messy if the DM has other ideas about what she's willing (or ready, or able) to run.

The other way the players can railroad themselves is when the party gets into a situation where, mostly due to character traits and personalities, one adventure or sequence just leads sequentially and obviously to the next (in their eyes) regardless of whether or not the DM has something different in mind.  I've seen this as a player: during one adventure we found or learned something (I forget the specifics) that made our  next mission so blindingly obvious to us as characters - at least the Good-aligned ones - that we couldn't in character do anything else.  Of course the DM had something entirely different in mind, but this time our self-inflicted railroad trumped his. 

Lanefan


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> I'm curious what a game without DM judgment calls would look like.



 It'd look a lot like a game, really.  Most games (not restricting it to RPGs), don't require a DM or referee.  The rules are fewer, simpler, & clearer, the scope of play more constrained, and players are left to hammer out any ambiguities or house rules, among themselves.  RPGs are generally much more ambitious in scope, requiring far more complex rulesets (which require interpretation, using judgement) or openness to operating without rules (which requires judgement).  The DM position, early on, often called a 'judge' or 'referee,' provides that judgement.



> I mean, I'm all for shared authorship of some form, even in systems that aren't designed around that type of game, but every game requires judgment from the DM. And yes, such judgment will at times determine player success or failure.



 A shared-storytelling game can follow a round-robin narrative, for instance, you could think of it as taking turns DMing, but it's really just taking turns telling a story, building on what's come before and adding new ideas to it.  All the players are thus equal.  

The clearer, more consistent, & better-balanced the system, and the more tightly focused and constrained in scope the adventure, the more practical it'd be to have even an RPG without a DM.  



pemerton said:


> Plausible (assuming the game has a GM).
> Why?



 Assuming the game has a DM to exercise judgement about what the rules say/mean, when/how they apply, and what the details and nature of the world and situations within it are like, then, yes, those judgements will at times determine (not merely influence) player success or failure.  5e is an obvious example:   The player declares an action, the DM exercises his judgement to determine if it will succeed, fail or should be resolved with a dice roll (and sets a DC, which could be set high or low enough to make failure or success inevitable).


----------



## pemerton

Imaculata said:


> I've seen the term railroad-campaign being thrown around a lot in this discussion. I would assume this means a campaign in which the DM is constantly obstructing the players, and making sure that nothing goes off script. I want to be sure that we all agree that this is different from just playing a linear campaign. If the DM decides to run a linear adventure module, and the players are all along for the ride, then its not a railroad campaign, because no one is being obstructed in their actions.



My take - following on from my OP - is that the two scenarios you described are both similar and different.

Similar: in both cases the GM is shaping/manipulating actin resolution to ensure that the pre-determined outcomes come about.

Different: the one you describe as a "railroad" sounds like it's horrible for the players, because they get obstructed at every point; the one you describe as merely "linear" sounds like the players are enjoying it. (Upthread, [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has called your second scenario, where the players enjoy it, "participationism".)

I've been a CoC player in games that are like your linear example - ie the GM is moving things along to a certain outcome, and my job as player is just to provide a bit of colour and characterisation for my PC. I wouldn't want to play a whole campaign like that, but as a CoC scenario it works well because the lack of power nicely correlates to the descent into madness.

I think there are some practical challenges in running the second sort of game: if the GM is going to make sure things go in a certain direction, but the players don't know exactly what that is, and are declaring actions for their characters, there needs to be some way for the GM to make sure that the outcomes of those declared actions don't prevent the intended outcome coming about.

In CoC that's not too big a challenge, because CoC players don't really have the ability to declare the sorts of actions that would obstruct the GM's planning: eg perception and library use-type actions unlock information, which is under the GM's control; combat actions are largely ruled out except in extreme situations, for law-and-order reasons; there's no social conflict resolution, so the GM can handle those sorts of outcomes; etc.

In D&D I think sometimes it could be a bigger challenge, because D&D players tend to have a wider range of abilities that - on the fact of it - would let them impact the fiction.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> It'd look a lot like a game, really.  Most games (not restricting it to RPGs), don't require a DM or referee.  The rules are fewer, simpler, & clearer, the scope of play more constrained, and players are left to hammer out any ambiguities or house rules, among themselves.  RPGs are generally much more ambitious in scope, requiring far more complex rulesets (which require interpretation, using judgement) or openness to operating without rules (which requires judgement).  The DM position, early on, often called a 'judge' or 'referee,' provides that judgement.




Fair enough. I meant an RPG without DM judgment, but I agree with what you said. I know there are games with varying levels of involvement from the GM, and some seem to want as little as possible. I don't think that it can be truly removed from the game...some kind of referee judgment, I mean. Not and remain recognizable as an RPG. 



Tony Vargas said:


> A shared-storytelling game can follow a round-robin narrative, for instance, you could think of it as taking turns DMing, but it's really just taking turns telling a story, building on what's come before and adding new ideas to it.  All the players are thus equal.
> 
> The clearer, more consistent, & better-balanced the system, and the more tightly focused and constrained in scope the adventure, the more practical it'd be to have even an RPG without a DM.




True. In the case of rotating DMs though, there is no removal of DM judgment so much as spreading the responsibility and role among all players. 



Tony Vargas said:


> Assuming the game has a DM to exercise judgement about what the rules say/mean, when/how they apply, and what the details and nature of the world and situations within it are like, then, yes, those judgements will at times determine (not merely influence) player success or failure.  5e is an obvious example:   The player declares an action, the DM exercises his judgement to determine if it will succeed, fail or should be resolved with a dice roll (and sets a DC, which could be set high or low enough to make failure or success inevitable).




I agree. I think this is generally how 5E is designed. Of course, that can be changed to a certain degree if desired. I don't think 5E D&D "must" be played or DMed a certain way. Plenty of room to allow for other takes and approaches if so desired.


----------



## Manbearcat

Alright, going to post a very short Dungeon World play excerpt, but just the resultant fiction only.  Then I'll do three successive posts (I may not get to each tonight, but I'm going to grab 3 successive posts nonetheless and finish out tomorrow if I need to) outlining how these things might be mechanized in each of Dungeon World (or how it was), B/X, and 5e.

Subsequent to that (in coming days) I'll analyze it all for "vulnerability to GM Force/Illusionism."  

Without further ado (ELF is obviously the player...and GM...you can figure that out):



> ELF
> 
> After I've regeared, I'll pocket the coins and place the choker around my neck, feeling the welcomed heat in my breast. I'll then make sure all of my supplies are in order, light the torch, and warily head up the path that leads out of this chamber, a silent prayer on my lips that it might lead to somewhere hospitable.






> GM
> 
> The path moves upward and switches back a few times at a fairly steep grade. Soon you hear the sounds of spoken language echoing off the tunnel halls. Goblin tongue. Something about "King Ornrak not letting anyone leave...going to starve them all...tired of eating cave-shrooms...soon they're going to be sifting through their own dung or eating their dead...the starved dead...humans with their goats haven't been here for weeks." Someone answers with a "shut up and get rid of the garbage."
> 
> The sound of a portcullis raising. A "Hurrrrrk..." and then a weird liquid sounding shuffling from further in. The first goblin calls back to the second "you say something?" A muffled sound and then wet, squishing sounds.
> 
> You round a final bend and as your torch-light plays off the stone walls of the narrow path, it exposes the edge of the raised portcullis you heard prior. Fresh blood emerges from somewhere beyond your line of sight...around that final bend...oozing down toward you with the steep descent of the path (ascent for you).
> 
> All is still save your dancing torchlight and the advance of the blood toward your feet.






> ELF
> 
> I don't want to step in that blood and leave tracks everywhere, possibly incriminating myself as well. The goblins surely have light sources in the chambers ahead of me. Assuming the tunnel is just a few feet wide here, maybe 3-4 feet like a normal hallway, I'm going to do a Spider Man thing and leap up and wedge myself with my legs, spread eagle. I'll sheathe my sword, put my torch in my mouth and use my hands to carefully move forward while wedged. When I get around the bend and can see the raised portcullis and into the room I'm going to take the torch from my mouth and throw it into the room, hoping to attract the attention of whatever is in there. With my legs wedged and my hands freed, I'm going to rip my bow from my back and string an arrow, training it on my line of sight into the center of the room and my torch.
> 
> What happens and what do I see?






> GM
> 
> 1) A dimly lit room with a worked stone floor, a few torches in recesses in the walls, and refuse-filled barrels.
> 
> 2) The grisly remains of the two goblins you heard talking. They appear to have been engulfed violently with random appendages severed in the consumption. The legs of the goblin who raised the portcullis are the source of the blood that was seeping down the path.
> 
> 3) Puddles of transparent, pinkish goo near where both of the remains lie.
> 
> For a moment, all is still and quiet as you survey from your wedged perch between the walls. Then, suddenly a grotesque creatures darts into view; a pile of amorphous pink flesh with an impossibly large mouth, 3 eyes aligned vertically above the mouth and tentacles strewn about the mess of a "face". Something of a "tail" trails the bulbous mass.
> 
> Its clearly an "advanced" version of what you've seen before. A rancid smell accompanies the nastiness it secretes. It skirts the torch you threw, a weird, sliding, squishing locomotion aided by the whip of the tail and the tentacles.






> ELF
> 
> I don't waste any time. My strung arrow flies free.






> GM
> 
> Your arrow sinks into the creatures flesh and it recoils. It darts away out of your line of sight with surprising quickness.






> ELF
> 
> I stow my bow on my back, leap from my perch for the portcullis, grabbing the bottom and swinging into the room. When I hit the ground, I'm drawing my blade.






> GM
> 
> The creature is gone but a clear trail of slime leads to a wall where the creature ascended vertically. It ends in a natural vent, not terribly large, that the creature must have squeezed into.






> ELF
> 
> Well, this is not good. I want to look around the room for any more of these vents that the creature might have used to enter the room. I can't have it getting the drop on me.






> GM
> 
> As your eyes scan the room for any other points of entrance/egress in the stone walls and ceilings, the sound of a creaky hinged door from the far end of the room stirs you from your search. A squat goblin shambles into the room, flipping a coin and catching it on the back of his hand. Before his attention is drawn from his game of catch he says in goblin, "I heard you guys could use some...help..."
> 
> The moment he sees you and the carnage of the room, he bolts back from whence he came, the coin clanging off the floor and rolling before it comes to a rest somewhere amidst the tangle of refuse barrels. The shout of "Elf!" from his lips echoes off the corridor walls and rings through your mind like nails on a chalkboard.






> ELF
> 
> Well, options are pretty limited. I can only hope that many didn't hear his call. I have to get to him before the whole place is alerted. With one final look of consternation at the vent that the creature went through, I break into a dead sprint.






> GM
> 
> Your much longer legs and athleticism are easily equal to the task of the pursuit. Stairs wind upwards in something of a pronounced spiral.  Maybe twenty paces in and you're at the top within arm's reach of the goblin as he breaks through the doorway.
> 
> You can easily put your sword into his back, but you'll be doing so in front of a pair of goblin laborers who are rather busy eschewing their responsibilities as they instead dice it up in the corner.   It looks and smells like they're supposed to be boiling and handling excess leathers for the creation of glue - pots and equipment for such are everywhere.
> 
> When the little goblin bounds into the room with you hot on his heels, his lazy compatriots both look up with annoyed glances.  Seeing the specter of death in your fluid gate, with fear in their eyes, they survey behind them; the only hope for egress is a hallway opening several paces away.






> ELF
> 
> I'll just grab him instead and I want to parley with these guys the best way I can. I'll grab him with one arm, manhandling him with something of a headlock. If he squirms, I'll tighten it until he stops. With my sword outstretched and pointing at the surprised laborers, I'll speak to them. "I am an elf of no small magical power."  If need be, I'll accentuate my point by bringing my weapon to life with a crackle of magical thunder.
> 
> "I've slain the beasts of your basement so you know I could slay you both where you stand. But I wish not to. There is a predator loose in your halls. If we do not discover it, and quickly, many more will die beyond your two companions that rid your halls of refuse...or used to."






> GM
> 
> That is quite leverage enough.  No need for any further fireworks.
> 
> The goblins exchange looks and one of them speaks in surprisingly good common. "Let Gnorl go and we will help you find it 'elf of no small magical power.' Can you slay it?"
> 
> The paranoid looks on their faces and their scanning of the walls and ceilings tells you they easily believe your story...perhaps they aren't unfamiliar with it.


----------



## Manbearcat

DUNGEON WORLD

The PC is an Elven Arcane Duelist (F/M)

1)  This was all off the cuff after the PC fell through a glacial crevasse and into an underground frozen river.  Frozen and unconscious, he woke up on the shore of the basement of a hobgoblin complex.  The complex's refuse is dumped there and a Darkmantle and a Roper take care of that.  The PC survived the freeze and slew them both.  He cautiously made his way up the path that lead out of the chamber.  No mechanical resolution there.

2)  This complex is called Earthmaw (it was created out of thin air and added to the play map as a result of prior resolution).  This is a mercantile hobgoblin realm that serves as the lone trade outpost for the highlander peoples of this remote realm.  They are not pure evil as the D&D trope goes, but they are unforgiving and very spartan in their creed.  These goblin servitors are meek and pathetic, probably indentured, but not outright slaves.  

3)  At this point in the game, this PC's alignment statement (carrot) was "Good:  Slay a menace to the innocent."  Do that and earn 1 XP at End of Session.  So I frame the opening situation with (a) a dangerous "menace to the innocent", (c) which follows from the prior fiction, and (d) fills the character's life with adventure.

4)  When the player declared the little wall-straddling move with torch in mouth while he draws his bow, I could have called for a Defy Danger move because of the lurking threat in the next room.  However, I chose to go ahead and "say yes" here.  His Dex is nearly maxed in this game so this is the sort of thing he should be able to do as it is archetypal for the PC as well.

Now, if he was looking for some kind of mechanical advantage (say just roll his damage die on the "recently molted and soon to be full-fledged Aboleth" rather than initiating the Volley Move), I would have made him Defy Danger (DD) Dex and then we'd find out what happens.  On a 10+, I would have let him roll his damage with no cost/negative fallout (basically the equivalent of a Volley move).  On a 7-9 on DD, the prospective choices for a player are going to be somewhat different than a 7-9 on a Volley.

5)  The burgeoning Aboleth has consumed two innocent goblins.  It is drawn to the sudden stimulation (light and sound).  The PC lets loose a Volley:



> When you take aim and shoot at an enemy at range, roll+Dex. On a 10+, you have a clear shot—deal your damage. On a 7–9, choose one (whichever you choose you deal your damage):
> 
> * You have to move to get the shot placing you in danger as described by the GM
> * You have to take what you can get: -1d6 damage
> * You have to take several shots, reducing your Ammo by one




The player rolled a 7.

Ammo is an abstract quantity for ammunition.  It is not 1:1.  5ish Ammo would signify a full quiver.  You might spend it for a boon or to avoid another complication.  You might just straight lose it due as a product of outright action resolution failure.

In this case, the PC knew the Aboleth had 6 HP, so his 4 HP damage wasn't going to outright slay it.  Further, he only had 1 Ammo going into this and his HP, while not too bad, were at a premium because who knows what he is up against/what the future beholds?  So, he chose to eat the -1d6 damage and reduced his damage further rather than losing his last Ammo or choosing danger (which would give me the opportunity to escalate things in a way that he may not like).

6)  My move.  I choose to just follow the fiction and have the thing retreat into a fissure in the walls.  This is in-line with the creature's Instinct of "eat to grow" and its Move "hunt the unsuspecting."

7)  The PC, sufficiently concerned by the creature's changing of the situation (from hunted to hunter), urgently canvasses the room for any other topographical points of ingress and egress.  This initiates the move Discern Realities:



> When you closely study a situation or person, roll+Wis. ✴On a 10+, ask the GM 3 questions from the list below. ✴On a 7–9, ask 1.
> 
> Either way, take +1 forward when acting on the answers.
> 
> What happened here recently?
> What is about to happen?
> What should I be on the lookout for?
> What here is useful or valuable to me?
> Who’s really in control here?
> What here is not what it appears to be?




As is plain to see, the player rolled a 6 or less (a 5).  This triggers (a) a hard move from me (a significant, negative escalation of the situation where the PC has no say) and (b) 1 XP for the character.

I chose to bring another goblin into the situation.  Seeing the grisly scene before him (possibly indicting the PC for the 2 goblin gargagemen deaths?), he shrieks and hauls goblin booty back from whence he came.  Things could go south quickly here if he gets away.

8)  The PC gives chase.  This triggers a Defy Danger (Str) move:



> When you act despite an imminent threat or suffer a calamity, say how you deal with it and roll. If you do it
> 
> ✴On a 10+, you do what you set out to, the threat doesn’t come to bear. ✴On a 7–9, you stumble, hesitate, or flinch: the GM will offer you a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.




The player rolled an 8.

The PC catches the little goblin, but not before they emerge into the next room with a couple more goblins.  I also give the PC the choice to just run the little goblin through if he'd like.  Obviously, this choice creates the tension of pragmatism versus his basic morality...and would definitely close down any prospects for immediate parley (while possibly narrowing them for greater parley with the Hobgoblin King - which they are seeking).

The other goblins are scared, so a show of force may either spook them into a sprint out the door, or have them engage rashly in combat.  All the while...the "aboleth-to-be" lurks... (and yes, this is an Aliens themed situation).

9)  The PC decides to Parley.  



> When you have leverage on a GM Character and manipulate them, roll+Cha. Leverage is something they need or want.
> 
> ✴On a 10+, they do what you ask if you first promise what they ask of you. ✴On a 7–9, they will do what you ask, but need some concrete assurance of your promise, right now.




The player rolls a 12 and his PC has plenty of leverage over the pathetic goblins...at least sufficient to this task.  He doesn't need a further show of force.  I go ahead and create some backstory that implies that this "Aliens" thing isn't something that has just emerged right at this moment...maybe this exact thing is haunting the compound?

The successful Parley moves things forward.



Alright, I'm knackered.  I'll edit the below post and detail how this scenario might come about in B/X tomorrow.  

Abridged version:  Elf PC + Dungeon Key + Exploration Turn + Stock Encounter + Combat/Morale + Exploration Turn + Wandering Monsters + Monster Reactions + Evasion and Pursuit + Stock Encounter + Monster Reactions


----------



## Manbearcat

B/X

The PC would be an Elf.  The setup, principles, and procedures would be a bit different as below:


1) So I would have mapped probably 3 dungeons (this one included) at the outset.  They each would have been stocked with puzzles, monsters, traps, denizens, adornments, and other interesting stuff/obstacles.  My dungeon key would tell me where everything is.  The players would have scouted and then picked one during the town phase.  


The setting and theme of the dungeon would be untouched.  Hobgoblin trading outpost cut into a mountain.  The residents would be hunted by alien-like creatures.  How the PCs got separated would likely have been different.  Rather than a crevasse in the frozen glacial wasteland, maybe the Elf fell through a chute in another part of the complex.  That is how he got into the basement.  And here we are!



2)  The PC would almost surely be Lawful.  The Hobgoblins and Goblins wouldn't share an Alignment Language with him (they're Chaotic), but given his high Int and Elfdom, he would almost surely have both Hogboblin and Goblin as a language.  As an Elf, he's able to see 60 ft in the dark and has Infravision.  That would change things quite a bit.  He'd also have 2 1st level spells and 1 2nd.  He'd probably have Charm, Sleep, and Mirror Image.  1, 2 on Secret Doors/Listen.  


Obviously he would be both Mapper and Caller for this period of play.



3)  So the PC would have won his stock battle with the denizens of the hobgoblin complex's refuse basement.  That would have been a stock encounter after the chute/pit he fell down (thus separating him from the party).  Its likely that he would have needed to expend his Mirror Image spell to do so.  


He then cautiously made his way up the ascending path that leads out of the chamber.  This might have been 2 Turns of Exploration.  With one of his Exploration Turns being spent to try to perceive sounds of what is happening in the corridors above him, he would have needed to roll a 1 or 2 on his d6.  Looks like he rolled a 1 or a 2.  Maybe another Exploration turn was spent searching for Secret Doors or special things (likely not), which would have mean he would have failed to detect them (if there were any).  I would have checked for Wandering Monsters once or twice (depending on the frequency of this area on my key) and rolled my dice.  



4)  Its most likely that:


a)  The Aboleth Fledgeling (hereafter AF) OMNOMNOMing the two goblins was a stock encounter and...
b)  The little goblin coming around the corner was the result of a rolled 1 on the second of those two Wandering Monster checks.  It looks like I would have then rolled probably a 2 (for 2 minutes) on my 1d4 for when he arrives.



5)  When the player declared the little wall-straddling move (wouldn't have torch in mouth because of his Elf vision in B/X) while he draws his bow, I would have either adjudicated that one of two ways; it would have either affected the surprise roll of the encounter or I would have had him roll 1d6 and give him surprise on a 1...or I would have just given the AF a penalty to surprise and the PC a bonus. 


I would have gone with the latter.  So 1-3 for the AF and 1 alone for the Elf.  He and I roll our 1d6 for Surprise.  He doesn't get a 1.  I get a 1-3.  My Monster is Surprised so the PC wins Initiative and acts first.



6) The PC lets loose his Missile Attack and rolls his damage.  Obviously not enough to kill my Monster, but (a) this is the first time its been hit and (b) it probably was reduced to 1/4 (or less of its HPs).  Both of these call for a Morale check.  Given that both of these have occurred, I would have given the AF a -1 penalty (maybe another -1 because it just fed...why does it need to get into deadly combat?).  I roll my 2d6 and it exceeds the AF's Morale.


The AF flees when it acts (now).  However, we don't have to consult Pursuit and Evasion because it obviously has a special ability to meld into cracks in the stone.



7) The PC, sufficiently concerned by the creature's changing of the situation (maybe feeling of going from hunter to hunted), urgently canvasses the room for any other topographical points of ingress and egress.  This would have been the beginning of an Exploration Turn.  However...


Now my prior WM check of the goblin comes into play.  He sees the grisly scene before him (which possibly indicts the PC for the 2 goblin gargagemen deaths?.  Maybe he also sees the familiar pink goo trail of the AF and knows that this thing killed his friends and is likely lurking.  


The next bit of business would have been resolved in a myriad of ways.  I wouldn't have had my little goblins have the standard B/X Morale of 7ish.  They're shaken, they're mere laborers, they're cowardly.  I would probably give them maybe something as low as a 3-4.  At 2 and he won't fight at all.  Given the circumstances, I'd give him a -2 penalty to put him into the "auto-flee" zone.  


First I have to roll 2d6 for Monster Reaction and figure out how my goblin responds.  Any result that comes up as Attack and I'd automatically flee.  Now this PC has a 13 Cha so +1 to MR.  That means I can't get a 2 (auto-attack) on my MR unless there is a penalty of some kind for character actions.  


Maybe I roll a 3-5 (Possible attack, but check again after an exchange).


So maybe the player says his Elf puts his hands up/out (with sword still in hand) and says (in goblin, so that helps) "I DID NOT DO THIS! LET ME HELP!"  So he speaks the cowardly goblin's tongue, clarifies the situation, offers to help, yet still has weapon in hand.  Maybe I give him a +1 for this next roll for a total of +2 with his Cha.  On the "Possible Attack" sub-table, a 2-8 is "Attack" (Flee in this case due to Morale).  


I roll a 2-8 for MR and off the little cowardly goblin goes!  The PC pursues.



8)  Evasion and Pursuit time.  The goblin is slower than the Elf (75 % his speed), but he knows these corridors while the Elf does not (so a situational bonus).  Instead of mapping things out in Exploration Turns, we're just zooming by decision-points and descriptors (should there be some).  Maybe a few rounds later and we're at another stock encounter.  I rule that the PC has successfully Pursued and caught the goblin, but with a bit of a cost.  He's made it to his other buddies in this "glue-factory" section of the dungeon map.



9) The PC catches the little goblin, but not before they emerge into the next room with a couple more goblins. Just like in DW, the PC could basically just run the little goblin through if he'd like (1-1 HD equals mook). Obviously, this choice creates the tension of pragmatism versus his Lawful Alignment.  If he runs him through, I'm not going to even bother with an MR roll.  Its straight to fighting or fleeing.  The PC, being Lawful has a basic respect for life and said he could help before.  He'll try to keep his promise.  The PC decides to Parley and I let him act to see if we have some kind of positive modifier.  He speaks their language, he doesn't kill the vulnerable goblin, but he leaves a threat hanging in the air with his words. Ok, I give him a +1 on top of his +1. 


I roll my 2d6 +2 and consult the MR table. I get a 9.  So "Possibly Friendly" and roll again after an exchange.  So they listen while he quickly diffuses the situation, explains what is going on, and says how he can help.  Alright, I'll give him a +2 on top of his +1 for this follow-up.  We consult the "PF sub-table".  I roll a 6 or more.  So Friendly!


I reveal the backstory (the Dungeon Theme) that implies that this "Aliens" thing isn't something that has just emerged right at this moment.  So this is clearly a situation that is haunting the compound.
Things proceed from there.


----------



## Manbearcat

D&D 5E


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> In the LotR, we know that Tolkien allows things to change.  The first time he ran that adventure, the PC(Elendil) was allowed to change his mind and say no he would not throw the ring into Mt. Doom and leave with it.  The second time he allowed the party to split rather than forcing them to remain together.  He allowed someone other than the ring bearer to carry the ring.  He allowed the ring bearer to change his mind.  And so on.



I don't get it.

I mean, what if I asserted the following, that completely contradicts what you said:

GM Tolkien railroaded Isildur's player into keeping the ring, because Isildur's player didn't think of it until after the players said "Yes" to the GM's question "So, do you return home from Mordor", and GM Tolkien wouldn't allow a takeback. And then GM Tolkien railroaded Isildur's player by saying, "When the orcs attack you, you put on the ring and turn invisible." And then, when Isildur's player said that he retreated invisibly into the river, the GM said "The ring comes off, and so the orcs can see you and shoot you dead!" and didn't even roll dice for the orc's attacks!, despite the fact that Isildur was a 10th level paladin with 80 hit points.

Etc, etc.​
For any set of fictional events, in LotR or any other story, there are ways they could come about via railroading, and ways they could come about via player choice. That's why from nothing more than a story hour, one can't tell how a RPG session actually unfolded, and who did what.


----------



## FrogReaver

Sandbox 101. Players piss off evil warlord who sends 50 soldiers at them. Players die.  

Is this how sandboxes work?   Or do you obstruct the players from actually feeling the full effect of the consequences of their actions?

as in sandbox becomes railroad 101?


----------



## pemerton

Imaculata said:


> Scripting events is not the same as railroading. But a DM has to be cautious then that he frames the scene in such a way, that the script is safe from tempering by the players.
> 
> I don't think scripted events in a roleplaying session are bad. Sometimes you want your players to react to something that has happened



In my OP I referred to outcomes:



pemerton said:


> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative.



Later on (post 37), I elaborated: "Is an utterly random or unmotivated choice an _outcome_? I tend to agree with [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] that it's not. It follows that "We go left" or "We go right", in a context where - from the players' perspective - there is nothing at stake in the choice is not an event of action declaration, any more than "My boots are frilly" is an action declaration. It's just colour and performance.

In the post I've just quoted, you (Imaculata) talk more generally about _events_. Not every event is an outcome.

For instance, in the Cortex Fantasy game I ran on the weekend, and that I've already mentioned a couple of times in this thread, after the group had established the rationale for the four PCs heading off together on a quest, I narrated along the lines of "You travel north, up into the foothills. You can see snow-capped mountains in the distance. As you crest a ridge, you see a valley below you, and on the other side of it a large steading." One of the players asked "Is there smoke or similar signs of life coming from the steading?" and I replied (with no dice rolling) "Yes, there's smoke."

Here are some of the events that occur in what I've just described: travelling north, seeing mountains, cresting a ridge, seeing a steading, smoke coming from the steading, seeing the smoke coming from the steading.

But none of them is an _outcome_ of play. No player declared any action. Nothing was being resolved. It's all just framing - establishing the immediate context of the shared fiction in which the action of the game is going to unfold.

The first actual _action _of the game, after the initial setting up, was when one of the players declared "I go to the gate of the setting, knock, and call out a greeting." I narrated an outcome without any dice being rolled - a deep voice (correctly presumed by the players to be the voice of a giant) responded gruffly. That is not railroading (as characterised by me in my OP), because it is not a case of me shaping an outcome to fit a preconceived narrative. It is simply "saying 'yes'" to the player - the player wants his PC to open negotiations, and I am letting that happen.

The negotiations themselves then unfolded, and were resolved via a check (or perhaps a series of checks - I don't recall the details now) - the upshot being that the player successfully established that he was invited to enter the steading, and hence the gates were opened.

Relating this to the Marquis example: the question of whether assassination of the Marquis is mere _framing_ or whether that is an _outcome_ is heavily dependent on the context of play, the relationship of the PCs to the Marquis, the attitude of the _players_ to the Marquis and to the PCs' relationship(s) with the Marquis, etc. These are some of the things that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] was getting at upthread.

One can't tell which sort of thing it is simply by describing the events in in-fiction terms. One can't tell which sort of thing it is simply by noting that the GM narrates it (ie it is "scripted") without regard to player action declarations for their PCs. My description of the viking PCs cresting the ridge was "scripted" - not in the literal sense (I made it up on the spot), but in the sense that it was GM narration in "boxed text" mode. But it was not railroading, because it wasn't an outcome.

The only outcome in the neighbourhood - ie that the PCs are viking-types on a quest to find out what is happening with the northern lights, the spirit world, and the Dragon's Curse - had already been established in the initial discussion around setup, where the players voted for vikings over Japan and came up with the reasons their PCs have to go on a mission.

I regard distinguishing between what is mere framing, and what is an _outcome_, as a very important domain of GM judgement. If you get it wrong, in either direction, then play will suffer.

For instance, suppose that - following the initial set up of the Cortex viking game - I ask the players, "So, what do you do?" rather than frame them into their trek to the north where they crest a ridge and see a steading, what is going to happen? The players will be confused - what was the point of all that set-up if we're not now going to cut to the action? I send mixed signals - I suggest that there is potentially something else of significance in the neighbourhood of their PCs that has no connection to the stuff we just spent 10 or 15 minutes working through. Why would I want to do that?

Conversely, if I treat not only the trek and the cresting of the valley as framing, but go further and tell them "So you enter the steading, and the action opens with you discussing matters at a feast with the giant chieftain", then there is the danger that I have mistaken an outcome for framing. For instance, one of the PCs in the game is a sneaky type who can influence animals and change into a wolf. By framing that PC into open negotiations with the giant, and prevent the player from expressing those aspects of his PC in the way that he actually did - namely, by sneaking into the Steading, finding a giant ox in the barn, and then trying to trade that ox for a favour from the giants (relying on the fact that giants are notoriously stupid and so won't recognise their own ox).

That's not to say that the boundary between what is framing and what is outcome is always clear-cut. There may be a zone of reasonable choices by the GM, and those judgement calls - in conjunction with the players' own concerns, motivations etc which are both elicited and responded to by the GM's framing - will influence what events unfold in the game.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> The first actual _action _of the game, after the initial setting up, was when one of the players declared "I go to the gate of the setting, knock, and call out a greeting." I narrated an outcome without any dice being rolled - a deep voice (correctly presumed by the players to be the voice of a giant) responded gruffly. That is not railroading (as characterised by me in my OP), because it is not a case of me shaping an outcome to fit a preconceived narrative. It is simply "saying 'yes'" to the player - the player wants his PC to open negotiations, and I am letting that happen.




How did you determine that the giants were or were not open to negotiations?  That seems like a pretty big stake and something that would be uncertain but it feels like (and I could be wrong here), that you did in fact create an outcome around what you wanted to happen in the narrative.  If that isn't the case what differentiates this from the vessel example earlier?  Where saying yes or no to the player would be considered a railroad??


----------



## pemerton

Gardens & Goblins said:


> For example, a player might set off on a course that will guarantee their death _('I want to stick my head in the rotating rusting mechanical portal')_ and the DM could then set the DC, choose appropriate language and communicate a cost to nudge the player away from such a choice, without directly vetoing the action. _(''You can certainly try though you'll need luck and lightning fast reflexes to dodge the razor sharp, blood encrusted mechanism if you wish to keep your head. Let's call it a very high Dex save.'' )_
> 
> In this example the DM could simply let the player poke their head into the portal and die. Instead, they give the player the choice - make a check and risk death. It's a non-choice really, for all but the most foolhardy players, but through framing the choice, providing the select details and setting the DC, the player is nudging the player away from having their characters take a course of action, for their own sake, without simply saying no/telling the player that such a choice is stupid/foolhardy.



I find this example strange.

The GM has, somehow or other (eg by way of dungeon design; by way of rolling on a random table; etc), framed the PCs into a situation in which there is a "rotating, rusting mechanical portal". However, the GM hasn't told the players that entering into the portal will be fatal. One of the players now declares that his/her PC sticks his/her head into it - presumably by way of investigation. But the GM is expected to somehow be hesitant in responding to that action declaration?

If the GM didn't want PCs to die investigating the portal, then it seems a mistake to have set up the situation in the first place.

Fairly recently, I ran an AD&D session, and (as a result of the random dungeon generation table I was using) had to place a "trick" in an otherwise empty room. So I described a magical glowing portal in the ceiling. The players decided that their PCs would ignore it. I don't recall, now, what idea I had in mind for it if they did play around with it - but I certainly wouldn't have had them die. Equally certainly, I wouldn't have (i) decided that it is a death trap, and then (ii) tried to discourage the PCs from investigating it in a fashion that risked their death.

Gygax addresses as similar issue on page 9 of his DMG:

The final word, then, is the game. Read how and why the system is as if is, follow the parameters, and then cut portions as needed to maintain excitement. For example, the rules call for wandering monsters, but these can be not only irritating - if not deadly - but the appearance of such can actually spoil a game by interfering with an orderly expedition. . . . [T]he group has worked hard to supply themselves with everything by way of information and equipment they will need. . . . But lo!, everytime you throw the "monster die" a wandering nasty is indicated, and the party's strength is spent trying to fight their way into the area. Spells expended, battered and wounded, the characters trek back to their base. Expectations have been dashed, and probably interest too, by random chance. Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die. No, don’t allow the party to kill them easily or escape unnaturally, for that goes contrary to the major precepts of the game.​
Using slightly more technical terminology, Gygax is advising the GM _to carefully manage the introduction of content into the shared fiction_. Don't put stuff in that won't conduce to a fun game. And he also says that it would be _contrary to the major precepts of the game_ to first put stuff in, but then manipulate outcomes so that it doesn't cause problems.

I think this is good advice, and applicable in playstyles that are otherwise quite different from the sort of classic dungeoneering that Gygax had in mind.



FrogReaver said:


> Sandbox 101. Players piss off evil warlord who sends 50 soldiers at them. Players die.
> 
> Is this how sandboxes work?   Or do you obstruct the players from actually feeling the full effect of the consequences of their actions?
> 
> as in sandbox becomes railroad 101?



Well, the classic sandbox was a _dungeon_, which has levels that segregate monsters by degree of power; and wandering monster tables that do a similar thing for random encounters.

Also, in the classic dungeon there is generally no assumption that creatures encountered are automatically hostile. There are reaction tables, and racial or alignment-based conflict penalises reactions but (with some exceptions for specific creatures) doesn't dictate it.

So the general idea is that, in a dungeon, the players will feel the full consequences of their actions, but these will be (more-or-less) level appropriate. And if the 2nd level PCs venture to the 4th dungeon level in pursuit of richer treasures, well then the players have taken onto themselves the risk of stirring up more than they can handle.

Once it becomes common to play the game in less contrived settings than those classic dungeons - with populated lands, rulers with armies at their command, etc - then the idea of splitting the setting, and hence the consequences, into level-appropriate chunks becomes trickier. It can be done - eg     [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] did this in his 4e-based sandbox game. And because there were no dungeon levels to send the signals, he just told his players what level different areas were, so they could choose how much risk they wanted to take with their PCs.

But some of the difficulties of combining sandbox precepts with a level-based game set in a non-contrived world help explain why, from the early-to-mid 80s, the mainstream of D&D play shifted from Gygax amd Moldvay-style dungeon/sandbox to more GM-driven Dragonlance "high adventure" style. 2nd ed A&D then cemented this shift, making the  Dragonlance-style GM-driven game the clear default.

It's also not a coincidence that other late-70s games that are aimed (at least in part) at sandbox play - like RQ and Traveller - aren't level based, and so don't feel the need to send signals about what is or is not a viable opponent quite so clearly as D&D requires. And those games also have other devices - eg world law levels in Traveller; social connections that are part of PC building and development in RQ - that mitigate against the PCs just wandering the land upsetting enemies who can then destroy them without fear of retribution. (Which is not to deny that those systems have their own issues, the main one being lethality of combat in games that - via both rules for PC building and rules for action resolution - seem to envisage combat being a major part of the game.)


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> How did you determine that the giants were or were not open to negotiations?



As I said, the player declared actions and was successful. In mechanical terms, he established a d6 Invitation to Enter asset, which he was subsequently able to leverage in his rolls to impose a Persuaded to Help complication on the giant chieftain.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> while I would never say that ultimate success or failure should be determined by the DM, I do not think that every instance of DM judgment affecting PC success is some sort of transgression.



Nor do I. Obviously setting a DC affects player success, but I do it all the time, and in my OP distinguished that sort of judgement call from railroading.



Maxperson said:


> I thought the roll was to see if the chamber pot/bed pan was there.





hawkeyefan said:


> To go back to the example from your OP, the way I would handle that situation would be to determine if I thought a suitable receptacle was present based on the factors involved. I'm not sure I like the idea of a player skill check determining such....you described this as a way to preserve drama because the PC can succeed or fail. However, I don't know if that's really the case. Is his check to determine if he notices the item or is it used to determine if the item is actually present? The way I've read your comments is then latter; the PC's check determines if the chamber pot is present.
> 
> So if the check isn't successful, then the chamber pot isn't there. How has the PC failed? The player has failed a check sure, but how has ther character failed? Perhaps I've misunderstood your premise.



The check is to find out whether or not the PC, looking for a vessel in the room, is able to notice one.

If the check fails, then (as a GM) I have to narrate failure. Obviously if the check is failed, then the character has failed to spot a vessel in the room. But as a general rule there has to be some other consequence that drives the action onward (as the BW website put is, "the consequences for failure lead to the next conflict. There are no dead-ends"). This is the basic premise of so-called "fail forward" or "no whiffing" adjudication.

Sometimes I indicate in advance what these consequence of failure will be; sometimes I leave it implicit in the situation; sometimes I just make something up. The night watch apprehending the PCs after the failed check to lug the bodies through town is an example of the second (ie it is implicit in the situation that if you tire and slow down lugging bodies through a town at night, you might encounter someone, including the watch); but in the case of looking for the vessel, it would really have had to be in category three - I would have made something up. (Handling communication of consequences of failure, and expectations around that, is another important domain of GM judgement calls.)

I don't know what I would have done at the time - I can't remember if I had anything in mind, and it's a bit hard to put myself back into that situation and recapture the feel. But possibilities I can think of now would include (1) "Yep, there's a jug on the table - but as Jabal [the mage whose tower it is] backs away from Halika [the assassin, who having killed the unconscious mage was now trying to escape by cutting down Jabal], he knocks the table and the jar falls to the ground and breaks", or (2) "You can't see any vessel, but in a disgusting display you can see Jabal's familiar, a bony raven-like creature, licking up the blood as it flows under the divan."

(1) would create a new context for decision - eg maybe the PC can summon a spirit that can put the jar back together again. (2) would increase the pressure on the PC to save the blood - not only is there no vessel, but the blood is getting eaten!

Either way, the player has to make a new decision about how (if at all) the PC is going to make sure that the naga gets the blood.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> As I said, the player declared actions and was successful. In mechanical terms, he established a d6 Invitation to Enter asset, which he was subsequently able to leverage in his rolls to impose a Persuaded to Help complication on the giant chieftain.




Okay I'm unfamiliar with Cortex Fantasy (so I might need some basic explanation of the mechanics), but in the post I quoted you stated you narrated this part (the PC's arriving and being allowed to enter the giant's village) without any dice rolls...right?  So how was the _d6 Invitation to Enter asset_ established if there were no dice rolls? 

 Also I note this asset is at d6 so I assume it is both ranked and rolled for something (by the name I'm assuming it measures the likelihood of being allowed to enter but I could be wrong)... but again there were no rolls to determine whether the PC's were allowed to enter or not so is this a case where you DM fiat'd that they could enter based on that asset being possessed by one of the PC's?  And again if so what is the difference between  that and deciding "yes" to the vessel situation?


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Okay I'm unfamiliar with Cortex Fantasy (so I might need some basic explanation of the mechanics), but in the post I quoted you stated you narrated this part (the PC's arriving and being allowed to enter the giant's village) without any dice rolls...right?  So how was the _d6 Invitation to Enter asset_ established if there were no dice rolls?
> 
> Also I note this asset is at d6 so I assume it is both ranked and rolled for something (by the name I'm assuming it measures the likelihood of being allowed to enter but I could be wrong)... but again there were no rolls to determine whether the PC's were allowed to enter or not so is this a case where you DM fiat'd that they could enter based on that asset being possessed by one of the PC's?  And again if so what is the difference between  that and deciding "yes" to the vessel situation?




This could be done via a Transition Scene with the expenditure of a Plot Point to use a Specialty (like Contacts, Diplomacy, or Mystic...maybe the PC makes up that he bears a mystical-brand-as-omen which heralds his coming to this place) to create the asset for subsequent use.  However, in this case...



> Cresting a ridge and looking down into the valley below, they can see - at the base of the rise on the opposite side - a large steading. Very large indeed, as they approach it, with 15' walls, doors 10' high and 8' wide, etc. And with a terrible smell. (Scene distinctions: Large Steading, Reeks of Smoke and Worse.) After some discussion of whether or not giants are friends or foes, the swordthan decides to knock at the gates and seek permission to enter. Some dice rolls later and he has a d6 Invitation to Enter asset, and a giant (I used the Guide's Ogre datafile) opens the gate and invites him in.




...it looks like it was created as an action during the Social Conflict to get in.  It looks like it was probably part of the dice pool that stressed out the opposition and won the Social Scene for the PCs.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> From this and other things you've posted here it seems your games are a good way down the spectrum towards co-operative storytelling.  I'm coming at this from a long history of quasi-Gygaxian dungeoneering where a plot or world backstory sticks its head up now and then, takes one look at the party, and likely runs screaming back into its cave.  So, small wonder we're talking in circles.



But I don't think we're talking in circles! You asked, "How would a game have backstory and a 'plot' if the GM doesn't provide it. I answered.

Yes, the answer includes doing things differently from Gygaxian dungeon crawl style. But we've known that, in the context of this thread, at least since  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] posted outlining three different approaches to player-driven RPGing (Gygaxian; what he called "scene-framing"; and what he called "principle GMing" - I tend to blur those last two together as "modern" or "indie"-style, but that taxonomic issue shouldn't matter to you because it still makes the contrast with Gygaxian sandbox-style clear.)

And as I replied to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] upthread, there is nothing about 5e that stops it being run in a player-driven fashion of an "indie" style, _provided that_ the GM adopts some appropriate a techniques in calling for non-combat checks and setting the DCs for them, and provided that the inspiration mechanic is engaged to a suitable degree.



Lanefan said:


> it seems you're trying to take an overall foundational basis of those systems (i.e. a strong lean toward co-operative storytelling) and shoehorn it into D&D, which traditionally has had a more DM-driven style.



But D&D does not "traditionally" have a more DM-driven style, does it? It does assume GM control over backstory, but not GM control over the events of play. In Gygax's PHB and DMG, he assumes that the _players_ will be the ones who choose what part of the dungeon to target, whether to negotiate, fight or flee from encountered creatures, what equipment to take with them, etc.



Lanefan said:


> Plot, backstory, and game-world history are really all the same thing, with the only differences being time (whether current or past) and level of effect on or interaction with the PCs.



I think it's pretty helpful to distinguish _backstory_ from _plot_. Designing a dungeon, mapping it, placing all the creature and treasure - that's backstory, which will include some game-world history.

But what the players choose to do when they encounter the dungeon - eg does Robilar free the trapped gods; or Erca's Cousin free Fraz-Urb'luu from imprisonment? - is not something the GM is at lbierty to make up. Those events are initiated and driven by the players, and they are what establish the plot of the campaign.

Of course from the perspective of the ingame inhabitants they are all just events, but that perspective is not useful for analysing the play of the game.



Lanefan said:


> If you hadn't decided ahead of time whether there's a diamond there to be found or not, my statement that I'm looking for one and subsequent success on the roll to find it means *pop* I've just generated a diamond.  Do this often enough and hey, who needs to adventure?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's significant to my character's wealth, if nothing else.



I think there is a narrow, more technical answer to this, and then a broader one as well.

The narrow answer: if you declare that you are looking for a diamond in the room, and the check is framed and you fail, then you are going to have to deal with the resulting consequence of failure. (For elaboration, see my reply to  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] not far upthread of this.) And "let it ride" also applies. So the game is not just going to hang, static, waiting for you as a player to roll up diamonds for your PC.

Because no PC in this particular game has ever been on the hunt for diamonds, this particular issue has never come up. But a similar one has: a PC mage had returned with the party to the ruined tower where he once lived studying under his brother's tutelage before they fled when the tower was assaulted by orcs (this was part of the PC's backstory; the brother is the mage who was decapitated in the tower by the assassin, having been possessed by a balrog when the attempt to cast a spell to repel the orcs failed). Another part of the PC's backstory stated that, in the tower, he had left behind The Falcon's Claw, a nickel-silver mace which he was preparing to receive enchantments. Having now returned to the tower after lo those many years, a search was made for the mace. This was framed as a check in the same way as looking for a vessel in the bedroom. The check failed; and so the PC did not find any mace. Instead, he found a collection of cursed arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom - this discovery therefore (i) implicating his brother in the manufacture of the arrow that had killed another PC's (the elven ronin's) master; and (ii) implying that his brother was evil _before_ being possessed by a balrog, rather than as a result of it.

So for all sorts of reasons, of which the threat of adverse consequences on failure is just one, it makes no sense for a player to just go around declaring attempts to find stuff that his/her PC wants.

The broader answer is this: the reason for playing a RPG, as I take it, isn't so that one's PC (who is purely imaginary) experiences wealth and pleasure in the fiction (which is all purely imaginary). It's so that you, the player, _actually_ experience, in the real world, the satisfaction of playing a game. If that satisfaction mostly comes from having a really long equipment list full of diamonds, then probably the sort of game I run is not the best for you. But that's not the only way to get satisfaction out of a RPG.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> How did you determine that the giants were or were not open to negotiations?  That seems like a pretty big stake and something that would be uncertain but it feels like (and I could be wrong here), that you did in fact create an outcome around what you wanted to happen in the narrative.  If that isn't the case what differentiates this from the vessel example earlier?  Where saying yes or no to the player would be considered a railroad??





Imaro said:


> Okay I'm unfamiliar with Cortex Fantasy (so I might need some basic explanation of the mechanics), but in the post I quoted you stated you narrated this part (the PC's arriving and being allowed to enter the giant's village) without any dice rolls...right?  So how was the _d6 Invitation to Enter asset_ established if there were no dice rolls?





pemerton said:


> The first actual _action _of the game, after the initial setting up, was when one of the players declared "I go to the gate of the setting, knock, and call out a greeting." I narrated an outcome without any dice being rolled - a deep voice (correctly presumed by the players to be the voice of a giant) responded gruffly. That is not railroading (as characterised by me in my OP), because it is not a case of me shaping an outcome to fit a preconceived narrative. It is simply "saying 'yes'" to the player - the player wants his PC to open negotiations, and I am letting that happen.
> 
> The negotiations themselves then unfolded, and were resolved via a check (or perhaps a series of checks - I don't recall the details now) - the upshot being that the player successfully established that he was invited to enter the steading, and hence the gates were opened.





pemerton said:


> the player declared actions and was successful. In mechanical terms, he established a d6 Invitation to Enter asset, which he was subsequently able to leverage in his rolls to impose a Persuaded to Help complication on the giant chieftain.



I've reposted the relevant bit of the first post that you quoted from, and my first reply.

As it states: when the player wanted to try and negotiate an invitation to enter, I "said 'yes'" to the opening of negotiations for that purpose ie when the player said "I got to the gate of the steading, knock, and call out a greeting" I didn't respond "A giant spear comes hurtling towards you - roll your reaction pool!" Rather, a gruff voice responded. (I can't remember the response, but it would have been either "What do you want" or "Please go away".)

If the player had failed in the attempt to receive an invitation, then the _result_ of that failure could have been the hurling of spears. But it wasn't.

If the question is, _why is it not railroading to allow the player to have a chance at successfully wrangling for his PC to enter the steading?_, I think the answer is straightforward: letting a player have a chance to do something s/he wants to do with his/her PC is not a railroad.



Manbearcat said:


> it looks like it was created as an action during the Social Conflict to get in.  It looks like it was probably part of the dice pool that stressed out the opposition and won the Social Scene for the PCs.



From memory, I think the opening of the gates was, in the fiction, the correlate of establishing the asset mechanically. The action scene didn't actually come to an end until the giant chieftain Loge was "stressed out" by stepping the Persuaded to Help complication up above d12. And yes, the Invitation to Enter asset was part of the pool that achieved that final result - together with a d6 for the giant shaman's advice being given to the chieftain, which had been established by the same player as a Social asset by spending a point to activate an opportunity that I rolled.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Nor do I. Obviously setting a DC affects player success, but I do it all the time, and in my OP distinguished that sort of judgement call from railroading.




I don't know if you made a strong distinction between judgment calls and railroading. You gave an example of a judgment call involving setting a DC, and then you explained why this example was not a railroad because you were not basing your decisions with the intention of maintaining your predetermined course of action.

You then kind of implied that leaving the presence or not of a receptacle for the mage's blood up to the GM's judgment was a railroad. Which it could be...a GM could make his decision based on maintaining what he expected to happen. But that need not be the case. The GM could simply answer yes or no about the presence of a receptacle based on the prevailing conditions established by the fiction without knowing the player's intent....his desire to seethe railroad maintained need not enter into it. 

Hence why I would say that in this instance, the DM's judgment to decide yes or no is about the same as it would be to set a DC for the player.

I suppose that we could say that one approach opens up the possibility of railroading more than the other. But then we need to get into value statements about railroading and what the term means and so forth. 



pemerton said:


> The check is to find out whether or not the PC, looking for a vessel in the room, is able to notice one.




Okay, thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood and I thought that the skill check was being used to determine some of the elements of the world rather than simply the PC's ability to interact with the world. 



pemerton said:


> If the check fails, then (as a GM) I have to narrate failure. Obviously if the check is failed, then the character has failed to spot a vessel in the room. But as a general rule there has to be some other consequence that drives the action onward (as the BW website put is, "the consequences for failure lead to the next conflict. There are no dead-ends"). This is the basic premise of so-called "fail forward" or "no whiffing" adjudication.
> 
> Sometimes I indicate in advance what these consequence of failure will be; sometimes I leave it implicit in the situation; sometimes I just make something up. The night watch apprehending the PCs after the failed check to lug the bodies through town is an example of the second (ie it is implicit in the situation that if you tire and slow down lugging bodies through a town at night, you might encounter someone, including the watch); but in the case of looking for the vessel, it would really have had to be in category three - I would have made something up. (Handling communication of consequences of failure, and expectations around that, is another important domain of GM judgement calls.)
> 
> I don't know what I would have done at the time - I can't remember if I had anything in mind, and it's a bit hard to put myself back into that situation and recapture the feel. But possibilities I can think of now would include (1) "Yep, there's a jug on the table - but as Jabal [the mage whose tower it is] backs away from Halika [the assassin, who having killed the unconscious mage was now trying to escape by cutting down Jabal], he knocks the table and the jar falls to the ground and breaks", or (2) "You can't see any vessel, but in a disgusting display you can see Jabal's familiar, a bony raven-like creature, licking up the blood as it flows under the divan."
> 
> (1) would create a new context for decision - eg maybe the PC can summon a spirit that can put the jar back together again. (2) would increase the pressure on the PC to save the blood - not only is there no vessel, but the blood is getting eaten!
> 
> Either way, the player has to make a new decision about how (if at all) the PC is going to make sure that the naga gets the blood.




So do you think that one cannot achieve the same results with simply relying on DM judgment? Or is it only less likely? Does a failed check really open so many alternative paths that a DM saying "there is no chamber pot" does not? I think it would vary depending on many factors...but I'm not sure if I would say that it would tend to do so more often. 

Do you feel that from the player's point of view there is a significant difference between a failed check compared to the DM simply saying no?


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I misunderstood and I thought that the skill check was being used to determine some of the elements of the world rather than simply the PC's ability to interact with the world.



Maybe there is still some misunderstanding?

No one at the table knows whether or not there is a vessel in the room. I haven't described the room in great detail; I certainly haven't drawn a picture of it. There has been no reference to anyone pouring a drink, or using the chamber pot.

The player says (speaking as his character; and subject to the fact that I'm paraphrasing based on recollection), "There must be a lot of blood spilling out! I look around for a vessel - maybe a jug, or a chamber pot - that I can try and catch it in."

I set a low DC, because spotting a vessel of some sort in a bedroom is not a hard thing to do; the roll was made, and succeeded, and so the PC did indeed notice the vessel he was hoping to.

As I said, had the check failed (unlikely, but not impossible - a bit above 1%, from memory) then I would have had to narrate some consequence for failure, perhaps along the lines I described. As you've seen in my examples, (1) involves spotting a vessel but not being able to use it to catch blood, because it becomes broken in the course of the spotting (in the terminology of Burning Wheel, this is described as "successful task, failed intent" - a pretty standard approach to "fail forward" narration of consequences), while (2) leaves the question of a vessel open but tends to imply there is not one there (there is no reason to suppose that someone has hidden a vessel in the room, and nothing has been said to suggest that the room is so cluttered that a vessel might have been missed, and indeed the action that has unfolded so far tends to suggest that the room is fairly sparsely furnished).



hawkeyefan said:


> So do you think that one cannot achieve the same results with simply relying on DM judgment? Or is it only less likely? Does a failed check really open so many alternative paths that a DM saying "there is no chamber pot" does not?



I'm not sure what you have in mind by _the same result_.

No doubt, at some RPGing tables, the GM could just narrate one of the things I suggested, without there being a check.

Can that sort of GM narration - what is sometimes called "GM fiat" -  yield drama? Yes. As I posted upthread, I've played in CoC railroads which are exciting and engaging, mostly because of the oratorical/theatrical skill of the GM. It's essentially storytelling, and being told a story by a good storyteller can be an engaging experience.

Do I think the check yields more drama? At my table, absolutely. The "fiat" narration would be an instance of what, in the OP, I described as railroading - the GM is shaping an outcome to fit some pre-conception of how events should unfold. (To hark back to my recent reply to - I think -  [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION], it counts as an _outcome_ and not just colour or framing because it goes directly to the players' goals for his PC.) Whether that is good or bad is a matter of taste, though my use of the "railroad" label probably reveals what my taste is. And part of what shapes my taste is that _I_ find it more dramatic to learn, with the rest of the table, what happens in the fiction; and I think for my players it is more dramatic to participate in setting the stakes and then invoke the mechanics of the game to find out what happens, rather than simply be told a story by me.

As for the possibility of narrating failure (whether following a failed check, or by fiat) simply as "No, you can't see an vessel" - I think that sort of "dead end" response tends to shut down creative and engaged play from the players, and instead encourages them to look for the "correct" solution that the GM has in mind. In other words, it tends to turn the game into puzzle-solving. I occasionally use puzzles in my game - eg in my main 4e campaign, which recently entered its 9th year, I think I've used one password puzzle and three riddles, where in each case there was a pre-determined answer and the players had to figure it out to get what they wanted for their PCs - but I regard it as very much in the "handle with care" bag of techniques, because of the risk of dead-ending, and certainly wouldn't adopt it as a general approach to adjudication.



hawkeyefan said:


> Do you feel that from the player's point of view there is a significant difference between a failed check compared to the DM simply saying no?



Yes.

One paradigmatic illustration of the difference would be a TPK in a combat that was (given the ingame context and table expectations) fair, vs the GM just narrating "Rocks fall, everybody dies."

Cashing it out: if there's a check the player is able to bring his/her resources to bear. S/he is playing the game. The GM just narrating failure doesn't allow the player to actually play the game in that sense. (One reason why CoC lends itself well to GM fiat narration is because players have almost no resources, and so the game doesn't set up any expectation that the players will actually play the game in the sense of deploying their PCs in a mechanical fashion.)


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Maybe there is still some misunderstanding?
> 
> No one at the table knows whether or not there is a vessel in the room. I haven't described the room in great detail; I certainly haven't drawn a picture of it. There has been no reference to anyone pouring a drink, or using the chamber pot.




So the player's roll actually does determine if the receptacle exists, not if the PC sees the receptacle. Or rather, not simply if the PC sees it...the roll determines both the presence and the viewing of it.



pemerton said:


> The player says (speaking as his character; and subject to the fact that I'm paraphrasing based on recollection), "There must be a lot of blood spilling out! I look around for a vessel - maybe a jug, or a chamber pot - that I can try and catch it in."
> 
> I set a low DC, because spotting a vessel of some sort in a bedroom is not a hard thing to do; the roll was made, and succeeded, and so the PC did indeed notice the vessel he was hoping to.




So setting this DC with about a 1% chance of failure is more meaningful than simply saying "yup, it's there"? I mean, clearly the player is up to something by asking....so Justin saying yes would seem to save some time and no the really impact the drama. 



pemerton said:


> As I said, had the check failed (unlikely, but not impossible - a bit above 1%, from memory) then I would have had to narrate some consequence for failure, perhaps along the lines I described. As you've seen in my examples, (1) involves spotting a vessel but not being able to use it to catch blood, because it becomes broken in the course of the spotting (in the terminology of Burning Wheel, this is described as "successful task, failed intent" - a pretty standard approach to "fail forward" narration of consequences), while (2) leaves the question of a vessel open but tends to imply there is not one there (there is no reason to suppose that someone has hidden a vessel in the room, and nothing has been said to suggest that the room is so cluttered that a vessel might have been missed, and indeed the action that has unfolded so far tends to suggest that the room is fairly sparsely furnished).
> 
> I'm not sure what you have in mind by _the same result_.




In your failed check/fail forward example, I don't see how it's the check that really does all that much. In this example, you've said the the result of the roll is pretty much a given. And I don't think that you mentioned anything about the degrees of failure or success based on how far the roll was from the DC...so all the alternatives (the broken chamber pot, etc.) are all still the product of DM judgment. 



pemerton said:


> No doubt, at some RPGing tables, the GM could just narrate one of the things I suggested, without there being a check.
> 
> Can that sort of GM narration - what is sometimes called "GM fiat" -  yield drama? Yes. As I posted upthread, I've played in CoC railroads which are exciting and engaging, mostly because of the oratorical/theatrical skill of the GM. It's essentially storytelling, and being told a story by a good storyteller can be an engaging experience.




This is where I question your choice to label it as a railroad. So far, I am not seeing a meaningful difference. 



pemerton said:


> Do I think the check yields more drama? At my table, absolutely. The "fiat" narration would be an instance of what, in the OP, I described as railroading - the GM is shaping an outcome to fit some pre-conception of how events should unfold. (To hark back to my recent reply to - I think -   @_*Imaculata*_, it counts as an _outcome_ and not just colour or framing because it goes directly to the players' goals for his PC.) Whether that is good or bad is a matter of taste, though my use of the "railroad" label probably reveals what my taste is. And part of what shapes my taste is that _I_ find it more dramatic to learn, with the rest of the table, what happens in the fiction; and I think for my players it is more dramatic to participate in setting the stakes and then invoke the mechanics of the game to find out what happens, rather than simply be told a story by me.
> 
> As for the possibility of narrating failure (whether following a failed check, or by fiat) simply as "No, you can't see an vessel" - I think that sort of "dead end" response tends to shut down creative and engaged play from the players, and instead encourages them to look for the "correct" solution that the GM has in mind. In other words, it tends to turn the game into puzzle-solving. I occasionally use puzzles in my game - eg in my main 4e campaign, which recently entered its 9th year, I think I've used one password puzzle and three riddles, where in each case there was a pre-determined answer and the players had to figure it out to get what they wanted for their PCs - but I regard it as very much in the "handle with care" bag of techniques, because of the risk of dead-ending, and certainly wouldn't adopt it as a general approach to adjudication.




But the DM need not say no. He can say yes....the equivalent of setting such a low DC as to make the check virtually meaningless. So why bother with the check? I don't think it adds any real drama in this sense. 

This is not to say that I always advocate for DM fiat or anything like that. Not even that this should be a general approach. I think there are absolutely times to call for a check in order to determine success or failure. And I like alternative paths being presented instead of a dead end...I just don't see the required connection between the dead end point and DM judgment.


----------



## Hussar

Railroading is something that has always been nebulous to define.  It's defined most easily by it's center, rather than its edges - the DM decides that no matter what you do, X will always happen is a pretty easy thing to call railroading.  Although, even there, there might be exceptions, but, I think you get the point.

For me personally, I define railroading slightly differently.  

Railroading:  When the DM defines the outcomes of player actions in such a way that it renders all player choices immaterial, AND, the players object (or would object if they knew the DM was doing it).  

So, all sorts of pretty standard DMing techniques - starting a scene in medias res, cut scenes, fast forwarding scenes, etc. are only considering railroading IF the players are unhappy with it.  If the players are cool with it, it's not railroading.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> The way I see things, there may be a main plot when you retrospectively look back on a campaign, particularly if you focus on one set of players and their PCs in a particular timeframe, but there are also supplementary plots and sequences of events occurring all the time that crisscross with the main plot.



When I talk about railroading I've got in mind mostly what I think you would call "the main plot" - ie the bulk of the action that the PCs were engaged in over the course of the timeframe in question.



billd91 said:


> in RPGs, plots are mutable, intersecting things, constantly being interfered with by both PCs and NPCs. Yet, since they all advance in time even if we do not interfere with them, they're all plots in the sense that they are all sequences of events causally linked together.



I don't really get the "interfered with".

PCs and NPCs do things in the fiction - but in the fiction there is no "plot", only life (the imagined life of those various imaginary people).

The plot is something that is created by the actions of real people - the players and the GM - and when I talk about railroading I'm focusing on who creates that plot, and how.



billd91 said:


> if the DM is trying to present a world in which things happen that aren't simply focused around the PCs (or one group of PCs)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> just because a DM has events planned out, if the PCs can choose to interfere with them or not interfere with them, I don't think it's a railroad. Plots operating in the background that affect the PCs in various ways, whether positively or negatively, aren't railroads if the choices the players make still matter.



If the GM is presenting something to the players, then - unless it is a sheer narrated vignette (a viable technique, but not a very traditional one) - presumably the PCs are somehow connected to it, if only to the extent that they learn of it.

I'm opening with the above paragraph not to be pedantic, but to link that point to a more general one - every RPG world will involve some stuff that is connected to the PCs only in that rather trivial sense, that they learn of it, or that it forms some background in a circumstance where the real focus of the action is something else.

But that sort of stuff - by dint of being background, or only trivially connected to the PCs - is not the plot of the game.

If the GM starts using that sort of stuff to actually determine outcomes of action resolution then its connection to the PCs becomes more than trivial - within the fiction, it is exercising some significant causal power in respect of them. In those circumstances, I do regard it as railroading.

But preparing events isn't the same as using stuff to determine outcomes. A GM might have a list of "Stuff that would be fun/interesting to happen", and then when some action declaration or some new framing context makes it appropriate, s/he takes something from the list. That's not railroading - because the GM isn't shaping outcomes towards something predetermined. 

That said, you didn't use the word "preparing" - which is about the GM's "homework". You used the word "planning", which is a bit ambiguous as between preparing material so its ready to use, and sketching out a causal path within the gameworld. The latter needn't be railroading - the GM plans to narrate some event as occurring under such-and-such conditions, but the question of whether the conditions come about is ultimately subject to the outcomes of player action declarations for their PCs. But in practice I think it easily bleeds into railroading, because there can be a strong "pull" on the GM to use the background causal considerations that s/he envisages will bring this planned event to pass as factors in adjudicating player action declarations. And, as I said, that's something that I regard as railroading.

My own preferred approach, therefore, is that when these events, being causally driven by ingame forces, are planned by me, they become known to the players also. Eg in my main 4e game the players (and PCs) know the Dusk War is on the horizon; in my Burning Wheel game, the players (and PCs) know that the mage Jabal is engaged to marry the Gynarch of Hardby. That way these pending events become part of the shared context of action declaration, framing of checks, etc. And it becomes clear to the players how they might declare actions to delay or prevent them (as has happened in both cases, deliberately in respect of the Dusk War and a bit more inadvertently in respect of the wedding).



Xetheral said:


> in my experience "plot" in a literary context has a much broader definition than the dictionary provides, and is no way limited to "the main events". As evidence, consider the usage of the terms _side plot_ and _plot weaving_, both of which require the presence of multiple plots in a single work, a prospect that the dictionary definition does not allow for.
> 
> In an RPG context I think it makes sense to use the broader literary sense. Accordingly, I don't think it's right to use the dictionary definition to reject the concepts of flexible plots, breadcrumbs, or (optional) GM-provided plots within a sandbox.



The multiple plots in a single work are, nevertheless, sequences of events that are interrelated, and presented as such, and in some sense "main" or otherwise salient.

But some bit of backstory known only to the GM is not salient in the same way, in my view. if the audience (ie the players) don't even know of it, I don't see how it counts as plot.

The breadcrumbs, "flexible plots" etc are also not plots. They're not sequences of fictional events. The GM planning, or preparing, to make a certain event part of the shared fiction under certain circumstances, does not actually make it part of the shared fiction. And if it's not part of the shared fiction, then it's certainly not part of the plot of the game.


----------



## Campbell

From my vantage point, the difference between a failed check and a GM simply deciding if my character is successful absolutely matters to me. I am assuming that check was made in good faith and will have an impact on the ultimate resolution. In some cases having a check may be preferable - in others it may not. Generally, I am not really a fan of perception and knowledge checks. If something is in plain view in the fiction or if my character would know some relevant detail I would prefer to simply be told so. This is part of *always saying what honesty demands* - an important precept of the sort of role playing I prefer. Only by providing meaningful information to players can decisions truly matter.

I also care very deeply why the GM is making the decisions they are making. It carries a lot of water to me if something is being introduced to offer players meaningful decisions or to prod players down a particular path. In general what I am looking for when I play a roleplaying game is to be offered the chance to make informed decisions, have those decisions actually matter, sometimes experience bleed, and give the game its say.


----------



## pemerton

Some posts in this thread seem to be running together _GM preparation_ - which might consist of notes, ideas, plans, etc around what sort of events would be fun or clever or appropriate to introduce into the shared fiction - with _the plot of a game_ - which is an actual series of events that occur in the shared fiction and constitute (subject to qualifications around interwoven plots, sub- or side-plots, etc) the "main action" of the campaign.

But these things must, at least in principle, be distinct - because a plan to make something part of the shared fiction is not the same thing as actually doing that.

In the OP I described _railroading_ as "the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative." If the GM is shaping outcomes to ensure that _the plot_ of the game (ie that series of actual events in the shared fiction that amount to the main action) corresponds with his/her _preparation/planning_ in respect of the game (eg his/her scripting of a sequence of events to unfold in the campaign), then in my view that absolutely is railroading. (I put adjudication by reference to backstory known only to the GM - "secret backstory" - in this category.)

(It follows that, if you don't want to railroad in this sense, then some sorts of preparing/planning might be not all that useful.)


----------



## Lanefan

FrogReaver said:


> Sandbox 101. Players piss off evil warlord who sends 50 soldiers at them. Players die.



Characters die.  Players, I hope, survive long enough to roll up new ones.  

Lan-"pet peeve: characters are not players"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But I don't think we're talking in circles! You asked, "How would a game have backstory and a 'plot' if the GM doesn't provide it. I answered.
> 
> Yes, the answer includes doing things differently from Gygaxian dungeon crawl style. But we've known that, in the context of this thread, at least since  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] posted outlining three different approaches to player-driven RPGing (Gygaxian; what he called "scene-framing"; and what he called "principle GMing" - I tend to blur those last two together as "modern" or "indie"-style, but that taxonomic issue shouldn't matter to you because it still makes the contrast with Gygaxian sandbox-style clear.)
> 
> And as I replied to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] upthread, there is nothing about 5e that stops it being run in a player-driven fashion of an "indie" style, _provided that_ the GM adopts some appropriate a techniques in calling for non-combat checks and setting the DCs for them, and provided that the inspiration mechanic is engaged to a suitable degree.



And provided that the table drifts away from traditional D&D, see below.



> But D&D does not "traditionally" have a more DM-driven style, does it? It does assume GM control over backstory, but not GM control over the events of play. In Gygax's PHB and DMG, he assumes that the _players_ will be the ones who choose what part of the dungeon to target, whether to negotiate, fight or flee from encountered creatures, what equipment to take with them, etc.



But he also assumes the DM is the one placing the dungeon in the game world and that the adventurers (via their players) will then duly go and deal with it in whatever manner best suits them.  By logical extension, that dungeon is being placed for a reason; probably to do with a story the DM has in mind for either now or later.  This isn't any sort of railroading.



> I think it's pretty helpful to distinguish _backstory_ from _plot_. Designing a dungeon, mapping it, placing all the creature and treasure - that's backstory, which will include some game-world history.
> 
> But what the players choose to do when they encounter the dungeon - eg does Robilar free the trapped gods; or Erca's Cousin free Fraz-Urb'luu from imprisonment? - is not something the GM is at lbierty to make up. Those events are initiated and driven by the players, and they are what establish the plot of the campaign.



When I say 'plot' I'm referring to whatever storyboarded ideas the DM might have going in, for how the campaign will unfold.  When I refer to what actually happens or happened during the run of play I'll usually use 'story', provided I remember to make the distinction.



> The narrow answer: if you declare that you are looking for a diamond in the room, and the check is framed and you fail, then you are going to have to deal with the resulting consequence of failure.



Seems simple enough: if I fail I don't have a new diamond.  No worries - I didn't have it before, either; so status quo.



> Because no PC in this particular game has ever been on the hunt for diamonds



Which tells me only that your players are not my players, or me. 



> The broader answer is this: the reason for playing a RPG, as I take it, isn't so that one's PC (who is purely imaginary) experiences wealth and pleasure in the fiction (which is all purely imaginary). It's so that you, the player, _actually_ experience, in the real world, the satisfaction of playing a game. If that satisfaction mostly comes from having a really long equipment list full of diamonds



Not quite.  (some of) The satisfaction comes from having a really long equipment list of items (or places) I could buy (or build) with all those diamonds. 



> then probably the sort of game I run is not the best for you. But that's not the only way to get satisfaction out of a RPG.



No, but it's certainly one way. 

Lan-"remember, Neutral Greedy is the 10th alignment"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> When I say 'plot' I'm referring to whatever storyboarded ideas the DM might have going in, for how the campaign will unfold.  When I refer to what actually happens or happened during the run of play I'll usually use 'story', provided I remember to make the distinction.



See my post above - about 179, I think - where I address just this point.

When I think of _the plot_ of a game, I'm not thinking of someone's hopes, aspirations or musing as to what might happen. I'm thinking about what has actually happened. Just as the plot of LotR is not whatever notes etc JRRT made as part of the process of conception and drafting - it's the plot of the book as actually authored and published.



Lanefan said:


> Seems simple enough: if I fail I don't have a new diamond.  No worries - I didn't have it before, either; so status quo.



If you look at some of my posts upthread - eg replies to [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan in the 160s/170s - you'll see that this is not the case.

(I also gave an example in my reply to you, of the consequence of failing to find the mace. I don't think it's very helpful to speculate about how the application of a particular technique will unfold in play without paying attention to all the features of the technique.)


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> My own preferred approach, therefore, is that when these events, being causally driven by ingame forces, are planned by me, they become known to the players also. Eg in my main 4e game the players (and PCs) know the Dusk War is on the horizon; in my Burning Wheel game, the players (and PCs) know that the mage Jabal is engaged to marry the Gynarch of Hardby.



But what happens when there's something significant going on - or about to go on - that the characters (and thus by extension the players) cannot and do not know anything about?  For example; yes they might know the Dusk War is on the horizon but what if you-as-DM have predetermined that the main infantry legions of the invading army are going to be wiped out by a divinely-sent flash flood three miles into their march, rendering the whole war mostly moot?



> But some bit of backstory known only to the GM is not salient in the same way, in my view. if the audience (ie the players) don't even know of it, I don't see how it counts as plot.



Highly relevant if it impacts the PCs in any major way and-or over the long term.  For example: their mentor, for whom they've been working almost since the start of their adventuring careers, isn't and has never been what he seems...in some ways.  He's sent you on these adventures for legitimate and noble reasons; he's in fact working in the best interests of the empire you yourselves also defend, but were it ever to become public knowledge (and here 'public' includes the PCs) that he's in fact a vampire who has killed thousands in the past he'd be executed pretty much on the spot.  This is absolutely plot now and story later even if the PCs never learn a thing about it during the campaign.



> The breadcrumbs, "flexible plots" etc are also not plots. They're not sequences of fictional events. The GM planning, or preparing, to make a certain event part of the shared fiction under certain circumstances, does not actually make it part of the shared fiction. And if it's not part of the shared fiction, then it's certainly not part of the plot of the game.



Again, you're using 'plot' where I would use 'story', to differentiate.  Breadcrumbs never followed up on are merely breadcrumbs, even though they may have tried to point to the DM's intended plot, and are eventually forgotten.  But once followed up on those breadcrumbs retroactively become part of the game's story.  Either way, the breadcrumbs themselves are in the story somewhere, even if buried deep.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> See my post above - about 179, I think - where I address just this point.
> 
> When I think of _the plot_ of a game, I'm not thinking of someone's hopes, aspirations or musing as to what might happen.



I am; as otherwise we don't have a term for it.

We do, however, have a term for what actually happens in the game to be read about later: story.



> I'm thinking about what has actually happened. Just as the plot of LotR is not whatever notes etc JRRT made as part of the process of conception and drafting - it's the plot of the book as actually authored and published.



To my way of thinking the plot is what he had before he started - his storyboard, if you will.  The story is what came of it later, that we read in the books.

Yes this might be a variance on the standard English uses for these words; but for these purposes we need a differentiation and this is the first one that comes to mind.

Lan-"gunpowder, treason and story"-efan


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> And as I replied to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] upthread, there is nothing about 5e that stops it being run in a player-driven fashion of an "indie" style, _provided that_ the GM adopts some appropriate a techniques in calling for non-combat checks and setting the DCs for them, and provided that the inspiration mechanic is engaged to a suitable degree.



 The DM can basically re-jigger the game to make it more player driven, but, y'know, the DM is driving said re-jiggering.  As presented, 5e puts the DM firmly in the driver's seat, even Inspiration which is awarded by the DM, based on his jusdgement of how the PCs are acting in accord with their Bonds et al.  He can play chauffeur and take the players where they want to go, but he's driving.  



> But D&D does not "traditionally" have a more DM-driven style, does it?



 Sure it does.  The olden game was a melange of oddball rules and vague advice, and how the DM made sense of it and applied it drove the campaign.



> It does assume GM control over backstory, but not GM control over the events of play.



 If you place a certain item in a place the characters can find it, or never place that item, that's going to not just shape the events of play around finding the item, it's going to shape the character who gets the item, just for one instance.  In 1e as in 5e, the DM is ultimately responsible for the game, if he wants to railroad the PCs, he can.  If he wants to give them the impression their choices are driving the 'story' that emerges, he can.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> The DM can basically re-jigger the game to make it more player driven, but, y'know, the DM is driving said re-jiggering.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The olden game was a melange of oddball rules and vague advice, and how the DM made sense of it and applied it drove the campaign.



This seems like saying that if the GM suggests playing Apocalypse World, and the group goes along with the suggestion, then the game is _really_ GM-driven because the GM suggested the system.

Or to put it another way: if the GM's "rejiggering" is to use the inspiration mechanics, to make all rolls in the open, to frame checks on a "say 'yes" or role the dice" basis, to allow the players to establish goals for their PCs that then drive the action, etc, then it is no longer a GM-driven game.

Or to put it yet another way: the GM's use of techniques that make a game player driven doesn't cease to make the game player-driven because it's the GM who's using them.



Tony Vargas said:


> If he wants to give them the impression their choices are driving the 'story' that emerges, he can.



In 5e, at least, the GM can not only give the impression: s/he can make the impression correct.

In 1st ed AD&D it's harder, as far as "story" is concerned. I think a player-driven AD&D game is going to be fairly light on story, and much more about the hijinks of particular encounters, dungeon rooms etc.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Highly relevant if it impacts the PCs in any major way and-or over the long term.



As I posted upthread, I regard this sort of GM's secret backstory, used as tool for adjudicating action declarations, railroading.

And similar to the discussion with [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] upthread about the assassination of the marquis, I would think of certain sorts of "off-screen" interference with key NPCs etc as equally railroading, in the sense of forcing _outcomes_ (ie event that are significant to the players and their PCs) regardless of player action declarations.



Lanefan said:


> But what happens when there's something significant going on - or about to go on - that the characters (and thus by extension the players) cannot and do not know anything about?  For example; yes they might know the Dusk War is on the horizon but what if you-as-DM have predetermined that the main infantry legions of the invading army are going to be wiped out by a divinely-sent flash flood three miles into their march, rendering the whole war mostly moot?



But as GM I wouldn't. If the Dusk War is a major focus of the campaign, and if the PCs are dedicated to preventing it, then there is no divine flash flood waiting to happen independent of the actions of the PCs. That would make all their actions meaningless - it would be a _negation_ of their choices and the significance of those choices, to re-use a phrase introduced above in discussion with [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION].


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> So the player's roll actually does determine if the receptacle exists, not if the PC sees the receptacle. Or rather, not simply if the PC sees it...the roll determines both the presence and the viewing of it.



I don't think using the words "exist" and "presence" in that way is very helpful. It encourages category mistakes.

Whether or not the vessel exists, and is present in the room, depends on the actions of beings in the shared fiction (eg did a house servant take a chamber pot into the room? did someone bring a jug of water into the room? etc).

Stepping out of the ingame perspective into the real world, of course no vessel exists - nor does any of the rest of the fiction - it is all made up and imaginary. And the content of the shared fiction can be determined in all sorts of ways. One way is via player checks - in particular, if the player succeeds on a check that establishes that his PC can see a vessel in the bedroom then that state of affairs becomes part of the shared fiction. Which means that the presence of a vessel in the bedroom also becomes a part of the shared fiction.

An analogue in classic D&D - which [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] might remember from past discussions - is the paladin's power to call for a warhorse. The player's activation of that power makes it true, in the shared fiction, (i) that the paladin has some sort of dream/vision of the location of the warhorse, and therefore (ii) that said warhorse is present in said location. But the existence of the warhorse is not a result of the paladin calling for it - the warhorse was foaled, grew up, etc, long before the paladin called for it.

Note in both cases that the player action declaration is only one way of introducing the given element into the shared fiction. For instance, as I explained upthread, a failed check to notice the vessel might also introduce the vessel as a part of the shared fiction - but broken rather than ready-to-hand for blood collection. In the case of the paladin's warhorse, the GM may have mentioned some foaling horses at some earlier time in the campaign, and now use the occasion of the paladin calling for a warhorse to reintroduce one of those foals into the game.



hawkeyefan said:


> So setting this DC with about a 1% chance of failure is more meaningful than simply saying "yup, it's there"? I mean, clearly the player is up to something by asking....so Justin saying yes would seem to save some time and no the really impact the drama.



When you say the player is up to something . . . you seem to imply that the GM may not know what.

In the approach that my table uses, the GM always knows what it is that "the player is up to". Action declaration is both intent and task. Knowing both is key to framing the check, to understanding how it fits into the unfolding action, and - if the check fails - to narrating failure. (Eg it is only because the GM knows that the player wants the vessel to collect blood that it would be appropriate to narrate, on a failure, that the familiar is eating the blood.)

As to why to set a DC even if it's low? Multiple reasons: it's part of the ritual of play; it highlights the significance, to the unfolding events, of this particular moment of action - Tru-leigh wants a vessel to collect the blood for his master, but can he see one that he might use? And it opens up the possibility of failure and hence the dramatic pacing of rise and fall, even for something easy. If the PCs only even fail on hard things, that changes the tone of the drama. It makes the feel of the game less gritty. And this particular game aims for a gritty feel. (This is a difference from, say, 4e.)



hawkeyefan said:


> In your failed check/fail forward example, I don't see how it's the check that really does all that much. In this example, you've said the the result of the roll is pretty much a given. And I don't think that you mentioned anything about the degrees of failure or success based on how far the roll was from the DC...so all the alternatives (the broken chamber pot, etc.) are all still the product of DM judgment.



I don't quite follow.

The result of the roll is either success - in which case the PC gets what the player wanted for him (namely, he can see a vessel in which he can try and collect the blood) - or failure - in which case some sort of failure has to be narrated. I gave a couple of examples of what those might be.

I'm not sure how degrees of success/failure factor into this - of the systems I run regularly, the only one that routinely cares about degrees of success/failure is Marvel Heroic RP. But yes, adjudicating the consequences of failure is a GM judgement call. I didn't think that was in doubt. But I'm not sure what further conclusion you're drawing from that.

Nowhere have I posted anything critical of GM judgement calls in general. In the OP I gave an example of a judgement call - setting a DC - that I don't see as railroading. In subsequent posts in this thread I've given further examples.



hawkeyefan said:


> I just don't see the required connection between the dead end point and DM judgment.



I don't understand this. You asked, "Does a failed check really open so many alternative paths that a DM saying "there is no chamber pot" does not?" and "Do you feel that from the player's point of view there is a significant difference between a failed check compared to the DM simply saying no?"

I explained why I prefer "fail forward" to "dead end" failure (eg "Just as you notice the jar on the table, it is knocked over and smashes" to "No, there's no vessel"). "Fail forward" relies on GM judgement (to narrate some consequence of failure that pushes the action onward) in a way that "dead end" narration does not (hence my incredulity at [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION]'s suggestion that I could get the play experience I've talked about in this thread by playing without a GM). So the only "required connection" is that "dead end" narration doesn't require GM judgement, whereas "fail forward" does.

As far as the GM substituting a judgement to "say no" for a check, there is no particular connection between that and "dead end" failure - as I posted upthread, GM might by way of fiat describe the jar being smashed, or the familiar licking up the blood, without calling for a check and hence without allowing the possibility of the player getting what he wants for his PC. But, as I said in the OP, I would regard such an exercise of judgement as railroading - it is the GM shaping the outcomes (ie the highly salient and significant events within the shared fiction) in order to fit some preconception of what should happen. So it's not something that I would do.



hawkeyefan said:


> This is where I question your choice to label it as a railroad. So far, I am not seeing a meaningful difference.



To be clear - are you saying you don't see any difference between a GM narrating failure by fiat, and a GM setting a DC and then the player checking and failing?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> As I posted upthread, I regard this sort of GM's secret backstory, used as tool for adjudicating action declarations, railroading.



So a DM's not allowed to have a game-affecting hidden backstory without being accused of railroading???

You've gone over the top on that one, old chap.  Sorry.



> And similar to the discussion with [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION] upthread about the assassination of the marquis, I would think of certain sorts of "off-screen" interference with key NPCs etc as equally railroading, in the sense of forcing _outcomes_ (ie event that are significant to the players and their PCs) regardless of player action declarations.



You've agreed upthread that something happening off-screen isn't railroading - I think - such as the Marquis being assassinated in his bed the night before.

My point is that there's no difference if it happens on-screen in a manner that precludes the PCs from doing anything about it - the Marquis still dies, whether it's last night in his private hotel room or this afternoon in an arena where the PCs happen to be able to see it from across the field.



> But as GM I wouldn't. If the Dusk War is a major focus of the campaign, and if the PCs are dedicated to preventing it, then there is no divine flash flood waiting to happen independent of the actions of the PCs. That would make all their actions meaningless - it would be a _negation_ of their choices and the significance of those choices, to re-use a phrase introduced above in discussion with [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION].



Now here things get interesting.

Let's say as an example that this oncoming Dusk War had been a background atmosphere-setting thing all along in the campaign (maybe it's because all the local soldiery has been called to the front lines that brave adventurers are needed back here closer to town, thus explaining the existence of your party at all), but that your intent going in was that it would in theory never become too relevant to anything because a flash flood was going to end it as soon as it started.  But during play the players via their characters have brought the oncoming Dusk War to the fore, made it important to themselves, and based some major decisions around it; all regardless whether or not it was important to you as DM and-or whether you had any interest at all in running a war-front adventure or campaign*.

Now you're screwed.

By your definitions you'll be railroading if you have the flood happen anyway even though it's what you'd planned all along.
By at least one other definition upthread (I forget who's) you'll be railroading if you deviate from your original plan, dispense with the flood, and let the war continue.
And by my definition you've in fact been railroaded by your players.

Me, I have the flood happen anyway.  The war was nothing more than a red herring that the party latched on to; meanwhile who knows what else they've been ignoring in the meantime. 

* - this is important too - what happens if (or when) the players/characters happen to steer you toward running something you simply don't want to run?

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> To be clear - are you saying you don't see any difference between a GM narrating failure by fiat, and a GM setting a DC and then the player checking and failing?



Depends.

If the DC is set at 94 then nope, no difference at all other than the small amount of extra time taken to ask for the check and roll the die.

If the DC is set at something reasonable, then while there's a added difference in that success is in theory possible there's no difference in the end result: it's still a fail.  What's important, perhaps, is whether it's by fiat or by die roll the end-result narration really should be the same: in the case of a very quick search as in the cup-for-blood example it might go "You look around and find nothing obvious." regardless how that result was arrived at.

Lanefan


----------



## jonesy

pemerton said:


> But some bit of backstory known only to the GM is not salient in the same way, in my view. if the audience (ie the players) don't even know of it, I don't see how it counts as plot.
> 
> The breadcrumbs, "flexible plots" etc are also not plots. They're not sequences of fictional events. The GM planning, or preparing, to make a certain event part of the shared fiction under certain circumstances, does not actually make it part of the shared fiction. And if it's not part of the shared fiction, then it's certainly not part of the plot of the game.



Players = audience? Your campaign sounds like audience participation theater. The play is improvised as it happens, and the director is merely there to set the themes, locations and to help with the flow of the play? Would you say that this is an accurate assessment of what you are describing?



pemerton said:


> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> But what happens when there's something significant going on - or about to go on - that the characters (and thus by extension the players) cannot and do not know anything about?  For example; yes they might know the Dusk War is on the horizon but what if you-as-DM have predetermined that the main infantry legions of the invading army are going to be wiped out by a divinely-sent flash flood three miles into their march, rendering the whole war mostly moot?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But as GM I wouldn't. If the Dusk War is a major focus of the campaign, and if the PCs are dedicated to preventing it, then there is no divine flash flood waiting to happen independent of the actions of the PCs. That would make all their actions meaningless - it would be a _negation_ of their choices and the significance of those choices, to re-use a phrase introduced above in discussion with [MENTION=6801286]Imaculata[/MENTION].
Click to expand...


Are you saying here that there is no history in your campaign unless the players are there to witness it? Nothing is occurring in the 'background'? To have things happen beyond the fog of war the players actually have to walk into said fog?


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

pemerton said:


> Using slightly more technical terminology, Gygax is advising the GM _to carefully manage the introduction of content into the shared fiction_. Don't put stuff in that won't conduce to a fun game. And he also says that it would be _contrary to the major precepts of the game_ to first put stuff in, but then manipulate outcomes so that it doesn't cause problems.





To be fair to Gygax, he's not our DM or playing at our table. 

With us and I'm sure many other groups, the DM is setting up the campaign world way before folks get around to playing within it. While the granularity of detail will be different, the elements are in play before the game starts. Players then explore and interact as they choose. The idea of a 

As such, it is players who control how content is introduced, by choosing to go find it. And often they choose to find it in dangerous places._ 

For example, we recently had our players decide to engage with a faction that was better equipped. The faction was presented to a given level of detail. When one of the players decided to engage with a powerful being within that faction, additional detail was given, intended to encourage the player to re-consider their choice while still presenting the option to follow it through. Another example would be how the party was massacred after encountering a warlord and his wolf. They'd been recklessly/bravely bundling around the fallen city with much success but finally their luck and resources ran out. Sure, we could have tweaked or removed the warlord and his wolf. But we didn't - and we won't. That's what was there, they explored and found it. They chose how to interact and they died. Good stuff!_

With such a style - and I do think it is a difference in style - the DM can draw attention to an element, but typically this occurs after the player has chosen to engage with it. Elements are not typically not telegraphed to the players, simply presented, unless the context would demand otherwise. _(Or if we prefer, the players are given the panoramic view and then choose to zoom in on elements through their engagement with said elements)._ However, the key difference is the DM is not tailoring content for the characters in terms of challenge or difficulty. There's still an element of level-appropriate design of course, though this again this is made long before the players rock up and do what they do. And due to the DM not directly tailoring the level / difficulty of these elements, this is where a DM can choose to nudge a player, which we appreciate. Still, it is the players who choose to enter the _Dungeon of Almost Certain Death to All But the Most Powerfu_l, regardless of whatever level they might actually be.

And If I as the DM or whoever amongst us is DMing removed all the the things we didn't want the players to interact with, we'd be removing the game experience we've all signed up to enjoy. It's a simulation approach, granted, and one we really enjoy. Sorry Gygax, if we roll a wandering monster, you get a wandering monster.


----------



## pemerton

Gardens & Goblins said:


> If I as the DM or whoever amongst us is DMing removed all the the things we didn't want the players to interact with, we'd be removing the game experience we've all signed up to enjoy. It's a simulation approach, granted, and one we really enjoy. Sorry Gygax, if we roll a wandering monster, you get a wandering monster.



But to go back to your example - of the rotating rusty portal of death - if you include that in the situation, but then the GM gives all sorts of hints and nudges to the player that investigating it is likely to be fatal - well, what was the point of including it in the first place?


----------



## pemerton

jonesy said:


> Players = audience?





Campbell said:


> one of the things that informs my views on role playing is that in any given moment all of the players (including the GM if there is one) are both participants and audience.





			
				Ron Edwards said:
			
		

> Narrativist play makes special use of the general role-playing principle that the participants are simultaneously authors and audience.



What I've quoted is what I have in mind.

In the context of the post about plot: if the players don't know what the backstory is - it's just something in the GM's notes - then (whatever else it might be) that backstory is not the _plot_ of the game: it is nothing like "the main events, forming an interrelated sequence".

I have read modules that suffer from this issue (eg just recently, prompted by a thread on rpg.net, I've been looking at some of my OA modules that I've never run): they have all this backstory, which the module writer appears to regard as highly significant, but that - if the module is run more-or-less as presented - is quite unlikely to ever come out, let alone _matter_, at the table. Whatever we make of that stuff (eg I think of it basically as filler), it is is not going to amount to the plot of the adventure when run.



jonesy said:


> Your campaign sounds like audience participation theater. The play is improvised as it happens, and the director is merely there to set the themes, locations and to help with the flow of the play? Would you say that this is an accurate assessment of what you are describing?



Maybe, although it's not something I would ever have come up with on my own, and my knowledge of theatre is weak enough that in saying "maybe" I might be making commitments that I'm not aware of!

Christopher Kubasik's "Interactive Tookit" is one set of ideas that I have drawn from. He offers the following advice on GMing (and he uses "Story Entertainment" to describe his approach to RPGing):

Let's start with roleplaying's GM (referee, Storyteller or whatever). This is usually the person who works out the plot, the world and everything that isn't the players'. To a greater or lesser degree, she is above the other players in importance, depending on the group's temperament. In a Story Entertainment, she is just another player. Distinctly different, but no more and no less than any other player. The terms GM and referee fail to convey this spirit of equality. The term Storyteller suggests that the players are passive listeners of her tale. So here's another term for this participant - one that invokes the spirit of Story Entertainments - Fifth Business.

Fifth Business is a term that originates from European opera companies. A character from Robertson Davies' novel, The Fifth Business, describes the' term this way:

You cannot make a plot work without another man, and he is usually a baritone, and he is called in the profession Fifth Business. You must have a Fifth Business because he is the one who knows the secret of the hero's birth, or comes to the assistance of the heroine when she thinks all is lost, or keeps the hermitess in her cell, or may even be the cause of somebody's death, if that is part of the plot. The prima donna and the tenor, the contralto and the basso, get all the best music and do all the spectacular things, but you cannot manage the plot without the Fifth Business!​
This certainly sounds a lot like a GM, but it also makes it clear that he's part of the show, not the show itself.

Let's call the players the Leads. They're not players in the GM's game. They're participants in a story. The Fifth Business has a lot more work to do than do the Leads, changing costumes and shaping the story while it's in progress. But the Leads are equal to the Fifth Business. The Leads must react to the characters, incidents and information that the Fifth Business offers, just as players must react to what the GM offers in a roleplaying game. But the Fifth Business must always be on his toes and react to what the Leads offer.

Why?

Because in a Story Entertainment the story doesn't belong to the Fifth Business. The Fifth Business can't decide what the plot is going to be and then run the players through it like mice in a maze. The Leads determine the direction of the story when they create their characters. Remember our definition of plot from the start of this article? What do the characters want? What are their goals? The story is about the attempt to gain those goals. The Fifth Business creates obstacles to those goals.​
That's not a bad account of how I prefer to GM a game.

On the issue of improvisation: as I posted somewhere upthread, I prep things (eg statblocks, maps of locations, etc - either myself, or by using the pubilshed works of others, like modules, Monster Manuals etc). So not every element that I introduce into the game is improvised in that sense. But its introduction into the game is triggered by the events of play. Eg in my BW game I had statted up a renegade elven wanderer, as (i) I'd just downloaded the relevant supplement and wanted to take it out for a spin, and (ii) one of the PCs was an elven ronin-type who had the Belief "Always keep the elven ways", and a renegade elf seemed like a good way to put pressure on that Belief in some fashion. (The fact that I knew of that Belief reveals another dimension to prep, that Kubasik also flags - the players' have set goals/orientations/themes for their PCs.)

When the players were trekking across the Bright Desert to the Abor-Alz, and failed a relevant check, I got my chance: when they arrived at the waterhole at the edge of the desert (where the streams pool before flowing on again and draining into the desert sands), they found that it had been fouled - someone had anticipated their arrival. Investigation revealed that this was the work of an elf, but only a filthy renegade elf would do such a thing! (As it turned out, the elf was working for the dark naga - when the PCs later captured and killed him, that created the context in which the naga needed a new servant, and hence dominated the PC who therefore needed a vessel to catch the blood.)

So the elf as a stat block and concept was not improvised. But the elf as an antagonist in the fiction was introduced in an improvisational way. As a general rule, in a "fail forward" style of play the consequences of failure can't be narrated except in light of what is at stake in the check; and that can't be known until the check is declared; and hence all checks have (of necessity) an improvisational dimension to their resolution.



jonesy said:


> Are you saying here that there is no history in your campaign unless the players are there to witness it?



No. The PCs might learn of it in other ways. (See eg this actual play post, where I describe a session in which the PC's explored the Mausoleum of the Raven Queen, and learned quite a bit of history in the process.)

But if the players don't know something, than - by definition, almost - it is not part of the shared fiction.



jonesy said:


> Nothing is occurring in the 'background'?



Well, presumably all sorts of things are happening in the gameworld that the PCs don't know about. But in so far as the players don't know about those things, they're not part of the shared fiction of the game.



jonesy said:


> To have things happen beyond the fog of war the players actually have to walk into said fog?



That sort of stuff would be a consequence of action resolution, not an input into it. Or it might be an element in framing.

For instance, in this session the PCs - having received warning while in the Raven Queen's Mausoleum that the tarrasque had returned to the world - went out to hunt said tarrasque. They found it easily enough, but accompanying it (at a safe distance) were some maruts, who explained that, in accordance with a contract made with the Raven Queen millenia ago, they were there to ensure the realisation of the end times, and to stop anyone interfering with the tarrasque as an engine of this destruction and a herald of the beginning of the end times and the arrival of the Dusk War.

Or, in an earlier session, the PCs spoke to a demon imprisoned on the Feywild, and learned from it that learned that it had been summoned long ago during the Dawn War ("When Miska's armies were marshalling on the Plain of a Thousand Portals") by a powerful drow who had come into the Abyss, in order to ambush a strong and cruel sorceress. But the sorceress had defeated it and trapped it in the grove. (When they asked it the name of the sorceress, it replied that the name had been erased from its memory - and so they worked out that the "sorceress" was the Raven Queen, and hence that the summoner must be Lolth. They later saw a mural in the Raven Queen's mausoleum recording her victory over this demon.)

The backstory is something that informs framing and emerges as part of the process of play. It is not a separate and prior element that I, as GM, use to adjudicate action resolution.


----------



## pemerton

Another comment on "theatre" or "cooperative storytelling": these aren't games. They don't use dice. They don't involve players making "moves".

The games I run are games. More precisely, they're RPGs. They have rules that establish the "moves" the participants are allowed to make. It is the resolution of those moves that generates the events of play, and especially the significant outcomes that (taken as a whole) constitute the "plot" of the game.


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> First, "nonlinear narratives" are a thing. First example off the top of my head is _Memento_ but there are so many others.



Memento has a linear plot. It unfolds in temporal order. The gimmick of the film is that the plot is presented with the sequence of events reversed.



Jester David said:


> "railroading" is almost a pejorative in the D&D community. So you coming along and saying the DM making any decision for the campaign that isn't narration (i.e. flavour), decided random, or determined by the player is railroading is poking people in a very sensitive topic.



I didn't say that.

The example of a GM judgement call that I gave in the OP, and expressly _denied_ to be railroading, was of setting a DC.

In subsequent posts I've talked about approaches to framing, and to narrating consequences of failure. At some length.



Jester David said:


> There are quite a few games that exist and play without a gamemaster.



Sure. But that doesn't respond to my incredulity - which is why, in a thread where I have talked about the role of GM judgement calls in my RPGing, and specified in some detail the role of the GM as I understand and apply it, you would suggest that a GM is not needed.



Jester David said:


> If events have no unforeseen or expected consequences then descriptions of success and failure are just flavour.



I literally do not understand what basis this statement could rest on.

First, if read literally, an event that has neither unforeseen nor expected consequences has no consequences. Which is to say it's an event that is entirely causally contained within itself. I haven't talked about any such events, and there very existence must be highly controversial. I assume that by "expected" you meant "unexpected"?

But that still leaves me utterly puzzled. For instance, finding a Ring of Protection in a Basic D&D dungeon has no unforeseen or unexpected consequences. It gives you a +1 to AC and to saves, full stop. But it's hardly just flavour!

Furthermore, who said that events have no unforeseen or unexpected consequences? I have posted an example of an unforeseen consequence in this very thread - as a result of trying to carry bodies and blood across town, two PCs have been apprehended by the night watch and taken back to the watch house. That was not foreseen or expected by anyone at the table!



Jester David said:


> If failure doesn't have many consequences between the immediate and visible, the players can easily narrate those.



How do you know this? Have you tried to run an indie-style RPG in which the players negate their own consequences of failure? And did it work?

I personally think that it raises multiple issues, all of which would tend to conduce towards a less good game. The main one is the so-called "Czege Principle", which is Paul Czege's conjecture, based on experience, that "it’s not exciting to play a roleplaying game if the rules require one player to both introduce and resolve a conflict."

If the players are going to play their PCs hard, doing their best to eke out success, it undercuts that to also have them adopting a "birds eye view" approach of trying to adjudicate failures _that will pose challenges to the very characters for whom they are advocating in play_. Hence the role of the GM.



Jester David said:


> If you set the consequences of failure and success then that's a judgement call. You're deciding what happens in each instance based on your ideas and opinions.



The consequences of success are set by the player, not the GM: the player declares an action for his/her PC, a check is framed, and if the check succeeds then the PC gets what s/he hoped for. (Eg a vessel to catch blood in.)

The consequences of failure are narrated by the GM in relation to the action declared by the player, the broader stakes and theme of the game as established by the players, etc. The GM has to make a judgement call, and exercise creativity, but the parameters within which this takes place are not set by the GM. (Eg in the account described upthread, of the PC looking for the mace but instead finding cursed black arrows made by his brother, the parameters for that failure - the existence of cursed arrows, the brother as a mage who got possessed by a balrog, the towers as a place in whose ruins enchanted items might be found - all that was established by the player. Which is why the revelation of the arrows was such a punch in the gut.)



Jester David said:


> Actions have ripples. Unforeseen consequences. Killing a warlord creates a vacuum of power that is filled by someone. Deciding what happens for each of those actions is a decision.



Sure. The question is when and how are these established?

The PCs in my main 4e game killed Torog. What consequences did this have? Some of these were established by way of framing - eg the emergence of the tarrasque into the world, now that Torog is not there to constrain the imprisoned primordials and other elemental beings. Others are candidates to be narrated as consequences for failure, although - to date - that hasn't come up.

There is no need for me as GM to work out a whole lot of secret stuff in my notebook that records all the consequences of Torog's downfall that I then use to (eg) make secret adjustments to the consequences of player action declarations. And there is certainly no need for me to write down that stuff so I can have the satisfaction of admiring this gameworld that exists only in my head and my notebook and is not part of the actual play of the game at the table!



Jester David said:


> I'm still making a decision about what the merchant decides to do next. And it's an unforeseen consequence that the players would not/ did not anticipate at the table, allowing the campaign to surprise them.



The key question as far as my approach is concerned is whether you are planning matters of _framing_; or establishing secret backstory that will be used as a "filter" for resolution of player action declarations that is unknown to them.



Jester David said:


> It boggles my mind that you've been playing for thirty years for over a half-dozen game systems and running the same campaign for each.
> Haven't you played in games run by other DMs? Haven't you ever run a prepublished adventure with a story?



I don't know what you mean by "the same campaign".

I've run OA campaigns (two of them, quite different - one was worldly, the other cosmological); GH campaigns (again, two of them; again, quite different); have a current Dark Sun campaign; have a current MHRP campaign; plus other dribs and drabs. I've run systems including Rolemaster, Runequest, AD&D, 3E, 4e, Burning Wheel, MHRP, maybe a couple of others I'm forgetting at the moment.

But for the past 30 years I have used more-or-less the same GMing technique, of using the players expressed or implicit concerns/goals/aspirations for their PCs to inform my framing of scenes and narration of consequences. My campaigns also have a recurrent tendency to use a lot of history and/or cosmology as framing devices to generate motivations for antagonists, to inform the meaning of the actions of the protagonists, and to give "depth" to the gameworld and support immersion into it. (I would add: for backstory to serve this purpose it has to be known to the players as part of their experience of playing the game. Hence it has to figure in some fashion in both the framing of ingame situations and action resolution. And it has to be available to the players for them to buy into in the play of their PCs.)

In that time I've never run a module strictly as written, as a story to be played through: the closest I've come was running Castle Amber in 3E, but (i) that was not "as written" because I had to convert to 3E on the fly, and (ii) it's a classic D&D module and so doesn't really have a story - it's an exploration crawl. (The Averoigne section gets the closest to having a story, but really it's just a looser setting for a MacGuffin quest.)

When I use modules, I use them as sources of backstory elements, maps, creatures, ideas for situations to run. Modules I have used in this way and would recommend include Bastion of Broken Souls (but ignore the dungeon crawl at the end, and ignore the repeated advice that the interesting NPCs can't be bargained with and must be fought); Night's Dark Terror; H2 and P2 of the 4e modules; Wonders out of Time (a d20 module); G2; D2; B2; and again there are probably others that I'm forgetting.



Jester David said:


> It's almost a theoretical example. An unrealistic extreme at two ends of the scale.
> Much like a true railroad where the players are just running through the game master's novel. It happens but the vast majority most games aren't remotely that bad and the presence of the dice will always cause things not to unfold as planned.



What's the point of the planning? Why plan in the way you describe? What's it for?


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> But what happens when there's something significant going on - or about to go on - that the characters (and thus by extension the players) cannot and do not know anything about?  For example; yes they might know the Dusk War is on the horizon but what if you-as-DM have predetermined that the main infantry legions of the invading army are going to be wiped out by a divinely-sent flash flood three miles into their march, rendering the whole war mostly moot?




If this conflict is to be a primary premise which is to be addressed in play * , then yes, the GM subordinating the autonomy of actual play results (where the other participants and system have the say they're supposed to have) is 100 % a moment of GM Force application.  This might be enough to tip the scales so the other participants feel the game is a railroad.  If its not, further deployment of this kind of Force will surely produce a tipping point.


* Addressed meaning:

1)  situation framed
2)  PCs advocating for their themes/interested by declaring actions
3)  resolution mechanics consulted in-line with the game's procedures
4)  scene evolved post-resolution in-line with the game's principles
5)  rinse/repeat until all relevent questions are answered
6)  tally the fallout and advance to the next action


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

pemerton said:


> But to go back to your example - of the rotating rusty portal of death - if you include that in the situation, but then the GM gives all sorts of hints and nudges to the player that investigating it is likely to be fatal - well, what was the point of including it in the first place?




Why wouldn't they? If the party wander into a The Dungeon of High Level Monsters and Stuff, then they're going to encounter high level monsters and stuff. Likewise, if a local contains things that might kill, then the local will include such things. The players choose where they go, and will encounter horrible things if they are there to be found _(and likewise, if they travel to lovely places, enjoy finding and engaging with lovely things!)_

If the DM begins to remove such elements, starts tailoring events to adjust the difficulty/challenge to the player's level or actions then they've move from presenting the world and its elements 'as is' and have begun presenting the world and events, 'as best suits the party'. We tried that - it got old really quickly. To edit the content of the world to accommodate to the PCs level range/power levels, for me as a DM and a player, would be to deny them of the style of play which we enjoy, one where the players can truly tailor their adventure by choosing where they go and what they do.

Now, thankfully none of our DMs label our dungeons 'The Dungeon of High Level Monsters and Stuff'. Nor do we have a habit of calling out what can and can't kill a party member within a local, or the circumstances that might contribute to a death. Simply present, describe and add a touch of creative flourish. The players then state their intent and how they wish to achieve it. After this has been done, here is where the DM may nudge a player by elaborating on some detail or point while setting a challenge rating, if required. 

And just to be clear I'm talking about, 'all sorts of nudging'. The vast majority of the time, a simple, clear nudge is enough. Akin to a program prompting you with, _'Are you sure you wish to close this application without saving?'_ We are simply given an option, supported by some additional details and the possible dire consequences hinted at. We can still exercise our power of choice - and our players do - be it for roleplay reasons _(Fred the the 2nd Level Wizard doesn't take truck from anything or anyone, so yes, he tells the Pit Fiend where to shove it)_ or simply because they want to see what happens.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I don't get it.
> 
> I mean, what if I asserted the following, that completely contradicts what you said:
> GM Tolkien railroaded Isildur's player into keeping the ring, because Isildur's player didn't think of it until after the players said "Yes" to the GM's question "So, do you return home from Mordor", and GM Tolkien wouldn't allow a takeback. And then GM Tolkien railroaded Isildur's player by saying, "When the orcs attack you, you put on the ring and turn invisible." And then, when Isildur's player said that he retreated invisibly into the river, the GM said "The ring comes off, and so the orcs can see you and shoot you dead!" and didn't even roll dice for the orc's attacks!, despite the fact that Isildur was a 10th level paladin with 80 hit points.
> 
> Etc, etc.​




You'd be wrong if you asserted that since the written plot contradicts you.  The written plot was take the ring to Mt. Doom to be destroyed.  That is clear.  Allowing both Frodo and Isildur to change their minds is the DM actively deciding not to railroad.  Tolkien's ever changing notes also indicate that he isn't married to a one true way to tell his story.


----------



## Manbearcat

jonesy said:


> Players = audience? Your campaign sounds like audience participation theater. The play is improvised as it happens, and the director is merely there to set the themes, locations and to help with the flow of the play? Would you say that this is an accurate assessment of what you are describing?
> 
> 
> Are you saying here that there is no history in your campaign unless the players are there to witness it? Nothing is occurring in the 'background'? To have things happen beyond the fog of war the players actually have to walk into said fog?





I know the games  @_*pemerton*_ runs (I run them myself...or rather I run Mouse Guard and Torchbearer instead of Burning Wheel), so I'll jump in on this:

1)  Players do not equal audience.  All parties at the table equal both participant and audience with different responsibilities.  Audience only in the sense that none of us know precisely what comes next (oftentimes "precisely" is a descriptor too far).

2)  The play has a proportionately high degree of improv (governed by system) and the backstory is malleable enough that (if something has not yet been firmly established in play) it can be amended as required (with homage to established continuity) in order to escalate or establish thematic conflict/obstacles. The purpose of backstory is (a) to hook into the game's premise and (b) have just enough meat and enough agile mutability to provide obastacles/adversaries for the PCs' interests as the game evolves.

It is in no way a setting for the PCs to be chew scenery in, be passive tourists in, or to engage with"conflict/theme-neutral" stuff in.

3)  The players and the game generally establish the themes/premise.  The players build their PCs which are laden with thematic interests.  They "hook" the GM rather than the inverse (a primary GMing principle of these games is that "the action" is always about what the players have signaled they care about).  The system then has various feedbacks that come into play when their thematic interests are at stake/made manifest. 

4)  The GM's job is to (a) frame conflicts that the players have signaled their PCs care about/are interested in, (b) interpose relevant obstacles/antagonists between the PCs and their goals, (c) advocate for their obstacles/antagonists while the PCs advocate for their protagonists, (d) stridently observe the rules of the game/GMing principles, (e) coherently evolve the fiction after the conflict resolution mechanics, the players, and the GM have all had their say (and the situation has been resolved), then (e) rinse/repeat.

It isn't "cooperative storytelling."  No one who plays these games would use that descriptor (and the designers don't use that descriptor either).  When it’s done deftly, the immersion factor for the players (through the siege of what their PCs care about...through their own active role in deciding how things turn out/what they're willing to put up to protect/defend it....and through the system's coherent reward cycles that plug into all of that) is extremely high.  And all participants are typically surprised by what spins out of play.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> This could be done via a Transition Scene with the expenditure of a Plot Point to use a Specialty (like Contacts, Diplomacy, or Mystic...maybe the PC makes up that he bears a mystical-brand-as-omen which heralds his coming to this place) to create the asset for subsequent use.  However, in this case...
> 
> 
> 
> ...it looks like it was created as an action during the Social Conflict to get in.  It looks like it was probably part of the dice pool that stressed out the opposition and won the Social Scene for the PCs.




Okay maybe I'm not being clear enough... isn't just establishing the fact that the giants are willing to negotiate an application of DM force?  Why did these giants even deign to speak with these humans?  It seems the roll was to determine whether they were allowed to enter the settlement (or am I misunderstanding??).   

I guess I'm trying to figure out why is a DM deciding... Yes the giants will speak with you as opposed to ignore you... attack you...etc before you can negotiate with them not a use of DM force to direct the outcome towards a predetermined point (they are allowed to negotiate with the giants)?  In default D&D 5e I believe this is handled with DM force with the DM setting the disposition of the giants towards the characters... but in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s style of play it seems this should be resolved without using DM force... but it's not. 

In other words why is deciding there is or is not a container in a room considered railroading but deciding the giants are disposed to talk is not?  I'm missing the distinction here and am trying to understand it.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Let's say as an example that this oncoming Dusk War had been a background atmosphere-setting thing all along in the campaign (maybe it's because all the local soldiery has been called to the front lines that brave adventurers are needed back here closer to town, thus explaining the existence of your party at all), but that your intent going in was that it would in theory never become too relevant to anything because a flash flood was going to end it as soon as it started.  But during play the players via their characters have brought the oncoming Dusk War to the fore, made it important to themselves, and based some major decisions around it; all regardless whether or not it was important to you as DM and-or whether you had any interest at all in running a war-front adventure or campaign.
> 
> Now you're screwed.
> 
> By your definitions you'll be railroading if you have the flood happen anyway even though it's what you'd planned all along.
> By at least one other definition upthread (I forget who's) you'll be railroading if you deviate from your original plan, dispense with the flood, and let the war continue.
> And by my definition you've in fact been railroaded by your players.



Suppose you invite all your friend around to play a dungeon crawl. But then, just before they turn up, you discover that what you've prepared is actually a hex-based Classic Traveller sub-sector. The I guess you're screwed!

Well, maybe; but the number of times anyone ever accidentally prepared a sub-sector when they were meaning to write up a dungeon level is probably pretty low.

Given my preferences for GMing, world-building etc, why would I inadvertantly do the thing I don't want to do. (Qv my comment upthread that certain sorts of prep aren't very useful for a "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "let it ride", "fail forward" approach to RPGing.)

Furthermore, suppose it happens that (i) I do conceive of this strange flash-flood idea, and then (ii) I abandon it for the reasons I suggest. Why am I screwed because [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] (I think it was) wouldn't approve? He's not at my table, so why would I care that he characterises what I'm doing as railroading?



Lanefan said:


> So a DM's not allowed to have a game-affecting hidden backstory without being accused of railroading???



The notion of "accusation" seems out of place - it's not a courtroom, and no one who isn't at my table is answerable to me. (And vice versa.)

But yes, I regard that as railroading. That's why I don't do it. I know that others' take a different view. That's why I noted, in the OP, that others would take a different view.



Lanefan said:


> You've agreed upthread that something happening off-screen isn't railroading - I think - such as the Marquis being assassinated in his bed the night before.
> 
> My point is that there's no difference if it happens on-screen in a manner that precludes the PCs from doing anything about it



I've consistently agreed with [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] about the Marquis example. Whether or not it is railroading depends on whether the death of the Marquis is an _outcome_ - ie an event of significance relative to the commitments, goals, etc of the players and their PCs - or is part of the framing of a situation. If it's an outcome, then it's railroading whether or not it happen onscreen - and the corollary of this is a motto I've often posted before, nameluy, "No failure offscreen". If it's framing, then it's framing whether the PCs witness it or whether they hear of it (eg in my Dark Sun campaign the PCs heard of the death of the Sorcerer-King of Tyr as the opening moment of the campaign - that's an example of framing).



Lanefan said:


> what happens if (or when) the players/characters happen to steer you toward running something you simply don't want to run?



Then you talk about it and reach a resolution of some sort. That's a social problem. It's not an adjudication problem; and I don't really see the appeal of trying to solve the problem of inconsistent preference by covertly negating certain player choices and amplifying others.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Okay maybe I'm not being clear enough... isn't just establishing the fact that the giants are willing to negotiate an application of DM force?  Why did these giants even deign to speak with these humans?  It seems the roll was to determine whether they were allowed to enter the settlement (or am I misunderstanding??).
> 
> I guess I'm trying to figure out why is a DM deciding... Yes the giants will speak with you as opposed to ignore you... attack you...etc before you can negotiate with them not a use of DM force to direct the outcome towards a predetermined point (they are allowed to negotiate with the giants)?



It wasn't predetermined. The player knocks on the gate and calls out to the inhabitants. I have a giant reply to the effect of "What do you want?" or maybe "Go away!" - I don't remember exactly, but if you think Miracle Max in The Princess Bride you're in the right ballpark.

This is not using GM force to generate a predetermined outcome. It is "saying 'yes'" to the player's initial action declaration of opening a conversation about entering the steading. One could even say that it's playing along with the player's framing of the situation as one of social conflict (at least initially - there was some subsequent violence, as per the actual play report).

As I already posted, it's not railroading when you go along with a player's action declarations for his/her PC!


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> It wasn't predetermined. The player knocks on the gate and calls out to the inhabitants. I have a giant reply to the effect of "What do you want?" or maybe "Go away!" - I don't remember exactly, but if you think Miracle Max in The Princess Bride you're in the right ballpark.
> 
> This is not using GM force to generate a predetermined outcome. It is "saying 'yes'" to the player's initial action declaration of opening a conversation about entering the steading. One could even say that it's playing along with the player's framing of the situation as one of social conflict (at least initially - there was some subsequent violence, as per the actual play report).
> 
> As I already posted, it's not railroading when you go along with a player's action declarations for his/her PC!




So if the player had declared "I find a container and pour the blood in it..." you could/would have said yes and it wouldn't be a railroad? And on the other hand if the player had asked you  "Will one of the giants parley with us?"  you would have rolled to see if they would?    

So is it around whether the player declares or asks?  I'm not seeing a meaningful distinction in these situations... so how do you decide when to declare yes and when to roll?


----------



## pemerton

Gardens & Goblins said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But to go back to your example - of the rotating rusty portal of death - if you include that in the situation, but then the GM gives all sorts of hints and nudges to the player that investigating it is likely to be fatal - well, what was the point of including it in the first place?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why wouldn't they?
Click to expand...


I don't understand. Who are you referring to as _they_? And what is it that you're conjecturing "they" would do?



Gardens & Goblins said:


> If the party wander into a The Dungeon of High Level Monsters and Stuff, then they're going to encounter high level monsters and stuff.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the DM begins to remove such elements, starts tailoring events to adjust the difficulty/challenge to the player's level or actions then they've move from presenting the world and its elements 'as is' and have begun presenting the world and events, 'as best suits the party'.



I don't see what any of this has to do with my post that you quoted.



Gardens & Goblins said:


> Now, thankfully none of our DMs label our dungeons 'The Dungeon of High Level Monsters and Stuff'. Nor do we have a habit of calling out what can and can't kill a party member within a local, or the circumstances that might contribute to a death. Simply present, describe and add a touch of creative flourish. The players then state their intent and how they wish to achieve it. After this has been done, here is where the DM may nudge a player by elaborating on some detail or point while setting a challenge rating, if required.
> 
> And just to be clear I'm talking about, 'all sorts of nudging'. The vast majority of the time, a simple, clear nudge is enough. Akin to a program prompting you with, _'Are you sure you wish to close this application without saving?'_



My question remains - if the GM is going to include that sort of stuff, what is the point of then nudging the PCs away from investigating it in a way that will result in them suffering harm? If the GM doesn't want to see the PCs harmed by such stuff, then s/he can just not include it in the shared fiction.

To put it more bluntly - if the point of the situation is to challenge the players, and face them with the threat of death from High Level Monsters and Stuff, then why is the GM also giving the players advice on how to avoid or circumvent those challenges? I'm not seeing the point - to me it seems just like what Gygax described, as undermining the major precepts of the game.

And to be clear - I don't think that that sort of nudging is railroading. It's not the GM forcing anything. It just seems a bit insipid to me. (And this is brought out by the comparison to a computer program: Microsoft Word doesn't pretend to be challenging you to a contest of whether or not you can create and save your document. It claims to be helping you do those things.)


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> In other words why is deciding there is or is not a container in a room considered railroading but deciding the giants are disposed to talk is not?  I'm missing the distinction here and am trying to understand it.



I never said that deciding there is a container in the room would be railroading. I said that deciding that there is _no_ container in the room would be railroading:



			
				me said:
			
		

> had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.



Similarly, when one of the players in the viking game wants his PC to seek an invitation into the steading, simply deciding the giants won't talk - so the only way to get information from the steading would be (say) to sneak in, or beat them all up and interrogate them - would be railroading.

For the third time in three replies, it's not railroading to "say 'yes'" to a player's action delcaration for his/her PC.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> Another comment on "theatre" or "cooperative storytelling": these aren't games. They don't use dice. They don't involve players making "moves".
> 
> The games I run are games. More precisely, they're RPGs. They have rules that establish the "moves" the participants are allowed to make. It is the resolution of those moves that generates the events of play, and especially the significant outcomes that (taken as a whole) constitute the "plot" of the game.




Personally, I think that's a bit of mistaken emphasis - that the rules establish the moves the participants are allowed to make. For RPGs, rules operationalize what players what their PCs to do, not define what they can do.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I never said that deciding there is a container in the room would be railroading. I said that deciding that there is _no_ container in the room would be railroading:




Wait what... so if I as DM want the outcome to be that they get the blood (because this summoning ritual is going to bring a BBEG I really want to use)  and I say yes when asked if there's a container... it's not railroading?  But if I want the outcome to be they don't get the blood and so say no, it is??  

Now I really am confused.  I thought the GM creating an outcome, any outcome, to push in a pre-determined way was a railroad... but so long as I say yes when the players ask or try to do something it's not railroading.... is this correct?





pemerton said:


> Similarly, when one of the players in the viking game wants his PC to seek an invitation into the steading, simply deciding the giants won't talk - so the only way to get information from the steading would be (say) to sneak in, or beat them all up and interrogate them - would be railroading.




This doesn't make sense, you as the DM/GM can still be steering action towards a pre-determined outcome even when saying yes.  So if saying yes is not railroading your original definition doesn't seem to hold up so how exactly are you defining a railroad?



pemerton said:


> For the third time in three replies, it's not railroading to "say 'yes'" to a player's action delcaration for his/her PC.




It's pretty clear now but that wasn't what I was taking away from your responses at first, especially given your definition of a railroad...



pemerton said:


> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)




Are you then claiming that in saying yes a DM can never be shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative... and if that is what you are saying I don't understand how that could be the case...


----------



## Jester David

I said: 


> If failure doesn't have many consequences between the immediate and visible, the players can easily narrate those.



The reply was:


pemerton said:


> How do you know this? Have you tried to run an indie-style RPG in which the players negate their own consequences of failure? And did it work?



How does having a player narrate their own failure mean they get to negate it? 

If you don't trust your players not to narrate a consequence without being favourable to themselves then that's a problem with your group. 

The FFG Star Wars system has a neat non-binary success mechanic, where you can both succeed and fail at the same time. It lends itself very well to the players having to describe their actions and narrate their potential failures.



pemerton said:


> Sure. The question is when and how are these established?
> 
> The PCs in my main 4e game killed Torog. What consequences did this have? Some of these were established by way of framing - eg the emergence of the tarrasque into the world, now that Torog is not there to constrain the imprisoned primordials and other elemental beings. Others are candidates to be narrated as consequences for failure, although - to date - that hasn't come up.
> 
> There is no need for me as GM to work out a whole lot of secret stuff in my notebook that records all the consequences of Torog's downfall that I then use to (eg) make secret adjustments to the consequences of player action declarations. And there is certainly no need for me to write down that stuff so I can have the satisfaction of admiring this gameworld that exists only in my head and my notebook and is not part of the actual play of the game at the table!



Your tone is exceedingly concedending. If you have no interest in actually _learning_ how other people play and engaging in a conversation about play styles, why are you even posting? 

Assuming you are open minding and I'm just reading too much into your comment of "so I can have the satisfaction of admiring this gameworld that exists only in my head and my notebook" unforseen consequences can have an impact at the table. 

In your example, the PCs kill Torog. Assuming he had followers, who takes over? Are they better or worse? What do they do next? Is there a violent battle for succession that spills out into the countryside? 
Does the release of the tarrasque cause panic in the kingdoms? Maybe a wave of suicides and religious conversions that changes the dynamics in the nation? Different churches take power, and the state suddenly becomes a theocracy after an impromptu revolution.
Using an example from my game, the players agreed to regularly supply sorcerer-creating dragon blood to a rich merchant. They now get money. The unforeseen consequences might be that the merchant decides to stage a coup and tries to recruit the PCs to his side. 



pemerton said:


> I don't know what you mean by "the same campaign".



The same type of game. The same GMing technique. 




pemerton said:


> What's the point of the planning? Why plan in the way you describe? What's it for?



How come everytime I engage in one of your posts I feel like I'm trying to explain an elephant to a blind man?

Some people plan. They like it. They like the tighter narrative and cohesive story. Many players like it as well, being more passive and uninterested in personal goals or just liking the stories the DM is able to weave.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

pemerton said:


> I don't understand. Who are you referring to as _they_? And what is it that you're conjecturing "they" would do?
> 
> I don't see what any of this has to do with my post that you quoted.
> 
> My question remains - if the GM is going to include that sort of stuff, what is the point of then nudging the PCs away from investigating it in a way that will result in them suffering harm? If the GM doesn't want to see the PCs harmed by such stuff, then s/he can just not include it in the shared fiction.
> 
> To put it more bluntly - if the point of the situation is to challenge the players, and face them with the threat of death from High Level Monsters and Stuff, then why is the GM also giving the players advice on how to avoid or circumvent those challenges? I'm not seeing the point - to me it seems just like what Gygax described, as undermining the major precepts of the game.
> 
> And to be clear - I don't think that that sort of nudging is railroading. It's not the GM forcing anything. It just seems a bit insipid to me. (And this is brought out by the comparison to a computer program: Microsoft Word doesn't pretend to be challenging you to a contest of whether or not you can create and save your document. It claims to be helping you do those things.)




Well, I wouldn't call it 'shared fiction' for starters. More like, 'Shared exploration of a simulation'. We're not looking to engage with the DM's idea of a story. The stories come from the telling of the events that occurred - after play - when folks recount the various things that happened and why. Which I think is the clear difference in our table styles.

The things are there because.. they are there. They are not the only things. And if the players want other things, they can explore elsewhere. It's really that simply. Nudges help deter some actions, typically if the gravity of the consequences have not been communicated, which could be due to the DM simply not anticipating a player might an action a player might wish to take or because not every element requires flagging as clearly as others at all times. Our DMs wouldn't say, 'Are you suuuuure you want to go to the site of High Level Monsters and Stuff?' but they would hint to a player where an action, outside of their knowledge, might result in death or something similar. _'The thing is 30' tall. I did mention it was chowing down on three armoured knights, right? These guys look considerably tougher than you.'_ That, for me, is a nudge I'm fine with. I can choose to have my character about turn or crack on.

We have great fun doing it - maybe Gygax wouldn't. Though to be fair, it's not his game - its our game. The challenge for us is - where do we go, what do we find, how do we deal with it. Sometimes that means taking a turn into places where death is almost inevitable. But those places, and the choice and chance to engage with such places, must be possible, else we're not truly exploring the world as we wish.


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

lowkey13 said:


> Different tables will have different preferences; what works for your table (and for Manbearcat) will not necessarily work for all tables and for all levels of experience ... or for all TTRPGs. Using a term that is widely viewed as a pejorative to describe the preferences of other tables does not illuminate conversation- instead, it is likely to diminish it.




Pretty much! We get a bunch of rules which we're given free license to use, modify and flat out ignore. Good stuff! And unsurprisingly, attempting to use language to describe specific facets of play enjoyed at one table will ultimately lead to some disagreement and confusion, as such facets are not universal in their delivery any more than our experience of them. 

_Though I'm totally up for authoring a D&D Dictionary, enforced with extreme prejudice.
_


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Wait what... so if I as DM want the outcome to be that they get the blood (because this summoning ritual is going to bring a BBEG I really want to use)  and I say yes when asked if there's a container... it's not railroading?



How is the summoning ritual going to bring a BBEG that I really wan to use? What process of resolution do you have in mind that will lead to that outcome?

The only one that I can see is adjudication by reference to secret backstory. Which is something that I've already indicated I dislike.



Imaro said:


> I thought the GM creating an outcome, any outcome, to push in a pre-determined way was a railroad... but so long as I say yes when the players ask or try to do something it's not railroading.... is this correct?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Are you then claiming that in saying yes a DM can never be shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative... and if that is what you are saying I don't understand how that could be the case...



Acceding to a request is not a mode of steering.

If the player wants something-or-other to be part of the shared fiction, and the GM agrees (and no one else at the table intervenes), then it becomes part of the shared fiction. That is not the GM shaping outcomes. That is the player introducing an element into the shared fiction.

(For an example of someone else at the table intervening, I refer you to the write-up of the viking session: the berserker charged at the gate-opening giant and threatened to deliver a mighty blow, but the player of the swordthane used a PC ability to take the damage onto his character. In the fiction, the swordthane catches the berserker's axe as it is about to land a blow on the giant; at the table, the player of the swordthane is performing a move in the game that lets him establish the content of the shared fiction, overriding what the player of the berserker otherwise would have made it.)


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> For RPGs, rules operationalize what players what their PCs to do, not define what they can do.



That doesn't seem a very good characterisation of D&D rules for attacking and dealing damage, for memorising and casting spells, the action economy, the rules for going into a barbaric rage, etc.

In the context of 5e it might be one way of characterising the non-combat, ability check-based resolution system.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> From my vantage point, the difference between a failed check and a GM simply deciding if my character is successful absolutely matters to me. I am assuming that check was made in good faith and will have an impact on the ultimate resolution. In some cases having a check may be preferable - in others it may not. Generally, I am not really a fan of perception and knowledge checks. If something is in plain view in the fiction or if my character would know some relevant detail I would prefer to simply be told so. This is part of *always saying what honesty demands* - an important precept of the sort of role playing I prefer. Only by providing meaningful information to players can decisions truly matter.
> 
> I also care very deeply why the GM is making the decisions they are making. It carries a lot of water to me if something is being introduced to offer players meaningful decisions or to prod players down a particular path. In general what I am looking for when I play a roleplaying game is to be offered the chance to make informed decisions, have those decisions actually matter, sometimes experience bleed, and give the game its say.




I don't disagree with any of this. However, I think that DM fiat can be used to offer player's meaningful choices. I feel like much of the discussion revolves around the idea that DM Fiat can only be railroading, which is what I disagree with. One instance of such, even several, doesn't mean that a game must be a railroad. 

As you say, sometime she a check is needed, other time she it is not. 




pemerton said:


> I don't think using the words "exist" and "presence" in that way is very helpful. It encourages category mistakes.
> 
> Whether or not the vessel exists, and is present in the room, depends on the actions of beings in the shared fiction (eg did a house servant take a chamber pot into the room? did someone bring a jug of water into the room? etc).




I used those terms in order to make sure I understood what you were saying. 

Now that it is clear, I understand what you are going for. I have no problem with allowing player authorship in this manner.



pemerton said:


> When you say the player is up to something . . . you seem to imply that the GM may not know what.
> 
> In the approach that my table uses, the GM always knows what it is that "the player is up to". Action declaration is both intent and task. Knowing both is key to framing the check, to understanding how it fits into the unfolding action, and - if the check fails - to narrating failure. (Eg it is only because the GM knows that the player wants the vessel to collect blood that it would be appropriate to narrate, on a failure, that the familiar is eating the blood.)




Didnt you say that when the player asked about a vessel with which to catch the spilling blood, that you were not sure what they were up to, and so you asked for a skill check rather than simply deciding by DM Fiat? 

I would think from the circumstances that you've described that the PC's intention would have been at least partially clear. 

A DM who said no because he wanted things to continue as is, yes that can be seen as railroading. But what about the DM who simply said yes? There is a vessel to catch the blood. That's not railroading, right? The DM is actively allowing this alternate path that the player introduced to continue. 



pemerton said:


> As to why to set a DC even if it's low? Multiple reasons: it's part of the ritual of play; it highlights the significance, to the unfolding events, of this particular moment of action - Tru-leigh wants a vessel to collect the blood for his master, but can he see one that he might use? And it opens up the possibility of failure and hence the dramatic pacing of rise and fall, even for something easy. If the PCs only even fail on hard things, that changes the tone of the drama. It makes the feel of the game less gritty. And this particular game aims for a gritty feel. (This is a difference from, say, 4e.)




Well you said the chance of failure was about 1%...so I think dispensing with the dice in such a case makes sense. There is as little drama as possible when the chance to fail is 1%. 

So given that, I don't really see your approach as much different than what can be accomplished by DM Fiat. I think the question really comes down to the DM. Whichever approach they use, they can promote choice or limit choice. 




pemerton said:


> I'm not sure how degrees of success/failure factor into this - of the systems I run regularly, the only one that routinely cares about degrees of success/failure is Marvel Heroic RP. But yes, adjudicating the consequences of failure is a GM judgement call. I didn't think that was in doubt. But I'm not sure what further conclusion you're drawing from that.




I mentioned it because perhaps the result of the roll would help shape the options of failing forward. So if it was close to the DC, perhaps an alternative that would not be that hard to achieve, or if it was far from the DC, then a more difficult option. 



pemerton said:


> Nowhere have I posted anything critical of GM judgement calls in general. In the OP I gave an example of a judgement call - setting a DC - that I don't see as railroading. In subsequent posts in this thread I've given further examples.




Perhaps it is my interpretation, but you seem to view DM Fiat as railroading. Which I disagree with, in general. It can be railroading, but I do not think it must be. I think that it is the same as DM Judgment, just a higher degree. 




pemerton said:


> I explained why I prefer "fail forward" to "dead end" failure (eg "Just as you notice the jar on the table, it is knocked over and smashes" to "No, there's no vessel"). "Fail forward" relies on GM judgement (to narrate some consequence of failure that pushes the action onward) in a way that "dead end" narration does not (hence my incredulity at @_*Jester David*_'s suggestion that I could get the play experience I've talked about in this thread by playing without a GM). So the only "required connection" is that "dead end" narration doesn't require GM judgement, whereas "fail forward" does.




I don't see this dichotomy. What is dead end narration? Must DM Fiat decisions always be considered such?



pemerton said:


> As far as the GM substituting a judgement to "say no" for a check, there is no particular connection between that and "dead end" failure - as I posted upthread, GM might by way of fiat describe the jar being smashed, or the familiar licking up the blood, without calling for a check and hence without allowing the possibility of the player getting what he wants for his PC.




And this is where I feel you're creating a connection between dead end narration and DM Fiat that need not exist. Your assumption is that the DM would say no simply to remove the player getting what he wants rather than saying yes and actively giving the player what he wants. This is why I'm confused. 



pemerton said:


> To be clear - are you saying you don't see any difference between a GM narrating failure by fiat, and a GM setting a DC and then the player checking and failing?




No, it's not that. Remove the failure from the situation. In the example you gave, I don't see a meaningful difference between the DM using his judgment to determine a DC for a skill check and using his judgment to decide simply yes or no in regard to the vessel. 

As I said, I suppose we could say that one approach is more susceptible to railroading than the other, but neither is immune. The DM can force a railroad through fiat or he can do it through more subtle methods. 

So in the case of the DM deciding by fiat that there was no vessel, that could be a railroad if no further options are offered. But the DM can offer other alternatives in this method just as he could in the case of a failed check.

This is not to say that I see no difference between DM judgment and the chance of success being determined by the dice. For many such instances, I would go to the dice...the more meaningful the potential impact, the less likely I would lean on DM fiat as the tool to use.

But in the example you gave? I tend to go with the approach that you roll the dice when the result is in doubt. In this case, the doubt isn't strong enough to bother with the dice. But I wouldn't shut down the PCs idea...I'd confirm it and see what happens. 

So do am I railroading my players in this instance?


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> Some people plan. They like it. They like the tighter narrative and cohesive story.



If the players are free to depart from what has been planned, then where does the tightness/cohesion come from?

Conversely, if the players are expected to, or for whatever reason do, go along with the planning, such that the pre-scripted tightnes/cohesiveness is realised in play, then it seems a case of the GM determining the principal events of the campaign.



Jester David said:


> In your example, the PCs kill Torog. Assuming he had followers, who takes over? Are they better or worse? What do they do next? Is there a violent battle for succession that spills out into the countryside?



Why would any of this matter? Only, as far as I can tell, if it somehow bears upon the PCs (and thereby the players in their engagement with the game). In which case it can be handled either as an element of framing or as a consequence of resolution.

I mentioned an example of framing upthread: the death of Torog allows the tarrasque to reawaken.

As far as a successor is concerned: one of the PCs took on that mantle, when I offered it to him in the context of a difficult fight with Kas.



Jester David said:


> Does the release of the tarrasque cause panic in the kingdoms? Maybe a wave of suicides and religious conversions that changes the dynamics in the nation? Different churches take power, and the state suddenly becomes a theocracy after an impromptu revolution.



This is either more framing (and mostly colour in the context of that framing), or else is open to the same analysis as the assassination of the Marquis: if the players, via their PCs, are invested in the nation or the church then just changing them like this is a form of offscreen failure.

Which is not to say that it wouldn't be a potentially appropriate consequence of a _failed_ attempt by the PCs to stop the tarrasque.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> How is the summoning ritual going to bring a BBEG that I really wan to use? What process of resolution do you have in mind that will lead to that outcome?
> 
> The only one that I can see is adjudication by reference to secret backstory. Which is something that I've already indicated I dislike.




Why does it have to be "secret" backstory?  The PC's could be fully aware of what the blood is for and the DM could still want to push things towards that particular outcome...



pemerton said:


> Acceding to a request is not a mode of steering.




You've yet to explain why it isn't.  Stating something doesn't make it so.



pemerton said:


> If the player wants something-or-other to be part of the shared fiction, and the GM agrees (and no one else at the table intervenes), then it becomes part of the shared fiction. That is not the GM shaping outcomes. That is the player introducing an element into the shared fiction.




But this outcome is being allowed automatically because the GM agrees with it (so the GM ultimately is steering it).  Otherwise, if the GM didn't agree with it there would be a roll to determine whether it did or did not take place.



pemerton said:


> (For an example of someone else at the table intervening, I refer you to the write-up of the viking session: the berserker charged at the gate-opening giant and threatened to deliver a mighty blow, but the player of the swordthane used a PC ability to take the damage onto his character. In the fiction, the swordthane catches the berserker's axe as it is about to land a blow on the giant; at the table, the player of the swordthane is performing a move in the game that lets him establish the content of the shared fiction, overriding what the player of the berserker otherwise would have made it.)




I don't think I have a probelm grasping the concept of another player interfering... what I'm having trouble grasping is that if the only time an action auto succeeds is when the GM agrees with it then the GM is in fact shaping outcomes.  Other players have the ability to disagree and force a roll but not to agree and create an auto-success, which again points to the GM being able to steer things through his agreement.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Didnt you say that when the player asked about a vessel with which to catch the spilling blood, that you were not sure what they were up to, and so you asked for a skill check rather than simply deciding by DM Fiat?



No.

From the OP:



pemerton said:


> In a FRPG session I ran yesterday, the action was in a bedroom in a mage's tower, where a wizard had been lying unconsciousness on a divan recovering from a terrible wound, but then was rather brutally decapitated by an assassin. One of the players, whose PC ran into the room just as the decapitation took place, asked whether there was a vessel in the room in which the PC could catch the decapitated mage's blood.
> 
> I resolved this by setting a DC for a Perception check - and because, as the player argued with some plausibility, it was likely that a room for convalescing in would have a chamber pot, jug/ewer, etc - I set the DC fairly low. The player succeeded, and the PC was able to grab the vessel and catch the blood as desired.



It is precisely because I knew what was at stake that a DC was set. If nothing was at stake (ie if it was some bit of colour or auxiliary action that didn't bear upon some central concern of the PC and (thereby) the player) then I would simply "say 'yes'" so that the action could move on.



hawkeyefan said:


> But what about the DM who simply said yes? There is a vessel to catch the blood. That's not railroading, right?



No, it's not. But it's not "say 'yes' or roll the dice", either.

I stated some of the reasons for not just "saying 'yes'" when something is actually at stake in my earlier reply upthread. It's primarily to do with pacing, tone, and the experience of the tension/drama/stakes of the game.



hawkeyefan said:


> you seem to view DM Fiat as railroading



No. I view GM narration of failure by way of fiat as railroading. As per this re-quote of the OP:



pemerton said:


> had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.



In some more recent posts I've been elaborating on this idea and its consequences - eg "no failure by GM fiat" entails "no failure offscreen".
Which is relevant to thinking about the dynamics of a situation like the assassination of the Marquis; or the fall of the nation when threatened by the tarrasque. If those eventualities would count as "failure" - ie things that are at odds with the commitments/concerns/goals/etc of the players as expressed and realised via their PCs - then bringing them about simply as part of the backstory would, on my account of the matter, be railroading.



hawkeyefan said:


> What is dead end narration? Must DM Fiat decisions always be considered such?



By "dead end" narration I meant something like "No, there's no vessel".

"Dead end" narration of failure is independent of the issue of railroading, in that it could be the result of GM fiat (ie what I have described as railroading) or the response to a failed check by a player. I prefer "fail forward"/"no whiffing" (I use inverted commas mostly because neither is an especially satisfactory term to actually describe the technique; and in addition "fail forward" has become widely identified with "success with a compication", which can often be quite a different thing).

The benefit of "fail forward" is that, by narrating the failure so as to frame the PC into a new conflict (eg there's a jar, but it's broken; the familiar is eating up all the blood), the momentum of the action is maintained - because the failure of the action declaration is used as the foundation for further framing. (Whereas "Sorry, there's no vessel" doesn't provide any new framing for the player to respond to.)


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Why does it have to be "secret" backstory?  The PC's could be fully aware of what the blood is for and the DM could still want to push things towards that particular outcome...



If the players want to summon the BBEG (? by what measure, then, is this guy to be summoned big, bad and evil? - but let's let that seeming incoherence pass) then the GM doesn't need to push towards that, does s/he? All s/he has to do is let things unfold!

More generally, if everyone at the table wants the same thing in the fiction - eg everyone thinks that the next exciting thing to happen is the PCs all being there with the blood summoning the BBEG - then it's not railroading to cut to that, or to move to it quickly through a framing narration and/or "saying 'yes'" to player action declarations, and in effect treating them as part of the framing.

You're the first person I've come across who thinks that it is railroading a player to allow them to have the fiction include the content that they want!


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> If the players want to summon the BBEG (? by what measure, then, is this guy to be summoned big, bad and evil? - but let's let that seeming incoherence pass) then the GM doesn't need to push towards that, does s/he? All s/he has to do is let things unfold!




It's not incoherent for pplayers to want the summon the BBEG, it's a well known fanatsy trope to think one can subvert or control the power of a BBEG.

The GM isn't just letting things unfold, he is actively allowing specific actions (those he agrees with and one would assume wants to succeed) to auto-succeed.



pemerton said:


> More generally, if everyone at the table wants the same thing in the fiction - eg everyone thinks that the next exciting thing to happen is the PCs all being there with the blood summoning the BBEG - then it's not railroading to cut to that, or to move to it quickly through a framing narration and/or "saying 'yes'" to player action declarations, and in effect treating them as part of the framing.





Why isn't it?  No one said players couldn't agree with being railroaded... but if it is specifically the outcome that the DM wants and he can subtly or not so subtly push towards that by making actions the players take towards that outcome  auto-succeed... it is by your earlier definition a form of railroading and I would also say on the border of illusionism.



pemerton said:


> You're the first person I've come across who thinks that it is railroading a player to allow them to have the fiction include the content that they want!




I've not made that claim... I'm  more claiming your definition of railroading is incoherent if the DM can say yes to the actions he wants to take place and they auto-succeed...


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> if the GM didn't agree with it there would be a roll to determine whether it did or did not take place.



"Say 'yes' or roll the dice' is not about whether or not the GM "agrees" with something. It's about stakes, pacing, dramatic momentum.

If the GM "said 'yes'" every time, then the game would not really be a game at all. It would be something like a version of what Gygax derided as Monty Haul play - ie some sort of strange fantasy wish-fulfillment thing.

I'm pretty sure I quoted from p 72 of BW Gold upthread:

Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn’t know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.

Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn’t really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.​
Roll the dice when something is at stake; "say 'yes'" when nothing is at stake - the free roleplaying is colour, framing, etc; don't declare failure by way of fiat.

I think it's reasonably clear as a basic framework. The practical issue is having a good sense of what counts as something being at stake, or not - as I posted in post 164 upthread, to which you replied (and which I therefore assume you read):



pemerton said:


> I regard distinguishing between what is mere framing, and what is an _outcome_, as a very important domain of GM judgement. If you get it wrong, in either direction, then play will suffer.
> 
> For instance, suppose that - following the initial set up of the Cortex viking game - I ask the players, "So, what do you do?" rather than frame them into their trek to the north where they crest a ridge and see a steading, what is going to happen? The players will be confused - what was the point of all that set-up if we're not now going to cut to the action? I send mixed signals - I suggest that there is potentially something else of significance in the neighbourhood of their PCs that has no connection to the stuff we just spent 10 or 15 minutes working through. Why would I want to do that?
> 
> Conversely, if I treat not only the trek and the cresting of the valley as framing, but go further and tell them "So you enter the steading, and the action opens with you discussing matters at a feast with the giant chieftain", then there is the danger that I have mistaken an outcome for framing. For instance, one of the PCs in the game is a sneaky type who can influence animals and change into a wolf. By framing that PC into open negotiations with the giant, and prevent the player from expressing those aspects of his PC in the way that he actually did - namely, by sneaking into the Steading, finding a giant ox in the barn, and then trying to trade that ox for a favour from the giants (relying on the fact that giants are notoriously stupid and so won't recognise their own ox).
> 
> That's not to say that the boundary between what is framing and what is outcome is always clear-cut. There may be a zone of reasonable choices by the GM, and those judgement calls - in conjunction with the players' own concerns, motivations etc which are both elicited and responded to by the GM's framing - will influence what events unfold in the game.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> If the players are free to depart from what has been planned, then where does the tightness/cohesion come from?



Just having the choice is often enough. While the players know they can eschew the plans at any time, that doesn't mean they want to. 

After all, some players are happier with a little structure and rails. They just want to sit in the roller coaster and enjoy the ride. 

And some DMs are just poor at improv. So their players know they'll have a better experience - that they'll have more fun - if they take the hook and stick to the plot. They can choose to vary if they wish - and usually will if it just makes more sense - but unless pushed to leave the rails they'll stick to the plot.

A skilled DM can hide the rails. If they can anticipate their player's actions and choices, they can plan the most likely paths. The players are on the rails the entire time and don't know it.

In previous campaigns I tended to write more structured and planned adventures. But I based them on the player's plans. They tell me they're doing "X" at the end of the session, so I plan for that. Basically writing a mini-module tied to the player's plans and ambitions.
(Usually. In my current campaign I'm improvising more and reacting to the players rather than planning as much.)



pemerton said:


> Conversely, if the players are expected to, or for whatever reason do, go along with the planning, such that the pre-scripted tightnes/cohesiveness is realised in play, then it seems a case of the GM determining the principal events of the campaign.



Yes. And? 
The DM is a player too. They have stories they want to tell. They know what's going on in the world more than the PCs. The NPCs have character arcs and goals.

Additionally, the  DM is often the person most invested in the game. They're often the one interested enough to buy the rulebooks and learn the rules. They're the most likely to spend time thinking about the game between sessions. 
So, just by the very nature of devoting more brain power to the game, they'll think of more stories. 



pemerton said:


> Why would any of this matter? Only, as far as I can tell, if it somehow bears upon the PCs (and thereby the players in their engagement with the game). In which case it can be handled either as an element of framing or as a consequence of resolution.



Because actions have consequences. Because the actions of the PCs never happen in a vacuum. Things ripple outward and cause big changes. The assassination of a Duke of a small nation can caused one of the bloodiest wars in history. 
Because the unexpected happens. It rains at the wrong time. Winter comes early. There's a plague. Everyone's life is full of times where the unexpected completely derailed plans. 

It matters because it makes the world feel real. It's larger and more cohesive, with places and people that don't cease to exist when the players aren't watching. Things change and progress. It's not static. It's a living, breathing world. It's not a videogame where the rest of the world pauses when the players are in another zone. 



pemerton said:


> This is either more framing (and mostly colour in the context of that framing), or else is open to the same analysis as the assassination of the Marquis: if the players, via their PCs, are invested in the nation or the church then just changing them like this is a form of offscreen failure.



In many ways it can feel like an offscreen failure. They did something and succeeded, but then there are negative repercussions from their course of action. 
I like that personally. I like that a lot. Players shouldn't expect to murderhobo through the world without consequences. If they blunder through the world not thinking about what happens next then they deserve some consequences. If they kill the green dragon that rules the forest they've removed the alpha predator from the region and there should be a spike in the wolves and deer populations. That's life. 

Mid to high level PCs are big fish swimming through a small pond, and their passing causes ripples.


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## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> And provided that the table drifts away from traditional D&D, see below.



 Or runs screaming from it, as the case may be.   

5e does try to handle more styles than just those that long-time DMs had managed to hack traditional D&D into supporting.  It does that mainly by Empowering the DM to drive the game in play, to rule in favor of the style he's chosen in play, and to add to or even re-write the game with formal house rules if he feels the need.



> Lan-"remember, Neutral Greedy is the 10th alignment"-efan



 I think it's the first alignment.


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## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> If this conflict is to be a primary premise which is to be addressed in play * , then yes, the GM subordinating the autonomy of actual play results (where the other participants and system have the say they're supposed to have) is 100 % a moment of GM Force application.  This might be enough to tip the scales so the other participants feel the game is a railroad.  If its not, further deployment of this kind of Force will surely produce a tipping point.
> 
> 
> * Addressed meaning:
> 
> 1)  situation framed
> 2)  PCs advocating for their themes/interested by declaring actions
> 3)  resolution mechanics consulted in-line with the game's procedures
> 4)  scene evolved post-resolution in-line with the game's principles
> 5)  rinse/repeat until all relevent questions are answered
> 6)  tally the fallout and advance to the next action



Except the original intention (in my example) was that the war wouldn't see actual play at all, but merely serve as a part of the backstory defining the game world the characters are in.  The players drag the action over to the budding war whether the DM likes it or not; I certainly don't see it as out of line that the DM has happen what was always going to happen anyway.

On a broader scale: there's actual plot, and there's red herrings.  Players have every right to chase red herrings to the ends of the world if they want to, but there's no right of expectation that just because they chase a particular red herring it become any more significant than it ever was in the grand scheme of things.  Here, I'm taking [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s Dusk War and framing it as a red herring by way of an example of what I mean.  Not to say a DM can't work what was a red herring into the main plot if she wants to, but there's nothing at all saying she has to.

And yes, at some point sooner or later the characters (and by extension the players) are probably going to find out they've been chasing a red herring.  A kind (and by the definition of many here, somewhat railroady) DM might gently try to steer them away from the red herring before they waste too much time on it; others wouldn't.

And the existence of red herrings is rarely the DM's fault; as it's almost always the result of the players taking some random off-the-cuff bit of game world info or flavour and latching on to it as being way more important than it really is - in this example, the Dusk War.  Once this happens the DM has a not-always-pretty choice: somehow steer them away from the red herring, or run the red herring knowing that a) it will probably lead to disappointment for the characters/players in the end and b) it might lead - or even force - the DM into running things she's not interested in running.

Lanefan


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## TwoSix

Jester David said:


> It matters because it makes the world feel real. It's larger and more cohesive, with places and people that don't cease to exist when the players aren't watching. Things change and progress. It's not static. It's a living, breathing world. It's not a videogame where the rest of the world pauses when the players are in another zone.



I always find this analogy amusing; most modern video games are online, and therefore far more persistent (and real) than any world that exists purely in the imagination of a group of 4-8 people.


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## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> 3)  The players and the game generally establish the themes/premise.  The players build their PCs which are laden with thematic interests.  They "hook" the GM rather than the inverse (a primary GMing principle of these games is that "the action" is always about what the players have signaled they care about).  The system then has various feedbacks that come into play when their thematic interests are at stake/made manifest.
> 
> 4)  The GM's job is to (a) frame conflicts that the players have signaled their PCs care about/are interested in, (b) interpose relevant obstacles/antagonists between the PCs and their goals, (c) advocate for their obstacles/antagonists while the PCs advocate for their protagonists, (d) stridently observe the rules of the game/GMing principles, (e) coherently evolve the fiction after the conflict resolution mechanics, the players, and the GM have all had their say (and the situation has been resolved), then (e) rinse/repeat.



Reading this perhaps a bit harshly, this puts the DM in the role of little more than a free-thinking processing unit which could these days be done by a computer; which brings to mind [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION]'s question of why have a DM at all.

Reading a bit less harshly, it still seems it's the DM getting railroaded by the system here in that she's only supposed to react; and further, only react to what the players (via their characters, I assume) "have signaled they care about".  Fine for the players, thankless for the DM.



			
				Manbearcat said:
			
		

> It is in no way a setting for the PCs to be chew scenery in



It isn't?

Well, there goes my diet...

More seriously, though: why not?  The one thing this sort of game sounds like it might have going for it is the opportunity to go over the top with characterizations and acting.  It's wandering toward improv anyway, as elements invented by the players are worked in if they don't conflict with established story, so why not cut loose? 

Lan-"it's an acquired taste, scenery, but once you've chewed some you'll wonder how you ever did without it"-efan


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## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> which brings to mind Jester David's question of why have a DM at all.



 The role of DM is multi-faceted.  5e puts the DM /in/ the core resolution system even at it's most basic:  he's indispensable.  That's a foundation on which it builds up both a system and a culture of DM Empowerment.  It's effing brilliant, if partially cribbed from the way things just happened back in the day.

But, even if you took the DM out of the resolution system, and dis-empowered him, the other facets would still be needed.  You need someone to develop the world, decide how it reacts, to, as the indie set seem wont to say, 'frame scenes' and the like.  

In theory, those functions could be parceled out among the players, and it practice, some games have done just that.  



> Reading a bit less harshly, it still seems it's the DM getting railroaded by the system here in that she's only supposed to react; and further, only react to what the players (via their characters, I assume) "have signaled they care about".  Fine for the players, thankless for the DM.



 Oh, DMing's almost always thankless.  Still can be fun, though.



> Lan-"it's an acquired taste, scenery, but once you've chewed some you'll wonder how you ever did without it"-efan



 Lol!


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> The role of DM is multi-faceted.  5e puts the DM /in/ the core resolution system even at it's most basic:  he's indispensable.  That's a foundation on which it builds up both a system and a culture of DM Empowerment.  It's effing brilliant, if partially cribbed from the way things just happened back in the day.



Absolutely.  But [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (who can [and doubtless will  ] correct me if I'm wrong) has brought up a slew of other systems that tend to see the DM as more reactionary than proactionary...which might be fine for those systems but is a departure from what I see as traditional D&D.



> But, even if you took the DM out of the resolution system, and dis-empowered him, the other facets would still be needed.  You need someone to develop the world, decide how it reacts, to, as the indie set seem wont to say, 'frame scenes' and the like.
> 
> In theory, those functions could be parceled out among the players, and it practice, some games have done just that.



If the game is run in a pre-fab setting e.g. Greyhawk then most of that also becomes needless.  Only the "scene framing" remains, and the table as a whole can do that. 



> Oh, DMing's almost always thankless.  Still can be fun, though.



And that fun, sometimes, comes from seeing one's plots play out into a story...or something like that - the likelihood of the end story bearing much resemblance to the original intended plot is usually a bit less than zero, but that's players for ya! 

Lanefan


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## Jacob Marley

hawkeyefan said:


> Well you said the chance of failure was about 1%...so I think dispensing with the dice in such a case makes sense. There is as little drama as possible when the chance to fail is 1%.
> 
> So given that, I don't really see your approach as much different than what can be accomplished by DM Fiat. I think the question really comes down to the DM. Whichever approach they use, they can promote choice or limit choice.




Think of the example in the context of a whole campaign. While a 1% chance may appear as an automatic, it does not take too long before those chances add up to where you have a meaningful likelihood of failure. For example, 20 automatic "yes" answers changed to 99% chance of success means the likelihood of failure during those 20 instances is approximately 18%. That number, in my experience, is meaningful. In my experience as a player, knowing that statistic does increase the drama of any given roll. It's also important to note that just because the roll is 1% for my character, it may be higher (or lower) for another character. Moving from a 1% chance of failure to 3% chance of failure means that within those 20 instances the likelihood of failure increases to 46%.


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## Imaro

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] ... You are summing up alot of my issues with the playstyle promoted by games like DW and the PbtA games in general that I feel I have been unable to articulate clearly in these conversations.  It feels as if the creativity on the part of the DM is so constrained in these types of games/playstyle that I honestly don't think I would want to GM them.  Maybe, if anything, I would want to play since the players seem to get more leeway and freedom when it comes to creative license.  I'm not saying it's badwrongfun but it does seem to dispense with or even actively work against many of the things I find enjoyable about DM'ing.


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## The Crimson Binome

Lanefan said:


> And if I read rightly the NPC villains are only reactive, not proactive, once play begins?



NPC villains are frequently proactive, especially at the start of the campaign, when the PCs haven't done anything for them to react against. Many a campaign has been kicked off by the Big Bad capturing a royal heir, or stealing the magic crystal. That the forces of good will fail to hold off the forces of evil, unless the PCs intervene, is part of the premise which makes the campaign worth running. Given the multitude of possible worlds that we _could_ play in, the world where the PCs _might_ make a difference is much more interesting than one where good or evil will prevail _regardless_ of their choices.

But that's all part of the premise. It happens entirely _outside_ of the game. Choosing which _premise_ to start from is like choosing which movie to watch or novel to read. We can only judge the integrity of a story by how well it _follows_ from the premise.  


Lanefan said:


> And, just one storyline or plot arc - kind of like an adventure path?



It's also (ideally) played with dice, much like an adventure path. The numbering of plans that are simultaneously in motion has no significance upon whether those unfold organically or through contrivance. You can railroad three plot arcs as easily as you can railroad one, as long as the DM insists on biasing their outcomes.


Lanefan said:


> And even in your ideal game noted above there's still specific events and NPCs and stuff the party has to (or is certainly expected to) deal with, the only apparent caveat being that they are put in place before play begins rather than after.  But the characters still have to go to places a then b then c and do things p then q then r to prevent events y and z from occurring...which on the face of it sounds more railroady than baiting hooks at the right moment.



In most such games, there's _probably_ going to be a most-obvious path that will get the PCs from point A to point Z, but they don't _need_ to follow that path if they have any better ideas. You don't _need_ to go take out the Dragon in the Dragon's Den before you confront the Big Bad. You don't even necessarily need to _deal_ with the Dragon, or befriend it, or acknowledge its existence in any way. 

The players have the freedom to do whatever makes sense to their characters. The only limit is the actual capability of their characters to affect change within the world. The DM is operating under the same constraints - their NPCs can do whatever makes sense to them, limited only by their individual agencies (and motives) within the world.


Lanefan said:


> Another thing to keep in mind is that not all railroading is done by the DM.  Sometimes the players railroad themselves in that on finishing one adventure they have already decided what the next one will be whether it's what the DM had in mind or not.



_All_ railroading is done by the DM, because the DM is the _only_ one with the agency to declare what is true within the world. The player _can't_ decide that there is a nearby pitcher in which to catch blood, or that the one artifact they happened to find was also coincidentally the one that was being sought by an archaeological dig several days away, unless you're playing in one of those weird hippie games where that's a thing (usually moderated by some sort of metagame resource, like plot points). 

In D&D, nothing is true unless the DM decides that it is true. To do so, the DM can either make a judgment call based on known and unknown factors and possibly roll some dice to account for their own uncertainty, or they can just pick an outcome based on what they _want_ to happen. In the context of this thread, as posited in the opening post, the latter method is railroading. It doesn't matter _why_ the DM chooses that outcome; if they're doing it for any reason _other_ than as a judgment call on what _should_ naturally happen based on existing factors, then it's railroading. 

If the players decide to follow the plot in a certain direction that you did not expect, you have three basic options as the DM: 1) You can railroad _against_ them, forcing the plot back toward your original path; 2) You can railroad _with_ them, forcing the plot to develop in such a way that their new path will be interesting; or 3) You can make a judgment call about how that path _would_ look, based on existing factors, and let it play out on its own merits.

Most people in these forums are likely to say that (1) is bad, because it takes away player agency. Some people might say that (2) is good, because (1) is bad and (3) might very well be boring. All three choices have their own merits, but the fact remains that (1) and (2) are _both_ cases of the DM railroading the players in the direction they want; the only difference is _what_ the DM wants in each case.


----------



## Lanefan

Jacob Marley said:


> Think of the example in the context of a whole campaign. While a 1% chance may appear as an automatic, it does not take too long before those chances add up to where you have a meaningful likelihood of failure. For example, 20 automatic "yes" answers changed to 99% chance of success means the likelihood of failure during those 20 instances is approximately 18%. That number, in my experience, is meaningful. In my experience as a player, knowing that statistic does increase the drama of any given roll. It's also important to note that just because the roll is 1% for my character, it may be higher (or lower) for another character. Moving from a 1% chance of failure to 3% chance of failure means that within those 20 instances the likelihood of failure increases to 46%.



And in a system that doesn't use d% for pretty much anything any more, your chance of failure is more likely to be 5% anyway (1/d20); making failure yet more of a possibility.

But - and not to pick on you at all [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION], it's just your post triggered some thoughts I've had percolating for a while - this raises a tangential and much bigger question:

What's so bad about outright failure?

It seems from reading some posts here - particularly [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], though I suspect he's just putting it more eloquently - that straight failure is something to be avoided at all costs.  Say yes, roll the dice, and fail-forward, but never straight-out fail.  Why not?

1. Overly-sensitive players who can't handle being told "no"?  Let's for the sake of sanity hope not, and dispense with this one right now; players like this aren't what anyone needs and if you have one (or worse, more than one) you have bigger problems, and my sympathy.  That said, a player coming from a say-yes-or-roll-dice system might be in for some culture shock...

2. Saying "no" is a railroad?  Not true at all.  Sometimes "no" is a fact of life, both in reality and in the game, and there's no harm in it.  My somewhat silly example upthread of finding previously-nonexistent diamonds only because I look for them and force a roll is case in point: the answer should just be "no" without a roll.

3. Saying "no" breaks continuity, or is a dead end?  There's no reason why it should be provided the players/characters can think on their feet and come up with a plan B.  Example: "Is there a cup in the room to catch the blood?"  "No."  "Fine, I'll tear off some cloth - from my own clothes if I have to - and soak it with the blood..."  That, and sometimes dead ends are also a fact of life - the characters are trying to do something that simply cannot be done given their current state/resources/abilities and they really need to give up and try something else.  Saying yes or rolling dice in these situations only serves to provide false encouragement.  And, sometimes there just isn't a plan B....

And I can hear it now: "a dead-end scene shouldn't have been framed in the first place".  Well, why the hell not; particularly if it's the players who did it.  Example: party hears passing talk of the Ruins of Fortune and sets out to explore said Ruins for whatever reason; they get a certain distance in then hit a choke-point door they simply cannot open, beyond which lies the meat of the adventure (which, by the way, is probably more than they can handle at their current level).  The door has 100% magic resistance, the DC to pick the lock is somewhere in the lower stratosphere - they're stuck.  Meanwhile you as DM are gnashing your teeth; you know full well they were going to get stuck here because they ignored every clue you could give them suggesting they go to Verbrugge the Giant's Hold first, and Verbrugge's got the key (he uses it for a toothpick).  So, the players have marched themselves into a dead end.  That's life.  That's D&D.

Lan-"sometimes the right answer can only be found by trial and error, which doesn't work if error is not an option"-efan


----------



## Quickleaf

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] Glad to hear my 4e cheat sheet is still getting good use  

On topic, leaving aside the potentially contentious "railroading" and "rulings not rules" labels, what I found interesting is that you paused to question whether there was a vessel in the bedroom and even called for a Perception check to find one. I would have just said "Yes, indeed" and played from there.

Was the outcome really so in doubt & meaningful to the narrative that it merited rolling dice?


----------



## Lanefan

Oddly enough, I think I more or less agree with almost every point you make here but still find myself disagreeing with your overall position.  Neat trick. 


Saelorn said:


> NPC villains are frequently proactive, especially at the start of the campaign, when the PCs haven't done anything for them to react against. Many a campaign has been kicked off by the Big Bad capturing a royal heir, or stealing the magic crystal. That the forces of good will fail to hold off the forces of evil, unless the PCs intervene, is part of the premise which makes the campaign worth running. Given the multitude of possible worlds that we _could_ play in, the world where the PCs _might_ make a difference is much more interesting than one where good or evil will prevail _regardless_ of their choices.
> 
> But that's all part of the premise. It happens entirely _outside_ of the game. Choosing which _premise_ to start from is like choosing which movie to watch or novel to read. We can only judge the integrity of a story by how well it _follows_ from the premise.



OK, I'm with you so far.


> It's also (ideally) played with dice, much like an adventure path. The numbering of plans that are simultaneously in motion has no significance upon whether those unfold organically or through contrivance. You can railroad three plot arcs as easily as you can railroad one, as long as the DM insists on biasing their outcomes.
> In most such games, there's _probably_ going to be a most-obvious path that will get the PCs from point A to point Z, but they don't _need_ to follow that path if they have any better ideas. You don't _need_ to go take out the Dragon in the Dragon's Den before you confront the Big Bad. You don't even necessarily need to _deal_ with the Dragon, or befriend it, or acknowledge its existence in any way.
> 
> The players have the freedom to do whatever makes sense to their characters. The only limit is the actual capability of their characters to affect change within the world. The DM is operating under the same constraints - their NPCs can do whatever makes sense to them, limited only by their individual agencies (and motives) within the world.



Still with you to here, particularly this last bit.


> _All_ railroading is done by the DM, because the DM is the _only_ one with the agency to declare what is true within the world. The player _can't_ decide that there is a nearby pitcher in which to catch blood, or that the one artifact they happened to find was also coincidentally the one that was being sought by an archaeological dig several days away, unless you're playing in one of those weird hippie games where that's a thing (usually moderated by some sort of metagame resource, like plot points).



Except that's exactly what we're being presented with here: games where the players can and do - if not outright make these seterminations, at least force a roll for them.

The artifact-in-the-desert example counts as part of the premise, at least to me.  They certainly could have ignored it and moved on (and believe me, the whole game would have taken some much different directions if they had!) but it was always there to be found; and the dig site was always in the wrong place.



> In D&D, nothing is true until the DM decides that it is true. To do so, the DM can either make a judgment call based on known and unknown factors and possibly roll some dice to account for their own uncertainty, or they can just pick an outcome based on what they _want_ to happen. In the context of this thread, as posited in the opening post, the latter method is railroading. It doesn't matter _why_ the DM chooses that outcome; if they're doing it for any reason _other_ than as a judgment call on what _should_ naturally happen based on existing factors, then it's railroading.



OK, though you're on a slippery slope here as the DM also determines the existing factors, as is her right.



> If the players decide to follow the plot in a certain direction that you did not expect, you have three basic options as the DM: 1) You can railroad _against_ them, forcing the plot back toward your original path; 2) You can railroad _with_ them, forcing the plot to develop in such a way that their new path will be interesting; or 3) You can make a judgment call about how that path _would_ look, based on existing factors, and let it play out on its own merits.



Again, agreed.  Both (2) and (3) are simply a matter of hitting the curveball; (2) just hits it harder.



> Most people in these forums are likely to say that (1) is bad, because it takes away player agency. Some people might say that (2) is good, because (1) is bad and (3) might very well be boring. All three choices have their own merits, but the fact remains that (1) and (2) are _both_ cases of the DM railroading the players in the direction they want; the only difference is _what_ the DM wants in each case.



I suggest both (2) and (3) contain elements of the players railroading the DM, particularly if the DM then ends up running an adventure or scenario she has no interest in or desire to run.  And that's bad for two reasons: 1) the DM is there to have fun too, and 2) if the DM isn't enjoying what she's doing it's inevitably going to show through, potentially risking dragging the players' enjoyment down with her.

Lan-"while I've by the standards here probably been doing it wrong for 30+ years, I fully intend to go on doing it wrong for 30+ more"-efan


----------



## Tony Vargas

Quickleaf said:


> Was the outcome really so in doubt & meaningful to the narrative that it merited rolling dice?



 I wondered about that, too.  I figured that it must have been a matter of finding a vessel /before/ the decapitated corpse had bled out to the point that blood couldn't be caught in it.  (Perhaps because, for some arcane reason, blood collected with a sponge didn't count? "What? C'mon, 5-second rule!")



Lanefan said:


> What's so bad about outright failure?



 Nuth'n.  Builds character(npi).  Kids these days could do with some more character.

But, what is bad is when your session grinds to an ignominious halt because someone failed just the wrong check, at just the wrong time, and the players are left shuffling around, going "whadda we do now?" "I dunno, whadda you wanna do?"  "Go back to town for a beer, I guess, world can save itself this time, 'cause we got nuth'n."



> It seems from reading some posts here - particularly [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], though I suspect he's just putting it more eloquently - that straight failure is something to be avoided at all costs.  Say yes, roll the dice, and fail-forward, but never straight-out fail.  Why not?



 Fail-forward /is/ straight-out failure, it's just failure of the character's action, not failure of the DM's game.

Even a really horrible failure, with a really horrible consequence, could move things forward.

It does, however, strike me as not so different from the kinds of techniques that'd get called 'illusionism' or 'railroading...'


----------



## The Crimson Binome

Lanefan said:


> I suggest both (2) and (3) contain elements of the players railroading the DM, particularly if the DM then ends up running an adventure or scenario she has no interest in or desire to run.  And that's bad for two reasons: 1) the DM is there to have fun too, and 2) if the DM isn't enjoying what she's doing it's inevitably going to show through, potentially risking dragging the players' enjoyment down with her.



It sounds like a simple miscommunication between the definition of railroading that is presented in this thread and the common definition that is used outside of this thread. According to the opening post, railroading is just the name for the DM choosing an outcome based on outside factors instead of making a judgment call. I would have chosen a different name for it (biased determination?), to avoid confusion, but you have to respect the premise if you choose to engage with it.

By common parlance, the players could easily railroad the DM into doing whatever, through peer pressure or any number of other means.


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> Nuth'n.  Builds character(npi).  Kids these days could do with some more character.
> 
> But, what is bad is when your session grinds to an ignominious halt because someone failed just the wrong check, at just the wrong time, and the players are left shuffling around, going "whadda we do now?" "I dunno, whadda you wanna do?"  "Go back to town for a beer, I guess, world can save itself this time, 'cause we got nuth'n."



Same thing happens when someone didn't happen to memorize a particular spell this morning and now that spell is the only answer.  At least you can swap 'em out now, unlike 1e where you had to wait till tomorrow.

And if they go back to town for a beer so be it...the world doesn't get saved and you're off to new adventures in post-cataclysm-land. 



> Fail-forward /is/ straight-out failure, it's just failure of the character's action, not failure of the DM's game.



Not how I've had it described; what I've seen fail-forward defined as is a failure that still contains elements of progress toward the intended goal (e.g. you fail to climb the hill but you get halfway and can see a different path to try from here).  I'm talking about a failure that has no progress in it at all - a fail-stationary? (e.g. you fail to climb the hill and are still at the bottom, or [without a roll] no, you don't find a large diamond here).



> Even a really horrible failure, with a really horrible consequence, could move things forward.



Forward, or backward?  A really awful fail might push the PCs further away from their objective; that'd be a fail-backward.



> It does, however, strike me as not so different from the kinds of techniques that'd get called 'illusionism' or 'railroading...'



Depends how it's done and with what intent, I suppose.  There's a fuzzy line in there somewhere between good DM judgement (which it seems everyone supports) and an overly-harsh definition of DM railroading.

Lan-"the fog of war becomes lost in the fog of definitions"-efan


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Same thing happens when someone didn't happen to memorize a particular spell this morning and now that spell is the only answer.



 A similar issue with the adventure, yes.  A single point of failure.  DM should try to avoid presenting those.



> And if they go back to town for a beer so be it...the world doesn't get saved and you're off to new adventures in post-cataclysm-land.



 Heh, I'd consider "oops, wrong wire, you'll be playing mutants next session" to be fail-forward, in a way.   



> Not how I've had it described; what I've seen fail-forward defined as is a failure that still contains elements of progress toward the intended goal.



 OK, that is a little different, but I guess if you're going all player-directed, the goal /is/ the story.  :shrug:



> Forward, or backward?  A really awful fail might push the PCs further away from their objective; that'd be a fail-backward.



 In the direction of plot/fun/character-development/whatever it is you're going for as DM.


----------



## pemerton

Quickleaf said:


> what I found interesting is that you paused to question whether there was a vessel in the bedroom and even called for a Perception check to find one. I would have just said "Yes, indeed" and played from there.
> 
> Was the outcome really so in doubt & meaningful to the narrative that it merited rolling dice?



In the context, yes.

The tone of the game, its feel and pacing, is established by the distribution between "saying 'yes'" and rolling the dice. If something _matters_, even if it's easy (like spotting a vessel in a bed room for a recuperating wizard), then a difficulty is set and the dice rolled. That reminds us of the stakes; it gives the moment its suitable "heft" in the unfolding fiction, and - by creating the opportunity for failure - it creates the prospect of dramatic (potentially also blackly comedic) turnabout.

If nothing ever goes wrong when the stakes are high but the difficulty low, a different tone is created. (Eg think about the widespread sense that using magic in D&D is not dangerous, because no check is required - whereas in (to pick an example) Rolemaster, there is always a 2% chance of failure for any spell (and a much higher chance in some circumstances) which creates a different feel.)


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> A similar issue with the adventure, yes.  A single point of failure.  DM should try to avoid presenting those.



Problem is, the most common place I always saw it was locked doors.  The Thief fails to pick the lock, bashing on it with a hammer has little effect other than to make a world o' noise, and the MU didn't memorize _Knock_ (or worse, the party has no MU at all).  Hard to design a dungeon without any locked doors in it. 



> Heh, I'd consider "oops, wrong wire, you'll be playing mutants next session" to be fail-forward, in a way.



From the player side, maybe.  From the DM side...well...not entirely what I might have had in mind. 



> In the direction of plot/fun/character-development/whatever it is you're going for as DM.



I'm looking at from the goal-oriented view: you've in character (and maybe as player also) been pushed backward away from your goal.

Lanefan


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## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Hard to design a dungeon without any locked doors in it.



 "So, this downstairs space was very close, dark and claustrophic-feeling, so what we did was, we took out all the doors, and knocked down the non-load-bearing walls, and put up mirrors, and it's really opened the space up and created a 'flow' and the light's much better, too...

... hey, put down that ax!"


And that is why orcs don't use interior decorators.  

Except for lunch.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Except the original intention (in my example) was that the war wouldn't see actual play at all, but merely serve as a part of the backstory defining the game world the characters are in.  The players drag the action over to the budding war whether the DM likes it or not; I certainly don't see it as out of line that the DM has happen what was always going to happen anyway.
> 
> On a broader scale: there's actual plot, and there's red herrings.  Players have every right to chase red herrings to the ends of the world if they want to, but there's no right of expectation that just because they chase a particular red herring it become any more significant than it ever was in the grand scheme of things.



What you describe here would be an example of what I have described as railroading - determing that the PCs' aspirations fail on the basis of backstory known only to the GM.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> No.
> 
> From the OP:
> 
> ​
> It is precisely because I knew what was at stake that a DC was set. If nothing was at stake (ie if it was some bit of colour or auxiliary action that didn't bear upon some central concern of the PC and (thereby) the player) then I would simply "say 'yes'" so that the action could move on.
> 
> No, it's not. But it's not "say 'yes' or roll the dice", either.
> 
> I stated some of the reasons for not just "saying 'yes'" when something is actually at stake in my earlier reply upthread. It's primarily to do with pacing, tone, and the experience of the tension/drama/stakes of the game.
> 
> No. I view GM narration of failure by way of fiat as railroading. As per this re-quote of the OP:
> 
> ​
> In some more recent posts I've been elaborating on this idea and its consequences - eg "no failure by GM fiat" entails "no failure offscreen".
> Which is relevant to thinking about the dynamics of a situation like the assassination of the Marquis; or the fall of the nation when threatened by the tarrasque. If those eventualities would count as "failure" - ie things that are at odds with the commitments/concerns/goals/etc of the players as expressed and realised via their PCs - then bringing them about simply as part of the backstory would, on my account of the matter, be railroading.
> 
> By "dead end" narration I meant something like "No, there's no vessel".
> 
> "Dead end" narration of failure is independent of the issue of railroading, in that it could be the result of GM fiat (ie what I have described as railroading) or the response to a failed check by a player. I prefer "fail forward"/"no whiffing" (I use inverted commas mostly because neither is an especially satisfactory term to actually describe the technique; and in addition "fail forward" has become widely identified with "success with a compication", which can often be quite a different thing).
> 
> The benefit of "fail forward" is that, by narrating the failure so as to frame the PC into a new conflict (eg there's a jar, but it's broken; the familiar is eating up all the blood), the momentum of the action is maintained - because the failure of the action declaration is used as the foundation for further framing. (Whereas "Sorry, there's no vessel" doesn't provide any new framing for the player to respond to.)




I suppose I don't see it that way...that DM Fiat must simply dead end like that, and that the failed check in your fail forward example really sets anything up at all. 

In the fail by DM Fiat situation, the DM can just as easily add additional details or options, such as the broken vessel example you provided. 

And the failed check doesn't determine anything from how I read your description; the fail forward options seem to be decided entirely by the DM on the spot. Unless I am missing something...which is obviously possible based on how many misconceptions I've had during this discussion. 



Jacob Marley said:


> Think of the example in the context of a whole campaign. While a 1% chance may appear as an automatic, it does not take too long before those chances add up to where you have a meaningful likelihood of failure. For example, 20 automatic "yes" answers changed to 99% chance of success means the likelihood of failure during those 20 instances is approximately 18%. That number, in my experience, is meaningful. In my experience as a player, knowing that statistic does increase the drama of any given roll. It's also important to note that just because the roll is 1% for my character, it may be higher (or lower) for another character. Moving from a 1% chance of failure to 3% chance of failure means that within those 20 instances the likelihood of failure increases to 46%.




This is true. I don't know if I'd see it as significant though, even over the course of the entire campaign. It would depend on what the specific task in question was and how important its success was to the story overall. I can't imagine that quickly spotting the presence of pottery in a bedroom is going to come up often enough for the math to get there.


----------



## Quickleaf

pemerton said:


> In the context, yes.
> 
> The tone of the game, its feel and pacing, is established by the distribution between "saying 'yes'" and rolling the dice. If something _matters_, even if it's easy (like spotting a vessel in a bed room for a recuperating wizard), then a difficulty is set and the dice rolled. That reminds us of the stakes; it gives the moment its suitable "heft" in the unfolding fiction, and - by creating the opportunity for failure - it creates the prospect of dramatic (potentially also blackly comedic) turnabout.
> 
> If nothing ever goes wrong when the stakes are high but the difficulty low, a different tone is created. (Eg think about the widespread sense that using magic in D&D is not dangerous, because no check is required - whereas in (to pick an example) Rolemaster, there is always a 2% chance of failure for any spell (and a much higher chance in some circumstances) which creates a different feel.)




Totally.

Hats off to you for setting up a situation where so much could hinge on such a normally minor scene detail. That takes some GM chops!


----------



## pemerton

Quickleaf said:


> Hats off to you for setting up a situation where so much could hinge on such a normally minor scene detail. That takes some GM chops!



Thanks - very generous! But it's actually the player of that PC who deserves the credit - as we picked up the game from where we left off last time (decapited mage in the bedroom, the bystanders standing slackjawed in horror), another player (of the decapited mage's brother) and I started discussing what his PC (Jobe) was going to do now that his brother couldn't be rescued, prospects for cooperation with the assassin (Jobe and the assassin PC-turned-NPC were comrades for a couple of years in-game, but have been more-and-more at odds over the past two or three months), etc - and then the player of Tru-leigh pipes up "There must be a lot of blood. Is there a jug, or a chamber pot, or something like that?" I looked at him quizically, and he went on "Well, if I can't take the mage with blood in him, I can take the blood!" - and just like that he'd reoriented his mission for his master into the new ingame context. So we wrote the new Belief down in the appropriate box on the PC sheet, I set the DC for the check, and off we went!

To say something less controversial than some of my other posts on this thread, I think invested players who will pick up the fiction and run with it are at the heart of the RPG experience.

(And to sink back into the mires of controversy - that's why I, personally, don't adopt GMing approaches that seem to me to get in the way of that.)


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Reading this perhaps a bit harshly, this puts the DM in the role of little more than a free-thinking processing unit which could these days be done by a computer



I think if you look at the sorts of GM judgement calls that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I have talked about, that's manifestly not true.

Manbearcat talked about "going where the action is". I've talked (eg posts 164, 221) about the need for the GM to distingush between what is an element of framing, and what is an _outcome_ in which the players, via their PCs, have a stake and hence which is subject to "no failure off-screen". Campbell, in post 73, talked about the need for the GM to confront the players (via their PCs) with fiction that will prompt them to make decisions.

These are relatively subtle judgements involving a mix of aesthetic sensibility, a feel for pacing and drama, and a good ability to read the mood of the table as well as the emotions of individual participants. I don't think they would be very easily done by a computer at the typical RPG table.


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> Just having the choice is often enough. While the players know they can eschew the plans at any time, that doesn't mean they want to.
> 
> After all, some players are happier with a little structure and rails. They just want to sit in the roller coaster and enjoy the ride.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> A skilled DM can hide the rails. If they can anticipate their player's actions and choices, they can plan the most likely paths. The players are on the rails the entire time and don't know it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> Additionally, the  DM is often the person most invested in the game. They're often the one interested enough to buy the rulebooks and learn the rules. They're the most likely to spend time thinking about the game between sessions.



So are you arguing that it's not railroading? Or thatit's railroading that is justified in virtue of the GM's investment and time commitment? Or that it's railroading that the players enjoy? Or, like [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], that - because the player's enjoy it - it's the same sort of GM force as railroading but not apt for the pejorative label? Or, like [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION], that it's a railroad that the players will enjoy because so long as they don't notice it's a railroad?

Because to me, you don't seem to offering any reason why I'm wrong in describing it as railroading. You just seem to be explaining how and why it might come about, and why it might be a good thing. (I'm not even sure if - as [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] did - you're contesting the pejorative labelling or, like [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION], you're accepting that it's a railroad but arguing that a good GM can hide this.)



Jester David said:


> And some DMs are just poor at improv. So their players know they'll have a better experience - that they'll have more fun - if they take the hook and stick to the plot.



Again, this doesn't seem to be explaining how it's not a railroad. It seems to be explaining why the railroad might be a good thing.



Jester David said:


> The DM is a player too. They have stories they want to tell. They know what's going on in the world more than the PCs. The NPCs have character arcs and goals.



This basically antithetical to the way I GM RPGs. To me, it seems more like the mindset for writing a story than GMing a RPG. The bit about NPC arcs particularly stands out - because, once you allow that the GM can introduce material into the shared fiction unilaterally and secretly, and then can draw upon that backstory known only to him/her in the course of resolving action resolution, the stage seems to be set for the GM to let those NPC arcs really spring forth.



Jester David said:


> Things ripple outward and cause big changes. The assassination of a Duke of a small nation can caused one of the bloodiest wars in history.
> Because the unexpected happens. It rains at the wrong time. Winter comes early. There's a plague. Everyone's life is full of times where the unexpected completely derailed plans.
> 
> It matters because it makes the world feel real. It's larger and more cohesive, with places and people that don't cease to exist when the players aren't watching.



If the players aren't watching, then whose sense of reality is being engendered? The GM's?

As I posted upthread, my campaigns tend to be distinguished by an emphasis on history and/or cosmology as elements of the framing. This creates the sense, in play, of "depth". But it does not exert force on resolution of declared actions. Rather, it either provides framing context for them, or is established as a result of action resolution. To give a cosmological example of the latter process: in my main 4e game, the PCs' success in defeating the tarrasque before it could rampage across the world may well be a sign of the fact that Dusk War is not imminent after all. To give a more prosaic example: the nervous collapse of a baron with whom the PCs were friendly, following the revelations (i) that his adviser was a treacherous necromancer, and (ii) that his niece, betrothed to the advisor, was not an innocent victim but herself a willing participant in the necromantic arts, were not narrated simply as consequences of these revelations (which were framing elements presented by me as GM); it only took place after the PCs killed the niece in order to stop her necromantic predations. And hence was a consequence flowing from their actions, not just an outgrowth of behind-the-scenes backstory.



Jester David said:


> It's not static. It's a living, breathing world.



I don't think anyone who has ever read my actual campaign reports would describe my 4e campaign world as static! Gods pass on; cosmolgical forces muster and clash; civilsations fall (I don't think any have yet risen during the course of the campaign). This is not just stuff that the GM reads about (like, say, the backstory of many modules). It is at the heart of the play of the game.

In the game reference in the OP, the stakes are (on the whole) more grounded in local matSlters. But in that game, a feather purchased by a PC at a bazaar, ostensibly an angel feather but also (as the PC found out) cursed, turned out to be stolen from the Bright Desert pyramid of the Suel wizard Slerotin. Slerotin's mummy, it turned out, had at some time in the past been reinterred in the catacombs of the city of Hardby - whch the PC learned some years later (both ingame and in real time) when Slerotin's mummy assaulted a dinner party in a mage's tower (the same mage in whose tower the decapitation occurred).

In my experience, the use of history and backstory to give depth and interconnection to the framing of events, and the narration of their consequences, is how you convey a living breathing world. 



Jester David said:


> Players shouldn't expect to murderhobo through the world without consequences.



This seems very significant to me - because I would not use that sentence to describe any sort of campaign I've run since the first half of the 1980s. Even the 3E Castle Amber game involved PCs who weren't just "murderhoboes".

Or, to flip it around - I don't use the threat of GM-imposed consequences to keep my players "on task" or not murder-hoboing. (It sounds like a version of Gygax's much-scorned ethereal mummies or blue bolts from the heavens.) As I've mentioned more than once already upthread, the basic trajectory of play comes from the players, and the goals and aspirations they set for their PCs. The consequences in the game arise in response to those goals and aspirations - not from some sort of GM-adjudicated karmic retribution.


----------



## Tony Vargas

What's the point of murder-hobo'ing through the world if your actions have no consequences.  All that wandering around and killing things should net you some gold to spend on ale and horrors. 

I mean, if you like ale.  And tentacles.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> So are you arguing that it's not railroading? Or thatit's railroading that is justified in virtue of the GM's investment and time commitment? Or that it's railroading that the players enjoy? Or, like [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], that - because the player's enjoy it - it's the same sort of GM force as railroading but not apt for the pejorative label? Or, like [MENTION=6801328]Elfcrusher[/MENTION], that it's a railroad that the players will enjoy because so long as they don't notice it's a railroad?



It's ONLY railroading if the players do not have a choice. If anything that looks like a choice isn't actually a choice is actually an invisible wall. Or is a false choice that leads to the same result as the alternative. 

Even if 100% of the campaign is scripted by the DM, even if the players do not generate a single quest or plot hook or goal, it is not necessarily a railroad so long as they have the _option_ of not following the plot.


At the same time, yes, I was arguing that railroads - when done well - are not necessarily bad.



pemerton said:


> Because to me, you don't seem to offering any reason why I'm wrong in describing it as railroading.



I did earlier. When I posted the actual definition of "railroading". Repeatedly. 



pemerton said:


> If the players aren't watching, then whose sense of reality is being engendered? The GM's?



Where did I say that the player's aren't watching? Where did I even _HINT _that the players don't get to see events? 
Rule number one of writing is "show, don't tell." But rule number one of being a good DM is "involve, don't show."

The players might not witness everything occurring. But when they are present to see, they can witness the current change in status quo as the result of their actions.


----------



## Jester David

TwoSix said:


> I always find this analogy amusing; most modern video games are online, and therefore far more persistent (and real) than any world that exists purely in the imagination of a group of 4-8 people.



Most? Really?!

There's a lot more online play, but persistent worlds are still rare and confined to MMOs. And getting somewhat rarer as they're expensive to make and maintain. And by definition these don't change and progress, with areas resetting continually. 

There's many server based games popping up, but zones and chunks of those don't refresh when a player is not actually present. They literally cease to exist. Because keeping the server going for all areas at the same time eats up too much RAM.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> What you describe here would be an example of what I have described as railroading - determing that the PCs' aspirations fail on the basis of backstory known only to the GM.



So in your game the characters/players can never be surprised later by something in the game world that's secretly influencing what they do now and-or what's happening around them?  That's certainly how it looks.

Using an example of mine from some way upthread: if the party's mentor is secretly a vampire, everything he does - all his reactions, all his intentions, all his backstory - is going to be influenced by the fact he's a vampire and the corollary fact that he's trying to hide it.  His intentions and reactions, for example, may well be based on a very long-term view as in theory he can last forever, where most people can't.  The PCs don't know he's a vampire any more than anyone else does, though over the long run some of his actions/reactions/etc. might raise some eyebrows and cause questions.

And you say this is railroading?

Balderdash.



> These are relatively subtle judgements involving a mix of aesthetic sensibility, a feel for pacing and drama, and a good ability to read the mood of the table as well as the emotions of individual participants. I don't think they would be very easily done by a computer at the typical RPG table.



But they could just as easily be done by another player, or the table as a committee.  Still don't need a DM.



> This basically antithetical to the way I GM RPGs. To me, it seems more like the mindset for writing a story than GMing a RPG. The bit about NPC arcs particularly stands out - because, once you allow that the GM can introduce material into the shared fiction unilaterally and secretly, and then can draw upon that backstory known only to him/her in the course of resolving action resolution, the stage seems to be set for the GM to let those NPC arcs really spring forth.



Yikes.

First off, the PCs are not (or certainly shouldn't be) the only occupants of the game world with plans and agendae.  NPCs are going to have plans and agendae too, often (if not nearly always) unknown to the PCs.  Sometimes these NPC plans may get in the way of the PCs, or influence what they see/hear/notice/react to, or even support the PCs without their knowledge.  The characters don't (and can't) know everything, which by extension means the players don't (and shouldn't) either.

Second off: between this and the other restrictions you're putting on, how in the nine hells is a DM supposed to have any input at all to the plot/story development of her own game?  Or is she not allowed to, thus leaving her at the whim of the players no matter what and reducing her to, again, a processing unit/referee, sounding board, and otherwise spectator.

One question: in your game do you have any NPCs or DMPCs in the party, to allow you to have some story/plot/direction input from that angle?  I'm guessing not, but might as well confirm.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Absolutely.  But [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (who can [and doubtless will  ] correct me if I'm wrong) has brought up a slew of other systems that tend to see the DM as more reactionary than proactionary...which might be fine for those systems but is a departure from what I see as traditional D&D.



Here's just one excerpt, from p 87 of Gygax's DMG, under the heading "Setting things in motion":

Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence with the player characters entering and interacting with the local population. . . . When they arrive, you will be ready to take on the persona of the settlement as a whole, as well as that of each individual therein. . . . The players will quickly learn who is who and what is going on - perhaps at the loss of a few coins. Having handled this, their characters will be equipped as well as circumstances will allow and will be ready for their bold journey into the dangerous place where treasure abounds and monsters lurk.​
To me, this makes it pretty clear that what sets things into motion is the arrival of the PCs. The players drive the action (though in this case by interacting with the elements of the GM's sandbox, rather than by the GM framing them into situations that engage their PCs beliefs/goals/aspirations etc).

I







Lanefan said:


> f the game is run in a pre-fab setting e.g. Greyhawk then most of that also becomes needless.  Only the "scene framing" remains, and the table as a whole can do that.



What procedure would you envisage for the table as a whole to use to frame scenes? And how would that procedure bring about, say, that the tarrasque is attended by maruts in the fashion that I described upthread.


----------



## pemerton

Jacob Marley said:


> Think of the example in the context of a whole campaign. While a 1% chance may appear as an automatic, it does not take too long before those chances add up to where you have a meaningful likelihood of failure. For example, 20 automatic "yes" answers changed to 99% chance of success means the likelihood of failure during those 20 instances is approximately 18%. That number, in my experience, is meaningful. In my experience as a player, knowing that statistic does increase the drama of any given roll.



At least as I experience, there are a combination of things going on: there's the ritual aspect, of picking up the dice; which establishes a certain sense of "heft" or "place" of the event in the unfolding fiction. And then there's the odds, as you say, which over time contribut to (say) a gritty vs heroic tone.



Jacob Marley said:


> It's also important to note that just because the roll is 1% for my character, it may be higher (or lower) for another character. Moving from a 1% chance of failure to 3% chance of failure means that within those 20 instances the likelihood of failure increases to 46%.



In my preferred approach, whether or not a roll is required might vary between PCs (or between events involving the same PC), depending on the dramatic/thematic context.

But your point still holds good in this way: sometimes those low DCs aren't easy to make (eg if a PC has a low bonus in a certain field, or is under penalties for some reason), and so the practice of requiring rolls even at those low DCs does, over time, create meaningful prospects of failure even at straightforward but pivotal moments.

As I posted in reply to  [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION], this opens up a certain sort of gritty feel, as well as the prospect of black comedy.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> It seems from reading some posts here - particularly [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], though I suspect he's just putting it more eloquently - that straight failure is something to be avoided at all costs.  Say yes, roll the dice, and fail-forward, but never straight-out fail.  Why not?



I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "straight failure".

In the episode of play that I referred to in the OP, and have elaborated on over the course of the thread, the PCs failed to escape across town with their bodies and blood. They were, rather, apprehended by the night watch. Do you count that as straight failure?

In the write-up of the viking game to which I linked, I mentioned the failed attempt to trade the giants' giant ox back to them. Do you count that as straight failure?

Sometimes I feel you're not really reading the accounts of actual play that I've provided, because you seem to conjure up imaginary scenarios (that as far as I know aren't based on anyone's actual play) rather than talking about the actual examples provided (often in some detail).



Lanefan said:


> Saying "no" breaks continuity, or is a dead end?  There's no reason why it should be provided the players/characters can think on their feet and come up with a plan B.  Example: "Is there a cup in the room to catch the blood?"  "No."  "Fine, I'll tear off some cloth - from my own clothes if I have to - and soak it with the blood..."  That, and sometimes dead ends are also a fact of life - the characters are trying to do something that simply cannot be done given their current state/resources/abilities and they really need to give up and try something else.  Saying yes or rolling dice in these situations only serves to provide false encouragement.



Why is the encouragement false?



Lanefan said:


> And I can hear it now: "a dead-end scene shouldn't have been framed in the first place".  Well, why the hell not; particularly if it's the players who did it.  Example: party hears passing talk of the Ruins of Fortune and sets out to explore said Ruins for whatever reason; they get a certain distance in then hit a choke-point door they simply cannot open, beyond which lies the meat of the adventure (which, by the way, is probably more than they can handle at their current level).  The door has 100% magic resistance, the DC to pick the lock is somewhere in the lower stratosphere - they're stuck.  Meanwhile you as DM are gnashing your teeth; you know full well they were going to get stuck here because they ignored every clue you could give them suggesting they go to Verbrugge the Giant's Hold first, and Verbrugge's got the key (he uses it for a toothpick).  So, the players have marched themselves into a dead end.  That's life.  That's D&D.



What you're describing here is a puzzle: the players have to decipher some clues to get to Verburgge so they can get the key to enter the Ruins of Fortune.

I posted about puzzles upthread, in response to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]. In my view they fall very much into the "handle with care" bag, and I wouldn't base a whole campaign around them; and I certainly wouldn't base a whole campaign around one single puzzle.

I don't think D&D has ever been exclusively, or even primarily, a puzzle-solving game. Exploring a classic dungeon doesn't require the players to solve any particualr puzzle before they can progress - if there's one door they can't get through, there are plenty of others evident to them they can explore.



Lanefan said:


> what I've seen fail-forward defined as is a failure that still contains elements of progress toward the intended goal



I've described it mulitple times in this thread, and given examples (both actual and conjectured).

"Fail forward" means that the consequences of failure aren't simply _status quo_. There are no dead ends.

Rather, a failed check means that something happens that thwarts the purposes of the PC and forces the player to make some new choice in an adverse situation. Eg the PCs are trying to escape across the city, and they don't. Rather, they get apprehended by the night watch. That's failure. It's not "success with complications". It's not "elements of progress".

But it does force the players to make some new choices, under conditions of adversity.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> In the fail by DM Fiat situation, the DM can just as easily add additional details or options, such as the broken vessel example you provided.



Yes. I posted that in my first reply to you, and have reiterated since.

The issue of "dead end" failure and the issue of "railroading" are independent. As I said in the post you quoted.



hawkeyefan said:


> And the failed check doesn't determine anything from how I read your description; the fail forward options seem to be decided entirely by the DM on the spot.



I don't understnd what you mean. Failing the check means that the PC (and hence the player) does not get what s/he wanted.

The consequence of failure is established by the GM - as I posted, it might be expressly stated in framing the check; it might be implicit in the situation; it might have to be worked out by the GM after the roll is made. Narrating a failed consequence is an exercise in framing, in drawing out implicit strands and elements in the game that might be pushing against the PC and brining them to the fore, at the centre of the action.

This is why I find [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s suggestion that a computer could do it, or [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s suggestion that it crushes GM creativity, rather odd. Those are completely at odds with my experience. It can sometimes be quite a challenging thing, to hit upon the right failure consequence for a given check.

One example I may have already mentioned in this thread is the following: Jobe the mage and Tru-leigh the naga-serving spirit summoner, knowing that Halika the assassin would try and kill the unconscious mage that night, fed her a sleeping potion before seting out through the sewers and catacombs to find their way into the tower (so that they could take the mage from the tower for their own purposes). But they failed their check to make their way quickly through the catacombs; and so, as time passes, they find themselves under a grille and Halika's voice calls through, taunting them: the consequnce of failure is that they have spent so long wandering through the undercity that the sleeping potion has worn off, and Halika now has a head start on her way to the tower (in the fiction it's already been established - in a previous session - that she's spent a week casing the place, so there's no question that she can make her way there without getting lost).

That is failure - as per my recent reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], it's not "success with complication". The PCs don't get to the tower unopposed by Halika. Instead, she has the head start (in mechanical terms, a bonus die).

The failure isn't just conjured out of thin air. It has none of the non sequitur quality of "rocks fall". It draws on the established fiction of the game, but also puts a new twist on it that is adverse to the PCs, and thereby the players (in this case, the sleeping potion, instead of being an instrument of success for the two PCs, becomes a symbol of the division between the two of them and Halika).

It's probably worth noting how this example connects to the ideas of "no failure offscreen" and "no determination of consequences by reference to the GM's secret backstory": the relationship between the PC's travel time and the duration of the sleeping potion effect isn't worked out by comparing GM's charts and maps. Rather, it's narrated as a result of the players' failed check.

The game is not lacking in backstory and interconnection between events. But they are established via play, not via pre-authorship.



hawkeyefan said:


> It would depend on what the specific task in question was
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I can't imagine that quickly spotting the presence of pottery in a bedroom is going to come up often enough for the math to get there.



As I said in reply to [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION], what is key is that even low DCs are set when the action pivots upon simple but crucial deeds. Some of these will fail (due to bad luck; due to poor bonuses; etc). Framing the check even when failure is unlikely is part of establishing an overall tone and feel.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> So in your game the characters/players can never be surprised later by something in the game world that's secretly influencing what they do now and-or what's happening around them?  That's certainly how it looks.



Then I urge you to reread some of my posts.

Of course they can be surprised in that way. But that would be the result of failure; not it's cause.

I even posted an example upthread, of the discovery of the cursed black arrows, in post 171, IN REPLY TO YOU.

I'll repost it:



pemerton said:


> a PC mage had returned with the party to the ruined tower where he once lived studying under his brother's tutelage before they fled when the tower was assaulted by orcs (this was part of the PC's backstory; the brother is the mage who was decapitated in the tower by the assassin, having been possessed by a balrog when the attempt to cast a spell to repel the orcs failed). Another part of the PC's backstory stated that, in the tower, he had left behind The Falcon's Claw, a nickel-silver mace which he was preparing to receive enchantments. Having now returned to the tower after lo those many years, a search was made for the mace. This was framed as a check in the same way as looking for a vessel in the bedroom. The check failed; and so the PC did not find any mace. Instead, he found a collection of cursed arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom - this discovery therefore (i) implicating his brother in the manufacture of the arrow that had killed another PC's (the elven ronin's) master; and (ii) implying that his brother was evil _before_ being possessed by a balrog, rather than as a result of it.



The players were surprised by this discovery. Including the implication that the explanation for the brother's possession was his evil, rather than vice versa.



Lanefan said:


> if the party's mentor is secretly a vampire, everything he does - all his reactions, all his intentions, all his backstory - is going to be influenced by the fact he's a vampire and the corollary fact that he's trying to hide it.  His intentions and reactions, for example, may well be based on a very long-term view as in theory he can last forever, where most people can't.  The PCs don't know he's a vampire any more than anyone else does, though over the long run some of his actions/reactions/etc. might raise some eyebrows and cause questions.
> 
> And you say this is railroading?



As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a mere description of the fiction it's impossible to tell. Railroading isn't about the content of the fiction, it's about the method of its generation..



Lanefan said:


> how in the nine hells is a DM supposed to have any input at all to the plot/story development of her own game?



I think my play examples make this pretty clear: by working with the players to establish the context and themes of the game; by framing; by narrating the consequences of failures.

I've posted a lot of examples in this thread, and linked to more. I can provide more links if you like.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Here's just one excerpt, from p 87 of Gygax's DMG, under the heading "Setting things in motion":
> 
> Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence with the player characters entering and interacting with the local population. . . . When they arrive, you will be ready to take on the persona of the settlement as a whole, as well as that of each individual therein. . . . The players will quickly learn who is who and what is going on - perhaps at the loss of a few coins. Having handled this, their characters will be equipped as well as circumstances will allow and will be ready for their bold journey into the dangerous place where treasure abounds and monsters lurk.​
> To me, this makes it pretty clear that what sets things into motion is the arrival of the PCs. The players drive the action (though in this case by interacting with the elements of the GM's sandbox, rather than by the GM framing them into situations that engage their PCs beliefs/goals/aspirations etc).




Yes, but what is set in motion by their arrival was pre-determined by the DM who "Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence...".  Part of that set up is determining the NPC motivations, plots, secrets, etc., virtually all of which will be unknown to the players/PCs before they arrive.  Many of those things may never be discovered, yet still have influence on the PCs.


----------



## Manbearcat

lowkey13 said:


> The term ceases to be as valuable when you use it to describe playstyles, as you are doing here. In essence, you are setting up your own playstyle as being X, and other playstyles as being "railroady."
> 
> Different tables will have different preferences; what works for your table (and for [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]) will not necessarily work for all tables and for all levels of experience ... or for all TTRPGs. Using a term that is widely viewed as a pejorative to describe the preferences of other tables does not illuminate conversation- instead, it is likely to diminish it.
> 
> (FWIW, I will reiterate the same thing I said before- all TTRPGs are, by definition, railroads to some extent or another. It's just a question of what the rails are.)






Gardens & Goblins said:


> Pretty much! We get a bunch of rules which we're given free license to use, modify and flat out ignore. Good stuff! And unsurprisingly, attempting to use language to describe specific facets of play enjoyed at one table will ultimately lead to some disagreement and confusion, as such facets are not universal in their delivery any more than our experience of them.
> 
> _Though I'm totally up for authoring a D&D Dictionary, enforced with extreme prejudice.
> _






Lanefan said:


> Reading this perhaps a bit harshly, this puts the DM in the role of little more than a free-thinking processing unit which could these days be done by a computer; which brings to mind [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION]'s question of why have a DM at all.
> 
> Reading a bit less harshly, it still seems it's the DM getting railroaded by the system here in that she's only supposed to react; and further, only react to what the players (via their characters, I assume) "have signaled they care about".  Fine for the players, thankless for the DM.




My wish in these kinds of threads is that we could focus on specific moments of play and hone in on analyzing "what is going on under the hood" and the implications therein rather than working broadly from the macro conception (railroad) backwards to those important moments of play (of applied, or not, GM Force).  I hate how so often threads devolve into that.  We end up functionally analyzing nothing (collectively that is) and thus gain no greater understanding.

I also wish I could locate my GMing principles thread that I did for Dungeon World, 4e, 5e, and B/X.  I think they may have been lost to the October 6th scrub from last year (what a pity).  I believe  [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] were both involved in that thread.  They would be helpful here.

Just a couple of things:

1)  I know a lot of folks assume my GMing is exclusively Indie/"Story Now"/Narrativist (whatever you want to call it - regardless, you're talking (a) below) due to the majority of my posts.  However, that is just a product of what I'm talking about at that moment (which just so happens to be a lot of (a) on these boards).  I run several different (significantly divergent) styles of games depending on what D&D system I'm running:

a)  My Dungeon World, Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy, 4e, Strike(!), Torchbearer, and Mouse Guard all have considerable overlap.  My 13th Age has some overlap here too.  Tightly principled and codified games with resolution mechanics and feedback loops that are well-integrated.  The sum total means that action snowballs and story emerges just by playing the game.

b)  My B/X and Torchbearer have considerable overlap.  Discrete play phases, Keyed Dungeons and tight/coherent procedures move you through character progression (which is a different in both games, but similar in the zoomed-out view).

c)  My AD&D2e and 5e (and 13th Age and 3.x have some with 5e but neither with each other) games have a lot of overlap.  Hexcrawl, adventuring-day-dynamics, PCs built around that paradigm, "subvert/scrub the rules as you see fit" ethos, and loose resolution mechanics that expect the GM to be heavily involved in all facets of adjudication.  This paradigm expects/mandates (though doesn't really require it in 5e like it does in AD&D2e) GM Force/Illusionism to be deployed and it very much "plays nice" with all those techniques.  The zoomed-out goal of play is to "have fun" with a "compelling story".  It is a micro-principle-lite game (by design) because the GM is expected to sub their own play principles/agenda as they see fit.  Of note, when I stand-in for the GM of the 5e game that I run, I don't use GM Force or Illusionism, so I know that 5e doesn't require it (it just plays very nice with it).  He definitely does (liberally), however, as I've watched him run the game on a few occasions (and have experience with him in the past).  As far as I can tell, he has never learned to run a game without covertly applying GM Force as he chooses.  He considers it to be "the" fundamental GMing technique.

d)  My AD&D1e (with heavy use of WSG) and 5e games have a lot of overlap and both share a lot with my 3.x games (except for LFQW is so bloody out of control in the latter).  Granular hex-crawl and wilderness-exploration-heavy.

 [MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION] , is your position in the quoted post that "system doesn't matter."  It looks that way with what you've said and specifically your assertion that "We get a bunch of rules which we're given free license to use, modify and flat out ignore."  While that is an orthodox principle in games like White Wolf's supernatural  ones in the 90s, AD&D2e, and 5e, that isn't remotely a standard, TTRPG-spanning principle across all games.  I know that is a big cultural zeitgeist that came out of that White Wolf/AD&D2e era, but that doesn't rubber stamp it as applying across all games.  Most games don't need it, and several actively push against it or overtly direct you not to.

 [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , given what you've written in this thread (and the reply above), I don't think you have a good handle on:

* the sum-total of GM overhead (prep, improv/adjudication, conflict-framing, and creativity requirements) in a game like Dungeon World versus a game like B/X (or 5e).

* the nuance of GM overhead (prep, improv/adjudication, conflict-framing, and creativity requirements) in a game like Dungeon World versus a game like B/X (or 5e).

Upthread I wrote out the fictional output from a play excerpt from Dungeon World.  I followed that up with revealing the mechanization of that excerpt in Dungeon World.  I have now just transliterated that over to reveal how that might be mechanized in B/X.  Later I'll do 5e (which should be trivially done), when I have the spare time.

Do you think you could look those over and comment or ask questions to clarify.  I would hope (if I've done my job...perhaps I haven't done it well enough though) the sum-total and nuance of GM overhead between DW and B/X would be much more clear to you.

Obviously anyone else can do the same if they'd like.  I feel that this level of focus is much more helpful than just broad -for-tat on railroading (and for whatever reason folks aren't engaging with  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's myriad of play examples...maybe its the format of them, I have no idea why...so maybe how I've formatted things will help).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Here's just one excerpt, from p 87 of Gygax's DMG, under the heading "Setting things in motion":
> 
> Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence with the player characters entering and interacting with the local population. . . . When they arrive, you will be ready to take on the persona of the settlement as a whole, as well as that of each individual therein. . . . The players will quickly learn who is who and what is going on - perhaps at the loss of a few coins. Having handled this, their characters will be equipped as well as circumstances will allow and will be ready for their bold journey into the dangerous place where treasure abounds and monsters lurk.​
> To me, this makes it pretty clear that what sets things into motion is the arrival of the PCs.



And from here, then what?


> The players drive the action (though in this case by interacting with the elements of the GM's sandbox



This is one option, if a) the DM is running a sandbox-type game and b) the players are with it enough to realize they have to drive the action or else little if anything happens.  Not all (in fact IME quite few) players will proactively get on and do this, leading to:

The other primary (and I think more traditional) option is the DM drives the action by making it clear there's an adventure out there that needs doing.  This can be done in many ways but the end result is nearly always that at least the first adventure is one chosen by the DM.  That adventure might naturally and organically lead to others (if the DM's done her storyboard well and read her players properly) or might be forced to lead to others (as in most if not all AP-style games); or the characters might find their own amusements once the ball is rolling.  In any case, however, the game world keeps on keeping on behind the scenes, and while the PCs might do something about event x events w y and z will still occur and possibly have ramifications on the PCs.



> What procedure would you envisage for the table as a whole to use to frame scenes? And how would that procedure bring about, say, that the tarrasque is attended by maruts in the fashion that I described upthread.



I have no idea whatsoever how or why a table would frame itself into being anywhere near a tarrasque, but on a smaller scale a table might put itself into an adventure...a cave, say, that has had a bad reputation among the locals for years which has got at least some of the PCs curious as to why...so they explore the cave.  One of the players comes up with the idea of the cave being the lair of a dragon some time ago, but as far as anyone knows it hasn't been seen for well over a century.  So they explore the cave(s), building encounters as they go...and eventually get to the end.  At first glance it seems empty.  Then someone frames a ghostly dragon appearing out of the darkness, and away we go. 

It's not a tarrasque, but you get the idea.

Lanefan


----------



## Quickleaf

Manbearcat said:


> My wish in these kinds of threads is that we could focus on specific moments of play and hone in on analyzing "what is going on under the hood" and the implications therein rather than working broadly from the macro conception (railroad) backwards to those important moments of play (of applied, or not, GM Force).  I hate how so often threads devolve into that.  We end up functionally analyzing nothing (collectively that is) and thus gain no greater understanding.
> 
> I also wish I could locate my GMing principles thread that I did for Dungeon World, 4e, 5e, and B/X.  I think they may have been lost to the October 6th scrub from last year (what a pity).  I believe  [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] were both involved in that thread.  They would be helpful here.




Honestly, you have much more experience with a diversity of game systems than I do, so you're in a better position to speak prescriptively about GMing principles across systems. I've dabbled in other games over the years, but mostly I'm a "true blue" D&D guy. Currently I'm learning the FFG Star Wars system and that's the first new game I've picked up since 5th edition D&D – I'm really enjoying how the Star Wars dice create unexpected outcomes requiring using our imaginations.

While I totally agree that game system influences how the game is GMed, based on my limited experience, I think the social factors of the group probably have more impact than game system on how I personally GM. Once I get a pulse on what each player is looking for – whether they consciously realize it or not – everything else (including the game system) is kind of secondary.



> Obviously anyone else can do the same if they'd like.  I feel that this level of focus is much more helpful than just broad -for-tat on railroading (and for whatever reason folks aren't engaging with  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's myriad of play examples...maybe its the format of them, I have no idea why...so maybe how I've formatted things will help).



Speaking personally, there are 2 reasons I find it hard to engage:

(1) When you guys use what I've dubbed Forge-speak (e.g. terms like GM Force or Illusionism) that I need to try and decipher, I find it hard to understand. Often it comes across as overly analytical and ungrounded to me, and wading through multiple paragraphs of that kind of writing just isn't enjoyable to me. Maybe simpler (and terser) language would help?

(2) In the way they're presented they come across as "here's what we did, and it's done", rather than questions or particular insights (at least, that's my judgment based on what I _can_ discern). Maybe presenting a question would be more inviting rather than a play report?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "straight failure".



To use your term, failure leading to status quo.  A dead end.



> Why is the encouragement false?



Because it gives the players (and characters, I suppose) the illusion of their having a chance of success where there is none.  Just say 'no' and get on with it.



> What you're describing here is a puzzle: the players have to decipher some clues to get to Verburgge so they can get the key to enter the Ruins of Fortune.
> 
> I posted about puzzles upthread, in response to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]. In my view they fall very much into the "handle with care" bag, and I wouldn't base a whole campaign around them; and I certainly wouldn't base a whole campaign around one single puzzle.



Perhaps, though I don't so much see it as a puzzle.  Instead, it's a chain of events - much like an AP - such that if you don't do task a before attempting task b then the outcome of task b must be failure. (not a railroad, however, in that choice exists as to whether to do task a at all and if done, whether to go on to task b or find something else to do)



> I don't think D&D has ever been exclusively, or even primarily, a puzzle-solving game. Exploring a classic dungeon doesn't require the players to solve any particualr puzzle before they can progress - if there's one door they can't get through, there are plenty of others evident to them they can explore.



Until they run out of doors other than the one they can't get through.  It's a classic trope, actually, that you need to do or find one thing before doing another...and as a nice side effect it can be a great way to spin a single adventure out into three or four:
Adv. 1 - go to the Ruins of Fortune, explore and clear out some of it, hit a door you cannot pass and realize you need a specific key
Adv. 2 - go somewhere else where in a ruined library somewhere you find the history and present whereabouts of said key (Verbrugge's Hold)
Adv. 3 - go get the key from Verbrugge the Giant.  Enjoy the giant-clobbering.
Adv. 4 - return to Fortune, use the key, get through the door, and carry on.



> "Fail forward" means that the consequences of failure aren't simply _status quo_. There are no dead ends.
> 
> Rather, a failed check means that something happens that thwarts the purposes of the PC and forces the player to make some new choice in an adverse situation. Eg the PCs are trying to escape across the city, and they don't. Rather, they get apprehended by the night watch. That's failure. It's not "success with complications". It's not "elements of progress".
> 
> But it does force the players to make some new choices, under conditions of adversity.



OK, I see the difference now.  To me "forward" is defined by how the failure relates to the characters' goal(s) - do they get closer to their goal, go nowhere, or go backward.  To you it relates to advancement of the story; and your example of the night watch capture would in my eyes be a fail-backward.

It occurs to me one big difference between fail-forward/backward and fail-status-quo is that with fail-status-quo the characters have to come up with a plan B with (usually) no new information to go by, where with a fail-forward/backward something changes and one way or another they have (because the DM has provided) new information simply by narrating the changes.  Fail-status-quo puts the onus on the players (in character) to generate movement; the other is easier on the players as it hands them the movement (for better or worse) and simply asks what they do with it.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Then I urge you to reread some of my posts.
> 
> Of course they can be surprised in that way. But that would be the result of failure; not it's cause.



Why could it not be the cause of failure as well? (see below)



> a PC mage had returned with the party to the ruined tower where he once lived studying under his brother's tutelage before they fled when the tower was assaulted by orcs (this was part of the PC's backstory; the brother is the mage who was decapitated in the tower by the assassin, having been possessed by a balrog when the attempt to cast a spell to repel the orcs failed). Another part of the PC's backstory stated that, in the tower, he had left behind The Falcon's Claw, a nickel-silver mace which he was preparing to receive enchantments. Having now returned to the tower after lo those many years, a search was made for the mace. This was framed as a check in the same way as looking for a vessel in the bedroom. The check failed; and so the PC did not find any mace. Instead, he found a collection of cursed arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom - this discovery therefore (i) implicating his brother in the manufacture of the arrow that had killed another PC's (the elven ronin's) master; and (ii) implying that his brother was evil before being possessed by a balrog, rather than as a result of it.​
> The players were surprised by this discovery. Including the implication that the explanation for the brother's possession was his evil, rather than vice versa.



So nobody other than you knew ahead of time that the brother was evil.  Cool!

But - the fact that the brother was secretly evil all along would have influenced his earlier reactions and interactions with the PC mage, would it not; never mind that he could also have been working aganst the party's (or at least his brother's) interests behind the scenes perhaps causing them to fail where they otherwise might have succeeded.

Hidden obstacles to the party's success don't fall under the definition of railroading; nor does hidden support leading to success where otherwise they'd have failed.  It's perfectly valid and very realistic that the PCs (and players) don't know everything; and nor should they.



> As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a mere description of the fiction it's impossible to tell. Railroading isn't about the content of the fiction, it's about the method of its generation.



Er...how?

If the DM generates that someone has a secret, and that secret influences their interactions with the PCs, is that railroading?  By my definition absolutely not.

If the DM generates that something that happens off-screen influences some NPC interactions with the PCs, is that railroading?  Again, flat-out no. (example: most everyone in the party's base town has always been friendly and usually cheerful; but this visit there's been lots of dour faces and surly attitudes.  PCs have no idea why.  They can ask, of course, and soon find out the Baron just doubled everyone's taxes; and this isn't railroading - it's just an off-screen event that has changed how some NPCs interact with...well, everyone.)

Or, flip it around: what if one of the PCs has a secret that none of the other PCs* knows about, that influences how they interact with the party and the game as a whole?

* - or players - character knowledge should (and here must) = player knowledge, particularly when it comes to something like a secret backstory or agenda whether being hidden by another PC or an NPC.

Lan-"there's known unknowns, and there's unknown unknowns, and there's railcars"-efan


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Manbearcat said:


> Gardens & Goblins is your position in the quoted post that "system doesn't matter."  It looks that way with what you've said and specifically your assertion that "We get a bunch of rules which we're given free license to use, modify and flat out ignore."  While that is an orthodox principle in games like White Wolf's supernatural  ones in the 90s, AD&D2e, and 5e, that isn't remotely a standard, TTRPG-spanning principle across all games.  I know that is a big cultural zeitgeist that came out of that White Wolf/AD&D2e era, but that doesn't rubber stamp it as applying across all games.  Most games don't need it, and several actively push against it or overtly direct you not to.




Not sure what you mean, by 'matters'. Does the system influence how things can be reolved? Sure. Can the system's representation of certain concept - damage, a skill, combat influence play. Of course! To the extent that we give it - and for a given value of 'matters'.

And we are given free license to modify the system as much as we wish. We're told right there in the PHB - _''Above all else, D&D is yours.''_ If something is ours, we can do what we wish with it - and I'm fairly sure Mearls would give us a big thumbs up for doing so.

[sblock] We've played D&D using the WW system for maneuvers, Rolemaster for crits and weapon damage. We've used Monopoly board as a campaign event tracker. Drive-by rules in The Game of Life, cobbling together AD&D's combat system. We'll happily swap out and in, bolt on and tear of chunks of a system to support the play we wish to enjoy. 

Of course, there comes a point, much like Ship of Theseus, where you wonder how much you can tinker with something before it is no longer the thing you began with - the first change? The 20th twiddle? If we add WW character creation for stats to D&D, are we playing D&D or WW?

_Love it!_[/sblock]


----------



## Lanefan

Quickleaf said:


> Honestly, you have much more experience with a diversity of game systems than I do, so you're in a better position to speak prescriptively about GMing principles across systems. I've dabbled in other games over the years, but mostly I'm a "true blue" D&D guy. Currently I'm learning the FFG Star Wars system and that's the first new game I've picked up since 5th edition D&D – I'm really enjoying how the Star Wars dice create unexpected outcomes requiring using our imaginations.
> 
> While I totally agree that game system influences how the game is GMed, based on my limited experience, I think the social factors of the group probably have more impact than game system on how I personally GM. Once I get a pulse on what each player is looking for – whether they consciously realize it or not – everything else (including the game system) is kind of secondary.
> 
> 
> Speaking personally, there are 2 reasons I find it hard to engage:
> 
> (1) When you guys use what I've dubbed Forge-speak (e.g. terms like GM Force or Illusionism) that I need to try and decipher, I find it hard to understand. Often it comes across as overly analytical and ungrounded to me, and wading through multiple paragraphs of that kind of writing just isn't enjoyable to me. Maybe simpler (and terser) language would help?
> 
> (2) In the way they're presented they come across as "here's what we did, and it's done", rather than questions or particular insights (at least, that's my judgment based on what I _can_ discern). Maybe presenting a question would be more inviting rather than a play report?



QFT as I can't give xp to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]: he's turned them off.

I also have to tiptoe around Forge-speak, and do my best to interpret what's actually being said.  (and no, in case anyone asks, I'm not the least bit interested in diving into the Forge)

And, I'm also a "true-blue D&D guy" which might be why I'm really having a hard time getting hold of some of what's being presented here.  That said, I think you're bang on when you say the people around the table are going to have more influence on what gets played and how than anything else ever will.

Lanefan


----------



## The Crimson Binome

pemerton said:


> The players were surprised by this discovery. Including the implication that the explanation for the brother's possession was his evil, rather than vice versa.



When was that truth established, though? Had it always been true that the brother was evil, even when the events of that backstory were taking place, and you were aware of it while the players were not? Or did it only _become_ true in the aftermath of their search?


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Saelorn said:


> When was that truth established, though? Had it always been true that the brother was evil, even when the events of that backstory were taking place, and you were aware of it while the players were not? Or did it only _become_ true in the aftermath of their search?




_Ah. I see we've entered into the realm of quantum roleplaying!_


----------



## robus

Maxperson said:


> Yes, but what is set in motion by their arrival was pre-determined by the DM who "Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence...".  Part of that set up is determining the NPC motivations, plots, secrets, etc., virtually all of which will be unknown to the players/PCs before they arrive.  Many of those things may never be discovered, yet still have influence on the PCs.




You won't believe how happy it makes me to give you some XP


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Yes. I posted that in my first reply to you, and have reiterated since.
> 
> The issue of "dead end" failure and the issue of "railroading" are independent. As I said in the post you quoted.
> 
> I don't understnd what you mean. Failing the check means that the PC (and hence the player) does not get what s/he wanted.
> 
> The consequence of failure is established by the GM - as I posted, it might be expressly stated in framing the check; it might be implicit in the situation; it might have to be worked out by the GM after the roll is made. Narrating a failed consequence is an exercise in framing, in drawing out implicit strands and elements in the game that might be pushing against the PC and brining them to the fore, at the centre of the action.
> 
> This is why I find [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s suggestion that a computer could do it, or [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s suggestion that it crushes GM creativity, rather odd. Those are completely at odds with my experience. It can sometimes be quite a challenging thing, to hit upon the right failure consequence for a given check.
> 
> One example I may have already mentioned in this thread is the following: Jobe the mage and Tru-leigh the naga-serving spirit summoner, knowing that Halika the assassin would try and kill the unconscious mage that night, fed her a sleeping potion before seting out through the sewers and catacombs to find their way into the tower (so that they could take the mage from the tower for their own purposes). But they failed their check to make their way quickly through the catacombs; and so, as time passes, they find themselves under a grille and Halika's voice calls through, taunting them: the consequnce of failure is that they have spent so long wandering through the undercity that the sleeping potion has worn off, and Halika now has a head start on her way to the tower (in the fiction it's already been established - in a previous session - that she's spent a week casing the place, so there's no question that she can make her way there without getting lost).
> 
> That is failure - as per my recent reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], it's not "success with complication". The PCs don't get to the tower unopposed by Halika. Instead, she has the head start (in mechanical terms, a bonus die).
> 
> The failure isn't just conjured out of thin air. It has none of the non sequitur quality of "rocks fall". It draws on the established fiction of the game, but also puts a new twist on it that is adverse to the PCs, and thereby the players (in this case, the sleeping potion, instead of being an instrument of success for the two PCs, becomes a symbol of the division between the two of them and Halika).
> 
> It's probably worth noting how this example connects to the ideas of "no failure offscreen" and "no determination of consequences by reference to the GM's secret backstory": the relationship between the PC's travel time and the duration of the sleeping potion effect isn't worked out by comparing GM's charts and maps. Rather, it's narrated as a result of the players' failed check.
> 
> The game is not lacking in backstory and interconnection between events. But they are established via play, not via pre-authorship.
> 
> As I said in reply to [MENTION=89537]Jacob Marley[/MENTION], what is key is that even low DCs are set when the action pivots upon simple but crucial deeds. Some of these will fail (due to bad luck; due to poor bonuses; etc). Framing the check even when failure is unlikely is part of establishing an overall tone and feel.




Fair enough. I don't think calling for the skill check is bad by any means; I actually think it's good to allow player authorship in such ways. However, I don't think it was necessary in order to avoid railroading. 

I also think that failing forward could be just as likely to become a railroad. So while I don't disagree with what you've said...I think it's all a matter of judgment...I think I was more disagreeing with the implications you were making about playstyles other than the one you were describing. Which perhaps you did not intend, but which others have also picked up on.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> My wish in these kinds of threads is that we could focus on specific moments of play and hone in on analyzing "what is going on under the hood" and the implications therein rather than working broadly from the macro conception (railroad) backwards to those important moments of play (of applied, or not, GM Force).  I hate how so often threads devolve into that.  We end up functionally analyzing nothing (collectively that is) and thus gain no greater understanding.



Problem is, if we can't agree on the macro definitions analyzing the specific moments becomes kinda pointless. 



> d)  My AD&D1e (with heavy use of WSG) and 5e games have a lot of overlap and both share a lot with my 3.x games (except for LFQW is so bloody out of control in the latter).  Granular hex-crawl and wilderness-exploration-heavy.



Given what I've read from you throughout your many (often very detailed) posts here and elsewhere, and what I've kind of gleaned as being your DMing style, I'd be very interested in seeing how you'd run 1e or a near variant.  My guesses are:
1. It would be a good, fun game
2. It would be vastly different from mine (which I'd like to think is also good, and fun) even though we're using the same basic system.  For one thing, I suspect you're much more mechanics-first than I am. (see below)



> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , given what you've written in this thread (and the reply above), I don't think you have a good handle on:
> 
> * the sum-total of GM overhead (prep, improv/adjudication, conflict-framing, and creativity requirements) in a game like Dungeon World versus a game like B/X (or 5e).
> 
> * the nuance of GM overhead (prep, improv/adjudication, conflict-framing, and creativity requirements) in a game like Dungeon World versus a game like B/X (or 5e).
> 
> Upthread I wrote out the fictional output from a play excerpt from Dungeon World.  I followed that up with revealing the mechanization of that excerpt in Dungeon World.  I have now just transliterated that over to reveal how that might be mechanized in B/X.  Later I'll do 5e (which should be trivially done), when I have the spare time.
> 
> Do you think you could look those over and comment or ask questions to clarify.  I would hope (if I've done my job...perhaps I haven't done it well enough though) the sum-total and nuance of GM overhead between DW and B/X would be much more clear to you.



Done.

Lots of questions and observations.

First, to nip in the bud any distracting talk of the crevasse in the DW example or the chute trap in the B/X example (which put the Elf alone in that situation) possibly being a form of railroading why not for the sake of this discussion say the Elf was singlehanding all along: a solo adventure where he'd reached that place during the normal course of exploration.

To the DW example I can say little as I don't know the system.  I see what mechanics you're using to achieve what results but what's unclear is whether any of those mechanical resolutions could have been replaced with simple DM fiat and narration.  It seems little to no advance GM prep went into the scene as you say right off it was all off the cuff - but was it a pre-mapped part of the dungeon to in theory be explored later or did it not exist at all until the Elf fell in?

And, one question: the Elf knew the Aboleth had 6 h.p. before shooting at it.  Is it standard practice in DW that an opponent's hit points are known information to the players/characters? (also, if yes do the opponents get the same benefit in knowing the hit points of the PCs?)

With the B/X example I'm on more familiar ground.  I get the sense you've added a bit more to the DM prep side on this one in pointing out he's got three pre-done adventures in the can ready to go - why would the same not be true in the DW example?

Beyond that, the DM in this scenario is relying on hard-coded mechanics far more than I ever would and thus making his own job a lot harder...with one exception: I'd think the wall-straddling move by the Elf needs some sort of check (roll under Dex?) to pull off quietly and-or gracefully.  But the rest of it I'd have flow more organically, not worrying about Exploration Turns or any of that and probably deciding by DM judgement* that the Goblin coming onto the scene would take one look and run for its life.   * - unless the Elf immediately did something unexpected like surrender, or itself flee.

As for running the caught Goblin through, isn't there a roll to hit involved in both systems?  The other Goblins' reactions might be quite different if the Elf somehow manages to miss. (it's unclear what sort of level this Elf is)

I'd probably play the Parlay sequence much as you did only more organically, without the dice rolls and with a bit of attention to the Elf's Charisma (some Elves ooze Charisma out of every pore).

One other thing I'd be doing in both systems that you don't mention in either is quietly either rolling or fiat-ing what the Aboleth is up to and where it has gone.  Maybe it scares another Goblin somewhere else and distant screams are heard.  Maybe it moves in behind the Elf (intentionally or otherwise), such that if the Elf tries to leave the way he came in he'll run onto it.  Or maybe it just goes to sleep somewhere and digests its lunch.

Now, back to the main topic: is any of this railroading?  In either system I don't think so...it all looks like normal run of play to me; or at least I have to assume it is for DW.

Would it be railroading were it simple DM fiat/judgement that the Goblin shows up and flees for dramatic or story effect rather than the result of a random roll?  Again I don't think so: particularly in B/X the player wouldn't - or shouldn't - know the difference anyway: all he knows is that a Goblin has just showed up.  He doesn't know the mechanics (or lack thereof) behind that Goblin's arrival...all he can do (both in and out of character) is react to what's presented in whatever way makes sense to the character.

Lan-"Goblin: the other red meat"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Gardens & Goblins said:


> _Ah. I see we've entered into the realm of quantum roleplaying!_



So...we're talking about Schroedinger's brother here?


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's just one excerpt, from p 87 of Gygax's DMG, under the heading "Setting things in motion":
> 
> Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence with the player characters entering and interacting with the local population. . . . When they arrive, you will be ready to take on the persona of the settlement as a whole, as well as that of each individual therein. . . . The players will quickly learn who is who and what is going on - perhaps at the loss of a few coins. Having handled this, their characters will be equipped as well as circumstances will allow and will be ready for their bold journey into the dangerous place where treasure abounds and monsters lurk.​
> To me, this makes it pretty clear that what sets things into motion is the arrival of the PCs. The players drive the action (though in this case by interacting with the elements of the GM's sandbox, rather than by the GM framing them into situations that engage their PCs beliefs/goals/aspirations etc).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, but what is set in motion by their arrival was pre-determined by the DM who "Set up the hamlet or village where the action will commence...".  Part of that set up is determining the NPC motivations, plots, secrets, etc., virtually all of which will be unknown to the players/PCs before they arrive.  Many of those things may never be discovered, yet still have influence on the PCs.
Click to expand...


It seems to me that the _what_ which is set in motion is something like the Village of Hommlet (not to be confused with the Hamlet of Viloge, I guess) described by Gygax in T1.

If you have a read of T1, you will see that the village has a "persona" as well as individuals with their personae; but it is not going to move on its own. Without the PCs it is a largely static situation - there are spies for Verbobonc, spies for the Temple of Elemental Evil, prospective henchmen and hirelings, etc - but there is nothing written in the situation about how it will change in the absence of the PCs.

This is quite different from a situation in which NPCs have their own character arcs (as  [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] said and  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] seemed to agree with). And it's quite different from a situation in which the world is in motion on its own, and will change fundamentally in the absence of actions by the PCs. Unsurprisingly, though, it's fairly similar to the Keep in B2.

In literary/film terms, the logic of T1 seems to be similar to that of many Vance stories, some westerns, some Arthurian-type stories of wandering knights - the situation is static but contains within it the seeds of its own evolution (or destruction), but is waiting for some outsiders who will enter into the situation and upset things.

And that's why I don't think these examples, or Gygax's advice in his DMG on how to create them, are consistent with the claim that traditional D&D is fundamentally GM-driven. To reiterate: these Gygaxian starting settings will not enter into motion on their own. They have no inherent or self-moving "plots". I've never use Hommlet, but the same properties of B2 mean that I've been able to use it more than once as a backdrop for the sort of game I GM, simply by adding in a few embellishments that link some of the pivotal characters (eg the priest of chaos, the castellan, etc) into the concerns of the PCs and their established trajectory of play.

Whereas Speaker in Dreams (to pick another example of a published module about an urban setting) is quite different. It does have its own internal dynamic; it is in motion independently of the PCs. And that's why I've never used Speaker in Dreams as such, but have only taken bits and pieces out of it (eg the cultists) to repurpose for my game.

EDITED to include reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]:



Lanefan said:


> This is one option
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The other primary (and I think more traditional) option is the DM drives the action by making it clear there's an adventure out there that needs doing.



We agree that there are different approaches here.

But on the issue of "tradition": I think that Gygax is a pretty authoritative articulator of theD&D  tradition! And the sort of set-up he talks about is found not only in published modules like T1 and B2 but also fits with accounts of dungon and world design that I'm familiar with in the magazines from aroudn the same time (late 70s/early 80s).

That's not to deny that the GM-driven adventure also exists from an early stage in the hobby. But I don't think that it has any sort of exclusive claim on "tradition". And I would say it's not until the mid-to-late 80s that it becomes near-universal.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

pemerton said:


> If you have a read of T1, you will see that the village has a "persona" as well as individuals with their personae; but it is not going to move on its own. Without the PCs it is a largely static situation - there are spies for Verbobonc, spies for the Temple of Elemental Evil, prospective henchmen and hirelings, etc - but there is nothing written in the situation about how it will change in the absence of the PCs.




That's one way to do it and a quality of the system you've described.

The great thing about D&D and pen & paper RPGs in general is they really make great case for rapid prototyping in game design. We can quickly and readily develop and test a system to explore and express different sources of fun. 

In our last fantasy campaign, we assigned a table of events for each key force within the campaign and used it to simulate events/changes periodically. _(Otherwise the events/change were decided on by the DM running the world at the time, based on their understanding of the 'character' of the force - much like playing an NPC - again periodically.) _

Personally, we used Birthright's domain-turns as our time frame, with four major event/changes being checked a year but we've tried it on a day by day/week/month basis when running campaigns focusing on a more central local.


----------



## Maxperson

robus said:


> You won't believe how happy it makes me to give you some XP




LOL  I'm not certain how to take that!


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> It seems to me that the _what_ which is set in motion is something like the Village of Hommlet (not to be confused with the Hamlet of Viloge, I guess) described by Gygax in T1.
> 
> If you have a read of T1, you will see that the village has a "persona" as well as individuals with their personae; but it is not going to move on its own. Without the PCs it is a largely static situation - there are spies for Verbobonc, spies for the Temple of Elemental Evil, prospective henchmen and hirelings, etc - but there is nothing written in the situation about how it will change in the absence of the PCs.



Which to me is a mistake of omission.

All the set-up would better be presented as a snapshot of how things are when the PCs first arrive (or the game starts, whichever).  There should then be at least passing mention of how things will likely develop over the next few days/weeks/months if left uninterrupted; or failing that some sort of advice to the DM as to how to move the village forward.



> This is quite different from a situation in which NPCs have their own character arcs (as [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] said and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] seemed to agree with). And it's quite different from a situation in which the world is in motion on its own, and will change fundamentally in the absence of actions by the PCs. Unsurprisingly, though, it's fairly similar to the Keep in B2.



The difference being that in B2 the Keep is somewhat secondary to the Caves of Chaos nearby, while in Hommlet the village itself is a large part of the adventure.



> And that's why I don't think these examples, or Gygax's advice in his DMG on how to create them, are consistent with the claim that traditional D&D is fundamentally GM-driven. To reiterate: these Gygaxian starting settings will not enter into motion on their own. They have no inherent or self-moving "plots". I've never use Hommlet, but the same properties of B2 mean that I've been able to use it more than once as a backdrop for the sort of game I GM, simply by adding in a few embellishments that link some of the pivotal characters (eg the priest of chaos, the castellan, etc) into the concerns of the PCs and their established trajectory of play.



In the Keep a self-moving plot isn't all that necessary, though you could put one (or more) in if desired, as the Keep on the whole is more scenery than scene.  In Hommlet I'd say it's nearly essential: that place is a centre-stage powderkeg, and might easily set itself off if the PCs don't do so first.   However, in either one you can easily put in a self-moving plot that the PCs might brush against now but could in theory become much more relevant later: in other words, a breadcrumb.

That said, both B1 and T1 are pretty early examples of module-writing.  If you look at a later example - B10 - that thing has or could have (and I would say should have) self-moving plots and stories all over the place.  In fact maybe that's why I find it difficult to run: by the time the PCs interact with a given element it might bear little or no resemblance to what's written as it's developed so much by the time the PCs get there, and so I'm constantly having to adjust for this.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I have no idea whatsoever how or why a table would frame itself into being anywhere near a tarrasque, but on a smaller scale a table might put itself into an adventure...a cave, say, that has had a bad reputation among the locals for years which has got at least some of the PCs curious as to why...so they explore the cave.  One of the players comes up with the idea of the cave being the lair of a dragon some time ago, but as far as anyone knows it hasn't been seen for well over a century.



This is not too different from how I started my Cortex Fantasy game - the players provide the framing/context for their PCs.



Lanefan said:


> So they explore the cave(s), building encounters as they go...and eventually get to the end.  At first glance it seems empty.  Then someone frames a ghostly dragon appearing out of the darkness, and away we go.



But I don't think this will work very well. The move from general context to detailed challenge is a pretty crucial one.

Upthread I mentioned the "Czege principle", and it seems to be fully enlivened in your example: no player is going to turn the corner and get a shock, for instance, that _here_ is the naga they've heard whispers of. No player is going to fail a check and discover, with a shock, a ring bearing their family's crest in the naga's treasure pile. Etc.

In a game based around party play, and in which it is expected that single situations will engage, shock, instigate action, across mulitple players at the table, I think there is good reason to have someone who is independent of those concerns - a GM - to manage all this content introduction.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Lanefan said:


> Which to me is a mistake of omission.




To be fair, we're talking about a system document that was authored 30+ years ago. And it does a fine job in providing a style of play that has resulted in fun for many! 

As long as we recognise the character of fun provided and the limits of said system all is well. Then those that wish are free to test and develop to produce systems that better support the fun they wish to enjoy at their table.


----------



## Sorcerers Apprentice

"Railroading" is when the DM makes on-the-fly changes to the game world to steer the PC's in a particular direction contrary to where they want to go.

Having a plot prepared in advance is not railroading, letting the PCs automatically fail when they attempt something impossible is not railroading, and having NPCs with plans of their own is not railroading.

If the DM rules that the PC's can't find a container to collect the wizards blood because he doesn't want to deal with a bloody plot detour, then that is railroading. It's not railroading if the DM rules that the PCs can't find a container because he decideds that it makes sense that there isn't any container to find, no matter how much the PCs want a container.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This is not too different from how I started my Cortex Fantasy game - the players provide the framing/context for their PCs.
> 
> But I don't think this will work very well. The move from general context to detailed challenge is a pretty crucial one.



Assuming the dragon's a challenge, in the usual sense.  Maybe it has manifested in order to ask the PCs to carry out some task that will let it rest in peace...

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

[MENTION=6854936]Sorcerers Apprentice[/MENTION] If you had xp turned on you'd have just got one for post 278.  You don't, so all I can do instead is commend you here.

EDIT: now your xp are on; so given.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> It seems to me that the _what_ which is set in motion is something like the Village of Hommlet (not to be confused with the Hamlet of Viloge, I guess) described by Gygax in T1.
> 
> If you have a read of T1, you will see that the village has a "persona" as well as individuals with their personae; but it is not going to move on its own. Without the PCs it is a largely static situation - there are spies for Verbobonc, spies for the Temple of Elemental Evil, prospective henchmen and hirelings, etc - but there is nothing written in the situation about how it will change in the absence of the PCs.
> 
> This is quite different from a situation in which NPCs have their own character arcs (as  [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] said and  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] seemed to agree with). And it's quite different from a situation in which the world is in motion on its own, and will change fundamentally in the absence of actions by the PCs. Unsurprisingly, though, it's fairly similar to the Keep in B2.
> 
> In literary/film terms, the logic of T1 seems to be similar to that of many Vance stories, some westerns, some Arthurian-type stories of wandering knights - the situation is static but contains within it the seeds of its own evolution (or destruction), but is waiting for some outsiders who will enter into the situation and upset things.
> 
> And that's why I don't think these examples, or Gygax's advice in his DMG on how to create them, are consistent with the claim that traditional D&D is fundamentally GM-driven. To reiterate: these Gygaxian starting settings will not enter into motion on their own. They have no inherent or self-moving "plots". I've never use Hommlet, but the same properties of B2 mean that I've been able to use it more than once as a backdrop for the sort of game I GM, simply by adding in a few embellishments that link some of the pivotal characters (eg the priest of chaos, the castellan, etc) into the concerns of the PCs and their established trajectory of play.



It's almost as if the conventions and assumptions of the game have changed and evolved over the almost forty years since those adventures were published. 
It's almost as if Gygax - with his six or seven years of experience creating adventures and DMing - might not have been as adept at adventure design as someone now who might have two or three decades of continual experience running the game and writing adventures _and_ building on the collective adventure design advances made by dozens of official adventure writers and designers. 

I respect EGG a lot for his contributions to the hobby. But he was making it up as he went along. I don't think we should be beholden to his ideas of adventure design in 1979 any more than we should be restricted to his ideas of racial or class balance, or required to abide by his worldbuilding tropes.
Gygax makes a lot of claims for gameplay in 1e that we often conveniently ignore. Like the importance of having players map dungeons. Acquiring hirelings and gaining a keep. Name levels. Alignment languages. Tracking game time being "of the utmost importance". 



pemerton said:


> But on the issue of "tradition": I think that Gygax is a pretty authoritative articulator of theD&D  tradition! And the sort of set-up he talks about is found not only in published modules like T1 and B2 but also fits with accounts of dungon and world design that I'm familiar with in the magazines from aroudn the same time (late 70s/early 80s).



The thing is, Gygax was continually changing how he wrote adventures. The "D&D tradition" changed dramatically between OD&D and 1e, between _Against the Giants_ to _Temple of Elemental Evil_. Every year brought new changes and advancements to how he designed adventures. Let alone the stuff he was doing after he left TSR. 

You can look at a single small sampling of his stuff at the very beginning of his career and say that's definitive. It's like looking at _ET_, _Close Encounters_, and _Jaws_ and using that to define the career of Steven Spielberg and how movies should be made. 



pemerton said:


> That's not to deny that the GM-driven adventure also exists from an early stage in the hobby. But I don't think that it has any sort of exclusive claim on "tradition". And I would say it's not until the mid-to-late 80s that it becomes near-universal.



Grognardia puts the blame at Dragonlance. 
So it's *only* existed for 3/4ths of the lifespan of the hobby. 
Judging by published products of course. There's no guarantee people weren't creating their own vast GM plots far earlier. 

But if you're actually curious, books have been written on this:
https://www.amazon.ca/Creation-Narrative-Tabletop-Role-Playing-Games/dp/0786444517


----------



## Jester David

Honestly, I think this who thread is just doomed. Mostly because of statements like the below, from earlier today:



pemerton said:


> As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a mere description of the fiction it's impossible to tell. *Railroading isn't about the content of the fiction, it's about the method of its generation.*




Emphasis added.
The problem is pemerton has invented his own definition of "railroading" that is incompatible with the established definition

We're trying to have a discussion about baking, but the initiating participant keeps insisting fruit cobbler is pie. No matter how much we dance around the other issues at hand, we're just not using the same terminology. We might as well be speaking different languages.


----------



## Lanefan

Jester David said:


> Gygax makes a lot of claims for gameplay in 1e that we often conveniently ignore. Like the importance of having players map dungeons.



Never ignored here. 


> Acquiring hirelings and gaining a keep.



Yeah, we should do more with these. 







> Name levels. Alignment languages.



And class languages e.g. Thieves' Cant; we ignore these too. 







> Tracking game time being "of the utmost importance".



Here he speaks great wisdom...not so much regarding the tracking of time in and of itself but the tracking of what happens elsewhere (offstage) duirng that time, and how much time it has available to happen before the PCs turn up.

Lanefan


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> And that's why I don't think these examples, or Gygax's advice in his DMG on how to create them, are consistent with the claim that traditional D&D is fundamentally GM-driven.




The following are quotes from the 1e DMG with regard to the campaign.

"*You will order the universe and direct the activities in each game*, becoming one of the elite group of campaign referees referred to as DMs in the vernacular of AD&D."

"This will typically result in* your giving them a brief background, placing them in a settlement*, and stating that they should prepare themselves to find and explore the dungeon/ruin they know is nearby. As background* you inform them that* they are from some nearby place where they were apprentices learning their respective professions, that they met by chance in an inn or tavern and resolved to journey together to seek their fortunes in the dangerous environment"

"In short, *you will have to create the social and ecological parameters of a good part of a make-believe world. *The more painstakingly this is done, the more "real" this creation will become."

"Whatever you settle upon as a starting point, be it your own design or one the many modular settings which are commercially available, remember to have some overall plan of your milieu in mind. The campaign might grow slowly, or it might mushroom. *Be prepared for either event with more adventure areas, and the reasons for everything which exists and happens*." 

"It is no exaggeration to state that the fantasy world builds itself, *almost as if the milieu actually takes on a life and reality of its own.*"

"Similarly, the geography and history you assign to the world will suddenly begin to shape the character of states and peoples."

Surprisingly, as the personalities of player characters and *non-player characters in AD&D world will take on even more of their own direction and life. What this all boils down to is that once the compaign is set in motion, you will become more of a recorder of events, while the milieu seemingly charts its own course! "


How is that not a DM driven game?  How is that not the world coming to life and moving on its own, as well as with the PCs?  Much of that was also from the "Setting Things in Motion" section.  

From the "Ongoing Campaign" section.

"Furthermore, there must be some purpose to it all. There must be some backdrop against which adventures are carried out, and no matter how tenuous the strands, some web which connects the evil and good, the opposing powers, the rival states and various peoples. This need not be evident at first, but as play continues, hints should be given to players, and their characters should become involved in the interaction and struggle between these vaster entities."

That says outright that there are ongoing struggles and interactions between other entities that the players should become involved in.  Those struggles don't happen when the PCs arrive.  They are already ongoing and have been determined by the DM.*


----------



## Jester David

For the record, what did Mr. Gygax think of railroading? 
We don't need to wonder. 

From a Q&A:

_



			Hello Gary,   

How important is the ability of “winging” an adventure? Particularly, when players take actions the DM did not expect. Apparently, allowing players true freedom in determining their PC’s action provides them a better gaming experience. Is “railroading” something the DM should strive to avoid. If so, then to what extent should the DM give freedom to the players when they choose a course of action the DM may not have accounted for?

thanks, 
Joe123.
		
Click to expand...


_


> Joe123,
> 
> Noting your query, I went back a page and found your earlier post. Sorry, but I missed it somehow.
> 
> The opinions of some folks to the contrary, I have always "winged" most adventures--the exceptions being play-tests of material in a ms. for a module, and a few set-piece places I developed. All the outdoor adventures I ran, and most of the dungeon crawls were half or more made up on the spot.
> 
> When extemporizing, the GM must be prepared to handle all manner of unexpected actions by the players. If they are foolish, I always invent a number of opportunities for disaster. If the course taken is one that is clever and innovative, I add in rewards.
> 
> Before a party goes off on a likley disasterous course I will try to deter them from such action--wandering monsters have much usefulness in this regard.
> 
> As for "railroading," there are some scenarios where a bit of that is absolutely necessary to further the whole of the adventure. This is not to say that an entire adventure should be linear and force the party into a situation with a foregone conclusion. The use of a predetermined outcome should be only to set up an interesting and challenging scenario where the players are absolutely free to manage the outcome on their own, that outcome offering penalties for wrong decisions, rewards for correct ones, large rewards for innovation and creative solutions
> 
> Cheers,
> Gary




From:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ygax/page171&p=1241455&viewfull=1#post1241455


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I don't so much see it as a puzzle.  Instead, it's a chain of events - much like an AP - such that if you don't do task a before attempting task b then the outcome of task b must be failure.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I see the difference now.  To me "forward" is defined by how the failure relates to the characters' goal(s) - do they get closer to their goal, go nowhere, or go backward.  To you it relates to advancement of the story; and your example of the night watch capture would in my eyes be a fail-backward.
> 
> It occurs to me one big difference between fail-forward/backward and fail-status-quo is that with fail-status-quo the characters have to come up with a plan B with (usually) no new information to go by, where with a fail-forward/backward something changes and one way or another they have (because the DM has provided) new information simply by narrating the changes.  Fail-status-quo puts the onus on the players (in character) to generate movement; the other is easier on the players as it hands them the movement (for better or worse) and simply asks what they do with it.



For some definitions of "easier", maybe.

Your account of the players needing a "Plan B" reinforces, to me at least, that essentially here we're talking about a puzzle. Attempted solution A failed, so we try solution B instead.

But for some definitions of easier, not so much: if your overall goal, in character, is to redeem your brother from balrog posession; and then you discover that he was probably evil before he got possessed, so that evil cause possession rather than vice versa; then I don't think going on is especially easy. If you're immersed in your character - which the relevant player in my game certainly was/is - then that's actually pretty hard.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Of course they can be surprised in that way. But that would be the result of failure; not it's cause.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why could it not be the cause of failure as well?
Click to expand...


Well, the sort of surprise you describe catches the players unawares and undermines or in some other undesired way reframes the experiences of the PCs. In the sort of approach to GMing, and to RPGing, that I am describing, that is a type of failure. The PC's intentions in action have not been realised. That is an appropriate consequence of failure. It's not just something for the GM to impose on the situation. 



Lanefan said:


> So nobody other than you knew ahead of time that the brother was evil.  Cool!



No! No! No!

I - the GM - *did not know either*. The likelihood of the brother having been evil all along was not established as an element of the fiction until I narrated the failure of the attempt to find the mace in the ruin.

This is what [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and I are trying to get at in talking about a game in which everyone, _even the GM_, plays to find out what happened.

And this is why I have been asking [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] what exactly he takes the connection to be between prior planning and depth of the shared fiction. And why I reacted so strongly to your suggestion that a player-driven game, in which the GM does not adjudicate by reference to secret backstory, cannot involve surprises.

Because my experience with this sort of example gives me the opinion that the sorts of connections or dependence the two of your are positing is not true _as a general matter_ - although it may be the way, at some tables, that certain sorts of events are introduced into the fiction.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> from a mere description of the fiction it's impossible to tell. Railroading isn't about the content of the fiction, it's about the method of its generation.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If the DM generates that someone has a secret, and that secret influences their interactions with the PCs, is that railroading?  By my definition absolutely not.
> 
> <snip and reverse sequence>
> 
> But - the fact that the brother was secretly evil all along would have influenced his earlier reactions and interactions with the PC mage, would it not; never mind that he could also have been working aganst the party's (or at least his brother's) interests behind the scenes perhaps causing them to fail where they otherwise might have succeeded.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Hidden obstacles to the party's success don't fall under the definition of railroading
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the DM generates that something that happens off-screen influences some NPC interactions with the PCs, is that railroading?  Again, flat-out no.
> 
> example: most everyone in the party's base town has always been friendly and usually cheerful; but this visit there's been lots of dour faces and surly attitudes.  PCs have no idea why.  They can ask, of course, and soon find out the Baron just doubled everyone's taxes; and this isn't railroading - it's just an off-screen event that has changed how some NPCs interact with...well, everyone.
Click to expand...


Because this is moslty focusing on the content of the fiction, not on the way it is generated. But railroading is all about who generates content, and how. Which is why, merely from content, we can't tell.

For instance, vis-a-vis the brother: for all we know, his conduct towards his brother (which up to that point had occurred only in backstory, and mostly involved teaching him magic) _was_ motivated by evil. Maybe he was preparing his brother to be a worthy sacrifice to the balrog!

I think I've already quoted this passage from Paul Czege in this thread:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​
If it turns out, in play, that the brother was evil all along, well that throws some new light on all his past dealings. But clearly those past dealings don't preclude him having been evil all along (because, if they did, then finding the cursed black arrows would not be a tenable failure, because it would contradict backstory that has already been established at the table).

But the claim that this sort of thing _can't_ be done unless the GM works it all out in advance is simply not true.

Your example of the taxed townsfolk is another one where, until we know _how that was established at the table_, and _what its significance is to the participants_, we can't say anything about it from the point of view of GM authority, player influence over the shared fiction, railroading, etc.

For instance, if the PCs return to town and the GM frames them into a scene of sullen townsfolk, with the idea in mind that the sullen-ness is due to raised taxes, is that railroading? If the adventure the PCs have just returned from is one in which they won a social conflict with the baron over the level of taxation, then probably yes - it's just fiating a failure over the top of the players' success.

If the state of the village and the wellbeing of the villagers is something the players (via their PCs) have a clear commitment to, then it doesn't look like railroading but rather framing: it's setting up the situation with which, presumably, the PCs are going to engage. (By pushing the baron to lower taxes.)

If the village is just somewhere the PCs are passing through, then it seems to be simply colour, and nothing of any significance is going to turn on it.



Lanefan said:


> nor does hidden support leading to success where otherwise they'd have failed.  It's perfectly valid and very realistic that the PCs (and players) don't know everything; and nor should they.



I'm not sure what you mean by "valid" here - that just seems to be a marker of your preference.

As for realism - it's realistic that the PCs not know everything. There's nothing realistic _or_ unrealistic that the GM not know everything, as the GM doesn't exist within the fictional world and so has no ingame cognitive relationship to elements of that world.



Lanefan said:


> what if one of the PCs has a secret that none of the other PCs* knows about, that influences how they interact with the party and the game as a whole?



That's a different thing altogether. Speaking purely for myself, I find that Robin Laws gives good advice in this respect in Over the Edge: the game generally becomes more fun when the players are in on the secret even if their PCs are not.


----------



## pemerton

Quickleaf said:


> Speaking personally, there are 2 reasons I find it hard to engage:
> 
> (1) When you guys use what I've dubbed Forge-speak (e.g. terms like GM Force or Illusionism) that I need to try and decipher, I find it hard to understand. Often it comes across as overly analytical and ungrounded to me, and wading through multiple paragraphs of that kind of writing just isn't enjoyable to me. Maybe simpler (and terser) language would help?
> 
> (2) In the way they're presented they come across as "here's what we did, and it's done", rather than questions or particular insights (at least, that's my judgment based on what I _can_ discern). Maybe presenting a question would be more inviting rather than a play report?



Obviously I'm not [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], and he can speak for himself.

But I think I can see at least a little bit of what prompted his post.

When, in a reply to a poster, I provide an example of how a surprise occurred at one particular point in a campaign, and explain the method whereby that surprise was generated, it is odd to have that same poster then assert that _surprises are impossible when using my method_.

More generally, when it is claimed that a GM making stuff up ahead of time is _necessary_ to having a depth to the fiction, that claim is odd when (i) not based on trying other ways of doing things, and (ii) made in the face of others posting actual examples of fiction having depth that didn't depend upon the GM making stuff up ahead of time.

Even more generally, what is sometimes surprising is reading an ultra-confident assertion that such-and-such is impossible in a RPG, when hundreds and thousands of RPGers are reliablty doing just that in their games, every day, and have been for 20+ years.

Just to elaborate upon one example: upthread [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] conjectured a campaign in which the PCs have a mentor, and do work for him, and eventually it turns out that the mentor is a vampire, and the PCs have really been helping his evil schemes all along.

Lanefan took for granted that this campaign would take place by the GM deciding, from the start, that the mentor is a vampire; dropping hints and rumours that won't tip off the players, but will enable them - after the big reveal - to recognise the signficance of those hints and clues.

I said that, in my approach, this sort of revelation would not be something built in by the GM, but might be narrated as a consequence of failure. And I gave an example of something a little bit similar happening in one of my campaigns. That was the discovery - narrated as the consequence of a failed check searching for a mace in the ruined tower that was formerly the home of the PC and his older brother - of cursed arrows in what had been the brother's private workroom. The significance of this was that the revelation that the brother was a manufacturer of cursed arrows strongly suggests that he was evil before the brothers fled the tower under orc attack and the older one became possessed by a balrog; ie it strongly suggested that being evil led him to be possesed, rather than vice versa; which completely pulled the rug out from under the PC's goal of redeeming his brother and freeing him from possession.

Yet even in responding to my reposting of this example, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] replies "So no one but you knew the brother was evil up to that point" - which seems to completely miss my point that _no one at the table_ knew the brother was evil before the narration of that failure result.

Which was the whole point of the example: you can have twists, hearbreaking surprises, conspiracies, etc, without having to plan it in advance - it can be managed as part of the narration of consequences of failure. (As the OP illustrates, you can also have searching or perception checks, and frame and resolve them in a meaningful way, without it having to be the case that the GM has noted in advance the contents of the area being searched or looked at.)

Surprise and other twists can also be introduced as part of the framing of ingame situations and conflicts. When introduced this way, it is introduced by GM fiat, but is immediately presented as something that is up for grabs for the players to engage with, or push against, via their PCs.

As I've posted a few times upthread, judging what sort of stuff should be introduced in which sort of way - as consequence for faiure, or as framing - is an important GM skill for the approach I'm talking about. If the GM treats something as up for grabs in framing, which the players regard as something that they're entitled to rely on unless they lose it via failure (such as, eg, the implict open-ness of their brother to redemption), then the players will feel de-protagonised and the game will not deliver the experience that it is meant to.

Now obviously no one expects everyone to be interested in this sort of GMing - as I posted in my OP, I expect my conception of _railroading_ is broader than some other posters'. What is weird, though, is repeated assertions that _it can't be done_.


----------



## pemerton

Saelorn said:


> When was that truth established, though? Had it always been true that the brother was evil, even when the events of that backstory were taking place, and you were aware of it while the players were not? Or did it only _become_ true in the aftermath of their search?



As I've posted upthread in response to  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and some other poster (maybe  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]?), this seems to involve a category error.

In the fiction, it is either true or false that the brother was evil. That truth doesn't change.

At the table, that element of the shared fiction has to be be settled through some process or other - fictions don't just write themselves! At my table, it was settled by narrating the consequences of the failure. Up to that point, the relevant element of the ficiton hadn't been written, and so - not having been written - I was in no better position to know it than anyone else.



Gardens & Goblins said:


> _Ah. I see we've entered into the realm of quantum roleplaying!_



You seem to be making the same category error, of confusing _the truth within the fiction_ and _the process of authoring the fiction_.

What colour were Frodo's socks on the evening of Bilbo's birthday party? No one knows, because JRRT didn't write anything about them.

That doesn't mean that Frodo was wearing quantum socks.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I also think that failing forward could be just as likely to become a railroad.



Can you explain what you have in mind?


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Which to me is a mistake of omission.
> 
> All the set-up would better be presented as a snapshot of how things are when the PCs first arrive (or the game starts, whichever).  There should then be at least passing mention of how things will likely develop over the next few days/weeks/months if left uninterrupted; or failing that some sort of advice to the DM as to how to move the village forward.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In the Keep a self-moving plot isn't all that necessary, though you could put one (or more) in if desired, as the Keep on the whole is more scenery than scene.



I don't think I've ever used the Caves of Chaos (except to borrow the cultist section for setting up cutists temples in all sort of places, most recently the catacombs of Hardby). But I've used the Keep multiple times.

I've never used Hommlet, but not because of any railroad-y element - more because I didn't have a copy back in the days when it would have been most useful (eg low-level Greyhawk games).

But the presence of a "self-moving" plot would make it less appealing to me.

It's like a version of the "freeze-frame" room in a dungeon: you don't need it to change because (i) when the players first encounter it, it doesn't matter that the fiction was authored by the GM some time ago and hasn't been touched since, and (ii) onece the players encounter it, they will generate changes.



Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> "Railroading" is when the DM makes on-the-fly changes to the game world to steer the PC's in a particular direction contrary to where they want to go.
> 
> Having a plot prepared in advance is not railroading, letting the PCs automatically fail when they attempt something impossible is not railroading, and having NPCs with plans of their own is not railroading.



These things are all matters of opinion. I would regard all the things you say are not railroading - having a plot prepared in advance, automatic failure in a context of genre-appropriate action declaration, secret backstory including NPCs with there own "character arcs" - as railroading. I wouldn't do them, and I wouldn't enjoy a game that featured them. (Outside the context of something like a CoC one-shot.)

And - somewhat contrary to   [MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION] defence of Gygax's modules as having been authored 30+ years ago - I think it's a strength, and a deliberate strength, of those modules that they don't include the things you refer to: no NPC characer arcs, very little secret backstory that will mandate failure for player action declarations, no pre-scripted plot; instead, an expectation that the players will impose their will on the fiction, and that the GM's job is to respond to this and manage the unfolding events of play, not dictate them.



Jester David said:


> It's almost as if the conventions and assumptions of the game have changed and evolved over the almost forty years since those adventures were published.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Grognardia puts the blame at Dragonlance.
> So it's *only* existed for 3/4ths of the lifespan of the hobby.



Yet oddly, it's as if the most recent 25 years of RPG design and play (I'm choosing Over the Edge as my marker - I could easily set it 9 years earlier, at James Bond; or 5 years later, at Maelstrom Storytelling) never happened.

No one posting in this thread is confused about the existence of your preferred style. But some people posting in this thread seem confused that other approaches exist, or that others might think your preferred GM-driven style is too railroad-y for their taste.

(And before someone says - but we're talking about D&D! - where do you think skill challenges came from, including the example of the narration of failure in the 4e Rules Compendium, which is exactly like the sort of "fail forward" I've described in this thread, with the GM drawing on estabished elements of the backstory to introduce a new and adversarial element to the fiction; or where do you think 5e's Inspiration rules came from, with the idea that by playing so as to engage self-chosen character descriptors a player can acquire resources which make it easier to impose his/her will upon the fiction?)


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> For the record, what did Mr. Gygax think of railroading?
> We don't need to wonder.



As far as I can interpret that, he seems to be referring to framing:

there are some scenarios where a bit of that is absolutely necessary to further the whole of the adventure. This is not to say that an entire adventure should be linear and force the party into a situation with a foregone conclusion. The use of a predetermined outcome should be only to set up an interesting and challenging scenario where the players are absolutely free to manage the outcome on their own​
The "predeterined outcome to set up a scenario" looks like framing to me - eg the start of the Dungeon of the Slave Lords module. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with negating player choices.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION], how can railroading _possibly_ be about the content of the fiction?

Two PC enter a dungeon room and are killed by an orc. Was that railroading or not?

Until I tell you something about how that content was generated - eg who decided that the PCs entered the room, and how? who decided that the orc was there, and how? who decied that the orcs killed the PCs, and how? - how do you _possibly_ think you can tell?


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> "It is no exaggeration to state that the fantasy world builds itself, *almost as if the milieu actually takes on a life and reality of its own.*"
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Surprisingly, as the personalities of player characters and *non-player characters in AD&D world will take on even more of their own direction and life. What this all boils down to is that once the compaign is set in motion, you will become more of a recorder of events, while the milieu seemingly charts its own course! "
> 
> How is that not a DM driven game?*



*Well, I would say charting its own course and having a reality of its own, is largely at odds with is authored by the GM in advance of play and much more consistent with is generated as part of the play of the game.

I certainly don't see how life, reality and course of it own entails life, reality and course at the behest of the GM.*


----------



## Sorcerers Apprentice

pemerton said:


> These things are all matters of opinion. I would regard all the things you say are not railroading - having a plot prepared in advance, automatic failure in a context of genre-appropriate action declaration, secret backstory including NPCs with there own "character arcs" - as railroading. I wouldn't do them, and I wouldn't enjoy a game that featured them. (Outside the context of something like a CoC one-shot.)



I wasn't stating an opinion, I was describing the meaning of the word "railroading" based on how in my experience it's been used in both online and offline discussions. 

I think this discussion would be much more fruitful if you were to come up for a different term for the type of game you don't want to play instead of highjacking an established term such as "railroading". I'm actually having a hard time understanding what kind of game you don't consider to be "railroaded"


----------



## pemerton

Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> I wasn't stating an opinion, I was describing the meaning of the word "railroading" based on how in my experience it's been used in both online and offline discussions.



And I'm using the word in ways that I've encountered it being used in (mostly online) discussions.

It's a word whose usage varies, mostly depending on the extent to which the user recognises the significant presence of GM force in relation to outcomes.

This is something that I recognised in the OP, when I acknowledge that my usage is probably broader than some others'. I think this is mostly because I am more sensitive to the presence of GM force in relation to outcomes than some other posters.



Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> I'm actually having a hard time understanding what kind of game you don't consider to be "railroaded"



One in which the GM doesn't shape outcomes towards a pre-conceived narrative. There are various reasonably well-known techniques to facilitate this eg "say 'yes' or roll the dice"; in the case of failure, narrating those consequences in the manner often called "fail forward"; whether the check succeeds or fails, "let it ride" (ie the outcome is binding on all participants until some subsequent failure puts it back into play).

I've provided plenty of examples in this thread of how these techniques work. See eg posts 286, 287 for some of the most recent ones.


----------



## The Crimson Binome

pemerton said:


> In the fiction, it is either true or false that the brother was evil. That truth doesn't change.



If it was _actually_ true that the brother was evil, or that the brother was not evil, then all evidence would always be consistent with that truth (even if it may sometimes be misleading). That's part of the definition of what makes something _true_, is that it is the way it is regardless of who is aware of it.

Before any investigation toward discovering the truth, that truth must already be defined in an absolute sense. How someone goes about _discovering_ that truth cannot possibly have an effect on the nature of the truth itself. The contents of a box must already be defined _before_ you open it and learn the contents, if you're living in any sort of normal linear-time objective reality.


pemerton said:


> At the table, that element of the shared fiction has to be settled through some process or other - fictions don't just write themselves! At my table, it was settled by narrating the consequences of the failure. Up to that point, the relevant element of the ficton hadn't been written, and so - not having been written - I was in no better position to know it than anyone else.



At your table, the _true_ nature of the universe in which the characters exist is that there _is_ no objective reality, and anything a character does can have spectacular repercussions at any point along the time-stream. It is literally, _objectively_ true that the brother retroactively _became_ evil-all-along as the result of a failed perception-based check. _We_ know this because we have access to the source code by which that reality was generated. The _characters_ are entirely oblivious to the fact that they live in such a world, because malevolent higher-dimensional entities are conspiring to trick them. They live in the Matrix, or in the philosophy of Descartes.

And all that is fine, whatever, you can have fun however you want. It does necessarily mean that everything in that game is determined by fiat, though. There is no DM who can make a judgment call about what makes sense based on everything they know about the world, and assign a probability if necessary, in order to figure out what _should_ happen as the result of any given action. Your game lacks the pre-requisite of a DM who actually _does_ know all of the relevant factors involved in making that sort of call.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Well, I would say _charting its own course_ and _having a reality of its own_, is largely at odds with _is authored by the GM in advance of play_ and much more consistent with _is generated as part of the play of the game_.
> 
> I certainly don't see how _life, reality and course of it own_ entails _life, reality and course at the behest of the GM_.




Sure, if you skip the myriad of other quotes I listed, the way you did.  And you also skip the craptons of other quotes by Gygax that tell the DM to control things.  But hey, feel free to just use the few quotes that only kinda sorta back you up on this.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> As far as I can interpret that, he seems to be referring to framing:
> 
> there are some scenarios where a bit of that is absolutely necessary to further the whole of the adventure. This is not to say that an entire adventure should be linear and force the party into a situation with a foregone conclusion. The use of a predetermined outcome should be only to set up an interesting and challenging scenario where the players are absolutely free to manage the outcome on their own​
> The "predeterined outcome to set up a scenario" looks like framing to me - eg the start of the Dungeon of the Slave Lords module. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with negating player choices.



Why on earth would anyone use "outcome" to describe a set-up??? You use "outcome" to describe outcomes.



pemerton said:


> [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION], how can railroading _possibly_ be about the content of the fiction?
> 
> Two PC enter a dungeon room and are killed by an orc. Was that railroading or not?



That's not enough for anyone to know if that's railroading. 



pemerton said:


> [MENTION=37579]Until I tell you something about how that content was generated - eg who decided that the PCs entered the room, and how? who decided that the orc was there, and how? who decied that the orcs killed the PCs, and how? - how do you _possibly_ think you can tell?



Knowing most of those doesn't tell if it was railroading either.

If I can answer that the DM created the dungeon. That she also knew the orc was there, as she decided the orc was present. That bad rolls caused the party to lose. That the DM decided to have her orc kill the PCs rather than have them taken them prison. Then I know almost all the answers, but I still don't know if it was railroading. 

The only question that can determine if it was railroading was "who decided that the PCs entered the room, and how?" But even then that barely answers the question since how they arrived at that decision and the decisions (if any) that led up to it are unknown.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Can you explain what you have in mind?




Well, the options presented as failing forward options could conceivably be ones designed to get the players "back on track", could they not? 

It certainly seems that the DM can just as easily nudge or steer the PCs using the method that you described as he can with other methods.

So...the search for a vessel fails...but the DM wants the players to pursue the assassin rather than get wrapped up in the attempt to catch the mage's blood. So he says "the assassin's tunic was surely splattered by the blood...perhaps some could be retrieved from his clothes?"

The DM can use any means to try and get the story back on his rails if he so desires. In this instance, I wouldn't even say it's a bad thing since he's taken the PC desired path and combined it with the DM desired path.


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> No one posting in this thread is confused about the existence of your preferred style. But some people posting in this thread seem confused that other approaches exist, or that others might think your preferred GM-driven style is too railroad-y for their taste.



I don't give a flying eff about your preferred style, your campaign, or if you like my style.

I care about you describing my style with derogatory terms. And misappropriating those terms to do so.


----------



## Ovinomancer

I'm kinda stuck on the idea that the low risk searching for a pre-magic item is used to add a high impact change to the campaign fiction that negates a player's goals by altering fundamental facts about the situation.  Personally, I have zero interest in a playstyle where a failed shopping trip means that the world can fundamentally shift.  

Failing on a high risk challenge should have big consequences.  Failing to successfully locate a hammer you think it would be nice to have shouldn't.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm kinda stuck on the idea that the low risk searching for a pre-magic item is used to add a high impact change to the campaign fiction that negates a player's goals by altering fundamental facts about the situation.  Personally, I have zero interest in a playstyle where a failed shopping trip means that the world can fundamentally shift.
> 
> Failing on a high risk challenge should have big consequences.  Failing to successfully locate a hammer you think it would be nice to have shouldn't.




Come now, you're missing the point of this thread!

Here we discuss a question regarding D&D, expressed through terms whose meaning/s can exist in a number of states, depending on the poster, context and their experience of a game system that can produce a vast number of permutations of play depending on the table and the players, which was either defined at the beginning of play, during play, was never defined and/or never experienced, until it was, all of which collapses to conform with a given poster's perspective when finally perceived - unless, of course, they don't or won't. 

Love it! _*Quantum roleplaying* - a game state that collapses to conform to a single state once the act of perceiving is made. Which is wrong unless it isn't, for a given value of wrong.

Also, railroads. And Gygax said so (unless he didn't)!  _


----------



## Sorcerers Apprentice

pemerton said:


> And I'm using the word in ways that I've encountered it being used in (mostly online) discussions.
> 
> It's a word whose usage varies, mostly depending on the extent to which the user recognises the significant presence of GM force in relation to outcomes.
> 
> This is something that I recognised in the OP, when I acknowledge that my usage is probably broader than some others'. I think this is mostly because I am more sensitive to the presence of GM force in relation to outcomes than some other posters.
> 
> One in which the GM doesn't shape outcomes towards a pre-conceived narrative. There are various reasonably well-known techniques to facilitate this eg "say 'yes' or roll the dice"; in the case of failure, narrating those consequences in the manner often called "fail forward"; whether the check succeeds or fails, "let it ride" (ie the outcome is binding on all participants until some subsequent failure puts it back into play).
> 
> I've provided plenty of examples in this thread of how these techniques work. See eg posts 286, 287 for some of the most recent ones.




Really? Online discussions of D&D or other styles of RPGs?

It seems to me that under your definition 99% of D&D games would fall under "railroading", making it a not very useful distinction.


----------



## Quickleaf

pemerton said:


> Which was the whole point of the example: you can have twists, hearbreaking surprises, conspiracies, etc, without having to plan it in advance - it can be managed as part of the narration of consequences of failure. (As the OP illustrates, you can also have searching or perception checks, and frame and resolve them in a meaningful way, without it having to be the case that the GM has noted in advance the contents of the area being searched or looked at.)




That I completely understand, and wholeheartedly agree.

Sort of seems like the obvious essence of a lot of roleplaying, at least as I experienced it growing up. We riff off each other, regardless of which side of the "GM screen" (using that metaphorically) one sits on.

I suspect any contention you've encountered is due to your use of "railroading." While it may not be a loaded word for you nor myself, I think others get triggered by it since it's often been used as a derogatory label.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Quickleaf said:


> I suspect any contention you've encountered is due to your use of "railroading." While it may not be a loaded word for you nor myself, I think others get triggered by it since it's often been used as a derogatory label.




Totally agree - we're trying to assign definitions to subjective experiences and wondering why others may not value such terms in the same way. 

The discussion seems to require us to accept a particular given definition of the term 'railroading'; a particular style of play and various terms used to describe aspects of play. And until folks agree to do so, things won't move forwards.

Of course, if folks don't want to accept a particular given definition of a term - or a style of play, so be it. Perhaps a thread,_ 'What does railroading mean to you?'_, complete with a snazzy poll, would help build some common ground.

_...and then perhaps, 'Which of these terms describe your table's/group's style of play?'_

Then, maybe, just maybe, we can establish a consensually agreed upon framework in which to continue a discussion based on the particulars of the elements featured in said framework.

Though I'm still up for a RPG Dictionary. _Enforced with extreme prejudice._

[sblock]_And for the love of monkeys, lets stop citing Gygax. He played the game his way. Each of us play it ours. Appeals to authority never go down well._[/sblock]


----------



## Tony Vargas

Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> It seems to me that under your definition 99% of D&D games would fall under "railroading".



 Well 99% of successful ones, but I suppose that's begging the question or something....


----------



## Campbell

Quickleaf said:


> That I completely understand, and wholeheartedly agree.
> 
> Sort of seems like the obvious essence of a lot of roleplaying, at least as I experienced it growing up. We riff off each other, regardless of which side of the "GM screen" (using that metaphorically) one sits on.
> 
> I suspect any contention you've encountered is due to your use of "railroading." While it may not be a loaded word for you nor myself, I think others get triggered by it since it's often been used as a derogatory label.




I agree with all of this. I am not really interested in the exact labels we call things. What interests me about this thread is really diving deep and analyzing the moment to moment decision making process we utilize as GMs and how that can affect the culture of play for the very real people sitting at a very real table. When I run a game my primary interest is in enabling the other players to make choices. For me, meaningful decision making that can effect this shared fictional space we play in is the heart of what makes tabletop roleplaying such an interesting medium. Do I go this way or that way? How does that affect the fiction? What real world impact does that have on the other players? Are we saying interesting things? How could we say more interesting things?

I happen to think analysis of what we are doing can only serve to improve the way we do things. If something is worth doing it must be worth doing better, whatever that means for the people involved.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Problem is, if we can't agree on the macro definitions analyzing the specific moments becomes kinda pointless.




Well, examining a single parameter of a complex system (say albedo in earth's climate system) is not only useful to understand the latter, but infinitely less entangled!  We don't need to even have a conversation about the earth climate system to discuss/analyze albedo.

The same goes for an instance of GM Force and a campaign that can be classified as a railroad.  It can be discerned if "*this * is an instance of play where (a) the GM suspends/subordinates the action resolution mechanics to impose their preferred outcome or (b) undermines the impact on play of a/the player(s) thematically/strategically/tactically significant choices (these choices could be at build-stage or during play)."

Whatever your threshold is for a full campaign to be the equivalent of a railroad doesn't need to be answered to examine that.

I'll just mention  [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION] here as this addresses their posts as well (if a bit sideways).  



Lanefan said:


> Given what I've read from you throughout your many (often very detailed) posts here and elsewhere, and what I've kind of gleaned as being your DMing style, I'd be very interested in seeing how you'd run 1e or a near variant.  My guesses are:
> 
> 1. It would be a good, fun game
> 2. It would be vastly different from mine (which I'd like to think is also good, and fun) even though we're using the same basic system.  For one thing, I suspect you're much more mechanics-first than I am. (see below)




1.  Thanks   I'm not sure if you'd enjoy it, but the optimism is noted!
2.  My 1e AD&D games make heavy use of the granular hex-crawl and wilderness survival mechanics.  As a result, its much more gritty and likely too laborious for folks that aren't keen on that.  But the guys that I have historically GMed it for love that.  I wouldn't call them "mechanics-first", but they're definitely "mechanics-intensive" (as 1e is, especially with WSG).  My guess is a lot of people currently posting on these boards wouldn't enjoy my 1e games so much. 



Lanefan said:


> Done.
> 
> Lots of questions and observations.




Swell!



Lanefan said:


> First, to nip in the bud any distracting talk of the crevasse in the DW example or the chute trap in the B/X example (which put the Elf alone in that situation) possibly being a form of railroading why not for the sake of this discussion say the Elf was singlehanding all along: a solo adventure where he'd reached that place during the normal course of exploration.




You could say that as well, but I can easily assuage those concerns that the emergence of that situation in the DW game (where it actually unfolded) was an instance of GM Force.  

The players failed (6 or less) their Scout move as part of their Undertake a Perilous Journey move.  That yielded them missing a dangerous hazard.  Their dog-sled ran over a glacial crevasse that was covered by a snow bridge.  This almost led to complete disaster as the sled went through (with nearly all of the passengers falling in).  While the situation turned out ok for everyone else, the Elven Arcane Duelist depicted here had a series of 7-9 on various moves to try to aid other people in getting out (or not falling in).  When it finally came to him pulling himself out (hanging by a thread at the bottom of the sled), he had no strength left.  He rolled a 2 on his Defy Danger (Str) move, thus sending him down into the inky blackness for a splash-down in the underground river that emptied him out in the Earthmaw basement.

As far as the PCs getting lost/split-up in a B/X dungeon, that isn't an issue of Force either.  I've had that many-a-times.  One of the classic hazards that GMs are expected to stock their dungeon with are pit traps:



> Basic; DM 48
> Pit: A section of floor gives way, and (one, some, or all) characters fall in, taking (ld4, ld6, ld8, ld10) damage. The pit may have something at the bottom (spikes for more damage, deep water, or a monster).
> 
> It may be a chute, leading down (a oneway ride) to the next dungeon level.




I'm a big (huge is probably more like it) fan of chute traps that go down to the next dungeon level.  So this could easily have been an instance of that.

I've actually got to get out, so I'll get to the rest of your post later this evening.  I'll focus in on a couple things in that post.

Sorry for cutting things in half.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> ... this seems to involve a category error.



Please define the term "category error".  I'm not sure what you mean by it, as opposed to any other type of error.

Lan-"confused as usual"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> For some definitions of "easier", maybe.
> 
> Your account of the players needing a "Plan B" reinforces, to me at least, that essentially here we're talking about a puzzle. Attempted solution A failed, so we try solution B instead.



I call it trial and error; and see it in many ways as part of the game: see also my (probably far too) many posts in here re a) magic item identification and b) metagame knowledge vs. player knowledge, where I also support trial-and-error play rather than just having information handed to you (items) and-or pre-loaded (metagame).



> Well, the sort of surprise you describe catches the players unawares and undermines or in some other undesired way reframes the experiences of the PCs. In the sort of approach to GMing, and to RPGing, that I am describing, that is a type of failure. The PC's intentions in action have not been realised. That is an appropriate consequence of failure. It's not just something for the GM to impose on the situation.



And here I disagree, which by now is probably rather obvious: I see it as well within the DM's purview to drop all sorts of surprises on the characters...some good, some bad.  Where it becomes railroading is when such is done out of spite (I've seen this) or to force the party to stay on mission rather than do something else. 



> No! No! No!
> 
> I - the GM - *did not know either*. The likelihood of the brother having been evil all along was not established as an element of the fiction until I narrated the failure of the attempt to find the mace in the ruin.



OK - I didn't realize this was an element introduced on the fly.

And that makes it an _even bigger problem that it already was!_  Why?  

Because now every interaction that has ever happened with the brother in previous play has just been invalidated.  He was evil all along, it seems, but any previous interactions with him didn't have that sitting there as part of his backstory and-or personality (known only to you-as-GM as he is, I believe, an NPC) and thus couldn't be a part of driving what he did or said.  In other words, the internal consistency of that character just took one hell of a beating.



> This is what [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] and I are trying to get at in talking about a game in which everyone, _even the GM_, plays to find out what happened.
> 
> And this is why I have been asking [MENTION=37579]Jester David[/MENTION] what exactly he takes the connection to be between prior planning and depth of the shared fiction. And why I reacted so strongly to your suggestion that a player-driven game, in which the GM does not adjudicate by reference to secret backstory, cannot involve surprises.



Because when a GM is at the helm and knows the surprises ahead of time she can filter what happens in the game (outside what the players do with their own characters) through those unknown elements and thus keep things somewhat consistent.



> For instance, vis-a-vis the brother: for all we know, his conduct towards his brother (which up to that point had occurred only in backstory, and mostly involved teaching him magic) _was_ motivated by evil. Maybe he was preparing his brother to be a worthy sacrifice to the balrog!



And again, if this had been known all along there could have been some consistency; and possibilities for roleplay that are now lost: maybe the evil brother let something slip at some point, for example.  Can't happen now - it's too late.



> If it turns out, in play, that the brother was evil all along, well that throws some new light on all his past dealings. But clearly those past dealings don't preclude him having been evil all along (because, if they did, then finding the cursed black arrows would not be a tenable failure, because it would contradict backstory that has already been established at the table).



You're saying the arrows represent a failure; I'd say they represent a success of a sort: it's confirmed that the brother was bent all along.  Now whether or not that's something the party wants to know is irrelevant - they know it now.

That said, it's hard to contradict backstory that doesn't exist even when it probably should have.



> But the claim that this sort of thing _can't_ be done unless the GM works it all out in advance is simply not true.



It can be done provided nobody cares too much about the validity of or consistency with what has gone before.



> Your example of the taxed townsfolk is another one where, until we know _how that was established at the table_, and _what its significance is to the participants_, we can't say anything about it from the point of view of GM authority, player influence over the shared fiction, railroading, etc.
> 
> For instance, if the PCs return to town and the GM frames them into a scene of sullen townsfolk, with the idea in mind that the sullen-ness is due to raised taxes, is that railroading? If the adventure the PCs have just returned from is one in which they won a social conflict with the baron over the level of taxation, then probably yes - it's just fiating a failure over the top of the players' success.
> 
> If the state of the village and the wellbeing of the villagers is something the players (via their PCs) have a clear commitment to, then it doesn't look like railroading but rather framing: it's setting up the situation with which, presumably, the PCs are going to engage. (By pushing the baron to lower taxes.)
> 
> If the village is just somewhere the PCs are passing through, then it seems to be simply colour, and nothing of any significance is going to turn on it.



What I had in mind was somewhere between colour and framing, I suppose, as in my example I was thinking (but didn't type where I should have done) the PCs hadn't had much if anything to do with the Baron up till now but they had been to the town numerous times before: I'd envisioned it as their home base.  It's changed while the party was out in the field but said change has nothing to do with the party's previous actions in any way.

But, it's still the DM doing something off-screen that has effects on-screen - so is it framing, railroad, or neither?  (I say "neither", it's just the world moving on...)

Re: character secrets:



> That's a different thing altogether. Speaking purely for myself, I find that Robin Laws gives good advice in this respect in Over the Edge: the game generally becomes more fun when the players are in on the secret even if their PCs are not.



I've never read Robin Laws but the more I hear about him (her?) the less I'm interested; this statement merely adds to that feeling as I probably couldn't disagree with it more.

Player knowledge and character knowledge should be the same, particularly with regards to the other characters! (it's the metagame business again: Laws is clearly a fan of metagame knowledge, where I am not).

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Just to elaborate upon one example: upthread [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] conjectured a campaign in which the PCs have a mentor, and do work for him, and eventually it turns out that the mentor is a vampire, and the PCs have really been helping his evil schemes all along.



Just to be fussy: the vampire's schemes aren't evil at all, and neither is he (well, not any more; he sure used to be).  The secrets are a) that he's a vampire at all, and b) just how long (centuries!) he's been pulling strings behind the scenes.



> Lanefan took for granted that this campaign would take place by the GM deciding, from the start, that the mentor is a vampire; dropping hints and rumours that won't tip off the players, but will enable them - after the big reveal - to recognise the signficance of those hints and clues.
> 
> I said that, in my approach, this sort of revelation would not be something built in by the GM, but might be narrated as a consequence of failure.



By who?  And when?  And, if the DM's intent is that he be a vampire all along, what if a player narrates something that contradicts that...even something as simple as the guy admiring his reflection in a mirror.

And again, why a failure?  Maybe learning this information qualifies as a success for the PCs (and thus a failure for the vampire, I suppose).  It all depends on context.

For clarity: the vampire example comes from my current campaign, with the difference-for-discussion-here being that he keeps his secrets from the PCs for much longer than he did in actual play.



> And I gave an example of something a little bit similar happening in one of my campaigns. That was the discovery - narrated as the consequence of a failed check searching for a mace in the ruined tower that was formerly the home of the PC and his older brother - of cursed arrows in what had been the brother's private workroom. The significance of this was that the revelation that the brother was a manufacturer of cursed arrows strongly suggests that he was evil before the brothers fled the tower under orc attack and the older one became possessed by a balrog; ie it strongly suggested that being evil led him to be possesed, rather than vice versa; which completely pulled the rug out from under the PC's goal of redeeming his brother and freeing him from possession.



Which in the moment is really cool!  It's just the invalidation of what went before that's not cool.

Another example where I as DM got hosed by this: years ago I was running a party through a big somewhat-linear adventure.  The weird element was, this adventure was in fact being written (by someone else) as it was being played; and sometimes the author had to struggle to keep ahead of the advancing party.  What this led to was a few rather glaring instances of an element being written in later which, had I known of it earlier, would have been rather obvious to the PCs. (wagon tracks on a trail was one example I can remember: the party follows this trail for ages but it's not until the wagons are written in later do I realize they should have been seeing wagon tracks all along)  So, much to my annoyance I had to retcon some things, which thoroughly offended my sense of internal consistency and meant some things that might have been done differently at the time had this info been known were not.

Lan-"type type type"-efan


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## pemerton

Sorcerers Apprentice said:


> It seems to me that under your definition 99% of D&D games would fall under "railroading", making it a not very useful distinction.



I don't think this is right.

Most OSR games would not. Many other sandbox games - where the sandbox is a T1/B2-style sandbox, ie a situation of largely static equilibrium until the PCs enter it and set it in motion.

There are plenty of posters on these boards who run games in various incarnations of D&D who don't run railroads.

Not all games - for all I know, not even a majority of games - are run in the Dragonlance style, where the main determiner of what occurs at the table, and how it turns out, is not the choices that the players make in responding to the GM's framing, but rather the GM's behind-the-scenes manipulation of backstory elements.


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> Why on earth would anyone use "outcome" to describe a set-up???



Well, Gygax is no longer with us, so we can't ask him. But here is what you quoted him as saying:

The use of a predetermined outcome should be only to set up an interesting and challenging scenario​
So he talks about using an outcome as a set-up. As I said, I think he has in mind something like the Dungeon of the Slave Lords. Other examples would be Ghost Tower of Inverness (PCs as suicide squad) or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (from memory, the PCs are shipwrecked).


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> the idea that the low risk searching for a pre-magic item is used to add a high impact change to the campaign fiction



Then I think you've misunderstood the situation (as is evident by your comparison of it to "a shopping trip".

You seem to be conflating "stakes" with "risk of physical danger". Searching the ruins for a lost mace is low risk in that sense. But it is not low stakes. The PC has chosen to return (for the first time in 14 years) to the site where he last saw his brother; the tower they had to abandon when it was assaulted by orcs; the place where, in trying to fight off those orcs, the brother tried to summon a mighty storm of magical lightning and instead opened up a conduit to hell and was possessed by a balrog.

Having returned, the PC hopes to find the item he was working on, seeking to enchant, when the orcs attacked.

That is not a low stakes situation. It's a high stakes one. The player chose to put all this to the test; and failed.


----------



## pemerton

Saelorn said:


> It is literally, objectively true that the brother retroactively became evil-all-along as the result of a failed perception-based check. We know this because we have access to the source code by which that reality was generated.



No. It is literally, objectively true that the brother's past moral status was authored, and thereby became an element of the shared fiction, at that moment of play. But that is not a causal event in the game.

It's well known that Dickens wrote two endings to Great Expectations. The two endings cast some of the earlier events of the novel in a different light. They resolve the amibugity in the motivations of some key character in different ways. In the fiction, howeveer those motivations were whatever they were. It's not a story about backwards causation.

As a general proposition, it's not true that the time sequence of authoring a fiction must correspond to the time sequence of events within the fiction. This general proposition applies also to RPGs.



Saelorn said:


> If it was actually true that the brother was evil, or that the brother was not evil, then all evidence would always be consistent with that truth



Obviously. This is why when backstory is settled it operates as a constraint on narration.

Nothing in the settled backstory of my campaign was inconsistent with the evilness of the brother. And some things - that a balrog found him a suitable vessel for possession, and the established facts about how he had behaved once possessed - might even have been thought to point that way.

That's the nature of amibiguity and nuance in fiction. It admits of resolution in multiple directions (as Dickens nicely demonstrated in his writing of Great Expectations).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't think I've ever used the Caves of Chaos (except to borrow the cultist section for setting up cutists temples in all sort of places, most recently the catacombs of Hardby). But I've used the Keep multiple times.
> 
> I've never used Hommlet, but not because of any railroad-y element - more because I didn't have a copy back in the days when it would have been most useful (eg low-level Greyhawk games).
> 
> But the presence of a "self-moving" plot would make it less appealing to me.
> 
> It's like a version of the "freeze-frame" room in a dungeon: you don't need it to change because (i) when the players first encounter it, it doesn't matter that the fiction was authored by the GM some time ago and hasn't been touched since, and (ii) onece the players encounter it, they will generate changes.



But, when the PCs leave said room does it (have to) become static again?  I think that's the crux here, particularly when you replace "room" with "town" or "region" or anything else.



> These things are all matters of opinion. I would regard all the things you say are not railroading - having a plot prepared in advance, automatic failure in a context of genre-appropriate action declaration, secret backstory including NPCs with there own "character arcs" - as railroading.



Then I posit your definition of railroading is, simply put, far too broad.



> I wouldn't do them, and I wouldn't enjoy a game that featured them.



If you're ever up here in BC let's put that to the test, shall we?



> And - somewhat contrary to   [MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION] defence of Gygax's modules as having been authored 30+ years ago - I think it's a strength, and a deliberate strength, of those modules that they don't include the things you refer to: no NPC characer arcs, very little secret backstory that will mandate failure for player action declarations, no pre-scripted plot; instead, an expectation that the players will impose their will on the fiction, and that the GM's job is to respond to this and manage the unfolding events of play, not dictate them.



The PCs impose their will on such of the fiction as they can access, but they can't be everywhere at once and where they're not, life goes on.  This to me seems goes-without-saying blindingly obvious if one's intent is to run a living breathing game world, and by no means whatsoever is it railroading in any accepted sense of the word I've ever heard of - other than what you've posted here.



> No one posting in this thread is confused about the existence of your preferred style. But some people posting in this thread seem confused that other approaches exist, or that others might think your preferred GM-driven style is too railroad-y for their taste.



I'm not so much confused that other approaches exist, but I am confused as to how they are able to function while maintaining consistency, keeping character knowledge and player knowledge in step, and allowing long-term secrets or hidden backstory to be part of the plot. (never mind allowing some plot layout in advance)



> (And before someone says - but we're talking about D&D! - where do you think skill challenges came from, including the example of the narration of failure in the 4e Rules Compendium, which is exactly like the sort of "fail forward" I've described in this thread, with the GM drawing on estabished elements of the backstory to introduce a new and adversarial element to the fiction; or where do you think 5e's Inspiration rules came from, with the idea that by playing so as to engage self-chosen character descriptors a player can acquire resources which make it easier to impose his/her will upon the fiction?)



I got into a discussion with some of our crew last night about this, in fact, where we quite quickly (and unanimously) concluded - though using different terms for it - it's not usually the player's place to impose their will on the fiction in any great degree, but instead to react and deal with what is already there.  We-as-players can change it, steer it, tip it on its head, even crumple it into little balls and throw it in the corner, but we cannot generate it from nothing and nor can we expect it to go away if we ignore it.  We also can't expect the world to stay still over there while we take care of this mission over here.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> As far as I can interpret that, he seems to be referring to framing:
> 
> there are some scenarios where a bit of that is absolutely necessary to further the whole of the adventure. This is not to say that an entire adventure should be linear and force the party into a situation with a foregone conclusion. The use of a predetermined outcome should be only to set up an interesting and challenging scenario where the players are absolutely free to manage the outcome on their own​
> The "predeterined outcome to set up a scenario" looks like framing to me - eg the start of the Dungeon of the Slave Lords module. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with negating player choices.



Where to me that A3-to-A4 changeover is one of the more blatant early examples of bad-form railroading.

They're scripted to lose the fight at the end of A3 (no matter what they try to do their only real choice is to either fight and lose or surrender and lose) and they're scripted to wake up in jail at the start of A4.  The wake-up-in-jail bit is a cool sort of railroad and can lead to some excellent stuff after; but the must-lose-the-fight bit is pure bad railroad.  Flee?  Not an option.  Sneak past?  Not an option.  Actually win the fight?  Not supposed to be an option, though I believe there's passing mention of it being a possibility.

I guess that's where scene-framing becomes railroading: when you can't ignore or get around or escape the scene that's framed.

Lan-"if every picture tells a story, what does an empty frame have to say"-efan


----------



## Maxperson

It's clear that Gygax intended the DM to be the one in charge and to set things up for the game.  From the 1e DMG preface.  Pretty much the first thing he says.

*"As the creator and ultimate authority in your respective game*, this work is written as one Dungeon Master equal to another."


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm kinda stuck on the idea that the low risk searching for a pre-magic item is used to add a high impact change to the campaign fiction that negates a player's goals by altering fundamental facts about the situation.  Personally, I have zero interest in a playstyle where a failed shopping trip means that the world can fundamentally shift.
> 
> Failing on a high risk challenge should have big consequences.  Failing to successfully locate a hammer you think it would be nice to have shouldn't.



Funny you should mention this: in the game I played in last night we in fact hit a high-risk situation (we'd set off a trap and completely walled ourselves in) in which it would have been really nice to have had a hammer (to beat our way through a wall); and nobody did.

Lan-"not always the sharpest hammer in the toolbox but I try my best"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Well, examining a single parameter of a complex system (say albedo in earth's climate system) is not only useful to understand the latter, but infinitely less entangled!  We don't need to even have a conversation about the earth climate system to discuss/analyze albedo.



True, but without the surrounding context the study results become rather meaningless.



> The same goes for an instance of GM Force and a campaign that can be classified as a railroad.  It can be discerned if "*this * is an instance of play where (a) the GM suspends/subordinates the action resolution mechanics to impose their preferred outcome or (b) undermines the impact on play of a/the player(s) thematically/strategically/tactically significant choices (these choices could be at build-stage or during play)."
> 
> Whatever your threshold is for a full campaign to be the equivalent of a railroad doesn't need to be answered to examine that.



While I see what you're saying here I think there's a bit more to it:
1. Micro-railroading (or scene-framing, sometimes) is vastly different than macro-railroading
2. There's the context of intent in both cases - whether the DM is railroading out of spite (bad), out of incompetence (bad but maybe forgiveable), or out of a genuine attempt to generate a better game/experience (good)
3. Looking at micro-instances is probably going to lead to different conclusions than looking at macro-instances



> 1.  Thanks   I'm not sure if you'd enjoy it, but the optimism is noted!
> 2.  My 1e AD&D games make heavy use of the granular hex-crawl and wilderness survival mechanics.  As a result, its much more gritty and likely too laborious for folks that aren't keen on that.  But the guys that I have historically GMed it for love that.  I wouldn't call them "mechanics-first", but they're definitely "mechanics-intensive" (as 1e is, especially with WSG).  My guess is a lot of people currently posting on these boards wouldn't enjoy my 1e games so much.



I don't mind gritty and laborious but I've little patience for mechanics when they get in the way.



> I'm a big (huge is probably more like it) fan of chute traps that go down to the next dungeon level.  So this could easily have been an instance of that.



I'm also a big fan, and I'm well accustomed to DMing a split party.



> I've actually got to get out, so I'll get to the rest of your post later this evening.  I'll focus in on a couple things in that post.
> 
> Sorry for cutting things in half.



No worries, though it'll maybe be a day or two till I get back to you. 

Lanefan


----------



## Jester David

pemerton said:


> Well, Gygax is no longer with us, so we can't ask him. But here is what you quoted him as saying:
> 
> The use of a predetermined outcome should be only to set up an interesting and challenging scenario​
> So he talks about using an outcome as a set-up. As I said, I think he has in mind something like the Dungeon of the Slave Lords. Other examples would be Ghost Tower of Inverness (PCs as suicide squad) or Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (from memory, the PCs are shipwrecked).



I doubt he's talking about a start of a module. But rather having a set outcome in one adventure to have a future adventure, a future story.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Jester David said:


> I doubt he's talking about a start of a module. But rather having a set outcome in one adventure to have a future adventure, a future story.




I took it as a reference to letting the players' decisions determine the course of the game...unless you have an idea that sets up something challenging or interesting.


----------



## Jester David

hawkeyefan said:


> I took it as a reference to letting the players' decisions determine the course of the game...unless you have an idea that sets up something challenging or interesting.



That's how I read it.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> To the DW example I can say little as I don't know the system.  I see what mechanics you're using to achieve what results but what's unclear is whether any of those mechanical resolutions could have been replaced with simple DM fiat and narration.  It seems little to no advance GM prep went into the scene as you say right off it was all off the cuff - but was it a pre-mapped part of the dungeon to in theory be explored later or did it not exist at all until the Elf fell in?




It didn't exist at all (that is, it wasn't an established part of the fiction/play conversation) until the Elf fell in.  The snowbridge-covered crevasse didn't exist until the Scout roll was failed on the Undertake a Perilous Journey move.  

Earthmaw did exist as a result of action resolution in a prior scene (as I noted in the initial post I linked you).  The players were heading across the dangerous frozen wilderness to resupply and beseech the Hobgoblin King for aid and audience with the Blizzard/White Dragon Averandox that claimed the highlands as its domain.  

So while the rest of the group made it to Earthmaw proper after getting out of the crevasse pickle, the elf splashed down in a freezing underground river that led to Earthmaw's garbage basement.  This course was fraught with serious peril (exposure/monsters/being thrust right into the middle of the "Aliens" trope siege of Earthmaw) and threatened to put a serious monkey-wrench in future parley with the Hobgoblin King.

So...he did make to Earthmaw...just not how he had intended (and with serious complications/obstacles to deal with/ovrercome).  This is classic Fail Forward.

If you're wondering "why isn't this Fail Forward an instance of GM Force(?)", then this would be a perfect point to have a conversation about the nuance of GMing techniques, GMing principles, and play procedures.  If you do get why it isn't, then good deal!  



Lanefan said:


> And, one question: the Elf knew the Aboleth had 6 h.p. before shooting at it.  Is it standard practice in DW that an opponent's hit points are known information to the players/characters? (also, if yes do the opponents get the same benefit in knowing the hit points of the PCs?)




Games like DW are good with, and actively encourage, stuff that is pretty much just mechanical markers that are indirect proxies for other stuff (HP are whatever the hell they are...Adventuring Gear, Ammo, Bag of Books, etc are just a number (typically 1 - 4) to reflect an abstract resource) to be made transparent.  Strike(!), 13th Age, and 4e is the same way although 4e is a bit more "do whatever you want but here is the advantage of doing it this way" about it.

Beyond that, just on a personal note, I have long...long...long since made system artifacts like HP that just serve as mechanical markers transparent to my players.  (1) It decreases table handling time in action/scene resolution and (2) the PC would understand in the game exactly whatever it is supposed to mean in the fiction.  So I want my players to be oriented in that same way/occupy that same head-space.  Otherwise, they're filtering their OODA Loop through me in a side conversation game of "how do I extract this information that my character would have but I, the player, can only engage with these system artifacts".  

Basically...D&D gave us the elegant mechanical marker of HPs to deal with (along with turn-based combat rounds and initiative, action economy, Armor Class, etc etc).  The machinery is what it is.  System architecture to orient players (not PCs) and more easily facilitate action resolution.  It isn't the fiction and it can't translate directly to the fiction.  So don't try to obfuscate its functionality.  It will fight you and it will slow things down.  

Happily, Dungeon World doesn't have loads and loads of HPs!  It doesn't have Initiative!  It doesn't have Action Economy!  It doesn't have AC!  It has fiction.  It has elegant action resolution mechanics.  It has very clear play procedures.  It has tightly integrated reward cycles and resources.  It has a coherent agenda and principles.



Lanefan said:


> With the B/X example I'm on more familiar ground.  I get the sense you've added a bit more to the DM prep side on this one in pointing out he's got three pre-done adventures in the can ready to go - why would the same not be true in the DW example?




If that would have been a B/X scenario, then there would have been much more prep.  B/X requires multiple fully prepped (mapped + stocked + keyed + Wandering Monsters) dungeons of varying levels/settings/themes.  Players figure out where they want to go in the Town phase of play and off we go.  

Dungeon World prep is not just extremely lighter, but in its own lightness it is different than B/X prep.  Torchbearer is basically an indie, much more complex version of B/X with much more thematic meat on its bone.



Lanefan said:


> Beyond that, the DM in this scenario is relying on hard-coded mechanics far more than I ever would and thus making his own job a lot harder...with one exception: I'd think the wall-straddling move by the Elf needs some sort of check (roll under Dex?) to pull off quietly and-or gracefully.  But the rest of it I'd have flow more organically, not worrying about Exploration Turns or any of that and probably deciding by DM judgement* that the Goblin coming onto the scene would take one look and run for its life.   * - unless the Elf immediately did something unexpected like surrender, or itself flee.




Well, that is B/X for you.  Its actually extremely easy to GM.  The mechanics are elegant, intuitive, and extremely light-weight and coherent compared to AD&D.  Its basically Exploration Turns + Rest + Encounters + Monster Reactions + Combat + Pursuit and Evasion + Wandering Monsters and the little subtle nuances therein.  A GM who has run it more than once will be able to run it simply (and the rulebooks are beautifully put together and easily referencable...though you likely won't need to).

The B/X version of action resolution for something like your describing is different than AD&D (where you're rolling below Dex/NWPs).  B/X handles that stuff with 1d6 and typically with a 1 (or sometimes 1 and 2) and you've got success.  

I think (maybe?) I noted that in my post, but I went with the other adjudication (just say yes and have it affect surprise round.  I did that because the Elf has so many advantages in that situation (is in the dark...sees in the dark...has infravision), is a dextrous character, and that is what they do.  

If you feel like there should be a 17% or 33 % chance that something could go wrong there, then obviously you would go with the alternate adjudication.  



Lanefan said:


> As for running the caught Goblin through, isn't there a roll to hit involved in both systems?  The other Goblins' reactions might be quite different if the Elf somehow manages to miss. (it's unclear what sort of level this Elf is)




Dungeon World has a melee move for if you're actively engaged in an exchange with a worthy opponent.  No exchange/worthy opponent and/or the fiction presents the situation that you should just deal your damage (or be afforded the choice to straight kill your adversary), then that is what you do.  

B/X does have a roll to hit, but this goblin would not engage in combat (due to morale 2 or below), so its irrelevant.  If that were an actual B/X game, he's either just going to die or he is going to potentially turn into an issue for the PC where pursuit triggers a Wandering Monster check and the prior Aboleth (or a new one...or both...or maybe a hobgoblin overseer with guards or something) becomes a lurking threat again.

By themselves, these little, pathetic goblin laborers aren't even the slightest threat to a level 3 Elven Arcane Duelist (or he may have been 4 at that point...can't recall) or level 3 B/X Elf (2 first level spells and 1 second).  



Lanefan said:


> I'd probably play the Parlay sequence much as you did only more organically, without the dice rolls and with a bit of attention to the Elf's Charisma (some Elves ooze Charisma out of every pore).




Well, again, that is just the play procedures of the system and the GM-side action resolution mechanics that would have to be consulted.  The actual fiction and the conversation at the table wouldn't entail that kind of stuff (except where it needs to for player clarity).



Lanefan said:


> One other thing I'd be doing in both systems that you don't mention in either is quietly either rolling or fiat-ing what the Aboleth is up to and where it has gone.  Maybe it scares another Goblin somewhere else and distant screams are heard.  Maybe it moves in behind the Elf (intentionally or otherwise), such that if the Elf tries to leave the way he came in he'll run onto it.  Or maybe it just goes to sleep somewhere and digests its lunch.




In B/X, time passed (due to Exploration Turns) triggering the Wandering Monster clock would do the heavy lifting in what you describe above.

In DW, I'd be thinking about the Aboleth while we play (it did come back into play later...as well as several others during the parley with the Hobgoblin King!).  The overhead for a DW GM with what you're talking about is when and how to use that Aboleth.  There are two ways:

*  *"Soft Move"*:   This can be the initial framing of a situation or a 7-9 result on a player move where I do something like "reveal an unwelcome truth", "show signs of an approaching threat", "grant an opportunity with a cost", or "put someone in a spot"  It doesn't have immediate, irrevocable consequences.  However, if the players don't respond to/deal with the situation then they've presented me a golden opportunity for a "Hard Move."

Lets go back to Aliens.  Think of the trope where someone sees either signs of acid burning through fuselage/structure or they see signs of slimy goop and what looks like something just molted.  The Elf could have easily come across signs of either (this happened later in the DW game), except its nasty mucous haze rather than acid.

* *"Hard Move"*:  This happens when the player(s) ignores or doesn't appropriately deal with my soft move.  Or it can be triggered by a player move that results in a 6 or less.  Now I might decide to "use a monster/danger/location move", "deal damage", "use up their resources", etc.  The lurking Aboleth jumps on them from above, disorienting them with their mucous haze or burgeoning mind magic, and attempts to devour them!



Lanefan said:


> Now, back to the main topic: is any of this railroading?  In either system I don't think so...it all looks like normal run of play to me; or at least I have to assume it is for DW.
> 
> Would it be railroading were it simple DM fiat/judgement that the Goblin shows up and flees for dramatic or story effect rather than the result of a random roll?  Again I don't think so: particularly in B/X the player wouldn't - or shouldn't - know the difference anyway: all he knows is that a Goblin has just showed up.  He doesn't know the mechanics (or lack thereof) behind that Goblin's arrival...all he can do (both in and out of character) is react to what's presented in whatever way makes sense to the character.
> 
> Lan-"Goblin: the other red meat"-efan




In light of my response, do you have any thoughts about any of those instances being GM Force?



> "...an instance of play where (a) the GM suspends/subordinates the action resolution mechanics to impose their preferred outcome or (b) undermines the impact on play of a/the player(s) thematically/strategically/tactically significant choices (these choices could be at build-stage or during play)."




Just for quick clarity, a GM "saying yes" to a player proposal can never be a case of GM Force, even if the GM thinks the direction that play will go as a result of the player's proposal is thematically coherent or interesting.  GM Force is about the mesh of system agency, player agency, and the trajectory of play being subordinate to GM fiat.


----------



## billd91

Lanefan said:


> Where to me that A3-to-A4 changeover is one of the more blatant early examples of bad-form railroading.
> 
> They're scripted to lose the fight at the end of A3 (no matter what they try to do their only real choice is to either fight and lose or surrender and lose) and they're scripted to wake up in jail at the start of A4.  The wake-up-in-jail bit is a cool sort of railroad and can lead to some excellent stuff after; but the must-lose-the-fight bit is pure bad railroad.  Flee?  Not an option.  Sneak past?  Not an option.  Actually win the fight?  Not supposed to be an option, though I believe there's passing mention of it being a possibility.
> 
> I guess that's where scene-framing becomes railroading: when you can't ignore or get around or escape the scene that's framed.
> 
> Lan-"if every picture tells a story, what does an empty frame have to say"-efan




Yeah, it's a classic railroad that rubs a *lot* players the wrong way. That said, it's also a classic AD&D adventure that plays out even better under 3e than it did under 1e.


----------



## pemerton

Gardens & Goblins said:


> we're trying to assign definitions to subjective experiences and wondering why others may not value such terms in the same way.



From the OP:



pemerton said:


> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.
> 
> But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.
> 
> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.
> 
> I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!



I didn't try to assign any definitions. I used a word, made it clear how I was using it, and noted that other posters might use it differently. I then gave some examples (one actual, one hypothetical) of GM judgement calls, explained how I thought they related to railroading as I characterised, and invited discussion.

That's all.



Quickleaf said:


> I suspect any contention you've encountered is due to your use of "railroading." While it may not be a loaded word for you nor myself, I think others get triggered by it since it's often been used as a derogatory label.



Maybe, although I think people who are happy to toss around phrases like "Quantum Roleplaying", "Schroedinger's brother", etc might be expected to take it as well as they dish it out - I mean, clearly those aren't meant to be descriptions of endearment!

Or to look at it another way, which I think responds to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s plea for analysis: I've explained how I think that the process of authoring fiction at the table is distinct from the ingame process whereby events in the fiction cause one another, and hence how I take it to be possible that something is the case in the fiction although no one has written it yet, and hence no one can know it until the writing takes place.

Similarly, other posters are free to explain what it is that they value in player input into the shared fiction, and what it is that they prefer the GM to control (including by way of judgement call). Given that those values are probably different from mine, in some cases at least, it naturally follows that they'll have a different (often narrower) conception of what counts as a railroad.

Because the number of people who change their preferences due to internet discussion, while not necessarily zero, is fairly small, I don't think attempts to argue why one's preferences are sensible ones (eg that they are truer to D&D tradition) are likely to get very far. I think that actual accounts of techniques, or pointing out in particular episodes of play where (say) player and GM influence were felt and how they interacted to yield some outcome that mattered to the participants at the table, is likely to be more fruitful. As a general rule you don't have to like something to be able to understand and analyse it.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I posit your definition of railroading is, simply put, far too broad.



Too broad for what?

I think it does a reasonable job of conveying my preferences in RPGing. No one in this thread seems all that confused about them!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Please define the term "category error".  I'm not sure what you mean by it, as opposed to any other type of error.



An error that arises from treating something as being an instance of a type that it is not.

For instance, anthropomorphic explanations (say, explaining gravitational forces as "The two masses want to move towards one another) involve category errors. People (and other animals) have _wants_, as a result of which they move towards one another; but masses per se do not. The concept of _desire_ has no work to do in explaining planetary motion, or why the apple (supposedly) fell on Newton's head.

Asking what colour the taste of an apple is (if asked literally and not by way of metaphor) is a category error, as colour pertains to visible sensation, not taste sensation.

And describing something as neither true nor false in the fiction at a certain time _within the fiction_ (eg the time when the PC looks for the mace) because _at that time in the real world the answer hasn't been authored yet_ is a category error, as it attributes a property of the real world (_is the moment at which a piece of fiction is authored_) to the fictional world - whereas, in the fictional world, events arent _authored_ at all, but arise through the (fictional, imagined) causal processes that govern the gameworld (eg people become evil because of poor parenting, or exposure to maddening radiation in temples of Tharizdun, or whatever other causal process operates in a given setting).



Lanefan said:


> magic item identification



But isn't magic item identification by trial and error almost the textbook example of a puzzle (not for the PCs, but for the players). Eg:

Player: I pull on the boots.

GM: Your steps feel somewhat lighter.

Player: OK, they're either Boots of Levitation or Boots of Striding and Springing. I try to jump over the treasure chest!​
I think the resemblance to 20 questions - a classic puzzle-solving game - is pretty evident.



Lanefan said:


> it's not usually the player's place to impose their will on the fiction in any great degree, but instead to react and deal with what is already there.



So much depend on what the "already there" refers to. Is it the 12 deities imprisoned beneath the ruins of Castle Greyhawk, which Robilar unleashed? That's absolutely a player imposing his will on the fiction.

Is the "already there" a whole series of "character arcs" for NPCs, towns and regions, etc, that the GM has mapped out? Then to me it seems like the player is primarily contributing some colour to a pre-determined series of events.

This is why I will pilfer situations from modules - set-ups that are just waiting for the players (via their PCs) to "set them in motion" - but am not interested in a module's prescripted sequence of events and metaplot.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> the presence of a "self-moving" plot would make it less appealing to me.
> 
> It's like a version of the "freeze-frame" room in a dungeon: you don't need it to change because (i) when the players first encounter it, it doesn't matter that the fiction was authored by the GM some time ago and hasn't been touched since, and (ii) onece the players encounter it, they will generate changes.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> life goes on. This to me seems goes-without-saying blindingly obvious if one's intent is to run a living breathing game world, and by no means whatsoever is it railroading in any accepted sense of the word I've ever heard of - other than what you've posted here.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But, when the PCs leave said room does it (have to) become static again?  I think that's the crux here, particularly when you replace "room" with "town" or "region" or anything else.
Click to expand...


Maybe, maybe not. As is often the case, a lot turns on details.

If stuff happened that _matters_ to the game, in the sense of engaging or involving stuff that is core to the PCs (and hence their players), then the situation might continue to be important. It would inform framing; inform the narration of consequences for failure. But none of that requires the GM to give the town its own "character arc"!

Here's an example of play (from my main 4e game) that shows how I handled the return of the PCs to the underdark, and the lands of the duergar and the drow after killing Lolth and sealing the Abyss; I've put it in sblocks for length.:

[sblock]







pemerton said:


> The PCs (and players) then pondered how to get to Thanatos, on the 333rd layer of the Abyss. The invoker/wizard remembered that they had an Aspect of Orcus trapped back in the duergar hold that had been invaded by demons, and thought that it might have information about a secret way in.
> 
> The PCs therefore teleported to Phaevorul (the nearest portal that they knew) and travelled through the Underdark to the duergar hold. This provided a chance to introduce a bit of colour illustrating the effects that their godslaying had had upon the world: with Torog dead the Underdark had reverted to roiling chaos, and in combination with the death of Lolth dead this meant that the drow civilisation had virtually collapsed.
> 
> In the small skill challenge to travel to the duergar hold and deal with the Aspect:
> 
> * The wizard/invoker maintained the PCs' phantom steeds (with a +40-something Arcana bonus this was an auto-success that didn't need to be rolled for);
> 
> * The player of the ranger-cleric made a successful Dungeoneering check, aided by the dwarf, to steer a path through the now everchanging, roiling Underdark;
> 
> * The sorcerer made a successful Diplomacy check (he had retrained Insight to Diplomacy and succeeded against a Hard DC) to persuade the wandering and raving drow that now was the time to return to the surface and dance once more under the stars, as they had with their elven kin in the times of old;
> 
> * Once they arrived at the duergar hold, the paladin made a successful Diplomacy check to persuade the duergar to let them gain access to the trapped Aspect of Orcus so that they could take the fight to the Abyss;
> 
> * The duergar - who had always felt comfortable dealing with a fellow bearer of diabolic taint (the paladin is a tiefling) - explained that Asmodeus was now calling upon them to join him in an assault upon the Abyss, and sought advice as to what they should do;
> 
> * The paladin cautioned them against becoming bound to devils, instancing the downfall of the tieflings as an indicator of the possible costs and pointing to the fact that the drown were now freed from Lolth's yoke - I asked, to clarify, whether he was trying to persuade the duergar not to go along with Asmodeus, and he said yes, so I called for the Diplomacy check against a Hard DC;
> 
> * The invoker/wizard indicated that he would help, and made a successful check as he cautioned the duergar against being manipulated by Asmodeus into being his fodder in a futile war; but together with the paladin player's rather dismal roll this wasn't quite enough (from memory, 6 (roll) +32 (skill) +2 (aid another) for 40 rather than 41);
> 
> * There was then a brief discussion in which I reminded the player of the invoker/wizard of some backstory he had forgotten, namely, that the reason Levistus and Bane had let him be resurrected (back in mid-Paragon) was on the condition that he help prevent Asmodeus invading the Abyss and thereby risking a spread of chaos;
> 
> * Back in the game rather than the metagame, the PC could tell that his imp was itching to speak;
> 
> * So the player spent his action point to let his imp speak to the duergar, thereby giving an extra bonus to make the roll succeed - mechanically, this was the imp granting its +4 Diplomacy bonus vs devils and their friends (from the invoker/wizard PC's variant Devil's Pawn theme) to the paladin; and in the fiction, the imp explained to the duergar that it was _Levistus_ who, of the archdevils, had the backs of mortals, and they should not let themselves be tricked by Asmodeus into a foolish sacrifice;
> 
> * The players weren't entirely sure that switching the duergar from Asmodeus to Levistus was maximum progress - the dwarf fighter/cleric was mumbling "What about Moradin?" somewhere in the background; but at least Asmodeus will not have his duergar army when he assaults the Plain of One Thousand Portals;
> 
> * Attention now turned to the Aspect of Orcus - it had been trapped by channelling power from Vecna, and the player of the invoker/wizard had already pointed out that Vecna would be alerted if the PCs tried to steal secrets from it; now, a successful Religion check (made easily against a Hard DC, with a +40 bonus) allowed the invoker/wizard to make contact with Vecna and ask him to rip information of a secret entrance into Thanatos from the mind of the Aspect;
> 
> * Vecna indicated a willingness to do so, but only on conditions - that the trapped Aspect of Vecna (whom the invoker/wizard and the paladin had bound drawing upon the power of the Raven Queen) be released;
> 
> * The invoker/wizard would only do this if the paladin agreed, and the latter was not keen; I told the players that with a successful Insight check vs a Hard DC the invoker/wizard could read the secret from Vecna without needing to be overtly told - so the PC said to Vecna "We'll find another way" and then rolled the check, which missed by 1, but then he activated his Memory of One Thousand Lifetimes and rolled a 6, which was enough for a success and, he hoped, enough to mean that Vecna may not know that his mind had been read;
> 
> * With the secret entrance into Everlost, Orcus's palace of bones on Thanatos, now acquired, all that was required was to cast the Planar Portal to teleport there: I read out to the players the description of Thanatos and the palace from the MotP, and they were glad they hadn't tried for a frontal assault; this also described Thanatos as being "inhospitable even by the standards of the Abyss", and so - although the PCs had Endure Primordial Elements up - I called for the 8th check of the skill challenge - a group Endurance vs Medium DC (ie 31);
> 
> * The dwarf has a +34 bonus, and so the player of the dwarf asked if he could try to shelter someone else - I said he could grant a +2 in return for facing a Hard DC (41), which he did - and he succeeded; the paladin also succeeded, as did the ranger-cleric once the bonus from the dwarf was factored in; the sorcerer failed by with an Easy success, so I docked him a healing surge; the invoker/wizard failed with a result below an Easy success, and so I rolled damage for him - about a healing surge's worth.​
> The session ended there



[/sblock]​


Lanefan said:


> We also can't expect the world to stay still over there while we take care of this mission over here.



But the world can "unfold" - contributing the occasional bit of colour, perhaps appearing in some framing - without contradicting the players' achievements or negating the significance of their choices (including their choice of "this mission" as the thing that they care about).



Lanefan said:


> I see it as well within the DM's purview to drop all sorts of surprises on the characters...some good, some bad. Where it becomes railroading is when such is done out of spite (I've seen this) or to force the party to stay on mission rather than do something else.



Until you tell me how the surprise relates to the _outcomes_ of play, I can't tell you whether or not I would regard it as railroading. Which goes back to the example of the assassination of the Marquis.

If this undoes an apparent victory by the players, then in my view it is railroading, because it's the GM overriding the result(s) of the players' declared and resolved actions, in order to shape the shared fiction in some particular direction.

But if it doesn't, then maybe it's just framing.

With the vampire example, though, I find it hard (not impossible, but hard) to imagine very many cases where the revelation that the sponsor/mentor is really a vampire (an evil undead) would be mere framing. Mostly I would expect the players (and their PCs) to be invested in their sponsor/mentor, and hence would feel that this is a turning of the tables which would be fine as a consequence of some appropriate failure, but objectionable (at my table) as a mere framing device.



Lanefan said:


> what if a player narrates something that contradicts that...even something as simple as the guy admiring his reflection in a mirror.



How does a player get to narrate that a NPC vampire is admiring his reflection in a mirror?



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> <stuff about the example of the baron's raise of taxes making the townsfolk dejected and sullen?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> it's still the DM doing something off-screen that has effects on-screen - so is it framing, railroad, or neither?
Click to expand...


I've answered this, and you even quoted my answer:



pemerton said:


> If the adventure the PCs have just returned from is one in which they won a social conflict with the baron over the level of taxation, then probably yes - it's just fiating a failure over the top of the players' success.
> 
> If the state of the village and the wellbeing of the villagers is something the players (via their PCs) have a clear commitment to, then it doesn't look like railroading but rather framing: it's setting up the situation with which, presumably, the PCs are going to engage. (By pushing the baron to lower taxes.)
> 
> If the village is just somewhere the PCs are passing through, then it seems to be simply colour, and nothing of any significance is going to turn on it.



That seems pretty clear to me.

Also, the GM hasn't actually "done anything" off-screen. The GM tells the players the townsfolk look miserable and sullen. If the players (and their PCs) ignore this, then nothing of any consequence has happened either on-screen or off. If a PC asks "Lo, good burghers - what troubles you?" and they reply "The baron hath raised our taxes", then the backstory is established but it's still not the case that the GM did anything off-screen. The baron did (raised taxes). The GM didn't.

Just as it is often helpful to distinguish the player from the PC, so it is equally useful not to confuse the actions of the GM (eg saying something at the table) with the actions of NPCs and other inhabitants of the gameworld. The GM's action exert real causal power in the real world; the actions of NPCs have imaginary causal power in an imaginary world. When we're talking about _playing the game_, we're mostly interested in the former sorts of actions, I think.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I - the GM - did not know either. The likelihood of the brother having been evil all along was not established as an element of the fiction until I narrated the failure of the attempt to find the mace in the ruin.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I didn't realize this was an element introduced on the fly.
> 
> And that makes it an even bigger problem that it already was! Why?
> 
> Because now every interaction that has ever happened with the brother in previous play has just been invalidated. He was evil all along, it seems, but any previous interactions with him didn't have that sitting there as part of his backstory and-or personality (known only to you-as-GM as he is, I believe, an NPC) and thus couldn't be a part of driving what he did or said. In other words, the internal consistency of that character just took one hell of a beating.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> when a GM is at the helm and knows the surprises ahead of time she can filter what happens in the game (outside what the players do with their own characters) through those unknown elements and thus keep things somewhat consistent.
Click to expand...


Well, first, as a side point, I can assure you that it was not a problem at all, either big or small.

Second, there was no previous interaction with the brother _in play_: only as part of the backstory of two of the PCs (the brother PC had not seen him since his possession; the wizard-assassin PC had been tutored by him subsequent to his possession, and had had some bad experiences in the course of that, leading to her resolution to kill him, flay him and send his soul to . . . [a bad place]).

Third, to the extent that the brother PC's memories of and affection for his brother were invalidated, that's the whole point! That's what makes it a failure. (And that's why I find the notion that "fail forward" means "no real failure" or nothing more than "success with complication" completely misses the point.) As I posted in reply to [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] (post 314):

The PC has chosen to return (for the first time in 14 years) to the site where he last saw his brother; the tower they had to abandon when it was assaulted by orcs; the place where, in trying to fight off those orcs, the brother tried to summon a mighty storm of magical lightning and instead opened up a conduit to hell and was possessed by a balrog.

Having returned, the PC hopes to find the item he was working on, seeking to enchant, when the orcs attacked.

That is not a low stakes situation. It's a high stakes one. The player chose to put all this to the test; and failed.​
If the player wanted to remain safe with his PC's nostalgic memories of his brother, he shouldn't have tried to reclaim his past legacies. But he took the risk. That's the point of the game! (The motto for Burning Wheel is "Fight for what you believe!" The player (and PC) believed that by recovering the lost mace, he could advance his attempt to redeem his brother. But he lost the fight. That's what happens when you fail a check.)

Fourth, I don't know what inconsistencies you are talking about. I'm not aware of any, and have not posted about any in this thread. (Because there were none.)

I've already quoted Paul Czege twice in thread; maybe third time's the charm:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​
Managing backstory and maintaining the consistency of the fiction is of course an important GM function. (Though not a sole GM function: players can remember backstory too, and point out that some new element someone wants to introduce would conflict with the established fiction.) But you don't need to write everything in advance to maintain consistency (as the example of Charles Dickens and his two endings to Great Expectations illustrates).



Lanefan said:


> You're saying the arrows represent a failure; I'd say they represent a success of a sort: it's confirmed that the brother was bent all along.



It's no sort of success. The PC (and player) want to redeem the brother. The mace is envisaged as some sort of means to that end (I can't remember the details anymore). Instead, evidence that the brother may be irredeemable is found. That is failure.

(If the goal of play was _to solve the mystery of the brother_, then learning stuff about him would be a success. But that was not the goal. And up until the moment of revelation, there was no "mystery of the brother" - the PCs who had any opinion of the brother at all both assumed that he had been corrupted by possession.

Again, for emphasis: _solving puzzles is not a very big aspect of play at my table_.)



Lanefan said:


> if this had been known all along there could have been some consistency; and possibilities for roleplay that are now lost: maybe the evil brother let something slip at some point, for example




Thinking in terms of _clues_ is taking things back to a puzzle game. But I'm not mostly playing for puzzles.

Great Expectations has a puzzle element ("Who is Pip's benefactor?") but the main point of the story isn't to guess the answer to the puzzle. It has a second puzzle, too - what is Estella's real relationship to Pip - and Dickens wrote two answers to that one!

In the real world, solving real mysteries, one of the ways that clues work is that there is an actual answer to the question, and the clues are somehow _caused_ by that reality (or perhaps have a cause in common with it). In a fiction, though, it is all authored. Whatever clues are provided are done so as a device by the author; they have no autonomy or independent connection to the fictional situation. So, was the now-decapitated mage's tutoring of his younger brother an act of kindness, or a prelude to some epic moment of exploitation? It can be read either way. That's the nature of clues in fiction.

As to "possibilities for roleplay now lost"; well, possibilities for roleplay were certainly created, and plenty of roleplaying was happening before the discovery also - we weren't just sitting around not knowing what to do with ourselves at the table! - and so I'm not really seeing any cost here.



Lanefan said:


> It can be done provided nobody cares too much about the validity of or consistency with what has gone before.



You keep saying this. But I have NO IDEA what you are basing it on. What inconsistency do you think you've spotted?



Lanefan said:


> I'm not so much confused that other approaches exist, but I am confused as to how they are able to function while maintaining consistency



Maintaining consistency is not all that hard, because most things that happen are consistent with most other things. The peasants being unhappy can be the result of anything from a raise in taxes to the despoiling of a local shrine to a saint. The baron's refusal to allow mirrors in his house could be because he's a vampire, or because he regards them as symbols of the sun god (whom he hates) or because they remind him of his late wife, who loved make-up. (I think it's worth keeping in mind that _no one actually understands all the causal processes that explain the events that happen in the real world_. So there's certainly no need, in order to run a game in a fictional world, to understand or manage all its causal processes.)

I've read a lot of posters over the year who posit that running a player-driven game will produce inconsistency, but it's not actually something I've experienced. (I explained upthread to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] what some of the actual challenges are: in Burning Wheel, framing (and I would say this can be a challenge in 4e also); in MHRP, adjudicating consequences (and in 4e this can be an issue for skill challenges, but is not an issue for combat resolution).)


----------



## The Crimson Binome

pemerton said:


> No. It is literally, objectively true that the brother's past moral status was authored, and thereby became an element of the shared fiction, at that moment of play. But that is not a causal event in the game.



In any objective linear-time causal reality, every element is settled in sequential order, with past elements resolving before later elements. That's part of the definition. If this is not the case, then you are not playing in an objective linear-time causal reality.

This is not the case in the example you are citing, and thus, the characters do not exist in an objective linear-time causal reality. Your characters are just characters in a story, which is governed by narrative convention. There _is_ no underlying model.


pemerton said:


> As a general proposition, it's not true that the time sequence of authoring a fiction must correspond to the time sequence of events within the fiction. This general proposition applies also to RPGs.



An RPG is not authored fiction. You're not all sitting around a table, bidding over narrative control to see who gets to author any given element of some story that you're collectively telling. The backstory and setting may be authored as fiction would, but once the actual _game_ begins, it is just a process of determining how things progress from that premise. The contents of the chest on the seventh floor of the dungeon, hidden behind the throne, are set in stone before the PCs ever enter that room (if they ever do).

At least, that's the case if you're trying to model any sort of objective linear-time causal reality, as the method of play is described in various editions of the rulebooks. It may not be the case in very old editions, and even 4E would make much more sense if you assumed it was _intentionally_ deviating from that style.


----------



## pemerton

Saelorn said:


> In any objective linear-time causal reality, every element is settled in sequential order



Which it was. Something-or-other made the brother evil; this made him a fit object for possession; hence he became possessed, once his failed spell casting opened the magical channel to make this possible.



Saelorn said:


> This is not the case in the example you are citing



Again, you seem to be confused between the time sequence in the imaginary world, and the time sequence in the real world. As any number of examples reveal (including the Great Expectations one that I mentioned), the time sequence of authorship of episodes in the real world, and the time sequence of events in an imaginary world that are depicted or recounted in those episodes, are not in general correlated.



Saelorn said:


> An RPG is not authored fiction.



I've got shelves full of setting books, and (virtual) pages of actual play reports, that disagree with you here. I can (and have) pointed to the moments in play where certain imaginary events becomes elements of the shared fiction.



Saelorn said:


> You're not all sitting around a table, bidding over narrative control to see who gets to author any given element of some story that you're collectively telling.



Correct. That doesn't sound like a RPG to me. For instance, it doesn't have the element of "PC inhabitation" that is pretty central to most RPGing.

But that is not the only way to collectively author a fiction. (As the actual practice of RPGing shows.)



Saelorn said:


> The backstory and setting may be authored as fiction would, but once the actual _game_ begins, it is just a process of determining how things progress from that premise. The contents of the chest on the seventh floor of the dungeon, hidden behind the throne, are set in stone before the PCs ever enter that room (if they ever do).



That's not true as a general proposition. For instance, it was very common in the early days of D&D play for the referee to roll the treasure _after_ the encounter was resolved. (The original Empire of the Petal Throne rulebook canvasses this sort of procedure, for instance.)

In the AD&D books Gygax encourages the referee to roll in advance, but not in order to preserve "linear-time causal reality" but in order to eliminate head-scratchers like "Why didn't the orcs use the sword +1 that was just rolled up?"

The technique of starting a campaign small, with a single village or dungeon or whatever, and then constructing the gameworld - both geographically and historically - around that continues to be pretty standard, I think, and clearly that does not conform to your stated account of how RPGing works.

_Finding out what unfolds from a given starting point_ is one way of RPGing, but has never been the only way and I'm not even sure it has ever been the dominant way.


----------



## pemerton

Jester David said:


> I don't give a flying eff about your preferred style, your campaign, or if you like my style.
> 
> I care about you describing my style with derogatory terms.



Are you the same Jester David as this poster?



Jester David said:


> Optimizing is just a euphemism treadmill for minmaxing. Which, in turn, is derived from being power gaming and/ or munchkin.
> 
> Not a fan of optimizing. It's detrimental to the table. It's setting out to "win" D&D through the mechanics.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's disruptive.



Just curious.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Then I think you've misunderstood the situation (as is evident by your comparison of it to "a shopping trip".
> 
> You seem to be conflating "stakes" with "risk of physical danger". Searching the ruins for a lost mace is low risk in that sense. But it is not low stakes. The PC has chosen to return (for the first time in 14 years) to the site where he last saw his brother; the tower they had to abandon when it was assaulted by orcs; the place where, in trying to fight off those orcs, the brother tried to summon a mighty storm of magical lightning and instead opened up a conduit to hell and was possessed by a balrog.
> 
> Having returned, the PC hopes to find the item he was working on, seeking to enchant, when the orcs attacked.
> 
> That is not a low stakes situation. It's a high stakes one. The player chose to put all this to the test; and failed.



No, it's not.  Success would have been getting a mace, and not even a magical one.  That's not high stakes because the reward fir success is small.  The cost of failure wasn't negotiated beforehand, you arbitrarily decided to fundamentally alter the players back story, thereby invalidating one of thier goals.  This is wildly out of proportion, which is why I compared it to a shopping trip vs world devestation.  It's the same level of hidden high risks with low rewards.

And, I never said there had to be physical danger.  Please don't add words.

Also, I'm confused by something else, here.  The result of the search was that the player found some black, cursed arrows in his brother's lab.  Who established this meant the brother had always been evil, you or the player?


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> No, it's not.  Success would have been getting a mace, and not even a magical one.  That's not high stakes because the reward fir success is small.  The cost of failure wasn't negotiated beforehand, you arbitrarily decided to fundamentally alter the players back story, thereby invalidating one of thier goals.



I've told you what was at stake. I've told you what it was that the player was putting on the line. I'm not sure how you think that you - who were not present - know better than me - who was present - what was at stake.

I'm also not sure why you continue to frame the stakes in terms of _material reward_. I've already explained that that was not the essence of the situation.

I also don't understand your use of the word "arbitrarily". This wasn't arbitrary. It was reasoned, and conformed with an "intent and task" approach to adjudication of failure: the PC's task succeeded, in so far as he found items that the brothers left behind in the ruins when they fled; but his intent failed, in so far as what he found was not what he had hoped to find.



Ovinomancer said:


> It's the same level of hidden high risks with low rewards.



On what basis do you assert that the risk was hidden? I've told you what was at stake. The player knew that this was what was at stake. His PC had brought the group back to the ruined tower, the first time the PC had returned there since fleeing the attacking orcs 14 years ago. This was a big deal at the table.



Ovinomancer said:


> The result of the search was that the player found some black, cursed arrows in his brother's lab.  Who established this meant the brother had always been evil, you or the player?



From memory, the player attempted - and failed - an aura reading check to confirm his confident belief that the arrows were not made by his brother.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I've told you what was at stake. I've told you what it was that the player was putting on the line. I'm not sure how you think that you - who were not present - know better than me - who was present - what was at stake.
> 
> I'm also not sure why you continue to frame the stakes in terms of _material reward_. I've already explained that that was not the essence of the situation.



Because that's what you've indicated the results of a success would be -- the finding of a non-magical mace.  What, praytell, would be the big reward that accompanied the finding of a mace?

Look, I see that the framing was of something big -- the return should have something interesting involved to justify the framing.  But the check was to find a mace.  A nonmagical mace.  That's not high stakes, that's pretty darn low stakes.  You didn't offer anything on the success side to warrant the high cost failure.  If you want a high cost failure on one side, you should balance it with a big reward on the other -- not a mace.



> I also don't understand your use of the word "arbitrarily". This wasn't arbitrary. It was reasoned, and conformed with an "intent and task" approach to adjudication of failure: the PC's task succeeded, in so far as he found items that the brothers left behind in the ruins when they fled; but his intent failed, in so far as what he found was not what he had hoped to find.



The arbitrary bit was that you could have decided to put anything else there -- a monster lurking, a clue to some other puzzle, anything, but instead choice, arbitrarily, to provide evidence that completely reframed the player's backstory (you authored part of the player's story for him) and that invalidated one of the player's main goals in play.  That's looking pretty arbitrary from here.  Did you skip telling us the part where the player asked for such a possible outcome?  Had I been the player, I would have been upset that the looking for a mace had that result, especially if it was spur of the moment.


> On what basis do you assert that the risk was hidden? I've told you what was at stake. The player knew that this was what was at stake. His PC had brought the group back to the ruined tower, the first time the PC had returned there since fleeing the attacking orcs 14 years ago. This was a big deal at the table.



The player knew he was risking one of their goals and a major change to their backstory when they went looking for a mace?  Okay.  I suppose if you told them you'd negate one of their goals if they failed the check to look for a mace and they went with it, I don't have a problem with that.  However, you haven't said this up front, yet, that you established the stakes before the check was made.


> From memory, the player attempted - and failed - an aura reading check to confirm his confident belief that the arrows were not made by his brother.



It's very, very difficult to argue a point based on your presentation when you don't present the whole story.

But, again, on this failure, did you author that the brother was evil or did the player?  Finding cursed arrows, even knowing they were made by the brother, would not prove guilt to me.  There are a ton of other explanation that fit, especially in a game where facts are ephemeral until a failed search for a mace occurs and then they pop out and influence past events.


----------



## S'mon

pdzoch said:


> I think the closest I've come to railroading a party could be in the adventure itself.  I can only have one adventure in the can at a time.  Once it's prepared, they either play it or we don't play at all.




This is something I definitely try to avoid while GMing. Not always successfully, but I think I can accommodate proactive players. The big problem is when players say "We don't do that" but then instead of being proactive they just sit back and say "What else happens?" Logically there aren't an infinite number of hooks ready to drop into their laps, especially at higher level.


----------



## Emerikol

pemerton said:


> That is the first style that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] called out in post 73 upthread, using "Free Kriegsspiel" as a label but pointing beyond it's literal meaning to the sort of game you describe. I associate this style especially with B/X, Classic Traveller, and Gygaxian AD&D.
> 
> I assume you think it is up to the _players_, rather than the GM, to decide who the PCs will try and ally with, and who they will oppose?
> 
> I would also guess that you tend to think of "story" as something comes out after the game has been played, as a retrospective reflection on the events of play.




You read my style correctly (I think).   And contrary to what others may have interpreted from my post, I was just giving the style I prefer.  I've decided it's really just a preference.  Roleplaying conceptually has fragmented into a variety of styles and that is not a terrible thing.  In fact it is a sign of health in the hobby.  And I agree that some games favor one style more than others but I also think that in many cases different styles can be used.  For example, I would think that Dungeon World played as intended by its designers is not my style.


----------



## Emerikol

pemerton said:


> That is the first style that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] called out in post 73 upthread, using "Free Kriegsspiel" as a label but pointing beyond it's literal meaning to the sort of game you describe. I associate this style especially with B/X, Classic Traveller, and Gygaxian AD&D.
> 
> I assume you think it is up to the _players_, rather than the GM, to decide who the PCs will try and ally with, and who they will oppose?
> 
> I would also guess that you tend to think of "story" as something comes out after the game has been played, as a retrospective reflection on the events of play.




I do try as the designer of the world to populate it with a lot of diverse NPC's with a large variety of agendas and objectives.  So it is easy for the PC's to pick and choose who they ally with.  Often the story evolves out of the conflict between said agenda's and who the PC's choose to side with or oppose.


----------



## pdzoch

S'mon said:


> This is something I definitely try to avoid while GMing. Not always successfully, but I think I can accommodate proactive players. The big problem is when players say "We don't do that" but then instead of being proactive they just sit back and say "What else happens?" Logically there aren't an infinite number of hooks ready to drop into their laps, especially at higher level.




I use a technique that appears to be "reverse branching" to create a variety of different hooks that provide different motivations (and sometimes goals and rewards) to embark on the adventure.  Sometimes the hook choice will cause start point to vary a little, but it is ultimately the same adventure.  Some of the prepared material might not be used, but that is always the case (just as not all the treasure is found by the party when they adventure).  I often refer to the branching design of the adventure as creating choices for the character, while the variety of hooks leading to the same adventure as creating the illusion of choice.  It is still a choice, but they are still going on the adventure I created.


----------



## S'mon

pdzoch said:


> I use a technique that appears to be "reverse branching" to create a variety of different hooks that provide different motivations (and sometimes goals and rewards) to embark on the adventure.  Sometimes the hook choice will cause start point to vary a little, but it is ultimately the same adventure.  Some of the prepared material might not be used, but that is always the case (just as not all the treasure is found by the party when they adventure).  I often refer to the branching design of the adventure as creating choices for the character, while the variety of hooks leading to the same adventure as creating the illusion of choice.  It is still a choice, but they are still going on the adventure I created.



I do that too, but I think it's important to be able to wing it when players go off script. A few simple tools like some maps and state blocks can go a long way when players are proactive. Content generation tables can help too - I especially like flavour generating tables.


----------



## hawkeyefan

S'mon said:


> I do that too, but I think it's important to be able to wing it when players go off script. A few simple tools like some maps and state blocks can go a long way when players are proactive. Content generation tables can help too - I especially like flavour generating tables.




I think flexibility is huge. It's why I don't really describe my playstyle or DM style in one way. I think it's best to vary up the approach and use whatever tools fit the job or that will create the most dynamic encounter or adventure.

This is why any time someone puts forth a very specific description of how they run games, it seems odd to me. Not that there's anything wrong with it...I just don't think there is only one way that's best in all circumstances.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> on this failure, did you author that the brother was evil or did the player?  Finding cursed arrows, even knowing they were made by the brother, would not prove guilt to me.  There are a ton of other explanation that fit, especially in a game where facts are ephemeral until a failed search for a mace occurs and then they pop out and influence past events.



The ruined tower contained cursed arrows - of the sort used by an orc to slay the mater of the elven "ronin" - and they were made by the brother.

That's the state of play vis-a-vis the arrows.

When the brother PC finally saw his brother - at the docks in Hardby, viewing the arrival by boat of a holy man to preside at the wedding of the Gynarch of Hardby and Jabal of the Cabal, the mage in whose tower the decapitation took place - he pitied him, and once again resolved to try and save him.

Now that the brother is dead, that redemption will have to be of the supernatural, spirit-cleansing sort.

More generally, the poiint of a player's goal for his PC is to have something to push towards and to fight for. There's no guarantee that the goals will be realised. Sometimes hopes are empty, ambitions dashed.


----------



## Lanefan

Not sure how far I'll get witht his right now, but here goes...







Manbearcat said:


> It didn't exist at all (that is, it wasn't an established part of the fiction/play conversation) until the Elf fell in.  The snowbridge-covered crevasse didn't exist until the Scout roll was failed on the Undertake a Perilous Journey move.



It wasn't an established part of the fiction as nobody had yet interacted with it, but was it on the DM's map?  Or was the complex even pre-mapped at all? (if not, you're so far away from anything I can relate to you might as well be speaking Russian of Swahili or some other language I don't know a word of)  



> Earthmaw did exist as a result of action resolution in a prior scene (as I noted in the initial post I linked you).  The players were heading across the dangerous frozen wilderness to resupply and beseech the Hobgoblin King for aid and audience with the Blizzard/White Dragon Averandox that claimed the highlands as its domain.
> 
> So while the rest of the group made it to Earthmaw proper after getting out of the crevasse pickle, the elf splashed down in a freezing underground river that led to Earthmaw's garbage basement.  This course was fraught with serious peril (exposure/monsters/being thrust right into the middle of the "Aliens" trope siege of Earthmaw) and threatened to put a serious monkey-wrench in future parley with the Hobgoblin King.
> 
> So...he did make to Earthmaw...just not how he had intended (and with serious complications/obstacles to deal with/ovrercome).  This is classic Fail Forward.



My terminology might be more Fail Sideways in this case, but this all seems like normal run-of-play stuff where someone hit what amounts to a chute trap and has to find their way back to the party via some dangers.  But, a bit more info (or clarification) needed:

1. Was the trap (for such it is) already on the DM's map or did it suddenly spring into existence at the moment you needed to come up with a failure result?  If pre-present, see next question.  If spur-of-the-moment, the you're into "GM Force" territory...probably not in a bad way, but it's there.

2. If the trap was a pre-planned thing, then (to cover what some others might be thinking) was there some warning given of it so the party knew to be careful?  If not, you're into "gotcha" territory, which I personally have no issue with but others - for whatever reason - do.



> If you're wondering "why isn't this Fail Forward an instance of GM Force(?)", then this would be a perfect point to have a conversation about the nuance of GMing techniques, GMing principles, and play procedures.  If you do get why it isn't, then good deal!



We could have such a conversation but I think it would almost immediately become over-analysis...we're proabaly there already, for all that.  



> Games like DW are good with, and actively encourage, stuff that is pretty much just mechanical markers that are indirect proxies for other stuff (HP are whatever the hell they are...Adventuring Gear, Ammo, Bag of Books, etc are just a number (typically 1 - 4) to reflect an abstract resource) to be made transparent.  Strike(!), 13th Age, and 4e is the same way although 4e is a bit more "do whatever you want but here is the advantage of doing it this way" about it.
> 
> Beyond that, just on a personal note, I have long...long...long since made system artifacts like HP that just serve as mechanical markers transparent to my players.



At massive cost of immersion and realism.  The character, as the character, has no way of knowing how tough that particular foe it until well into a combat with it, and even then only in general terms.  From a standpoint of character knowledge = player knowledge there's no way I could ever get behind your method, and were I in your game I'd lobby hard for you NOT to tell us such things.



> (1) It decreases table handling time in action/scene resolution and (2) the PC would understand in the game exactly whatever it is supposed to mean in the fiction.  So I want my players to be oriented in that same way/occupy that same head-space.  Otherwise, they're filtering their OODA Loop through me in a side conversation game of "how do I extract this information that my character would have but I, the player, can only engage with these system artifacts".



Except the character doesn't have that information.  This isn't a video game where the opponents go around with little green/red bars over their heads showing their health status...particularly opponents where the characters alomst certainly don't even know its physiology (as in, the Aboleth) and thus would likely have a hard time knowing whether what they were doing to it was having much effect or not, until it started to fall apart.  



> Basically...D&D gave us the elegant mechanical marker of HPs to deal with (along with turn-based combat rounds and initiative, action economy, Armor Class, etc etc).  The machinery is what it is.  System architecture to orient players (not PCs) and more easily facilitate action resolution.  It isn't the fiction and it can't translate directly to the fiction.



Well, some of it can if you let it; and if you don't let the mechanics dictate everything.  What's realistic?  The black knight foe is wearing heavy armour thus will likely be harder to damage - fine.  But that doesn't tell the characters what else the knight might have going for it...or not...so there's absolutely no reason to tell anybody its AC.

Strict turn-based combat rounds where everything else freezes while one participant acts are awful.  Combat is fluid, and where this can be reflected by the mechanics it should be even if it takes a bit more time (e.g. rerolling initiative each round).  Action economy...yeah, that's a new-age thing.



> Happily, Dungeon World doesn't have loads and loads of HPs!  It doesn't have Initiative!  It doesn't have Action Economy!  It doesn't have AC!  It has fiction.  It has elegant action resolution mechanics.  It has very clear play procedures.  It has tightly integrated reward cycles and resources.  It has a coherent agenda and principles.



I have to take your word for all this. 



> If that would have been a B/X scenario, then there would have been much more prep.  B/X requires multiple fully prepped (mapped + stocked + keyed + Wandering Monsters) dungeons of varying levels/settings/themes.  Players figure out where they want to go in the Town phase of play and off we go.



Depends on style.  Me, I've usually got one adventure in the can and maybe one or two others in mind (but by no means fully prepped) in case they throw me a curveball.  If I've got three adventures fully prepped that means I've got a scenario in mind where they're going to hit all three. 



> Dungeon World prep is not just extremely lighter, but in its own lightness it is different than B/X prep.



However, it occurs to me there's a counterbalance you might be ignoring: a system where much is made up on the fly is going to require meticulous note-taking both at the time and afterwards in order that consistency be preserved down the road...far more so than B/X, where much of that is done during prep and the only recordkeeping later needs be what the PCs actually did; and for this often broad-brush strokes will do.  So, in a DW-like system I suspect there's almost as much work involved, but back-loaded as opposed to B/X where it's front-loaded.

I'm not one at all for taking notes during a game unless I absolutely have to - I can't talk (or listen) and write at the same time, so for me to take notes everything grinds to a halt.



> Well, that is B/X for you.  Its actually extremely easy to GM.  The mechanics are elegant, intuitive, and extremely light-weight and coherent compared to AD&D.  Its basically Exploration Turns + Rest + Encounters + Monster Reactions + Combat + Pursuit and Evasion + Wandering Monsters and the little subtle nuances therein.  A GM who has run it more than once will be able to run it simply (and the rulebooks are beautifully put together and easily referencable...though you likely won't need to).
> 
> The B/X version of action resolution for something like your describing is different than AD&D (where you're rolling below Dex/NWPs).  B/X handles that stuff with 1d6 and typically with a 1 (or sometimes 1 and 2) and you've got success.



I'm more used to 1e-style mechanics...which can also be (or be made to be) elegant and coherent, and can almost run itself once you've done it a few times (and the same can probably be said for 'most any half-decent system out there).  



> Dungeon World has a melee move for if you're actively engaged in an exchange with a worthy opponent.  No exchange/worthy opponent and/or the fiction presents the situation that you should just deal your damage (or be afforded the choice to straight kill your adversary), then that is what you do.



Were it me, that's something I'd change, as I always want there to be a chance of failure (or, when something is near-but-not-quite impossible, success).  Nothing's guaranteed: the held goblin could squirm just at the wrong moment, or the Elf could be distracted by the other Goblins and miss (or, in a game with fumble possibilities, cut his own thumb), or whatever.



> B/X does have a roll to hit, but this goblin would not engage in combat (due to morale 2 or below), so its irrelevant.



Realistically, morale goes out the window when something is threatened with imminent death, so that captured Goblin would squirm and bite and do whatever it could once it saw the dagger coming. (and mechanics be damned)



> By themselves, these little, pathetic goblin laborers aren't even the slightest threat to a level 3 Elven Arcane Duelist (or he may have been 4 at that point...can't recall) or level 3 B/X Elf (2 first level spells and 1 second).



Probably not, but if the Elf misses maybe the Goblins start thinking they do have a chance... 



> In B/X, time passed (due to Exploration Turns) triggering the Wandering Monster clock would do the heavy lifting in what you describe above.
> 
> In DW, I'd be thinking about the Aboleth while we play (it did come back into play later...as well as several others during the parley with the Hobgoblin King!).



As the Aboleth is a known foe (as opposed to a true wandering monster) at this point, I'd be treating it more like an NPC with its own agenda, based on whatever brains it might have.  If it's smart its movements and actions would reflect this (maybe it goes and gets its buddies and they set up an ambush); if it's stupid it would move more randomly, or not at all.



> The overhead for a DW GM with what you're talking about is when and how to use that Aboleth.  There are two ways:
> 
> *  *"Soft Move"*:   This can be the initial framing of a situation or a 7-9 result on a player move where I do something like "reveal an unwelcome truth", "show signs of an approaching threat", "grant an opportunity with a cost", or "put someone in a spot"  It doesn't have immediate, irrevocable consequences.  However, if the players don't respond to/deal with the situation then they've presented me a golden opportunity for a "Hard Move."
> 
> Lets go back to Aliens.  Think of the trope where someone sees either signs of acid burning through fuselage/structure or they see signs of slimy goop and what looks like something just molted.  The Elf could have easily come across signs of either (this happened later in the DW game), except its nasty mucous haze rather than acid.



I've never seen Aliens (not the least bit interested) so the analogy is lost on me.



> * *"Hard Move"*:  This happens when the player(s) ignores or doesn't appropriately deal with my soft move.  Or it can be triggered by a player move that results in a 6 or less.  Now I might decide to "use a monster/danger/location move", "deal damage", "use up their resources", etc.  The lurking Aboleth jumps on them from above, disorienting them with their mucous haze or burgeoning mind magic, and attempts to devour them!



Where I'd try and put myself in the mind of that Aboleth and have it act as it would naturally act, given what I-as-DM know about it.  And this is (or should be) system-independent: monsters have their own intelligence, their own motivations, and sometimes their own agendae; and in all instances this is what would drive their actions once they become aware of the PCs.  The PCs do what they do, the monster does what it does, and sooner or later they're either gonna interact with each other or they're not.



> In light of my response, do you have any thoughts about any of those instances being GM Force?



I think that definition you quoted (and I'll re-quote here):


			
				Quote said:
			
		

> "...an instance of play where (a) the GM suspends/subordinates the action resolution mechanics to impose their preferred outcome or (b) undermines the impact on play of a/the player(s) thematically/strategically/tactically significant choices (these choices could be at build-stage or during play)."



is again too broad, particularly clause (b), as read literally it tells me that no matter what else is involved the players (and PCs) always have to win unless for some reason they intentionally choose not to.  They're always right.  Their choices can't be gainsaid, or be later proven foolish or wrong or to have unforeseen ill effects (foreseen ill effects would be part of the choice process at the time, one assumes).

Reading clause (b) literally it tells me that even if I-as-DM have prepped the first adventure as a stealth mission (with the specific intention of making it low-combat and thus perhaps a bit safer for 1st-level types) I can't run it if the players all decide to bring in heavy metal tank PCs as I'd be undermining their significant choices.  Balderdash.



> Just for quick clarity, a GM "saying yes" to a player proposal can never be a case of GM Force, even if the GM thinks the direction that play will go as a result of the player's proposal is thematically coherent or interesting.  GM Force is about the mesh of system agency, player agency, and the trajectory of play being subordinate to GM fiat.



What's getting lost here (perhaps by design) is the idea that it's first and foremost the DM's game, as shown by some Gygax quotes earlier this thread.  This is a philosophy I still subscribe to, both as player and DM.

Lan-"appreciative of the thought you're putting into this, even if I don't agree with much of it"-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> The ruined tower contained cursed arrows - of the sort used by an orc to slay the mater of the elven "ronin" - and they were made by the brother.
> 
> That's the state of play vis-a-vis the arrows.
> 
> When the brother PC finally saw his brother - at the docks in Hardby, viewing the arrival by boat of a holy man to preside at the wedding of the Gynarch of Hardby and Jabal of the Cabal, the mage in whose tower the decapitation took place - he pitied him, and once again resolved to try and save him.
> 
> Now that the brother is dead, that redemption will have to be of the supernatural, spirit-cleansing sort.
> 
> More generally, the poiint of a player's goal for his PC is to have something to push towards and to fight for. There's no guarantee that the goals will be realised. Sometimes hopes are empty, ambitions dashed.



We're sidetracking, although that's a non-answer.  You previously stated unequivocally that the arrows meant the brother was evil prior to possession.  This was the basis of my question.

More on point, you didn't answer what stakes were involved.  Stakes are what you risk and what you hope to gain.  Stakes are not returning to an emotionally fraught place.  That's setting, not what's at risk/reward.  I think this may be another place where you're using a non-standard definition of terms to the detriment of understanding, like with your use of railroading to means "not improved at the table with a say yes playstyle".

Railroading normally means a forced overall outcome to a challenge. It's too blunt to be used in reference to a single ruling, although a single ruling can be part of the evidence towards railroading.  In the blood situation, railroading would be if the DM decided there was no way to collect blood, period, and ruled to thwart all attempts.  A single ruling that they is no available bowl or urn in the room isn't Railroading by itself, but it may be part of other rulings that end up as Railroading.  Saying no to urns but agreeing with the use of a helm, for example, isn't an example of railroading.
 [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s use of DM force for such a ruling is somewhat more useful, being an attempt to describe the phenomenon of DM ruling in a more neutral way, but still sounds a tad negative to me.  I prefer just using ruling, as it also indicates it's a DM choice but doesn't have a negative connotation.  

As such, rulings are a playstyle choice that can work within a broader, more permissive say yes framework or a fail forward one, or in a more DM driven playstyle.  I see no need to appropriate a pejorative term like railroading to describe playstyle that differ from your own, and then double down with wide eyed innocence that anyone might take issue with your rebranding.


----------



## Manbearcat

S'mon said:


> This is something I definitely try to avoid while GMing. Not always successfully, but I think I can accommodate proactive players. The big problem is when players say "We don't do that" but then instead of being proactive they just sit back and say "What else happens?" Logically there aren't an infinite number of hooks ready to drop into their laps, especially at higher level.




This brings up a point I tried to touch on earlier in the thread.  

Games that are player-driven are very demanding on those participants.  If you aren't prepared to thematically load a gun-toting paladin in a world shot through with sin and subtle supernatural influence...if you aren't prepared to be vulnerable, have flaws, figure out what you're willing to risk and where you might shamefully fold (when maybe you should have raised) as you mete out justice in the wild frontier...if you aren't prepared to lose loved ones, maybe lose dignity/heart/your way, and die tragically while you advocate hard for your faith...

...then you shouldn't be a player in a Dogs in the Vineyard game.

And there are a LOT of those players out there.  Lots and lots and lots of players just want to casually tour a beloved setting, be taken for a ride on an interesting metaplot, and characterize a quirky/interesting PC while (the GM assists in ensuring that) bad guys fall in their wake.  And there are lots and lots and lots of GMs who want to tell heroic fantasy stories and take players on a tour through a beloved setting (that they've created or they've studied intensively).

The techniques of GM Force and Illusionism (and the ultimate realization of it in railroading) may very well be absolutely necessary for those players to derive enjoyment from RPGing (without feeling burdened).  They may be necessary for GMs who have stories to tell/settings to set into action and put on display.  Railroading GMs and players who enjoy it don't need to hide shamefully in the corner.  It is a legitimate style of play where GM agency is prioritized over player-agency to ensure the experience that all participants at the table are looking for.  

It shouldn't be something that is shunned.  It is just a set of GMing techniques that, when deployed, ensure certain play priorities (which supersede other play priorities) become manifest at the table.  

* But you can examine the hierarchy of play priorities and why one is at the top.
* And you can examine the priorities that are superseded (and how they might be infringed upon, if they are).
* And you can examine the GMing techniques and systems that put into effect that prioritization.

And neither the actual examination/analysis of GM Force nor the reality that groups/GMs actually enjoy railroading (and don't need to shrink from that...which is why whenever I see someone come out and say it, I find it commendable) need be some sort of taboo.


----------



## pdzoch

S'mon said:


> I do that too, but I think it's important to be able to wing it when players go off script. A few simple tools like some maps and state blocks can go a long way when players are proactive. Content generation tables can help too - I especially like flavour generating tables.




I agree. DM's have to be prepared to describe the world when the player's go off script.  However, it is much easier to do so when a framework is already present and nodes within the branching framework can be presented as opportunities to remain on track and towards the goals the players have chosen.  Spare tables and charts are the staple of any agile DM for these situations.  But there is a difference between "going off script" because the players are developing new and unexpected solutions and "going off script" because the players because they have decided to abandon the adventure goal (which is, I suppose, still an option).


----------



## Lanefan

Again not sure I'll have time to hit all of this, but I can make a start...


pemerton said:


> An error that arises from treating something as being an instance of a type that it is not.
> 
> And describing something as neither true nor false in the fiction at a certain time _within the fiction_ (eg the time when the PC looks for the mace) because _at that time in the real world the answer hasn't been authored yet_ is a category error, as it attributes a property of the real world (_is the moment at which a piece of fiction is authored_) to the fictional world - whereas, in the fictional world, events arent _authored_ at all, but arise through the (fictional, imagined) causal processes that govern the gameworld



More on this below I hope, but my point here is that in the real world the answer should have been authored beforehand.  That's what the DM is for.



> But isn't magic item identification by trial and error almost the textbook example of a puzzle (not for the PCs, but for the players). Eg:
> 
> Player: I pull on the boots.
> 
> GM: Your steps feel somewhat lighter.
> 
> Player: OK, they're either Boots of Levitation or Boots of Striding and Springing. I try to jump over the treasure chest!​
> I think the resemblance to 20 questions - a classic puzzle-solving game - is pretty evident.



Perhaps - but there's still a mystery involved, even in (in this example) rather superficial.



> So much depend on what the "already there" refers to. Is it the 12 deities imprisoned beneath the ruins of Castle Greyhawk, which Robilar unleashed? That's absolutely a player imposing his will on the fiction.



No, it's a player reacting in character (Robilar) to the fiction that's already in place (there's 12 deities down there and I'm bustin' 'em out).



> Is the "already there" a whole series of "character arcs" for NPCs, towns and regions, etc, that the GM has mapped out? Then to me it seems like the player is primarily contributing some colour to a pre-determined series of events.



The characters are doing what they can to influence said arcs.  Sometimes they'll succeed, sometimes they'll fail, and the arcs will roll on taking whatever they've done into account.  Kinda like the real world. 



> This is why I will pilfer situations from modules - set-ups that are just waiting for the players (via their PCs) to "set them in motion" - but am not interested in a module's prescripted sequence of events and metaplot.



I very rarely use a published module's backstory, but I almost always have a backstory of my own to replace it with.



> If stuff happened that _matters_ to the game, in the sense of engaging or involving stuff that is core to the PCs (and hence their players), then the situation might continue to be important. It would inform framing; inform the narration of consequences for failure. But none of that requires the GM to give the town its own "character arc"!



Yet without doing so how can you inform yourself what's going on in the town and by extension what filters any interactions with the townsfolk may have?

I'm not saying by any means that the DM needs to work out every little thing - life's too short for that.  But a bit of logical continuity (and maybe some dice rolling) isn't much of a stretch.



> Here's an example of play (from my main 4e game)



I'll get to this later, no time now.



> But the world can "unfold" - contributing the occasional bit of colour, perhaps appearing in some framing - without contradicting the players' achievements or negating the significance of their choices (including their choice of "this mission" as the thing that they care about).



Which tells me, when read literally, that you can't have a situation where what the players think of as a great achievement is in fact a monumental screw-up.  They help overthrow the Duke and put a new one on the throne...great achievement, they've been working on it for years!  The new Duke by your words cannot then turn out to be a far worse choice than the old one, learned by the PCs a year later when they pass back through town, as this would "contradict [their] achievements".  Bah.



> If this undoes an apparent victory by the players, then in my view it is railroading, because it's the GM overriding the result(s) of the players' declared and resolved actions, in order to shape the shared fiction in some particular direction.
> 
> But if it doesn't, then maybe it's just framing.



Same response as above re what looks like a win not always being one.  Only I don't call it (or derogatize it as) railroading, nor see it as such.



> With the vampire example, though, I find it hard (not impossible, but hard) to imagine very many cases where the revelation that the sponsor/mentor is really a vampire (an evil undead) would be mere framing. Mostly I would expect the players (and their PCs) to be invested in their sponsor/mentor, and hence would feel that this is a turning of the tables which would be fine as a consequence of some appropriate failure, but objectionable (at my table) as a mere framing device.



Vampire =/= evil.  Third time I've said this.



> How does a player get to narrate that a NPC vampire is admiring his reflection in a mirror?



If the players can share in the fiction (and thus its narration), then what's to stop it?



> I've answered this, and you even quoted my answer:
> 
> ...etc....
> 
> That seems pretty clear to me.
> 
> Also, the GM hasn't actually "done anything" off-screen. The GM tells the players the townsfolk look miserable and sullen. If the players (and their PCs) ignore this, then nothing of any consequence has happened either on-screen or off. If a PC asks "Lo, good burghers - what troubles you?" and they reply "The baron hath raised our taxes", then the backstory is established but it's still not the case that the GM did anything off-screen. The baron did (raised taxes). The GM didn't.



The Baron's an NPC.  The DM runs the NPCs.  Thus, if the Baron did something then by extension I as DM did it.

Seems kind of obvious, really. 



> Just as it is often helpful to distinguish the player from the PC, so it is equally useful not to confuse the actions of the GM (eg saying something at the table) with the actions of NPCs and other inhabitants of the gameworld. The GM's action exert real causal power in the real world; the actions of NPCs have imaginary causal power in an imaginary world. When we're talking about _playing the game_, we're mostly interested in the former sorts of actions, I think.



Why is it helpful to distinguish the player from the PC when talking about in-character or in-game-world stuff where the difference should be as little as possible.



> Well, first, as a side point, I can assure you that it was not a problem at all, either big or small.
> 
> Second, there was no previous interaction with the brother _in play_: only as part of the backstory of two of the PCs (the brother PC had not seen him since his possession; the wizard-assassin PC had been tutored by him subsequent to his possession, and had had some bad experiences in the course of that, leading to her resolution to kill him, flay him and send his soul to . . . [a bad place]).



OK, so no previous interaction.  All is good.



> Fourth, I don't know what inconsistencies you are talking about. I'm not aware of any, and have not posted about any in this thread. (Because there were none.)



As is evidenced by your noting there weren't any prior interactions.

So.  What if there had been?



> I've already quoted Paul Czege twice in thread; maybe third time's the charm:
> 
> I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​



Where for significant NPCs I want their personality and relevant backstory pretty much nailed down ahead of time as those things will (and must) be a filter on whatever interactions that NPC has with the PCs along the way.



> (If the goal of play was _to solve the mystery of the brother_, then learning stuff about him would be a success. But that was not the goal. And up until the moment of revelation, there was no "mystery of the brother" - the PCs who had any opinion of the brother at all both assumed that he had been corrupted by possession.
> 
> Again, for emphasis: _solving puzzles is not a very big aspect of play at my table_.)
> 
> Thinking in terms of _clues_ is taking things back to a puzzle game. But I'm not mostly playing for puzzles.



Or mystery, it seems...but I'll have to get back to this later.

Lan-"lunchtime!"-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> This brings up a point I tried to touch on earlier in the thread.
> 
> Games that are player-driven are very demanding on those participants.  If you aren't prepared to thematically load a gun-toting paladin in a world shot through with sin and subtle supernatural influence...if you aren't prepared to be vulnerable, have flaws, figure out what you're willing to risk and where you might shamefully fold (when maybe you should have raised) as you mete out justice in the wild frontier...if you aren't prepared to lose loved ones, maybe lose dignity/heart/your way, and die tragically while you advocate hard for your faith...
> 
> ...then you shouldn't be a player in a Dogs in the Vineyard game.
> 
> And there are a LOT of those players out there.  Lots and lots and lots of players just want to casually tour a beloved setting, be taken for a ride on an interesting metaplot, and characterize a quirky/interesting PC while (the GM assists in ensuring that) bad guys fall in their wake.  And there are lots and lots and lots of GMs who want to tell heroic fantasy stories and take players on a tour through a beloved setting (that they've created or they've studied intensively).
> 
> The techniques of GM Force and Illusionism (and the ultimate realization of it in railroading) may very well be absolutely necessary for those players to derive enjoyment from RPGing (without feeling burdened).  They may be necessary for GMs who have stories to tell/settings to set into action and put on display.  Railroading GMs and players who enjoy it don't need to hide shamefully in the corner.  It is a legitimate style of play where GM agency is prioritized over player-agency to ensure the experience that all participants at the table are looking for.
> 
> It shouldn't be something that is shunned.  It is just a set of GMing techniques that, when deployed, ensure certain play priorities (which supersede other play priorities) become manifest at the table.
> 
> * But you can examine the hierarchy of play priorities and why one is at the top.
> * And you can examine the priorities that are superseded (and how they might be infringed upon, if they are).
> * And you can examine the GMing techniques and systems that put into effect that prioritization.
> 
> And neither the actual examination/analysis of GM Force nor the reality that groups/GMs actually enjoy railroading (and don't need to shrink from that...which is why whenever I see someone come out and say it, I find it commendable) need be some sort of taboo.



Again, I find the use of railroading to be an issue, as it's too blunt to describe what I think you're trying to say.

Railroading means no player agency.  The players have no choice but to follow along the DM'S plot.  The only choices they can make is to continue or stop.  I'd wager there's a very small contingent of players that actually prefer this playstyle.

Perhaps we need some new, intermediate terms?  How about Interstate and Interstating.  Or Autobahning?  A game where there's only meaningful player agency at certain points, like exits, but even then constrained to choosing from a limited set of options.

Maybe Metroing or Subwaying?  Like Autobahning, but the choices at the stations are more varied?

Then there's Citying, where there's a nice mix of Interstates, Metros, and surface streets to choose from.  Still reliant on DM rulings and plotting, but much more open to player agency.

Finally, Baha-ing.  The party's a dune buggy and can go anywhere, but there's dunes and escarpment and ridges that occasionally constrain available choice.


----------



## Manbearcat

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , I don't have time to respond right now, but I'll get to it tomorrow (I'm knackered...early bedtime for me).



Ovinomancer said:


> Again, I find the use of railroading to be an issue, as it's too blunt to describe what I think you're trying to say.
> 
> Railroading means no player agency.  The players have no choice but to follow along the DM'S plot.  The only choices they can make is to continue or stop.  I'd wager there's a very small contingent of players that actually prefer this playstyle.
> 
> Perhaps we need some new, intermediate terms?  How about Interstate and Interstating.  Or Autobahning?  A game where there's only meaningful player agency at certain points, like exits, but even then constrained to choosing from a limited set of options.
> 
> Maybe Metroing or Subwaying?  Like Autobahning, but the choices at the stations are more varied?
> 
> Then there's Citying, where there's a nice mix of Interstates, Metros, and surface streets to choose from.  Still reliant on DM rulings and plotting, but much more open to player agency.
> 
> Finally, Baha-ing.  The party's a dune buggy and can go anywhere, but there's dunes and escarpment and ridges that occasionally constrain available choice.




I think your categories here are tongue-in-cheek, but this is a really good start to a very interesting, and possibly productive, conversation on this subject. 

If folks aren't keen on the way  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] , and myself try to sort through this stuff (play example analysis etc), maybe this has legs?

I'll try to have something to say tomorrow.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> We're sidetracking, although that's a non-answer.  You previously stated unequivocally that the arrows meant the brother was evil prior to possession.



I'm trying to summarise two hours (or more?) of play into a few sentences of description, to make a couple of general points: (1) "fail forward" is not, in general, the same thing as "success with complication"; (2) that a player-driven game is consistent with surprise, revelations, rich backstory, etc.

I don't think anything about those points changes by eliding two checks into one in the narration. And I took it as given that, if the basic principles of play and GMing are things like "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "no failure offscreen", etc, then the evolution of the game's backstory is subject to further play.

If you're curious about more details of the game I'm happy to post them, but it might be more productive if you ask it in the spirit of curiosity rather than in the context of arguing that I don't know how to manage stakes and consequences in a game about which you know nothing other than the handful of fragments I've posted in this thread.

But even based on those fragments, I would have thought there would be enough to get a sense of what is going on with the mace: it is a nickel-silver mace that the PC was (before play actually commenced) crafting in the tower when the orcs attacked. The player had established, as one of his Beliefs (a BW PC has 3 Beliefs), that he would recover the mace. That goal was, as I have explained, enmeshed in a larger context of the PC's backstory in relation to his brother, plus the backstory of the assassin (who at that time was a PC) who had suffered terribly at the hands of the brother and had as her one unchanging Belief that she would flay him and send his soul to . . . [a bad place].

As the GM it's my job to push the players on their Beliefs, to frame situations where they can be put to the test, and - when checks are failed - to narrate consequences that are _failures_, and that will force the players to make hard decisions. Because I'm GMing a party game, it's also my job to interweave the players' Beliefs - hence the discovery of the black arrows not only forces the player to reconsider his Belief about redeeming his brother, and not only escalates the situation between the PCs one of whom has sworn to save him while the other has sworn to kill him, but also brings in the elven ronin who wears, around his neck, the broken black arrow that slew his master (thus, in his backstory, precipitating his travels to human lands where he nevertheless is determined (as his most constant Belief) to always keep the elven ways.

For all anyone at the table knows, the brother made the arrows under the coercion of some other power - perhaps the Balrog was threatening to possess the brother PC, and the only way for his older brother to keep him safe was to buy the Balrog off by supplying cursed arrows to his orc archers. Who knows? That's what "playing to find out" means.

And as far as the mace is concerned, it's not just a "non magical mace". That's your description. That's not the conception of it at the table. If someone was playing a LotR-based game, in which recovery of the Red Book of Westmarch by some 4th Age hobbit was at stake, one might easily fail to capture the full scope of what is going on by referring to it as a "non-magical lorebook".


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> in the real world the answer should have been authored beforehand.



Why?

In what concrete way would my game be better, here and now, if I decided the "true" backstory of the decapitated brother, and used that secret backstory to adjudicate action declarations and hence determine outcomes.



Lanefan said:


> a bit of logical continuity (and maybe some dice rolling) isn't much of a stretch.



You keep saying this. But where is the lack of "logical continuity" in any of my games? I've posted quite a bit of actual play in this thread. I can link to about 30 pages of it for my main 4e game if you're interested. I'm not aware of any continuity issues.

In the excerpt from a play report I sblocked in my previous post, where were the continuity issues?

In no other medium is it assumed that the sequence of authorship of fictional events must correspond to the sequence in which those events occur in the fiction. Novelists, script writers, etc sometimes (often, even) come up with ideas for scenes or particular characters, and then write in the backstory and context which will locate the initially-conceived events within a broader fictional construction.

Why _must_ RPGs be different?



Lanefan said:


> you can't have a situation where what the players think of as a great achievement is in fact a monumental screw-up.



As a general proposition, that is true. The referee is bound by "let it ride". If a player succeeds at a check, the PC's task is successful and the intent is realised.

The only way to undo "let it ride" would be for the player him-/herself to somehow stake that victory in some future conflict, and fail. This is why I have frequently referred, upthread, to narrating setbacks as a consequence of failure.



Lanefan said:


> Or mystery, it seems



Even I don't know why the brother made the black arrows - that looks like a mystery to me!



Lanefan said:


> If the players can share in the fiction (and thus its narration), then what's to stop it?



The players aren't just stipulating actions for PCs. Have a look at the actual play reports: the players are establishing PC backstories, and declaring actions for their PCs.

EDIT: Also, if the vampire is not evil (or otherwise sinister) then I'm not 100% sure what the twist is. I assume the revelation is meant to be more dramatic than learning that one's patron has been a vegetarian all along.


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> Again, I find the use of railroading to be an issue, as it's too blunt to describe what I think you're trying to say.
> 
> Railroading means no player agency.  The players have no choice but to follow along the DM'S plot.  The only choices they can make is to continue or stop.  I'd wager there's a very small contingent of players that actually prefer this playstyle.
> 
> Perhaps we need some new, intermediate terms?  How about Interstate and Interstating.  Or Autobahning?  A game where there's only meaningful player agency at certain points, like exits, but even then constrained to choosing from a limited set of options.
> 
> Maybe Metroing or Subwaying?  Like Autobahning, but the choices at the stations are more varied?
> 
> Then there's Citying, where there's a nice mix of Interstates, Metros, and surface streets to choose from.  Still reliant on DM rulings and plotting, but much more open to player agency.
> 
> Finally, Baha-ing.  The party's a dune buggy and can go anywhere, but there's dunes and escarpment and ridges that occasionally constrain available choice.




I get what you are throwing down here. There are nuances that it is important for us not to miss. Generally I think what is important is the culture of play we help to shape. The decisions we make as GMs inform the decisions our players make on behalf of their characters. I firmly believe this provides with the obligation to at least respect what our players are bringing to the table. We need to give them firm ground to walk on. It is not my favorite mode of play, but I believe this can be done in a game that makes liberal use of GM Force. It can work well if players understand it is their responsibility to hunt for the story. In play this resembles something like playing adventure games like Gabriel Knight, Myst or Zork. Where it goes sideways is when players are expected to act as if they were playing one sort of game when secretly they are playing a game of a completely different sort. I view this as a fairly toxic experience.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> As such, rulings are a playstyle choice that can work within a broader, more permissive say yes framework or a fail forward one, or in a more DM driven playstyle.  I see no need to appropriate a pejorative term like railroading to describe playstyle that differ from your own, and then double down with wide eyed innocence that anyone might take issue with your rebranding.




This is well put. Thanks for managing to clearly convey in a few sentences what's a I failed to convey over several posts.




Ovinomancer said:


> Again, I find the use of railroading to be an issue, as it's too blunt to describe what I think you're trying to say.
> 
> Railroading means no player agency.  The players have no choice but to follow along the DM'S plot.  The only choices they can make is to continue or stop.  I'd wager there's a very small contingent of players that actually prefer this playstyle.
> 
> Perhaps we need some new, intermediate terms?  How about Interstate and Interstating.  Or Autobahning?  A game where there's only meaningful player agency at certain points, like exits, but even then constrained to choosing from a limited set of options.
> 
> Maybe Metroing or Subwaying?  Like Autobahning, but the choices at the stations are more varied?
> 
> Then there's Citying, where there's a nice mix of Interstates, Metros, and surface streets to choose from.  Still reliant on DM rulings and plotting, but much more open to player agency.
> 
> Finally, Baha-ing.  The party's a dune buggy and can go anywhere, but there's dunes and escarpment and ridges that occasionally constrain available choice.




You're kidding with the names I think, but this is an excellent point. 

My issue with the term railroading is that I think it's fairly clear what it's meant to be...a line with set points in a certain order. You cannot vary the order or add any points in or skip any points or make any other changes. 

In RPG terms, an adventure has a chapter 1, then a chapter 2, and so on until the end. There is no changing the story or going about the different parts in a different order. If this is the case, then it's a railroad. If it's not the case, then it is not a railroad. 

Now, that's perhaps too strictly defined....but I think others are using the term far too broadly. 

I also think that the term term is meant to refer to the story (if not a whole campaign, then at least an adventure) as a whole, rather than at one small decision point within the story. I don't know if one instance of DM judgment by fiat deserves the term railroad to be broken out. 

You have to have a thing least several such points for the metaphor to even apply.


----------



## Lanefan

Getting further and further behind, here...

 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I've had a look over your play example from post 328 (where the party's trying to get into the underdark) and in all honesty I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for.  What I see is a game log for what looks like a high-ish level 4e group being diplomatic, only with more reference to game mechanics than most logs would have.  In a 4e milieu I can only assume it's supposed to more or less work like that.

In context of NPC arcs and behind-the-scenes world events (which was under discussion at that point) I don't see anything to grab for.  If the party have dealt with any of these various people before, it isn't mentioned; and if they haven't there's no context for the PCs to know if anything has changed since their last time here as there was no last time here.  So what is posting this trying to show me?

One minor thing stood out, though: there's a roll in there that fails by 1 (needs 41, roll adds to 40 after all's said and done).  A PC then lets his imp speak (but why does this need an action point - isn't speech a free action at all times?) and the imp makes his case.  This is a new development, which makes the old roll history: shouldn't the imp's speech provoke a whole new roll, rather than simply modifying one whose outcome has already been determined?  (and we can all agree it's GM Force or even minor railroading if the answer is that you knew the imp's speech would tip the balance and you-as-GM didn't want to risk a second roll; but I'm willing to guess that's not the case)

Lan-"a character in my game last night actually did shoot a frickin' laser beam from his forehead.  Twice."-efan


----------



## Lanefan

And so to finish my thoughts on post 328...


pemerton said:


> Thinking in terms of _clues_ is taking things back to a puzzle game. But I'm not mostly playing for puzzles.
> 
> Great Expectations has a puzzle element ("Who is Pip's benefactor?") but the main point of the story isn't to guess the answer to the puzzle. It has a second puzzle, too - what is Estella's real relationship to Pip - and Dickens wrote two answers to that one!



And Great Expectations probably had a rough storyboard of a plot before Dickens sat down and fleshed it all out into the finished prose, for all we know.  That he came up with two different endings isn't relevant, really.



> In the real world, solving real mysteries, one of the ways that clues work is that there is an actual answer to the question, and the clues are somehow _caused_ by that reality (or perhaps have a cause in common with it). In a fiction, though, it is all authored.



And in an RPG, if there's to be a mystery with clues etc. those clues have to come from somewhere; and that somewhere is by default the DM (though a player can author a mystery of her own, I've seen it done).  But there's not much of a mystery if everyone knows the secrets, or the answer.

Mystery is fun.  Mystery is therefore good.



> As to "possibilities for roleplay now lost"; well, possibilities for roleplay were certainly created, and plenty of roleplaying was happening before the discovery also - we weren't just sitting around not knowing what to do with ourselves at the table! - and so I'm not really seeing any cost here.



Again, as it turns out there was no prior interaction with the brother there's no cost.



> You keep saying this. But I have NO IDEA what you are basing it on. What inconsistency do you think you've spotted?



I haven't; and won't due to there having been no prior interaction.  I was assuming that there had been, and if so the inconsistency would have come from whatever the brother did/said at the time not being filtered through his evilness.



> Maintaining consistency is not all that hard, because most things that happen are consistent with most other things. The peasants being unhappy can be the result of anything from a raise in taxes to the despoiling of a local shrine to a saint. The baron's refusal to allow mirrors in his house could be because he's a vampire, or because he regards them as symbols of the sun god (whom he hates) or because they remind him of his late wife, who loved make-up. (I think it's worth keeping in mind that _no one actually understands all the causal processes that explain the events that happen in the real world_. So there's certainly no need, in order to run a game in a fictional world, to understand or manage all its causal processes.)



Isn't that part of the mystery, though: the not knowing everything? (or, in some cases, not knowing anything)



> I've read a lot of posters over the year who posit that running a player-driven game will produce inconsistency, but it's not actually something I've experienced.



Which tells me one of several things:

1. You've been amazingly lucky, or
2. You and-or your players are either meticulous note-takers or have memories that would put an elephant to shame, or
3. Your campaigns are very short (it's easier to remember something for 6 months real-time than it is for 5 years), or
4. You and your players are simply willing to live with a certain amount of internal inconsistency (border to be determined) just to keep things going.

Lan-"memory of a jellyfish"-efan


----------



## Campbell

Speaking of character arcs, I am not really a fan of the idea of preplanned arcs for PCs or NPCs. Drives, Passions, History, Relationships, Plans, and Goals are all awesome. They provide a trajectory and situation to be explored through play. Character arcs seem like character as script to me, and throw up alarm bells. I tend to be much more in favor of characters as essentially presenting questions to be explored.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> And there are a LOT of those players out there.  Lots and lots and lots of players just want to casually tour a beloved setting, be taken for a ride on an interesting metaplot, and characterize a quirky/interesting PC while (the GM assists in ensuring that) bad guys fall in their wake.  And there are lots and lots and lots of GMs who want to tell heroic fantasy stories and take players on a tour through a beloved setting (that they've created or they've studied intensively).
> 
> The techniques of GM Force and Illusionism (and the ultimate realization of it in railroading) may very well be absolutely necessary for those players to derive enjoyment from RPGing (without feeling burdened).  They may be necessary for GMs who have stories to tell/settings to set into action and put on display.  Railroading GMs and players who enjoy it don't need to hide shamefully in the corner.



Yet we/they have repeatedly been told that in fact our/their place is the corner, or better yet somewhere else entirely.  



> It is a legitimate style of play where GM agency is prioritized over player-agency to ensure the experience that all participants at the table are looking for.
> 
> It shouldn't be something that is shunned.  It is just a set of GMing techniques that, when deployed, ensure certain play priorities (which supersede other play priorities) become manifest at the table.



And to add, it's also a gray-scale rather than black-and-white.  I mean, there's times both as player and DM I've seen or let things get too railroady even for me; yet I still see lots of value in laying the occasional bit of track in order to produce a better game.

It helps if you know your table, of course, and know what they expect and-or are looking for in the game.

Minor bits of what's being called GM Force are pretty much a part of the game, I'd say.



> And neither the actual examination/analysis of GM Force nor the reality that groups/GMs actually enjoy railroading (and don't need to shrink from that...which is why whenever I see someone come out and say it, I find it commendable) need be some sort of taboo.



Careful...they'll run you out on a rail if you keep saying things like that! 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Why?
> 
> In what concrete way would my game be better, here and now, if I decided the "true" backstory of the decapitated brother, and used that secret backstory to adjudicate action declarations and hence determine outcomes.



Because then you could have built clues around it (whether legitimate or not), had results of second-party interactions influence the party (e.g. someone who had been wronged by the brother later interacts with the PCs), and - to use your term - used it as a lens through which to frame scenes.  Hard to do any of that if you don't know ahead of time what you've got to work with.



> In the excerpt from a play report I sblocked in my previous post, where were the continuity issues?



I've no way of knowing as I'm not privy to the party's past dealings (if any) with any of the various people they interacted with in that posted segment.



> In no other medium is it assumed that the sequence of authorship of fictional events must correspond to the sequence in which those events occur in the fiction. Novelists, script writers, etc sometimes (often, even) come up with ideas for scenes or particular characters, and then write in the backstory and context which will locate the initially-conceived events within a broader fictional construction.
> 
> Why _must_ RPGs be different?



Because they are.

That probably sounds like a dumb answer, so let me try to elaborate.

A book author, playwright or screen-writer has the huge advantage of knowing where the end will be before they start, and of knowing or alone determining the path taken to get there.  This gives them the ability to write whatever bits strike their fancy and then tie those bits together later.  The reader/viewer obviously doesn't know any of this, they just get to enjoy the finished product.

An RPG takes a group of players, puts them into characters, drops them into a game world or setting, and turns them loose.  After this, both game-world time* and real-world time can only move in one direction: forward.  So, something that's in the past for the characters is also in the past* for the players.  What this forces, however, is a different approach to authorship (usually) by the DM; in that this world or setting the PCs are bashing around in has to be robust enough to withstand what they do to it, it has to be internally consistent and maintain that throughout, and it has to be alive in that it's constantly changing no matter what the PCs do to it.

* - with occasional exceptions involving either adventures in time travel (very messy but it can be done) or running concurrent parties in the same game world where you in effect go through the same time period once for each active party (really really messy if you're not careful and-or you don't know what you're doing).

So, while in an authored work it's (usually) easy to see the cause-and-effect in the end even if they weren't authored in that order, in an RPG the cause has to be in place first to both allow for the effect to happen later and - in some situations - allow the cause to itself be noticed and interacted with.  And that's the DM's job.



> As a general proposition, that is true. The referee is bound by "let it ride". If a player succeeds at a check, the PC's task is successful and the intent is realised.



In that immediate moment.

They succeed in their task of getting the new Duke on the throne.  Hurrahs all round!  Drinks on the duchy tonight!  Only the DM knows he's in fact an idiot (but with really good Charisma/Bluff/whatever abilities) who hasn't got a clue how to run a duchy and, if left to his own devices, will bankrupt the place in a year while the palace halls run red with the blood of the innocent. 

Disappointment or a major after-the-fact facepalm is sometimes a fact of life, both in reality and - one would think - in the game world.  What were we thinking when we put that jackass on the throne?  Sigh.  Now we've got to get him off it again.  Oh, and by the way, the locals know we were backing him and they're on their way here right now holding pitchforks and torches on high...



> Even I don't know why the brother made the black arrows - that looks like a mystery to me!



There shouldn't be any mysteries for the GM - only knowledge.  Mysteries are for the players.



> EDIT: Also, if the vampire is not evil (or otherwise sinister) then I'm not 100% sure what the twist is. I assume the revelation is meant to be more dramatic than learning that one's patron has been a vegetarian all along.



The vampire's not evil but if revealed most people - commoners, nobility, and so on - will naturally assume that he is, and act accordingly.  Also, what nobody knows is that (in different guises and names) he's been running things from behind the scenes for about 300 years. (in my actual campaign he's been Emperor twice under the same name of Kallios: the first time he was mortal for most of his run, becoming a vampire only near the end; the second time was about 200 years later when, at a loss to find a malleable figurehead to put on the throne, he disguised himself and put himself back on it as Kallios II.  This lasted for about 7 years at which point he found a suitable replacement, "died", and things went from there)

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Speaking of character arcs, I am not really a fan of the idea of preplanned arcs for PCs or NPCs. Drives, Passions, History, Relationships, Plans, and Goals are all awesome. They provide a trajectory and situation to be explored through play. Character arcs seem like character as script to me, and throw up alarm bells. I tend to be much more in favor of characters as essentially presenting questions to be explored.



From the PC side Drives, Plans and Goals add up to a planned arc looking for a place to happen.  History lays the groundwork.  Passions and Relationships influence the arc as it goes along - if it goes along at all; there's no guarantee that it will.

Seems fine to me. 

Lanefan


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## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> Speaking of character arcs, I am not really a fan of the idea of preplanned arcs for PCs or NPCs. Drives, Passions, History, Relationships, Plans, and Goals are all awesome. They provide a trajectory and situation to be explored through play. Character arcs seem like character as script to me, and throw up alarm bells. I tend to be much more in favor of characters as essentially presenting questions to be explored.




Why does the idea send up alarm bells? 

If a character is portrayed strongly, then we can often predict how he or she will behave in a given situation, no? There's always the possibility of being surprised by a character's decision...but even that surprise is dependent upon a solid expectation. 

Arcs simply play upon those expectations in some way; they're potential ways to explore situations and put the character in interesting positions. The arc itself is the journey to a decision for the character...what they decide when they get to that point is up to them. Like if a character's main motivation is revenge against the evil duke that killed his family...then perhaps you put him in a position where he can get his revenge on the duke, but it means he must betray the new family he has created (the party). 

The arc takes what we know about the character and then puts a certain spin on it to see if we learn something. I don't see it as pre-determined in any way.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In what concrete way would my game be better, here and now, if I decided the "true" backstory of the decapitated brother, and used that secret backstory to adjudicate action declarations and hence determine outcomes.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Because then you could have built clues around it (whether legitimate or not), had results of second-party interactions influence the party (e.g. someone who had been wronged by the brother later interacts with the PCs), and - to use your term - used it as a lens through which to frame scenes.  Hard to do any of that if you don't know ahead of time what you've got to work with.
Click to expand...


But all these things _did_ happen. There were clues as to the brother's moral status (possession by a balrog; his treatment of his apprentice - the assassin PC; the discovery of the black arrows). There were "second-party" interactions, between the brother PC (who wanted to redeem the NPC brother) and the assassin PC (who wanted to kill him, and has now succeeded in that).

The game has been working with all this stuff _the whole time_. In the very first session, the PCs found a spellbook apparently written by the brother and in the possession of a mad murderer.

The confrontation between brother and brother; the need for the NPC to then recupreate in the mage's tower; and his decapitation by the assassin PC-turned-NPC - these have been the events to which the whole campaign, to date, has been leading up! It's hard to envisage any way it which this stuff could have been more at the centre of the game, given that it also has other PCs and so other elements in play (eg the naga and its PC servant).



Lanefan said:


> There shouldn't be any mysteries for the GM - only knowledge. Mysteries are for the players.





Lanefan said:


> in an RPG, if there's to be a mystery with clues etc. those clues have to come from somewhere; and that somewhere is by default the DM (though a player can author a mystery of her own, I've seen it done).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Mystery is fun.  Mystery is therefore good.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Isn't that part of the mystery, though: the not knowing everything? (or, in some cases, not knowing anything)



But why, then, is the mystery even better if the GM already knows the answer?

A game can have clues - in the sense of events that point to something that lies beyond or behind them - without having a pre-authored mystery that the players are trying to unravel.



Lanefan said:


> I was assuming that there had been <prior interaction between PCs and brother>, and if so the inconsistency would have come from whatever the brother did/said at the time not being filtered through his evilness.



But how do you know it wasn't filtered through his evilness?

Or to put it another way: suppose there had been prior interaction - and it took whatever form it did - why would that be inconsistent with evilness? Does "evilness" always manifest itself in some particular and distinctive way?

This is why I'm puzzled by these concerns about inconsistency - they seem to derive from some very particular conception about how certain sorts of characters _must_ behave, or how certain sorts of events _must_ unfold, if certain other things about those characters or those events are to be true. But this doesn't seem to be the case in the real world, and so why would it have to be so in the imaginary one?



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If stuff happened that matters to the game, in the sense of engaging or involving stuff that is core to the PCs (and hence their players), then the situation might continue to be important. It would inform framing; inform the narration of consequences for failure. But none of that requires the GM to give the town its own "character arc"!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yet without doing so how can you inform yourself what's going on in the town and by extension what filters any interactions with the townsfolk may have?
Click to expand...


You just make stuff up. Or you read it from the dice.

Think back to rolling reaction dice in a B/X game. The PC elf stumbles across an ogre. The GM rolls the reaction dice. They come up 5 - and the GM has the ogre say "MMM - I think I might have some elf for dinner!" And now the player of the elf can either resign him-/herself to a fight, or try to persuade the ogre to (say) take money in lieu.

Suppose instead the dice come up 10 - then the GM has the ogre say "Ooh, look at the cute elf. You remind me of the elf I saw that time when I was just a baby ogre!" In other words, the ogre's backstory and motivations are written in to fit the rolls. The same can be done for peasants in a town.

That's why I keep emphasising the significance of action resolution. We have, in our game, techniques for the players declaring actions for their PCs and then determining whether or not the PCs get what they want. We don't need an extra filter of secret backstory to resolve these dice rolls. Rather, we can construct the backstory off the back of the results. (And as part of framing. And as part of PC building. Etc, etc. But there is _no need_ for GM's secret backstory.)



Lanefan said:


> But a bit of logical continuity (and maybe some dice rolling) isn't much of a stretch.



If the ogre ever comes back into play again, chances are everyone at the table will remember it. If not, roll the dice again!

Or make notes. Written backstory isn't less effective because it's written down as a product of play rather than as a prelude to it.



Lanefan said:


> Which tells me one of several things:
> 
> 1. You've been amazingly lucky, or
> 2. You and-or your players are either meticulous note-takers or have memories that would put an elephant to shame, or
> 3. Your campaigns are very short (it's easier to remember something for 6 months real-time than it is for 5 years), or
> 4. You and your players are simply willing to live with a certain amount of internal inconsistency (border to be determined) just to keep things going.



Again, my experience makes me think that you're exaggerating the issue. It's just not that hard. So I think you're exaggerating 1 and 2.

My campaigns tend to run for many years, so 3 is not relevant.

You've left off 5 (no one remembers and so no one cares). And 5 can be quite important, because if something happens which turns out to go nowhere or be of no concern to anyone, then it doesn't really matter if it drops out of the group's collective memory and never gets brought up again. (It's hard to give example of 5, because by definition they've been forgotten. But I suspect early in my main 4e game, when the PCs were opposed to a Bane-ite sect, some stuff was at least implied about that sect that I think ended up dropping out of the picture, because the player who would have been mainly interested in that stuff - due to playing a cleric of Kord - moved to London.)

And I think you're also too harsh on 4. There's the famous story that even Raymond Chandler didn't know what the story was with one of the murders in the film of The Big Sleep (I think it's the car that is pulled out of the bay). In the real world there are often loose ends or bits that don't quite seem to fit together. So it's hardly unrealistic that, in the gameworld, there'll be events whose cause is uncertain, or NPCs who motivation never quite comes to light.

But the overall anchor of consistency and continuity is the players' play of their PCs. That provides the focus of play, and the common thread around which events turn.



Campbell said:


> Speaking of character arcs, I am not really a fan of the idea of preplanned arcs for PCs or NPCs. Drives, Passions, History, Relationships, Plans, and Goals are all awesome. They provide a trajectory and situation to be explored through play. Character arcs seem like character as script to me, and throw up alarm bells. I tend to be much more in favor of characters as essentially presenting questions to be explored.





Lanefan said:


> From the PC side Drives, Plans and Goals add up to a planned arc looking for a place to happen.



But they're not a planned arc, at least as Campbell is conceiving of them. They're springs to action. But they will be tested, perhaps realised, perhaps changed or abandoned.

If you learn that your brother was a maker of cursed arrows, maybe you have to give up your goal of redeeming him! (Or maybe not. But when confronted with that sort of challenge to your goals, the notion of a planned arc has to be abandoned.)

This is the sort of thing Campbell means by "exploring through play".



Lanefan said:


> Disappointment or a major after-the-fact facepalm is sometimes a fact of life, both in reality and - one would think - in the game world.



Yes. But when, at the table, is the GM licensed to introduce such results. In my preferred approach, as the narration of _failure_. Because that's what you're describing: the players (and their PCs) have not got what they wanted.



Lanefan said:


> An RPG takes a group of players, puts them into characters, drops them into a game world or setting, and turns them loose.  After this, both game-world time* and real-world time can only move in one direction: forward.  So, something that's in the past for the characters is also in the past* for the players.



But this is just wrong.

Players make up bits of their PC backstory all the time. Heck, some players make up _names_ for their PCs sometime after the first session.

GMs have been making up the settting in response to play ever since the first time Gygax or Arneson or whomever said - "I wonder what's in the neighbourhood of this dungeon - I'd better write up a village". The City of Greyhawk clearly was conceived of by Gyggax efore its history was. Etc.

And filling in backstory after the event is an utterly routine feature of serial fiction.



Lanefan said:


> The Baron's an NPC.  The DM runs the NPCs.  Thus, if the Baron did something then by extension I as DM did it.



This just seems confused.

If the Baron does something, that doesn't mean the GM did that thing. Sauron killed Elendil. Tolkien wrote a story about Sauron killing Elendil.

In terms of the relatonship between backstory, GM narration thereof, and the way that play of the game works, the GM can just as easily narrate that the Baron did such-and-such _as part of narrating the consequence of a player's failed check_, as decide on it secretly in advance and then use that decision as the basis for deteriming that the player's action declaration for his/her PC fails.

The GM is doing quite different things in each case, but what the baron did remains the same in either case. This is why it is helpful to analysis to distinguish the doings of (real) GMs from the doings of (imaginary) NPCs. If we don't, it's very hard to talk coherently about what is driving the game: we end up with assertions like "The baron cause such-and-such to happen in the game", when the baron in fact (being imaginary) exercised no causal power on anyone ever.

This point is pretty well recognised when it comes to alignment and characterisation - ie most RPGers recognise that "I was playing in character" isn't a good reason to explain anti-social play, because the character isn't real, and it is the _player_ who has to take responsibility for the choices s/he made.

Exactly the same point applies in other contexts too. The fiction doesn't write itself. It gets written by someone, via some process. And we can't identify or talk about that process if all we talk about are the imagined causal powers of imaginary people.



Lanefan said:


> A book author, playwright or screen-writer has the huge advantage of knowing where the end will be before they start, and of knowing or alone determining the path taken to get there.  This gives them the ability to write whatever bits strike their fancy and then tie those bits together later.  The reader/viewer obviously doesn't know any of this, they just get to enjoy the finished product.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What this forces, however, is a different approach to authorship (usually) by the DM; in that this world or setting the PCs are bashing around in has to be robust enough to withstand what they do to it, it has to be internally consistent and maintain that throughout, and it has to be alive in that it's constantly changing no matter what the PCs do to it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So, while in an authored work it's (usually) easy to see the cause-and-effect in the end even if they weren't authored in that order, in an RPG the cause has to be in place first to both allow for the effect to happen later and - in some situations - allow the cause to itself be noticed and interacted with.  And that's the DM's job.



None of this is "forced".

The setting doesn't have to be "constantly changing" - until the PCs visit place X, I as a GM don't even have to turn my mind to it. And when they do, I can make up or drop in whatever seems reasonable - and if they never come back to place X again, that's the end of it. And for X to be "robust enough" to withstand what the PCs do to it, all I need is a few key descriptions and some action resolution mechanics.

Pages of backstory simply aren't necessary to any of this.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> it's a player reacting in character (Robilar) to the fiction that's already in place (there's 12 deities down there and I'm bustin' 'em out).



That what it means for a player to impose his/her will on the fiction. Rob Kuntz wants to change the fiction: to have the gods be freed. And it happens, because he declares actions for his PC, and Gygax (as GM) resolves them.

The relevant feature for current purposes is that there is no secret backstory, no NPC with a character arc, that restores the status quo, or blocks Robilar's action, or otherwise prevents the action declaration from having the consequences its player intended it to have. The fate of the 12 gods is not "in motion" in some metaplot-driven fashion wherein Robilar's action just become a small cog in the big wheel of Gygax's authoring of the unfolding history of his campaign world.

It's player-driven. (In terms of [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s classification upthread, around post 70-something, it's a version of "free kriegspiel".)



Lanefan said:


> I've had a look over your play example from post 328 (where the party's trying to get into the underdark) and in all honesty I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for.



It shows the PCs returning to people they'd dealt with before - the duergar, some of the drow - and how developments can be handled without the GM just extrapolating behind the scenes by reference to his/her conception of how things would "naturally" unfold.

So eg you can see the player of the paladin making the duergar's diabolic connection salient; then the framing of a check, to see whether or not they've learned their lesson; and how this unfolded into them switching allegiance to Levistus instead.

It illustrates the workings of a "living, breathing" world without the need for the GM to do anything besides frame situations and resolve checks by reference to that framing. (Ie no secret backstory)



Lanefan said:


> there's a roll in there that fails by 1 (needs 41, roll adds to 40 after all's said and done).  A PC then lets his imp speak (but why does this need an action point - isn't speech a free action at all times?) and the imp makes his case.  This is a new development, which makes the old roll history: shouldn't the imp's speech provoke a whole new roll, rather than simply modifying one whose outcome has already been determined?



The imp doesn't have its own action economy - in mechanical terms its a feature of the PC. Mechanically, the player is spending an AP to add +2 to a failed check (thereby making it a success). In the fiction, this takes the form of the imp speaking.


----------



## pemerton

lowkey13 said:


> The mystery is neither better nor worse, but some people might state that the "fiction" or the "game" is better for their preferences based on the different styles.



Sure. But  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is making claims about what _has to be the case_, or what is _required_, for a mystery to take place in a RPG. Sure, there's one way to do it - the classic CoC way.

It's not the only way, though.



lowkey13 said:


> A setting doesn't have to be constantly changing, but some people do enjoy that.



For the players, though, if the change is never narrated by the GM then they never know of it. So I think narration is still the key. Which means the (other?) key is, "What triggers that narration and how does it interact with action resolution?"

There's a different table dynamic if narration of this sort of stuff is treated not only as an input into but also as an output off action resolution. I think everyone in this thread agrees with that.

But what I'm disputing is that only if one confines backstory narration to input can one get a rich, changing, "living, breathing" gameworld.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Yet we/they have repeatedly been told that in fact our/their place is the corner, or better yet somewhere else entirely.
> 
> And to add, it's also a gray-scale rather than black-and-white.  I mean, there's times both as player and DM I've seen or let things get too railroady even for me; yet I still see lots of value in laying the occasional bit of track in order to produce a better game.
> 
> It helps if you know your table, of course, and know what they expect and-or are looking for in the game.
> 
> Minor bits of what's being called GM Force are pretty much a part of the game, I'd say.
> 
> Careful...they'll run you out on a rail if you keep saying things like that!
> 
> Lanefan




Don’t have much time, so just a quick comment on this (I’ll get to your play analysis response tonight). 

My interest in these threads is to (a) be able to effectively distinguish between various play priorities and the techniques/systems that perpetuate them and (b) be able to do an effective post-mortem on play events (my own and others) to understand and convey precisely what is going on.

Not recognizing the nature of, and impact on play of, singular instances of applied GM Force, and delegitimizing Railroading/Illusionism as “not RPGing” or something to be tarred and feathered (rather than have its play priorities and techniques both illuminated and understood), is anathema to the point of my participation in these threads. 

If people want to/do apply GM Force, they should understand its techniques and its implications.  If people don’t, they should understand the same (to ensure they avoid it).  The same thing goes for things like dungeon stocking/table creation, dynamic decision-point creation, presenting choices with costs, “Fail Forward”, “Playing to Find Out What Happens”, “Say Yes or Roll the Dice”, “Let It Ride”, or “Go to the Action.”


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I'm trying to summarise two hours (or more?) of play into a few sentences of description, to make a couple of general points: (1) "fail forward" is not, in general, the same thing as "success with complication"; (2) that a player-driven game is consistent with surprise, revelations, rich backstory, etc.
> 
> I don't think anything about those points changes by eliding two checks into one in the narration. And I took it as given that, if the basic principles of play and GMing are things like "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "no failure offscreen", etc, then the evolution of the game's backstory is subject to further play.
> 
> If you're curious about more details of the game I'm happy to post them, but it might be more productive if you ask it in the spirit of curiosity rather than in the context of arguing that I don't know how to manage stakes and consequences in a game about which you know nothing other than the handful of fragments I've posted in this thread.
> 
> But even based on those fragments, I would have thought there would be enough to get a sense of what is going on with the mace: it is a nickel-silver mace that the PC was (before play actually commenced) crafting in the tower when the orcs attacked. The player had established, as one of his Beliefs (a BW PC has 3 Beliefs), that he would recover the mace. That goal was, as I have explained, enmeshed in a larger context of the PC's backstory in relation to his brother, plus the backstory of the assassin (who at that time was a PC) who had suffered terribly at the hands of the brother and had as her one unchanging Belief that she would flay him and send his soul to . . . [a bad place].
> 
> As the GM it's my job to push the players on their Beliefs, to frame situations where they can be put to the test, and - when checks are failed - to narrate consequences that are _failures_, and that will force the players to make hard decisions. Because I'm GMing a party game, it's also my job to interweave the players' Beliefs - hence the discovery of the black arrows not only forces the player to reconsider his Belief about redeeming his brother, and not only escalates the situation between the PCs one of whom has sworn to save him while the other has sworn to kill him, but also brings in the elven ronin who wears, around his neck, the broken black arrow that slew his master (thus, in his backstory, precipitating his travels to human lands where he nevertheless is determined (as his most constant Belief) to always keep the elven ways.
> 
> For all anyone at the table knows, the brother made the arrows under the coercion of some other power - perhaps the Balrog was threatening to possess the brother PC, and the only way for his older brother to keep him safe was to buy the Balrog off by supplying cursed arrows to his orc archers. Who knows? That's what "playing to find out" means.
> 
> And as far as the mace is concerned, it's not just a "non magical mace". That's your description. That's not the conception of it at the table. If someone was playing a LotR-based game, in which recovery of the Red Book of Westmarch by some 4th Age hobbit was at stake, one might easily fail to capture the full scope of what is going on by referring to it as a "non-magical lorebook".




Had you identified finding the mace as a Belief earlier, much grief could have been skipped on this issue.  I generally find this to be the case with longstanding arguments with you - that some key piece of information was omitted that resolves the issue nicely.  Accomplishing a Belief is a fraught situation, so the failure assigned is on par.  This was really the bit that you needed to provide to clear this up.


----------



## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> This is well put. Thanks for managing to clearly convey in a few sentences what's a I failed to convey over several posts.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> You're kidding with the names I think, but this is an excellent point.
> 
> My issue with the term railroading is that I think it's fairly clear what it's meant to be...a line with set points in a certain order. You cannot vary the order or add any points in or skip any points or make any other changes.
> 
> In RPG terms, an adventure has a chapter 1, then a chapter 2, and so on until the end. There is no changing the story or going about the different parts in a different order. If this is the case, then it's a railroad. If it's not the case, then it is not a railroad.
> 
> Now, that's perhaps too strictly defined....but I think others are using the term far too broadly.
> 
> I also think that the term term is meant to refer to the story (if not a whole campaign, then at least an adventure) as a whole, rather than at one small decision point within the story. I don't know if one instance of DM judgment by fiat deserves the term railroad to be broken out.
> 
> You have to have a thing least several such points for the metaphor to even apply.




RE:  the naming convention

Yes, a bit tongue in cheek, but only because I began thinking in terms of transportation.  I'm an engineer by trade, and work with communications, and often end up using highway analogies to explain various types of shared bandwidth usages because everyone immediately understands and gets a general understanding.

My preferred D&D playstyle is best described as linked mini-sandboxes.  There's a plot thread that the players move along, and this tends to jump players between encounter areas.  That's a loose term, as it fits both an area to be explored and a political situation that needs to be resolved.  The basics are that the encounter area is a sandbox where the party has a goal - decided by them or offered by the plot - but no defined pathway to the plot.  For exploration, I build out an area using terrain types, features, NPCs, and critters.  I then come up with a few sets of motivations for the groups in the area.  Some are tied to the goal, for or against.  Some are entirely separate and deal only with local concerns.  Some have nothing to do with the local, but are passing through and might be interacted with (these I use to augment campaign themes, frex, if there's a war going on, there may be a group of deserters or a unit moving through or a conscription party).  Then the party is turned loose to accomplish (or not) their goal.  They decide how/when/where to strive and the obstacles and NPCs come into play.  Not everything is used, and some things are used often, depending on how I think they best fit what the party is trying to accomplish.

Example:  The party is looking for more information on the main plotline, which involves manifestations of a strange rocklike substance that warps and perverts the surrounding area/creatures.  They're looking for any mention or story that fits this description.  At this point, we're at an exit, and I provide a few choices to the party -- they hear a story about something that may fit the bill (odd happenings nearby), a previous research effort returns a new tidbit not related to the plot but of interest to a character (a magic item, for instance); and the party is approached by a friendly NPC they have history with with a request to help a friend.  All of these choices are valid, and each gives up something offered by the others.  In this specific case, the story of odd happenings isn't related to the plot, but could gain a powerful ally for later, the magic item is a magic item, and the request from a friend is directly related to the plot.  The party opts to aid their friend and travels to a distant land to provide assistance.  The information provided there from their questions immediately tells them this is main plot related, and the agree to assist wholeheartedly.

So, this is an example of interstating.  There are only a few choices, and each will move the party down the plot in a big jump, and once they pick their exit, that's their exit.  Now, if they really wanted to not go that way, I allow it, but the style of play follows this convention.  Now we enter the mini-sandbox, though.

The encounter area is an elemental confluence deep in the desert.  They're guided there but the guides refuse to enter.  In the confluence, I've set up five distinct terrains, and 2 special features for each:  the high plain, which is neutral ground and features a massive set of ruins and a smaller set of ruins, the water domain, which features a mineral spring and a bitter, poisonous lake, the fire domain, which features a burning lake of oil and a massive flame jet, the earth domain which is a trackless sea of dunes that features a dome of stone somewhere deep inside, and the wind domain which is a barren, windswept rock hills with large stone spires (heavily wind etched) and a permanent cyclone that wanders the area.  Some of these features are crossovers (the hot springs, the sandstorm cyclone, the sea of burn oil, the poisonous lake).  The idea here is that they cement this as an area of elemental confluence.  The ruins tie in the ancient dwarven empire that's a campaign theme.  The main NPCs are four elemental genies, one each, in charge of their domains.  Each is vying for power in different ways.  Earth has become corrupted by the strange stone and is attempting to corrupt Air.  Fire is worried, but not much.  Water is very concerned and will ally with outsiders that offer help.  In addition, there is a group of cultists in the area that venerate the strange stone and it's corrupting effects.  They're camped in the Air domain and are working to destablize Water so Water can't prevent the turning of Air.  There's also a pack of gnolls that have moved into the smaller ruins and are currently starving but can't escape because of the pair of mated blue adult dragons that have moved into the area, sensing that they can steal the power here away from the distracted elemental lords.  Finally, there's a dungeon under the large ruins that still holds knowledge of the ancient dwarves that would be useful to the party if they discover it.  And a smattering of elemental themed critters fills the rest of the area for encounters while exploring.

The party's goal is to identify a possible corruption by the strange stone and eradicate it while learning more about the corruption to better combat future updates.  They also have a ongoing goal of gathering more information from dwarven ruins, because the last time the strange stone appears was just prior to the falling of the dwarven empire in a great cataclysm (which is popularly blamed on the dwarves themselves).  At this point, I don't script anything.  I know the area, the motivations of the groups, and what will happen absent player involvement.  I have a rough timetable of what will happen (which is usually set to 'players screw around doing nothing for too long').  After this, it's what the players do and how they interact with the surroundings that determines the game.  They are now Baha-ing.

So, I find mixing up some styles works best for me.  The interstating works to keep a game moving (I had full buy in from the players for a Big Plot game) towards the plot points (which overall were tightly scripted in the first few levels to establish themes but towards the end are written as 'here the players fight the BBEG' because I'm not entirely sure what form the BBEG will take -- it'll be fluid based on where the game leads and because I want the player choices to have big impacts at the end).  But I prefer allowing a lot of leeway to interact with an area, to give the players agency to make meaningful choices in how they accomplish their goal (which they had less agency in picking, yes).  I carry those choices forward.  If the players destroy Earth, for instance, that's a way to solve the problem, but that's a closed end. If they, instead, find a way to cleanse him (which I didn't pick a method ahead of time, preferring to see how things work out), then they gain a powerful ally for later.  Which will be useful.

This works for me, as a DM.  As a player, though, I'm much more open to styles.  I'll play in just about anything, so long as the dynamic is good and not toxic, and have enjoyed a bunch of different games and game styles over the years.  One of my all time favorite games was a much more improv style game, as a matter of fact.


----------



## hawkeyefan

[MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] 

Good stuff, thanks for sharing. The term interstating does seem to fit. I like the idea of small linked sandboxes. My style is likely close to yours as I tend to mix lots of playstyles and material into it. 

For instance, in my prep for this coming Friday, I kind of loosely plotted out 3 distinct paths that the players are likely to take. They certainly could surprise me and force me to adapt, but I'm not very concerned about the possibility as they are pretty invested in the ongoing stories that form our campaign.

They're currently in Sigil, which is kind of their home base. They recently learned of some information that may lead them to the prime material world of Golarion, or they may return to their home world of Toril, where the bustling town of Phandalin is being threatened by the spread of elemental cults from the Dessarin Valley. Or, they may hold off on leaving Sigil and may instead investigate some connections between various plot threads that they recently learned about, involving the disappearance and possible death of a group of a powerful group of allies.

So I have material planned for any of those options...remaining in Sigil, heading to Golarion, or returning to Toril. Each is pretty sandboxy in its own way....although the trip to Golarion does require a set encounter at the portal they will need to use. However, once they reach the location in Golarion, they're free to go about things however they like.

I suppose I'm always a bit surprised when folks try to advocate player agency in such a broad sense as the players literally determining every step of the campaign. I've never had a situation where the players and I didn't try to work together to make sure that their characters were invested in the world. The players deciding to go radically "off script" isn't a concern for me because they've contributed to and enjoy the "script". There's plenty of flexibility for them to pursue their goals however they like, but enough of a framework where I can at least partially see how they may do so.


----------



## Xetheral

I think some of the disagreement related to "consistency" is related to the concept of Dissociated Mechanics. The comparison isn't perfectly apt, but I think it's close:

When Pemerton decides, as a consequence of a player failure, that the brother was Evil all-along, it's effectively creating a dissociated mechanic for the player on-the-spot (instead of in the game's rules, where the label is usually applied). OOC, the player's decision to search for the mace has causally resulted in the brother's retroactive classification. But IC, the charcter's decision has causally resulted in a failure to find the mace (and finding the arrows instead). I think it's _that_ OOC/IC inconsistency, analogous to a dissociated mechanic, that's causing some posters, like me, who react badly to dissociated mechanics, to feel that Pemerton's approach _itself_ will necessarily lead to an inconsistant game world.

I came to this conclusion trying to reconcile my visceral agreement with the posters claiming that Pemerton's style would create inconsistencies with my intellectual awareness that I've run interally-consistant games while making on-the-fly changes nearly as big as Pemerton. So I know from experience that it _can_ be done consistantly, but it still felt like it shouldn't be possible. Hence my conclusion that the inconsistency I felt was based in the mechanic itself, rather than in the game world.

For reference, my style is a hybrid of Saelorn and Pemerton's approaches. Like Saelorn, I approach playing D&D as analogous to a (casual) modeling exercise, with the current state of the model (the game world), the rules (part of the modeling engine), the GM's judgment/discretion (the other part), and player decisions (external input) used to determine how the model evolves. Unlike Saelorn, however, I don't view the model as sacrosanct; I will liberally tinker with it on-the-fly as a tool to achieve my ultimate goal of maximizing player enjoyment. (This includes being careful to make sure that the players are all on board with my style.) Consistency tends to be important to my players, so I'm careful to keep the game world internally consistent _as interacted with by the PCs_, even as I'm freely making changes behind the scenes based on OOC considerations. So my game worlds are in many ways as fluid as Pemerton's, despite my overall approach having more in common with Saelorn. (Ironically, earlier in this thread I considered my approach to be antithetical to Saelorn's: the conversation has certainly been an eye-opener.)


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## Tony Vargas

Xetheral said:


> I think some of the disagreement related to "consistency" is related to the concept of Dissociated Mechanics.



 Well, it is a very inconsistently defined and applied concept, born of the edition war, and making no sense in or out of that highly charged context.  



> The comparison isn't perfectly apt, but I think it's close



 It's not about a mechanic, for instance...



> When Pemerton decides, as a consequence of a player failure, that the brother was Evil all-along, it's effectively creating a dissociated mechanic for the player on-the-spot (instead of in the game's rules, where the label is usually applied).



 I see the point.  If the player knows that the revelation his character has just been hit with was just made up in the moment, then there's a disconnect between what the character knows/perceives and what the player does.  That is the kind of nonsensical concern that h4ters were whingeing about with dissociated mechanics.  The very nature of a TTRPG makes it manifestly impossible for the knowledge/perception of the player (sitting at a table with fellow nerds) and the character (standing over a decapitated body with an assassin) to ever be in alignment.




> I think it's _that_ OOC/IC inconsistency, analogous to a dissociated mechanic, that's causing some posters, like me, who react badly to dissociated mechanics, to feel that Pemerton's approach _itself_ will necessarily lead to an inconsistant game world.



 Of course, if Pemerton had kept the timing of that decision to himself, there'd be no problem.  



> I came to this conclusion trying to reconcile my visceral agreement with the posters claiming that Pemerton's style would create inconsistencies with my intellectual awareness that I've run interally-consistant games while making on-the-fly changes nearly as big as Pemerton. So I know from experience that it _can_ be done consistantly, but it still felt like it shouldn't be possible.



 Heh.  That does sound hard to reconcile.  The key, IMHO, is player knowledge.  Keep little things like when so-and-so 'became' evil behind the screen, and you head off any problems.  Of course, that earns the 'illusionism' seal of disapproval.
But it works.



> For reference, my style is a hybrid of Saelorn and Pemerton's approaches.



 Now that also sounds 'impossible!'  



> Like Saelorn, I approach playing D&D as analogous to a (casual) modeling exercise, with the current state of the model (the game world), the rules (part of the modeling engine), the GM's judgment/discretion (the other part), and player decisions (external input) used to determine how the model evolves. Unlike Saelorn, however, I don't view the model as sacrosanct; I will liberally tinker with it on-the-fly as a tool to achieve my ultimate goal of maximizing player enjoyment.



 Yep.  'Illusionism.'  Keep up the good work!


----------



## Xetheral

Tony Vargas said:


> Of course, if Pemerton had kept the timing of that decision to himself, there'd be no problem.




If I understand correctly, Pemerton keeping the timing of that decision from his players would negate the entire point of having it be a consequence of the player's failure.



Tony Vargas said:


> Yep.  'Illusionism.'  Keep up the good work!




I think the term applies to my style in the common usage of the word--my style does involve constructing an illusion at the table. But in-context I usually find that the term is considered analogous to "presenting the illusion of choice" or the "the illusion that choices matter", and that's in many ways the opposite of what I'm doing. Most of my behind-the-scenes changes are made to increase player agency, not stymie it.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Had you identified finding the mace as a Belief earlier, much grief could have been skipped on this issue.  I generally find this to be the case with longstanding arguments with you - that some key piece of information was omitted that resolves the issue nicely.  Accomplishing a Belief is a fraught situation, so the failure assigned is on par.  This was really the bit that you needed to provide to clear this up.



Well, I'm glad I told you what you needed to know.

Because most posters on this board don't play games with formal "belief" mechanics, instead I thought it was enough - more helpful, even - to explain the context of the player writing the mace into his PC's backstory and then leading the party back to the ruined tower in part in the hope of finding it.

Also, there was no "longstanding argument" except in the sense that, instead of asking for more elaboration of why the stakes were so high, you posted an assertion that I had misjudged the stakes and arbitrarily hosed the player. I find it curious how often posters on these boards tend to assume that those they are conversing with are incompetent or stupid.


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## Manbearcat

lowkey13 said:


> I dunno man.
> 
> You make it sound more like a doctoral dissertation than a game.




We all have our little obsessive crosses to bear  

I've got two modes; the super silly, endlessly charming and lovable (all true) guy that does Katana-Wielding Thri-Kreen MSPaints...and the guy that goes balls-to-the-wall in long-winded analysis, obsessing over stuff that he cares about.  I've got no problems with folks disliking that second dude, but he isn't going anywhere!


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## Tony Vargas

Xetheral said:


> If I understand correctly, Pemerton keeping the timing of that decision from his players would negate the entire point of having it be a consequence of the player's failure.



 Negating 'player agency' and engaging in illusionism &c, yes.  

All part of painting one style as better/worse than another rather than merely different.  Hm... in that sense your analogy was a good one, now that I think of it.



> I think the term applies to my style in the common usage of the word--my style does involve constructing an illusion at the table.



 Rather like a good magician's trick, or a vivid description can, yes.  That's the way I see it. 







> But in-context I usually find that the term is considered analogous to "presenting the illusion of choice" or the "the illusion that choices matter", and that's in many ways the opposite of what I'm doing. Most of my behind-the-scenes changes are made to increase player agency, not stymie it.



 Nod.  Just like 'railroading' has a pejorative connotation that one can usually come up with an example to illustrate, but can also be applied to perfectly legitimate DMing techniques.  

Informal RPG jargon is full of such landmines.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I suppose I'm always a bit surprised when folks try to advocate player agency in such a broad sense as the players literally determining every step of the campaign.



Can you elaborate on what you mean by _steps of the campaign_?

As I experience it, an event in a campaign - a moment of action, an encounter, a scene/situation - has threemain elements: the framing (in a classic module, this is where the GM reads out the boxed text)[ the action declarations by the players for their PCs; the resolution of those actions.

At each step, new fiction comes into the shared fiction: (1) the GM introduces the fiction that constitutes the framing; (2) the players introduce the fiction that constitutes their PCs efforts to get what they want; (3) if the players' checks succeed, not only the PCs' efforts but their _aspirations_ become part of the fiction; if the players' checks fail, then the GM introduces new fiction that gives effect to that failure. And of course the (3) of scene A feeds into the (1) of scene B.

Part of what I think makes a game player-driven is that when the GM is doing stuff at (1) and (3), s/he is _following the lead of the players_ - so the framing a situation that speaks to concerns that the players have signalled (formally eg via beliefs, flaws etc, or informally) throug build and play; and, in narrating consequences, doing so in a way that puts those same concerns under pressure (eg as with the discovery of the cursed arrows).

I don't know if you would describe that as _the players literally determining every step of the campaign_; I wouldn't, because the GM is determining some things. But I would still describe it as player-driven, because the GM is following the players leads in doing the bits that s/he does.



hawkeyefan said:


> I've never had a situation where the players and I didn't try to work together to make sure that their characters were invested in the world. The players deciding to go radically "off script" isn't a concern for me because they've contributed to and enjoy the "script". There's plenty of flexibility for them to pursue their goals however they like, but enough of a framework where I can at least partially see how they may do so.



The first sentence is true for me. But I'm not sure what the "script" is. It sounds like the steps (3) above are known in advance, but mahybe that's not what you mean.


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## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Not sure how far I'll get witht his right now, but here goes...It wasn't an established part of the fiction as nobody had yet interacted with it, but was it on the DM's map?  Or was the complex even pre-mapped at all? (if not, you're so far away from anything I can relate to you might as well be speaking Russian of Swahili or some other language I don't know a word of).
> 
> My terminology might be more Fail Sideways in this case, but this all seems like normal run-of-play stuff where someone hit what amounts to a chute trap and has to find their way back to the party via some dangers.  But, a bit more info (or clarification) needed:
> 
> 1. Was the trap (for such it is) already on the DM's map or did it suddenly spring into existence at the moment you needed to come up with a failure result?  If pre-present, see next question.  If spur-of-the-moment, the you're into "GM Force" territory...probably not in a bad way, but it's there.
> 
> 2. If the trap was a pre-planned thing, then (to cover what some others might be thinking) was there some warning given of it so the party knew to be careful?  If not, you're into "gotcha" territory, which I personally have no issue with but others - for whatever reason - do.




Going to chunk all of this together.

1)  The move that triggered the encounter with the snow-bridge-covered crevasse hazard was the group move "Undertake a Perilous Journey:"



> When you *travel through hostile territory*, choose one member of the party to act as trailblazer, one to scout ahead, and one to be quartermaster. Each character with a job to do rolls+Wis. ✴On a 10+:
> 
> - the quartermaster reduces the number of rations required by one
> - the trailblazer reduces the amount of time it takes to reach your destination (the GM will say by how much)
> - the scout will spot any trouble quick enough to let you get the drop on it




This is just a conflict resolution move for when the group is striking out through dangerous lands toward a known destination.  If they're just exploring parts unknown or ranging toward an unfamiliar destination, UaPJ would not be triggered.  Maybe consider the move as a different, mundane analogue to 1e Teleport.  If things go awry, they go awry in a truly interesting and dynamic way that leads to unforeseen events which can snowball, thus fundamentally changing the trajectory of play.  That is what happened here.

The scout role was outright failed by their goblin henchmen who were assigned to it (RIP poor Exel and Xanob  ).  This triggered a hard move by me.  That move would have been:



> Use a monster, danger, or location move




If the scout role would have been a 7-9, I would have just made a soft move.  If I decided to go with the same sort of deal, the move would have been:



> Reveal an unwelcome truth




In the conversation of play, I probably would have said something like:



> "The endless expanse of white has stretched out before you for the last days' travel.  The blizzard, though still ominous and looming, flanks you in an eerie, dead stall to the east.  To date, the goblin brothers have guided you away from the lairs of nesting Wyverns, Perytons, and navigated around the dangerous terrain of this glacial wasteland.
> 
> On the final leg of the journey, the land perpetually rises and falls, fraught with boulders and sharp rocks signalling the approach of your destination. The elevating earth ascends angrily toward the White Dragon's domain and the entrance to the Coldlands beyond. In the distance, you can see the great open cavern, cut naturally into the bottom of the mountainside's face. Earthmaw.
> 
> A silly spectacle, the small goblin driver stands up and points, beginning to celebrate.  A reminder of the killjoy nature of this dangerous land that is clearly out to kill you, the moment he does so a terrible sound begins beneath you.  When the sound of cracking ice begins and snow collapses in an accelerating, jagged line in front of the awkwardly rigged sleds, terror turns his celebrations into a shriek.  The lead wolf's forelegs are lost to sight as the beast faceplants then backs abruptly as the cracking, gravelly yawn of a glacial crevasse threatens to swallow you whole...
> 
> What do you do?"




Instead, a 6- means the back of the sled falls straight into the crevasse, hanging mid-air with the PCs/hirelings desperately clinging to it, with just the team of sled wolfs losing the battle to keep everything from being swallowed.  Everyone but the Elven Arcane Duelist made it out (the situation snowballed for him, but he did manage to save a dog and one of the goblin brothers...I think Exel, before the crevasse and the frozen river claimed him).

2)  Very much unlike B/X or a 5e or 1e hexcrawl, here is one of DW's most important GMing principles:



> *Draw maps, leave blanks*
> 
> Dungeon World exists mostly in the imaginations of the people playing it; maps help everyone stay on the same page. You won’t always be drawing them yourself, but any time there’s a new location described make sure it gets added to a map.
> 
> When you draw a map don’t try to make it complete. Leave room for the unknown. As you play you’ll get more ideas and the players will give you inspiration to work with. Let the maps expand and change.




The only thing that was on the map at this point was:

a)  Giliad's Rest at the base of these mountains.
b)  The blocked pass that leads to the highlands.
c)  A secret tunnel that leads through dangerous caverns, but empties out in the lowlands - added to the map by successful PC move.
d)  World's End Bluff and the settlement of World's End (where the PCs were coming from before their journey).
e)  The Glacial Wastes (basically the rest of the highlands.
f)  Averandox's Glacier (the Ancient Blizzard Dragon's lair) - added to map by successful PC move.
g)  Earthmaw (the Hobgoblin kingdom) - added to map by successful PC move.
h)  The Coldlands (the true highlands of this mountainous realm high above the tree line).



So lets put that together then.  The PCs are Undertaking a Perilous Journey across a hostile, glacial expanse.  The possible dangers they could face due to Trailblazer failure are stuff like:

* Weather Takes a Turn
* Lost

Quartermaster is stuff like:

* Water is discovered to be tainted or poisonous 
* 1d4 rations are lost due to spoilage or over-consumption 
* Someone gets food poisoning and becomes _shaky _ or_sick _
* Nearby Danger is attracted by food

Scout is stuff like:

* Exposure 
* Ambush
* Hazard (here we go!)

The players' agency when it comes to an UaPJ move is (a) to trigger it at all, (b) the decision of where they are striking out to, (c) who is taking what role (which feeds into PC build), (d) any strategic moves they can/do make beforehand to ensure that the dangers I can deploy would be further constrained (this could be the deployment of Adventuring Gear such as a map to ensure they can't get lost or some sort of scent that repels a certain predator...or a divination ability that yields portents of the future).

It isn't like hexcrawling or B/X dungeon crawling where you're mapping out a locale and spending exploration turns (listening, searching, 10 ft poling, stealthing, arcane eye-ing, etc) to avoid sequential dangers or make sequential discoveries on a granular map.

DW definitely has more granular interaction (social, exploration, combat) than the transitional journey mechanics, but that is how they function.

So I hope it is clear what the players' agency is in this situation (all of (a) through (d) directly above), what the system's say is (the UaPJ mechanics), and what the GM's role is (follow the game's principles and rules, and on a 6-, follow the fiction and fill their lives with a danger of immediate and severe consequence; such as an immediate hazard event on the failed Scout roll).



So then, I hope that makes a little more clear procedurally how things work themselves out.

That is a lot of "stuff."  Let's start with/focus on this and then we can move on.


----------



## Campbell

Let's talk about the style of GMing that Apocalypse World formalized, but didn't like invent from whole cloth. It basically arises from what happens when you are playing a role playing game in a typical dungeon crawling fashion, but your players are not really interested in any of your dungeons. Now the town and its surrounding environs are loosely detailed because the dungeons are the point right? Your players though, they would rather spend time in town and they have plans. They want to get their protagonist on. You could totally insist they get over themselves and go to a dungeon, but that is not the game they want to be playing. So what do you do? Your B/X text only tells you how to run dungeons. It's not really helpful for this. So you improvise. Over time you learn how to run a town game, and come up with some new principles and procedures for playing the town game. This is where Apocalypse World comes from.

In principle it's fairly easy. You forget about that dungeon or adventure or whatever your plans for the game were. You absolutely have something your players care about - the town and their position in it. Why not leverage that to play the game? Simply follow the player characters around and introduce threats and opportunities that could upend the status quo. If they won't go to the dungeon, you bring the dungeon to them. Also, establish relationships between PCs and NPCs. What if this PC has a different relationship to this NPC than this other PC? That's solid gold. Now you are basically there to find out what sort of exciting lives these exciting protagonists lead. You can introduce complications, let them deal with threats to the status quo in whatever way they want, and like see who they really are. Now you don't have to try so hard. They have their guys, you have your guys. They play their guys, you play your guys. 

That's Apocalypse World in a nutshell. There's more to it, of course. Isn't there always? Over time we develop techniques for the best ways to prep (Fronts), ways to make PCs lives not boring, learn to treat our guys like stolen cars, and so much more. All in the name of making room for compelling decisions and interesting fiction. We make a real game out of it.


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## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Can you elaborate on what you mean by _steps of the campaign_?




However it is broken down. Chapters, adventures, sessions...the ongoing events that one after another form the campaign. 



pemerton said:


> As I experience it, an event in a campaign - a moment of action, an encounter, a scene/situation - has threemain elements: the framing (in a classic module, this is where the GM reads out the boxed text)[ the action declarations by the players for their PCs; the resolution of those actions.




Sure, I would agree with that as a general summary of how things go. I'm sure we could come up with exception, but as a basic structure, I think that's a good description. 



pemerton said:


> At each step, new fiction comes into the shared fiction: (1) the GM introduces the fiction that constitutes the framing; (2) the players introduce the fiction that constitutes their PCs efforts to get what they want; (3) if the players' checks succeed, not only the PCs' efforts but their _aspirations_ become part of the fiction; if the players' checks fail, then the GM introduces new fiction that gives effect to that failure. And of course the (3) of scene A feeds into the (1) of scene B.




So I'm guessing that at this point, you're describing how you handle it rather than as some basic structure? Because I see a lot that I would not describe as fundamental. Not that I think any of what you describe as being wrong...just that we've moved away from some fundamental structure that most games would recognize and into the realm of preference. 

For me, Step 1 is, at the start of the game and time of character creation, where the players can likely have the most input on the fictional world. This is where they can share with the DM any villains they have in mind, family members of their PCs, organizations, items, locations...and so on. As the DM I then do my best to weave as much of that into the world as possible, meshing it with whatever story ideas I have. 

So then step 2 seems pretty straightforward. Step 3 I don't think is typical at all. Again, there's nothing wrong with it...it's just not something I would do as the standard. I certainly do allow things to take shape on the fly and in response to the player's success or failure, but I don't use that as the way of establishing the world. 



pemerton said:


> Part of what I think makes a game player-driven is that when the GM is doing stuff at (1) and (3), s/he is _following the lead of the players_ - so the framing a situation that speaks to concerns that the players have signalled (formally eg via beliefs, flaws etc, or informally) throug build and play; and, in narrating consequences, doing so in a way that puts those same concerns under pressure (eg as with the discovery of the cursed arrows).




Sure that is one way for the game to be player driven. 



pemerton said:


> I don't know if you would describe that as _the players literally determining every step of the campaign_; I wouldn't, because the GM is determining some things. But I would still describe it as player-driven, because the GM is following the players leads in doing the bits that s/he does.




Well no, my example was not meant as a literal description that was always true. 

I think my game is player driven...even though as DM I am determining most of the course of play, because how I determine that is in reaction to the players choices.



pemerton said:


> The first sentence is true for me. But I'm not sure what the "script" is. It sounds like the steps (3) above are known in advance, but mahybe that's not what you mean.




I used "script" in quotes because as DM I do have a story that I am telling. I do have a general idea how it will develop over time. There is not a hard and fast script....things can and do change based on the players. But things don't change so much that I find the campaign goes from something like Lord of the Rings to something like The Bridges of Madison County. 

This is why I think the term railroad is overused. Yes, I as the DM have a story that is unfolding over the course of the campaign. Yes, I can tell you some of the future events. Despite this, it's very far from a railroad.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> At each step, new fiction comes into the shared fiction: (1) the GM introduces the fiction that constitutes the framing; (2) the players introduce the fiction that constitutes their PCs efforts to get what they want; (3) if the players' checks succeed, not only the PCs' efforts but their _aspirations_ become part of the fiction; if the players' checks fail, then the GM introduces new fiction that gives effect to that failure. And of course the (3) of scene A feeds into the (1) of scene B.






Campbell said:


> Simply follow the player characters around and introduce threats and opportunities that could upend the status quo.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You can introduce complications, let them deal with threats to the status quo in whatever way they want, and like see who they really are.






hawkeyefan said:


> So I'm guessing that at this point, you're describing how you handle it rather than as some basic structure? Because I see a lot that I would not describe as fundamental. Not that I think any of what you describe as being wrong...just that we've moved away from some fundamental structure that most games would recognize and into the realm of preference.




I'm going to be Mr Buttinski for a moment.  Pemerton's and Campbell's abridged version of play here seems pretty orthodox TTRPGing here, no matter what you're playing.

The GM presents the initial situation > the players interact with the situation to affect whatever end they seek > the resolution mechanics are consulted if the situation calls for it > the situation changes (and hopefully through the interaction and changing of the situation, we learn something about the actors and the world they inhabit).

Rinse & repeat.  

I mean B/X is very different procedurally and architecturally than 5e, but my little goblin (the DW play excerpt upthread that I mapped to B/X and still have to map to 5e) who freaked out and ran (as a result of the initial framing > Monster Reaction > PC interaction > subsequent Monster Interaction) could happen in both systems.

In 5e, the opening situation unfolds as I presented.  The primary difference is that the introduction of the goblin wouldn't be systemitized like it is in DW or B/X (unless you're rolling for Random Encounters at an extremely high frequency in this complex compared to normal and you hit your 15 % chance).  Its basically going to either be (a) arbitrary GM fiat (not necessarily GM Force, however), (b) orthodox 5e GM as storyteller/fun-producer mandate (this will make good story/fun), or (c) a causal logic extrapolation from dungeon stocking; "the character's actions draws attention from the wandering goblin nearby."  

No matter.  The social exchange with the goblin can basically be the same.  If it was 5e, I'd frame the situation a little differently than DW (because the goblin scene was a hard move from a failed roll).  Something like this:

GM



> As your eyes scan the room for any other points of entrance/egress in the stone walls and ceilings, the sound of a creaky hinged door from the far end of the room stirs you from your search. A squat goblin shambles into the room, flipping a coin and catching it on the back of his hand. Before his attention is drawn from his game of catch he says in goblin, "I heard you guys could use some...help..."
> 
> His jaw goes slack.  He completely misses the coin he was playing catch with and it clangs off the floor and rolls before coming to a rest somewhere amidst the tangle of refuse barrels.  A blank look on his face quickly evolves to horror as he looks past you at the gory remains of his dead friends.  Perhaps he sees the trail of pink slime leading from those bodies into the stone wall's cavity.  Perhaps he doesn't...




There is your *situation*.

I pick Hostile for the goblin's Starting Attitude.  

The player decides he is going to try to diffuse the situation.  He sheathes his weapon, shows his hands, and says something that seems sufficiently calming.  I don't make him roll any dice, but while he's stalled the goblin for a moment, the unnerved creature is subtly backing away.

The player decides he is going to try to find some common ground.  He is clearly afraid, but he hasn't outright fled.  Perhaps he's conflicted.  Does he seem anguished over his friends?  Is he trying to make out if I'm an enemy?  Maybe he saw the telltale sign of the Aboleth attack and is more terrified of that?  

He looks for a clue on the goblin's face so he rolls a Wisdom (Insight) to uncover an Ideal, Bond, Flaw.  He's successful.  I tell the player that the goblin is tearing up, eyes going bloodshot, rage and despair clearly simmering.  He loves his friends (Bond).  

The player plays off of that.  Shows the signs of the Aboleth attack and promises the little goblin that he will have his vengeance...the Elf will see it done.  

I'm gonna let this shift his attitude up to Indifferent and call for a Charisma check (and I'll give Advantage because the little goblin is willing to risk to see his friend's avenged) to see what happens.  Maybe the PC beats the 20 DC.

There is your* effort to get what the PC wants and action resolution*.

Now the story originally called out in the DW excerpt is changed; no chase, no escalation of the situation, no potential further aggression.  And we learn something very different about this little goblin than in the DW excerpt; he's got more moxie and his love for his pals outweighs his fear.  And maybe we learn that the PC is more empathic and thoughtful than we thought (or at least than what we've seen before).  Maybe that spawns a changed Trait, Bond, or Ideal.

There is your *change in the fiction leading to a new situation (and hopefully reveals something about the characters and/or world they inhabit).*

That looks a whole lot like what pemerton and Campbell wrote above.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Well, I'm glad I told you what you needed to know.
> 
> Because most posters on this board don't play games with formal "belief" mechanics, instead I thought it was enough - more helpful, even - to explain the context of the player writing the mace into his PC's backstory and then leading the party back to the ruined tower in part in the hope of finding it.
> 
> Also, there was no "longstanding argument" except in the sense that, instead of asking for more elaboration of why the stakes were so high, you posted an assertion that I had misjudged the stakes and arbitrarily hosed the player. I find it curious how often posters on these boards tend to assume that those they are conversing with are incompetent or stupid.




I do not consider you either stupid or incompetent.  At worst, I consider you to have made a very minor mistake in presenting your story that led to my confusion.  Once that was remedied, I completely understood your actions and said so.  One does not do this to someone they consider stupid or incompetent.

I think you should examine your assumptions about others and see if maybe another mistake has been made.


----------



## Campbell

Let's talk about nonlinear generation of fiction. So in my mind compelling fiction is just as much about what we don't say about the lives of our characters as about the things that we do say. You need to elide some details to leave a bit of mystery and also because there is only so much time to game. This does not have to be figured out beforehand. Sometimes it is better if it is not because we want to build in some flexibility to make sure it is relevant and matches up with what everyone else brings to the table.

Let's make with the Actual Play. 

I am currently a player in an online game of Blades in the Dark. My Hound, Candros Slaine is a former imperial sniper that was burned and sent back home to Duskvol to finish the sentence that enlisting got him out of. After he finished his stretch at Iron Hook prison he returned home to find his wife missing and his kids stuck in the same orphanage he grew up in. Seeking the means to find his wife and get his kids back he has joined up with a group of weapons smugglers through an old military contact. 

That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of Candros. It's enough of a compelling premise to play and make decisions for the character. I am sure he has far more history than that. I want to know more about him, and so do the other players at the table. It is just not critical that we know right now. There's a lot to a single life. I could not possibly detail everyone Candros has ever met or had dealings with in the past, but that does not mean that stuff should never come up. I should be able to figure some more of that stuff up as we go, take suggestions from the other players, etc. I mean I could work out a bunch of stuff in secret with the GM, but that would require extensive blue booking and might never come up or matter to the scope of play. Why should I have to do so? It's an even bigger deal for GMs. If a single character has more history than I would ever be able to work out, can you imagine the hundreds of characters the GM has to deal with. There is also the fun of not knowing. I do not believe that the GM has to miss out on that fun of not knowing how things will turn out or what that mystery could be. Some stuff we might never know, and that only adds to the interest.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> Let's talk about the style of GMing that Apocalypse World formalized, but didn't like invent from whole cloth. It basically arises from what happens when you are playing a role playing game in a typical dungeon crawling fashion, but your players are not really interested in any of your dungeons. Now the town and its surrounding environs are loosely detailed because the dungeons are the point right? Your players though, they would rather spend time in town and they have plans. They want to get their protagonist on. You could totally insist they get over themselves and go to a dungeon, but that is not the game they want to be playing. So what do you do? Your B/X text only tells you how to run dungeons. It's not really helpful for this. So you improvise. Over time you learn how to run a town game, and come up with some new principles and procedures for playing the town game. This is where Apocalypse World comes from.
> 
> In principle it's fairly easy. You forget about that dungeon or adventure or whatever your plans for the game were. You absolutely have something your players care about - the town and their position in it. Why not leverage that to play the game? Simply follow the player characters around and introduce threats and opportunities that could upend the status quo. If they won't go to the dungeon, you bring the dungeon to them. Also, establish relationships between PCs and NPCs. What if this PC has a different relationship to this NPC than this other PC? That's solid gold. Now you are basically there to find out what sort of exciting lives these exciting protagonists lead. You can introduce complications, let them deal with threats to the status quo in whatever way they want, and like see who they really are. Now you don't have to try so hard. They have their guys, you have your guys. They play their guys, you play your guys.
> 
> That's Apocalypse World in a nutshell. There's more to it, of course. Isn't there always? Over time we develop techniques for the best ways to prep (Fronts), ways to make PCs lives not boring, learn to treat our guys like stolen cars, and so much more. All in the name of making room for compelling decisions and interesting fiction. We make a real game out of it.




That all sounds cool. Now your description was devoid of any game mechanics...so couldn't it be said that just about any game system could be used to achieve this style?

Yes, I'm sure there are some games that lend themselves to this style based on the mechanics they employ...but I don't think there's any reason that the above playstyle absolutely relies on such mechanics.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> I'm going to be Mr Buttinski for a moment.  Pemerton's and Campbell's abridged version of play here seems pretty orthodox TTRPGing here, no matter what you're playing.
> 
> The GM presents the initial situation > the players interact with the situation to affect whatever end they seek > the resolution mechanics are consulted if the situation calls for it > the situation changes (and hopefully through the interaction and changing of the situation, we learn something about the actors and the world they inhabit).
> 
> Rinse & repeat.




Well, I agree with your summary, much like I did with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] when he said this:


pemerton said:


> As I experience it, an event in a campaign - a moment of action, an encounter, a scene/situation - has threemain elements: the framing (in a classic module, this is where the GM reads out the boxed text)[ the action declarations by the players for their PCs; the resolution of those actions.




He then went on to elaborate with this:


pemerton said:


> At each step, new fiction comes into the shared fiction: (1) the GM introduces the fiction that constitutes the framing; (2) the players introduce the fiction that constitutes their PCs efforts to get what they want; (3) if the players' checks succeed, not only the PCs' efforts but their _aspirations_ become part of the fiction; if the players' checks fail, then the GM introduces new fiction that gives effect to that failure. And of course the (3) of scene A feeds into the (1) of scene B.




The distinction I am seeing is about the "aspirations". Perhaps this was me reading into this based on how the discussion has been going, but I assume that some distinction was meant by the above two bits quoted from pemerton's post.

I read that as aspirations beyond the success of the immediate task at hand. So that such skill checks can be used to allow the player to insert elements to the fictional world (like a vessel to catch blood, or a hidden weapon tied to the character's background). Hence why I saw that second quote as being a bit beyond the basic structure put forth in the first. 

I certainly could be wrong, and I am sure pemerton can explain, but I assume there was some distinction meant between the two quotes.


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> That all sounds cool. Now your description was devoid of any game mechanics...so couldn't it be said that just about any game system could be used to achieve this style?
> 
> Yes, I'm sure there are some games that lend themselves to this style based on the mechanics they employ...but I don't think there's any reason that the above playstyle absolutely relies on such mechanics.




As with most things the critical bits are your Agenda and Principles. Agenda describing what you are ultimately playing to do, and your principles being broad statements that inform how to pursue your Agenda. The actual procedures, or detailed bits of what exactly you do at the table, can vary, but very much shape play. Your agenda and principles form a set of best practices that help keep the game tight and guide you towards consistently good gaming. Many games can be drifted to be run in this style. I find that certain principles work pretty well for most, but not all games - stuff like *Be a Fan of the Players' Characters*, *Play To Find Out*, *Treat Your NPCs Like Stolen Cars*, and *Ask Provocative Questions and Build on the Answers*.

I have run several mainstream games, utilizing techniques I have learned from Apocalypse World and its cousins. Vampire - The Requiem 2nd Edition, Demon - The Descent, Edge of the Empire, Godbound, and RuneQuest worked pretty well. Exalted, Shadowrun, and Numenera crashed and burned.

What I have found is that you either need plentiful prestated NPCs, quick generation, or a game that is entirely player facing to make it easy to drop NPCs in. Stuff where a GM is called on to interfere with action resolution in a way that does not involve simply following the fiction does not work so well. Minimal GM overhead is preferable, particularly when it comes to things like setting DCs. It adds additional room for bias to enter the picture when ideally we should be playing to find out. It helps if the rules are clear when they apply. Games where character creation grounds them into the setting and with each other is immensely helpful. Stuff like Touchstones in Vampire, Cover Identities in Demon, Obligation in Edge of the Empire, and the entirety of RuneQuest character generation are amazing. Caveat: RuneQuest PCs leave very little room for gaps.

I would not utilize this style wholesale for GMing in FATE, Burning Wheel, D&D 4e, or Cortex Plus. Closed scene resolution generally requires a substantially different GMing skill set. FATE cuts against the grain of it because we largely know who are PCs are. It's right there in the aspects. I would only run Burning Wheel exactly as written. It deserves to be played as designed.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> So I'm guessing that at this point, you're describing how you handle it rather than as some basic structure? Because I see a lot that I would not describe as fundamental. Not that I think any of what you describe as being wrong...just that we've moved away from some fundamental structure that most games would recognize and into the realm of preference.



Preference, but an attempt to locate it within a tenably clear framework that I think many RPGers would recognise as making sense.



hawkeyefan said:


> The distinction I am seeing is about the "aspirations". Perhaps this was me reading into this based on how the discussion has been going, but I assume that some distinction was meant by the above two bits quoted from pemerton's post.
> 
> I read that as aspirations beyond the success of the immediate task at hand. So that such skill checks can be used to allow the player to insert elements to the fictional world (like a vessel to catch blood, or a hidden weapon tied to the character's background). Hence why I saw that second quote as being a bit beyond the basic structure put forth in the first.



I think it's important to remember what the action declaration was: _I look around the room for a vessel_. What the check is about is _whether or not that succeeds_. Narrating the presence of a vessel is simply a byproduct of narrating the success of looking around the room for one.

In the case of the mace, writing the mace into the PC's backstory is not an action at all. That's just making stuff up about the PC. The action declaration is "We [there was helping taking place] search the tower for the nickel-silver mace that I left here over 14 years ago." The check determines if that is achieved.

What I'm trying to capture is the idea that if the check succeeds, the PC's effort [an element of the fiction established at step 2] pays off, and so _more stuff_ becomes part of the fiction. Looked at in this way, _seeing a vessel_ or _finding a mace_ is no different from _chopping the head of an orc_ or _picking the lock_ (which are also things that have happened in this campaign). The first of the former two makes it true that _there is a vessel in the room seen by the PC_. The first of the latter two makes it true that _there is an orc with a severed head that the PC chopped off_. The ingame causal grounds of the events are different in some ways, but the at-the-table process is not.


----------



## Lanefan

Lots of work to do again tonight, it seems... 


pemerton said:


> But all these things _did_ happen. There were clues as to the brother's moral status (possession by a balrog; his treatment of his apprentice - the assassin PC; the discovery of the black arrows). There were "second-party" interactions, between the brother PC (who wanted to redeem the NPC brother) and the assassin PC (who wanted to kill him, and has now succeeded in that).
> 
> The game has been working with all this stuff _the whole time_. In the very first session, the PCs found a spellbook apparently written by the brother and in the possession of a mad murderer.
> 
> The confrontation between brother and brother; the need for the NPC to then recupreate in the mage's tower; and his decapitation by the assassin PC-turned-NPC - these have been the events to which the whole campaign, to date, has been leading up! It's hard to envisage any way it which this stuff could have been more at the centre of the game, given that it also has other PCs and so other elements in play (eg the naga and its PC servant).
> 
> But why, then, is the mystery even better if the GM already knows the answer?



Because the GM can then both frame it properly (provide set-up and clues) and provide internally-consistent reactions to what the PCs' investigations (if any) turn up (if anything).  Both of these would be rather difficult if the GM doesn't know the solution: at best she'd be guessing; more likely she'd just be floundering.



> A game can have clues - in the sense of events that point to something that lies beyond or behind them - without having a pre-authored mystery that the players are trying to unravel.



I don't want to say outright that I don't believe you, but what's the next closest thing?



> But how do you know it wasn't filtered through his evilness?



If his evilness was unknown to everyone _even including the person who was supposedly playing him_ (that's you the GM, by the way), then basing his words and actions on said evilness could not have been possible (though random chance could, I guess, achieve a similar result).



> Or to put it another way: suppose there had been prior interaction - and it took whatever form it did - why would that be inconsistent with evilness? Does "evilness" always manifest itself in some particular and distinctive way?



No.  But there's always a chance it might manifest in any of a gajillion different ways - or not at all.  That's where the roleplaying would come in.  Further, in a game like mine that has alignment detection spells and abilities if he had done or said anything that provoked undue suspicion he might have got pulled right then and there.



> This is why I'm puzzled by these concerns about inconsistency - they seem to derive from some very particular conception about how certain sorts of characters _must_ behave, or how certain sorts of events _must_ unfold, if certain other things about those characters or those events are to be true. But this doesn't seem to be the case in the real world, and so why would it have to be so in the imaginary one?



The consistency issue comes from a number of places, not all tied to the brother example:

- cause and effect consistency.  If cause A leads to effect B once then logic says it will do so again if repeated, all other things being equal
- in the brother example (but assuming prior interaction) if he was always evil he'd in theory have been motivated by that all along...which may or may not have given the party pause for thought; but as the evilness didn't exist in the fiction until the last minute the chance for such was lost
- memory consistency: if Torvallen was 20 miles north of Qar'Nora last time we were here it needs must still be 20 miles north now we've returned (or another one: if the dungeon's ex-armoury with the painted targets on the walls was to the left at the bottom of the spiral stairs last time we visited it should still be there this time - which if it's been three years real time since that place was visited and neither players nor DM mapped the thing is likely to cause headaches unless you've got photographic memories)



> Think back to rolling reaction dice in a B/X game. The PC elf stumbles across an ogre. The GM rolls the reaction dice. They come up 5 - and the GM has the ogre say "MMM - I think I might have some elf for dinner!" And now the player of the elf can either resign him-/herself to a fight, or try to persuade the ogre to (say) take money in lieu.
> 
> Suppose instead the dice come up 10 - then the GM has the ogre say "Ooh, look at the cute elf. You remind me of the elf I saw that time when I was just a baby ogre!" In other words, the ogre's backstory and motivations are written in to fit the rolls. The same can be done for peasants in a town.



At the first encounter, yes.  But the next encounter needs to have some consistency with or at least reference to the first one.  The elf meets the same ogre again 3 months later, the ogre remembers the money the elf gave it and wants some more; it'll approach on that basis and thus trump (or very much skew) the dice.



> That's why I keep emphasising the significance of action resolution. We have, in our game, techniques for the players declaring actions for their PCs and then determining whether or not the PCs get what they want. We don't need an extra filter of secret backstory to resolve these dice rolls. Rather, we can construct the backstory off the back of the results. (And as part of framing. And as part of PC building. Etc, etc. But there is _no need_ for GM's secret backstory.)



Which butchers any sense of consistency in time.  The broad-brush backstory and game-world history is already there...either that, or you're playing in a vacuum...and everything is filtered through that.  This is true in the real world also.



> If the ogre ever comes back into play again, chances are everyone at the table will remember it. If not, roll the dice again!
> 
> Or make notes. Written backstory isn't less effective because it's written down as a product of play rather than as a prelude to it.
> 
> Again, my experience makes me think that you're exaggerating the issue. It's just not that hard. So I think you're exaggerating 1 and 2.



I'm used to my own note-taking and memory, and those of a whole bunch of players I've DMed over the years.  I'm not exaggerating at all. 



> My campaigns tend to run for many years, so 3 is not relevant.



As do mine...log and other info for the current one is at www.friendsofgravity.com/games/decast 



> You've left off 5 (no one remembers and so no one cares). And 5 can be quite important, because if something happens which turns out to go nowhere or be of no concern to anyone, then it doesn't really matter if it drops out of the group's collective memory and never gets brought up again. (It's hard to give example of 5, because by definition they've been forgotten. But I suspect early in my main 4e game, when the PCs were opposed to a Bane-ite sect, some stuff was at least implied about that sect that I think ended up dropping out of the picture, because the player who would have been mainly interested in that stuff - due to playing a cleric of Kord - moved to London.)



You're right, but only until something thought to be irrelevant suddenly takes on new importance (remember my talk of breadcrumbs earlier?) - that guy you met in passing three years ago has just become the key to everything in the players' eyes, while in the DM's eyes he was key all along and thus notes were pre-made.  Doing that all from memory wouldn't work...I mean, hell, I can't even remember clearly what happened in what sequence in my session two nights ago (as I realized when I went to type up the log this afternoon!  I think I got it mostly right); as I've already said, my in-session note-taking is woefully inadequate as I don't want to have to stop things while I write.



> But the overall anchor of consistency and continuity is the players' play of their PCs. That provides the focus of play, and the common thread around which events turn.



It provides the focus of play.  It provides a common thread.  Events go on as they will, possibly influenced by the run of play and possibly not.



> But they're not a planned arc, at least as Campbell is conceiving of them. They're springs to action. But they will be tested, perhaps realised, perhaps changed or abandoned.



An abandoned planned arc is still a planned arc.  I played a character whose backstory was that giants had overrun his family's farm when he was a kid.  His planned arc from day (and session) 1 was to take his home back, once he got big enough and bad enough through other adventuring.  Years and levels later I was able to convince the other characters to go along with this...and they did, for one inconclusive adventure, after which they got bored with giants and went off elsewhere.  I retired my guy at that point to carry on the fight as best he could with whatever locals he could round up.



> Yes. But when, at the table, is the GM licensed to introduce such results.



With an eye to the plot and-or story and an eye to what makes sense within the game world vis-a-vis backstory and so forth, the answer is quite simple: whenever she bloody well wants.



> In my preferred approach, as the narration of _failure_. Because that's what you're describing: the players (and their PCs) have not got what they wanted.



They haven't.  However, they think they have, which makes all the difference.



> But this is just wrong.
> 
> Players make up bits of their PC backstory all the time. Heck, some players make up _names_ for their PCs sometime after the first session.



Sure, and minor stuff like that - while at all times completely subject to DM veto - is just fine.  I do it, as a player, unless the DM tells me no.  But I make sure never to insert anything that would give me any undue advantage or status or suchlike.



> GMs have been making up the settting in response to play ever since the first time Gygax or Arneson or whomever said - "I wonder what's in the neighbourhood of this dungeon - I'd better write up a village". The City of Greyhawk clearly was conceived of by Gyggax efore its history was. Etc.



Which is one way of doing it, but I've come to realize is not my preferred way.  I want a game world with history, with backstory, and with a life beyond what the PCs see.  Why? Because I've also come to realize that this history/backstory/life is the richest mine imaginable for story arcs, adventures, intrugie, mystery, and all-round fun.

There's some major - very major - things about my game world that no player or character yet knows...nine years in...that have been every now and then influencing things all along.  Reveals will no doubt come at some point(s), but till that time if I didn't have these things already baked in then how could they have had those influences?



> This just seems confused.
> 
> If the Baron does something, that doesn't mean the GM did that thing.



If my character Terazon does something then in theory I as his player am responsible for it, right?  Same goes for the DM when an NPC does something.



> Sauron killed Elendil. Tolkien wrote a story about Sauron killing Elendil.



But if Sauron was a PC and Elendil was another player's PC, instead of being pawns in a single-author fiction, you and loads of others would be jumping all over the Sauron-player for the PvP.  This tells me that the character *is* tied to the player...and by extension all the NPCs are thus tied to the DM.



> In terms of the relatonship between backstory, GM narration thereof, and the way that play of the game works, the GM can just as easily narrate that the Baron did such-and-such _as part of narrating the consequence of a player's failed check_, as decide on it secretly in advance and then use that decision as the basis for deteriming that the player's action declaration for his/her PC fails.



So the DM does in this case have secret backstory. Good to know.

And, what if the check is never made...or it is and the roll says success?



> The GM is doing quite different things in each case, but what the baron did remains the same in either case. This is why it is helpful to analysis to distinguish the doings of (real) GMs from the doings of (imaginary) NPCs. If we don't, it's very hard to talk coherently about what is driving the game: we end up with assertions like "The baron cause such-and-such to happen in the game", when the baron in fact (being imaginary) exercised no causal power on anyone ever.
> 
> This point is pretty well recognised when it comes to alignment and characterisation - ie most RPGers recognise that "I was playing in character" isn't a good reason to explain anti-social play, because the character isn't real, and it is the _player_ who has to take responsibility for the choices s/he made.



The Baron causes things to happen in the game world - imaginary cause, imaginary result.  The next step back shows the real DM is causing the Baron to cause those imaginary things.

And, your point about "I was playing in character" in fact makes my own point above, that the character is tied to the player.  So, if my character Sauron kills your character Elendil because Sauron in character is bat-spit evil and killing Elendil suits his purposes that's not me-as-player killing you-as-player.  That's me-as-player playing my character to kill another character that happens to have a different player attached.



> Exactly the same point applies in other contexts too. The fiction doesn't write itself. It gets written by someone, via some process. And we can't identify or talk about that process if all we talk about are the imagined causal powers of imaginary people.



Why not?  In the case of RPGs it's the causal powers of imaginary people as imagined by a combination of the players and the DM that in the end gives the story (though it's up to one of us real-world types to write it down!).

Lan-"a reminder to all that elf is, in fact, the other white meat"-efan


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> That what it means for a player to impose his/her will on the fiction. Rob Kuntz wants to change the fiction: to have the gods be freed. And it happens, because he declares actions for his PC, and Gygax (as GM) resolves them.



After which Gygax has 12 newly-freed deities running loose in his game world, with which he can have a field day!



> The relevant feature for current purposes is that there is no secret backstory, no NPC with a character arc, that restores the status quo, or blocks Robilar's action, or otherwise prevents the action declaration from having the consequences its player intended it to have. The fate of the 12 gods is not "in motion" in some metaplot-driven fashion wherein Robilar's action just become a small cog in the big wheel of Gygax's authoring of the unfolding history of his campaign world.



We don't know that.  How/why are those deities in prison in the first place?  What did they do before they got there (and what are they going to do next)?  How do we know that is wasn't in fact on Gygax's storyboard that at some point they'd be freed?  And regardless, an action that significant will become a cog in the wheel of the game-world's unfolding history whether EGG wanted it to or not.

And how do we know that some element in the game world isn't just going to go out and round 'em all up again?



> It shows the PCs returning to people they'd dealt with before - the duergar, some of the drow - and how developments can be handled without the GM just extrapolating behind the scenes by reference to his/her conception of how things would "naturally" unfold.



Neither this nor the tone/intent/results of those previous interactions was mentioned.  The way it read seemed like these were all first-time meetings.



> So eg you can see the player of the paladin making the duergar's diabolic connection salient; then the framing of a check, to see whether or not they've learned their lesson; and how this unfolded into them switching allegiance to Levistus instead.
> 
> It illustrates the workings of a "living, breathing" world without the need for the GM to do anything besides frame situations and resolve checks by reference to that framing. (Ie no secret backstory)



In a relatively isolated example like this it's difficult to impossible to tell if there's in fact a secret backstory (or many such) present or not.  There's certainly loads of opportunities for it.  Were it me I'd have given at least vague thought to the various agendae of all those groups the party met, and likely not all of them would have been made the least bit obvious once play began.



> The imp doesn't have its own action economy - in mechanical terms its a feature of the PC. Mechanically, the player is spending an AP to add +2 to a failed check (thereby making it a success). In the fiction, this takes the form of the imp speaking.



What boggles my mind here is that simple speech (as opposed to spellcasting etc.) ever requires a mechanical action of any kind at all.

What boggles my mind slightly less - but there's still bogglin' going on - is that the mechanics allow a failed roll to retroactively be turned into a success like this.  In my eyes once a die hits the table, that's it - it's locked in and no further changes can be made.

Lan-"two, two, two boggles at once"-efan


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## Lanefan

lowkey13 said:


> But the point of what I was arguing is that there is a difference between a world that is constantly changing without the interaction of the players, and a world that only changes when the characters interact with it. I am not stating that one is better, or worse, just that they are different. I would argue that the world that is changing (and is accounted for) without player interaction feels more "lived in" whereas one that changes only when the players interact with it tends to more heroic, or at least player-centric, narratives.
> 
> It all depends on preferences; some players enjoy creating the shared narrative of the world (that banker we just encountered is sad because his son was murdered by Colonel Mustard!) whereas some players enjoy the feeling of exploring a world that feels like it goes on without them. Again, preferences.



Given some real-world discussions here at home with our crew over the last couple of weeks I feel safe in saying we are very solidly in the latter camp...and quite happy there.

Lan-"if it's sunny when we go into the dungeon and the world doesn't change when we're not there to see it that means it has to be sunny when we come out - right?"-efan


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## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> I see the point.  If the player knows that the revelation his character has just been hit with was just made up in the moment, then there's a disconnect between what the character knows/perceives and what the player does.  That is the kind of nonsensical concern that h4ters were whingeing about with dissociated mechanics.  The very nature of a TTRPG makes it manifestly impossible for the knowledge/perception of the player (sitting at a table with fellow nerds) and the character (standing over a decapitated body with an assassin) to ever be in alignment.



However, the ideal is - or in my view unquestionably should be - to get them as closely aligned as practicality allows such that as far as possible player knowledge and character knowledge are the same. (this just keeps coming up, doesn't it?)

It's not a nonsensical concern at all, regardless of system or edition.



> Yep.  'Illusionism.'  Keep up the good work!



Illusionism, old boy, is where it's at! 

Lan-"just ignore the man behind the curtain screen"-efan


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## Lanefan

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] I'm starting to question, if this goes much further, whether we'll become guilty of trying to apply science to what is in fact an art.  

Kind of like what the fancystats guys are doing to hockey and baseball.



Manbearcat said:


> Going to chunk all of this together.
> 
> <snipped lots of chunky bits>
> 
> It isn't like hexcrawling or B/X dungeon crawling where you're mapping out a locale and spending exploration turns (listening, searching, 10 ft poling, stealthing, arcane eye-ing, etc) to avoid sequential dangers or make sequential discoveries on a granular map.



Which doesn't follow to my logical side, in that unless the travel is itself broken up (e.g. by a teleport) then any discoveries in any RPG system are by default going to be sequential, hm?  At location 1 this happens, at location 2 this happens, etc. with the only question being whether the party hits those locations or (intentionally or otherwise) bypasses them.



> So I hope it is clear what the players' agency is in this situation (all of (a) through (d) directly above), what the system's say is (the UaPJ mechanics), and what the GM's role is (follow the game's principles and rules, and on a 6-, follow the fiction and fill their lives with a danger of immediate and severe consequence; such as an immediate hazard event on the failed Scout roll).



While I have no objection to filling their lives with immediate and severe dangers, I prefer to do it off a pre-planned map and can't really get behind making them up on the spot, particularly when - as in your crevasse example - they put things on the map (in this case a connection between the path and the basement) that weren't intended to be there. 

Looked at another way, it's almost like that system replaces wandering monsters with a much broader concept of wandering danger or just wandering damage.



> That is a lot of "stuff."  Let's start with/focus on this and then we can move on.



Not sure how much deeper in I'm going to dive, but OK.

Lanefan


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## Campbell

As an aside, anyone who is interested in sandbox gaming with an emphasis on a living breathing world should really check out Sine Nomine Publishing's products. They utilize real modular design, include an elaborate set of random tables utilizing a tagging system to generate content, and use fractal design to represent things like factions. One really cool subsystem they include is the faction turn which you can use to play out different factions maneuvering against each other. It really helps to model changes happening in the setting over time. It starts out as lonely fun, but if players get to the point where they are controlling their own factions you get to include them.

Sine Nomine and Red Box Vancouver are doing some really innovative stuff within the OSR space. Stars Without Number, Godbound, Red Tide, The Nightmares Underneath, Metamorphica, and The River Knife module series are all evocative and extremely well designed.

Another cool technique is the use of countdown clocks, originally seen in Apocalypse World for fronts. The idea is that you assign a goal to an NPC, faction, or whatever and at regular intervals tick up the clock. Player actions can of course tick the clocks up or down. Blades in the Dark extends this to a method to deal with PC long term projects. Basically progress bars.


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## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> So I'm guessing that at this point, you're describing how you handle it rather than as some basic structure? Because I see a lot that I would not describe as fundamental. Not that I think any of what you describe as being wrong...just that we've moved away from some fundamental structure that most games would recognize and into the realm of preference.




He was describing the basic structure.  @_*pemerton*_ just seems to have the obsessive need to redefine or restate things in different words.  In this case he restated the basic structure that 5e gives on page 6 of the PHB under How to Play.  Change the wording back and step 1 becomes "The DM Describes The Environment", step 2 becomes "The Players Describe Their Actions", and step 3 becomes "The DM Narrates The Results".


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## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Illusionism, old boy, is where it's at!



 For my next illusion:  another session of D&D that doesn't suck!  Now, watch carefully ...nothing up my sleeve....

...now, pick a door, any door...!


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> As with most things the critical bits are your Agenda and Principles. Agenda describing what you are ultimately playing to do, and your principles being broad statements that inform how to pursue your Agenda. The actual procedures, or detailed bits of what exactly you do at the table, can vary, but very much shape play. Your agenda and principles form a set of best practices that help keep the game tight and guide you towards consistently good gaming. Many games can be drifted to be run in this style. I find that certain principles work pretty well for most, but not all games - stuff like *Be a Fan of the Players' Characters*, *Play To Find Out*, *Treat Your NPCs Like Stolen Cars*, and *Ask Provocative Questions and Build on the Answers*.
> 
> I have run several mainstream games, utilizing techniques I have learned from Apocalypse World and its cousins. Vampire - The Requiem 2nd Edition, Demon - The Descent, Edge of the Empire, Godbound, and RuneQuest worked pretty well. Exalted, Shadowrun, and Numenera crashed and burned.
> 
> What I have found is that you either need plentiful prestated NPCs, quick generation, or a game that is entirely player facing to make it easy to drop NPCs in. Stuff where a GM is called on to interfere with action resolution in a way that does not involve simply following the fiction does not work so well. Minimal GM overhead is preferable, particularly when it comes to things like setting DCs. It adds additional room for bias to enter the picture when ideally we should be playing to find out. It helps if the rules are clear when they apply. Games where character creation grounds them into the setting and with each other is immensely helpful. Stuff like Touchstones in Vampire, Cover Identities in Demon, Obligation in Edge of the Empire, and the entirety of RuneQuest character generation are amazing. Caveat: RuneQuest PCs leave very little room for gaps.
> 
> I would not utilize this style wholesale for GMing in FATE, Burning Wheel, D&D 4e, or Cortex Plus. Closed scene resolution generally requires a substantially different GMing skill set. FATE cuts against the grain of it because we largely know who are PCs are. It's right there in the aspects. I would only run Burning Wheel exactly as written. It deserves to be played as designed.




Again, this is all cool. I've played only a couple of the games you mentioned, but there are also many I have not. Over the years, I have played enough games to be exposed to a lot of different game mechanics that help with the game structure. I dig that stuff, even though I don't often think it is necessary.

Now, given that this is a 5E forum....do you think that 5E is incapable of achieving the kind of play you like? It's conspicuously not in your list. Do you think that absent such narrative mechanics in 5E, that DM Judgment can substitute? 



pemerton said:


> Preference, but an attempt to locate it within a tenably clear framework that I think many RPGers would recognise as making sense.
> 
> I think it's important to remember what the action declaration was: _I look around the room for a vessel_. What the check is about is _whether or not that succeeds_. Narrating the presence of a vessel is simply a byproduct of narrating the success of looking around the room for one.




I understand. But I don't know if the byproduct you mention is such a simple thing. In this example, perhaps....the presence of a bowl to catch the blood and therefore fulfill the PC desire seems fairly minor in the grand scheme. So minor I would feel comfortable simply saying yes and proceeding rather than relying on a check. 

But I would assume based on the focus you are giving this idea, that it can also come up in circumstances that can have a more profound impact on the game. Would you say that is true? 



pemerton said:


> What I'm trying to capture is the idea that if the check succeeds, the PC's effort [an element of the fiction established at step 2] pays off, and so _more stuff_ becomes part of the fiction. Looked at in this way, _seeing a vessel_ or _finding a mace_ is no different from _chopping the head of an orc_ or _picking the lock_ (which are also things that have happened in this campaign). The first of the former two makes it true that _there is a vessel in the room seen by the PC_. The first of the latter two makes it true that _there is an orc with a severed head that the PC chopped off_. The ingame causal grounds of the events are different in some ways, but the at-the-table process is not.




Right, I understand that. So your model fits closely enough to what most of us would acknowledge as the basic structure of the game. As I said, I don't have a problem with the approach....more with the implications you've made along the way in the discussion about other methods being more railroady.


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## Ovinomancer

hawkeyefan said:


> Right, I understand that. So your model fits closely enough to what most of us would acknowledge as the basic structure of the game. As I said, I don't have a problem with the approach....more with the implications you've made along the way in the discussion about other methods being more railroady.




I think, with the bowl issue, the difference pemerton (and others?) is trying to illustrate is the difference in how the DM approaches it.  So, first the player states something like, "I look for a bowl or container to catch the blood in."  Then we split.  [P]emerton's preference is that this is now a potential new element to the fiction -- he doesn't know if there's a bowl, but he'd like to find out.  The player is asked for a check, and the success or failure of that check establishes if a bowl or container exists or does not.  In this case, the existence of the bowl is an element the player is trying to establish, and the check is to see if this is the case.  

On the other side, the side pemerton is calling railroading, it starts the same way with the player declaration, but instead of the check seeing if a bowl exists, the DM decides whether or not a bowl exists and how easy it is to locate the bowl.  For you, the existence of the bowl is determined as 'does' and the likelihood of finding it is '100%' so you just say, 'sure, there's a bowl on the nightstand with some random coinage and a bubblegum wrapper in it.'  But another DM using this method might determine there is no bowl.  Another might think there is a bowl, but it's under the bed and not easily noticed, so the check is to see if you find it in time.  But all of these start with the DM determining the answer to the question 'is there a bowl?' and move forward.  What I gather from pemerton is that this act is the railroad (again, I strongly disagree with this use of the term) because it's a function of the DM forcing the fiction instead of allowing it to be a collaborative event.  With pemerton, it's more important to acknowledge the player's contribution to the story, and the DM's job isn't to say yes or no or determine the answer, but to provide a challenge in the form of a die roll that will determine the success of the player's authoring of new fiction (in this case, a bowl; not all fiction is exciting).

That's the gist that I pick up from manbearcat, pemertion, and Campbell.  While it looks superficially like the standard presentation of play (present, declare, narrate), it differs fundamentally in how the narration is authored.  In the case of the bowl, pemerton's method is that the player has authored the bowl, so he's just narrating what the player established.  With the other (railroady, as permerton says) method, the DM determines the fiction and only narrates the outcome of things he (the DM) is uncertain about.  

I'm not sure I'm explaining that last part very well.  I see it as a fundamentally different approach to the game, though, and one that fits with the presentation of other games and how they operationalize creation of the story.  And, again, it's a fine playstyle, a fine theory of game, one I have no issues with (although I occasionally fail to recognize it), but I don't think the DM authoring style is a railroad, per se, it just approaches the creation of fiction differently.  You can use the DM as primary author method just fine and maintain player agency in the world.  It's just the domain of player agency that shifts.  Railroading is the removal of player agency -- nothing they choose matters, they go the same place no matter what.


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## Tony Vargas

lowkey13 said:


> Because they got rid of the Illusionist class.
> 
> Res.
> Ipsa.
> Loquitor.



 I'm sorry, is that Latin for "I mean to say sub-class?"


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> Again, this is all cool. I've played only a couple of the games you mentioned, but there are also many I have not. Over the years, I have played enough games to be exposed to a lot of different game mechanics that help with the game structure. I dig that stuff, even though I don't often think it is necessary.
> 
> Now, given that this is a 5E forum....do you think that 5E is incapable of achieving the kind of play you like? It's conspicuously not in your list. Do you think that absent such narrative mechanics in 5E, that DM Judgment can substitute?




You could get there fairly easy, although B/X or BECMI would be better fits. You would have to develop your exact Agenda and Principles to fit what the game uniquely offers and the exact sort of narrative you are after. Inspiration in its current state would have to go - it cuts against our interests in the same way that Fate Aspects do. It reinforces playing to who our characters are right now instead of making who they are a question answered through play. I would also scrap the current experience system and replace it with something more strongly tied to the sort of play I'm going for. A better rewards system is not strictly necessary for this sort of play, but the current reward structure is also counterproductive to our interests. I would probably also alter rest cycles in the same way I did when I ran 4e. Not insignificant hacks, but ones that don't really touch core systems that much. You can stop at just the principles, but there are some counter productive procedures I would not be able to help myself with.

Honestly if I were going to run 5e  it would most likely be in a West Marches style. Create a map with blanks in it, have a larger group of players create characters, and have them coordinate what they want to do. Then prep exactly that material using guidance from B/X. Either that or run Sine Nomine's Red Tide sandbox setting or utilize some Red Box Vancouver modules - not adventures, actual modules.


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## Tony Vargas

lowkey13 said:


> Otherwise known as ... so, how ya feeling about that Battlemaster archetype?



 Actually, I recently started on a 4e version (post-Essentials-style Fighter sub-class) of the Battlemaster.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Tony Vargas

lowkey13 said:


> Subclass is just another way of saying that WoTC doesn't love you.



 WotC does seem parsimonious with that metaphorical emotion this time around.



> Nobody puts Baby the Illusionist in the corner!



 The illusionist started life as a sub-class, became one of 8 specialist wizards in 2e, stayed that way in 3.x, was vaguely present as the Orb of Deception build in 4e Arcane Power, was a Mage School at release in Essentials, and, in 5e, is back to a sub-class, now called a Tradition, on of 8 in the PH.  

So, it's literally never been a class.


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Tony Vargas

lowkey13 said:


> If you state that Paladin wasn't a class in 1e (something that I wish was true ...) then this is accurate.
> 
> Going by tables, the only real classes are:
> Cleric
> Fighter
> Magic User
> Thief
> 
> The core four.



 Yep.  That's my story.  

It's worth noting that every other sub-class, optional-class, proto-PrC, and not-a-class-at-all, _except the Assassin_, got to be a full class, in print, in at least one subsequent edition.  

The Paladin, Ranger, Psionicist, and Bard were classes in 2e, the Druid was in 3.0 (in 2e it was technically one instance of a speciality priest, iirc).  All were likewise classes in 4e - though the psionicist had half his name chopped off, and was joined by three other psionicists, including a very confused Monk ("Not Psi!  Ki!"  "Yeah, OK, 'Psyche' it is.").



> But calling 5e's traditions "subclasses" and comparing them to the Illusionist class in 1e .... just doesn't cut it.



 It's probably a fairer to compare Traditions to the 2e and 3e specialist wizard (they compare favorably: no opposed schools!).  
Of course, aside from that (and presentation), the biggest difference is that the 1e Illusionist never got 8th or 9th level spells, while as a 'mere' specialist or Tradition, it does.


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## Lanefan

lowkey13 said:


> I disagree with that characterization in the following way-
> 
> If you state that Paladin wasn't a class in 1e (something that I wish was true ...) then this is accurate.
> 
> However, the "subclasses" of 1e were, for all practical purposes, classes.
> 
> Going by tables, the only real classes are:
> Cleric
> Fighter
> Magic User
> Thief
> 
> The core four.
> Every thing else that we consider a class (and is fully developed)? Nope.
> 
> Illusionist? Druid? Ranger? Paladin? Assassin? Tehcnically, sub-classes, yet they were all fully developed.
> 
> The Monk and the Bard were not delineated as sub-classes, but lacking unique tables (to hit, save) they would be, at best, "special variant classes" (one listed out of order, one listed in an appendix).



In later editions, however, all of those became their own full classes at some point - except the Illusionist.

Lan-"and Necromancer, which also works really well as a 1e subclass on par with Illusionist"-efan


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


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## Tony Vargas

lowkey13 said:


> Bah. Who needs wish when you can use your 7th level spell for Alter Reality, Prismatic Wall, and ... um .... first level magic user spells ....



 So, you wish you couldn't cast wish?  That could work out...


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## Ovinomancer

Not the weirdest thread drift....


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Now your description was devoid of any game mechanics...so couldn't it be said that just about any game system could be used to achieve this style?



I wouldn't say "just about any". I would say "more than just a few".

First, let me state a caveat:  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] upthread, around post 73, distinguished "scene-framing" from "principled GMing" as approaches. I don't feel the force of that distinction as strongly as he does (sometimes stuff that's really salient to person A sails over the head of person B), and so I might run together some ideas that he would think it's interesting/worthwhile to keep distinct.

So, that said, there are mechanics that can be an obstacle to running this sort of style:

*Mechanics that drag attention away from the present action of the game (eg some healing/rest mechanics; some resource-management mechanics) can push the game into a continuous narration by the GM, and continuous tracking of somewhat minor ingame causal processes, which get in the way of _asking provocative questions_ or framing scenes that _go where the action is_.

*Mechanics that emphasise the importance of GM-authored backstory (eg many traditional divination mechanics; some perception mechanics) can get in the way of _playing to find out_.

*Mechanics that allow the players to significantly reframe the ingame situation (eg teleportation; some forms of "rocket tag" combat) can tend to produce play where players _avoid_ the "hard questions" rather than actualy engage the ingame situation via their PCs.​
I will add, I report this based on experience - these are all things that make it harder to run in this style using Rolemaster than using (say) 4e or Burning Wheel.

4e downplays recovery/resource mechanics of the problematic sort, has little or no divination, and doesn't have much teleportation or rocket tag. BW ticks the second and third boxes also; it does have rather intricate recovery and resource mechanics, but uses various devices to help fold them into the idea of "going where the action is" rather than having them be an obstacle to that.



hawkeyefan said:


> given that this is a 5E forum....do you think that 5E is incapable of achieving the kind of play you like? It's conspicuously not in your list. Do you think that absent such narrative mechanics in 5E, that DM Judgment can substitute?



I think I offered my answer to this above.

There are the inspiration mechanics (although, noting  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s comments about them), you would need to include some device for having the ideals, bonds and flaws change in response to play (the BW "trait vote" process would be one way, but not the only one).

You could incorporate "say 'yes' or roll the dice" and "let it ride" into non-combat resolution; bounded accuracy is a possible issue, as I've noted, because it can make the dice domainte over player choices (in build and resource deployment), but a lot of use of inspiration might trump this problem (advantage swamping the vagaries of the dice). 

The XP mechanics seem pretty unhelpful as they stand, but there are a lot of variants that can be shoved in there.

I understand. But I don't know if the byproduct you mention is such a simple thing. In this example, perhaps....the presence of a bowl to catch the blood and therefore fulfill the PC desire seems fairly minor in the grand scheme. So minor I would feel comfortable simply saying yes and proceeding rather than relying on a check. 

But I would assume based on the focus you are giving this idea, that it can also come up in circumstances that can have a more profound impact on the game. Would you say that is true?



Campbell said:


> I have run several mainstream games, utilizing techniques I have learned from Apocalypse World and its cousins. Vampire - The Requiem 2nd Edition, Demon - The Descent, Edge of the Empire, Godbound, and RuneQuest worked pretty well. Exalted, Shadowrun, and Numenera crashed and burned.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would not utilize this style wholesale for GMing in FATE, Burning Wheel, D&D 4e, or Cortex Plus. Closed scene resolution generally requires a substantially different GMing skill set
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would only run Burning Wheel exactly as written. It deserves to be played as designed.



Any insights on why Numenera et al didn't work?

Because, as I've said, I'm not quite tracking your distinction between "principled GMing" and "scene framing", I'm not sure if the way I run BW counts as "exactly as written". I certainly feel I'm following Luke Crane's advice.

Cortex Plus does raise some different issues, as I've said - it's very tightly based around scenes, and the  fact that every action declaration is (i) opposed, and (ii) must generate an effect with mechanical and fictional meaning, makes it its own beast, from the GMing point of view.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't have a problem with the approach....more with the implications you've made along the way in the discussion about other methods being more railroady.



Well, I see the "railroad" issue as arising at (1) and at (3).

If, at (1), the framing is always reflecting the GM's priorities and not the players', then it is the GM driving the game.

If, at (3), the resolution draws upon the GM's pre-authored conception of the situation ("secret backstory"), then it is the GM driving the game.

There are interactions between (1) and (3), too - if (3) reflects the players' aspirations for their PCs (either because, with success, they realise them; with failure, the GM narrates consequences that speak to those consequences, though in an adverse way), then it tends to feed back into (1), and before you know it the game looks like what  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] described.

Conversely, if the GM is going to maintain control over (1) then that puts limits on what can come out of (3) - eg there must be limits on how much the players can do at (3). Hence you see modules with advice like "If the BBEG is killed, a lieutenant takes up the standard". That is a way of making sure that, whatever the players achieve at (3), the GM doesn't have to change the (1).

Classical dungeoneering (what Campbell called "free kriegspiel") is its own interesting thing. It adds an extra phase - phase (0), if like - which is the GM writing a whole lot of backstory (like the Village of Hommlet). But then stage (1) is controlled by the _players_. In this sort of play, the GM draws upon the phase (0) backstory at (3) (eg if a divination spell is cast, the GM already knows the answer, and gives it) but this doesn't lead to GM authority over the (1).

For this to work, the GM's backstory has to be such that it leaves the players with control over (1) - hence the backstory must be metaplot-free, for instance. (I discussed this with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] upthread.)

Going a bit further with this: if the phase (0) backstory is something like a dungeon, then a lot of the game becomes what I've called _puzzle-solving_. The players, by choosing what (1) to engage and then keeping track of the outcomes at (3) gradually build up a picture of the dungeon and how to beat it.

If the phase (0) backstory is random content generation, a la Classic Traveller, then the game is not puzzle-solving; it's closer to collective creation of a world. The players, by choosing what (1) to engage, force the use of random tables to generate its details. The (3) is no longer about players driving the game (as per my preferred style); nor the players beating the GM's dungeon (as per classic D&D play); but simply finding out whether or not the PCs can flourish in the world that is unfolding via the random tables. It's ultra-exploratory, and - in practice, at least as I've experienced it - runs the risk of being a bit boring. But it's not a railroad.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> pemerton just seems to have the obsessive need to redefine or restate things in different words.



That wacky pemerton . . .


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> That wacky pemerton . . .




I know, right!  The point is that this time you weren't trying to re-define something, but were rather just re-wording the normal method of play.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Classical dungeoneering (what Campbell called "free kriegspiel") is its own interesting thing. It adds an extra phase - phase (0), if like - which is the GM writing a whole lot of backstory (like the Village of Hommlet). But then stage (1) is controlled by the _players_. In this sort of play, the GM draws upon the phase (0) backstory at (3) (eg if a divination spell is cast, the GM already knows the answer, and gives it) but this doesn't lead to GM authority over the (1).
> 
> For this to work, the GM's backstory has to be such that it leaves the players with control over (1) - hence the backstory must be metaplot-free, for instance. (I discussed this with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] upthread.)



There's no "must" about it - the meta-plot can simply be part of the ongoing backstory referenced in what's being called 'phase 0' here.



> Going a bit further with this: if the phase (0) backstory is something like a dungeon, then a lot of the game becomes what I've called _puzzle-solving_. The players, by choosing what (1) to engage and then keeping track of the outcomes at (3) gradually build up a picture of the dungeon and how to beat it.



Sounds like D&D to me. 



> If the phase (0) backstory is random content generation, a la Classic Traveller, then the game is not puzzle-solving; it's closer to collective creation of a world. The players, by choosing what (1) to engage, force the use of random tables to generate its details. The (3) is no longer about players driving the game (as per my preferred style); nor the players beating the GM's dungeon (as per classic D&D play); but simply finding out whether or not the PCs can flourish in the world that is unfolding via the random tables. It's ultra-exploratory, and - in practice, at least as I've experienced it - runs the risk of being a bit boring. But it's not a railroad.



Also runs the risk of failing to be internally consistent over the long haul unless careful notes are taken as each random permanent element is determined.

I can also see how boredom might set in at some tables, unless the random tables are skewed toward "this location has a dungeon or adventure or something exciting in it" far more than any the-least-bit-realistic world could support.

Lanefan


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> there are mechanics that can be an obstacle to running this sort of style:
> 
> *Mechanics that drag attention away from the present action of the game (eg some healing/rest mechanics; some resource-management mechanics) can push the game into a continuous narration by the GM, and continuous tracking of somewhat minor ingame causal processes, which get in the way of _asking provocative questions_ or framing scenes that _go where the action is_.​



I hand-wave away that example on the ground that said mechanics can be hand-waved if you're not interested in what they're resolving.



> *Mechanics that emphasise the importance of GM-authored backstory (eg many traditional divination mechanics; some perception mechanics) can get in the way of _playing to find out_.



 I'd think any mechanic that assumed GM-authored backstory (pre-established 'facts' I assume) could be subverted with GM-improvised retcon.



> *Mechanics that allow the players to significantly reframe the ingame situation (eg teleportation; some forms of "rocket tag" combat) can tend to produce play where players _avoid_ the "hard questions" rather than actualy engage the ingame situation via their PCs.


 Don't follow that one... 



> There are the inspiration mechanics



 Yeah, but try not to hold 'em against 5e.



> You could incorporate "say 'yes' or roll the dice" and "let it ride" into non-combat resolution; bounded accuracy is a possible issue, as I've noted, because it can make the dice domainte over player choices



 But dice are only rolled if the DM calls for them, so it can be minimized as much as desired.



> Because, as I've said, I'm not quite tracking your distinction between "principled GMing" and "scene framing"



 I'm not loving the use of ethical-connotation-bearing worlds like 'principled' as if to contrast with 'unprincipled.'  



> then it is the GM driving the game.



 To actually tap the 'railroad' metaphor for a moment, the engineer driving the train decides how fast it goes, but it (hopefully) stays on the rails.  The operative part of the railroad metaphor has always seemed to me the rails, not that someone's in control, but that the train is only going to the next station (or stopping, or crashing).  
So, maybe the GM is driving the game in more of an automobile or team of oxen or herd of cats, sense...?


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> So, maybe the GM is driving the game in more of an automobile or team of oxen or herd of cats, sense...?



Yeah, herding cats sounds about right... 

Lan-"14th-level catherd"-efan


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Yeah, herding cats sounds about right...
> 
> Lan-"14th-level catherd"-efan



 It's a classic for a reason.


----------



## Campbell

When I speak about taking a principled approach to GMing I mean it in the same sense as principled engineering or principled design, not in the moral sense. 



			
				 Oxford English Dictionary said:
			
		

> *principled*
> 
> (of a person or their behaviour) acting in accordance with morality and showing recognition of right and wrong.
> (of a system or method) based on a given set of rules.




I am utilizing the second definition here. I take a disciplined approach to GMing that relies on a set of formalized principles and procedures that I adhere to. GMing can be principled without the specific set of principles I'm utilizing, but I don't know how else to describe it in a way that cuts across games. Maybe I should just call it MCing. Here is what Apocalypse World has to say on this approach:



			
				 Apocalypse World said:
			
		

> *Play to Find out:* there’s a certain discipline you need in order to MC Apocalypse World. You have to commit yourself to the game’s fiction’s own internal logic and causality, driven by the players’ characters. You have to open yourself to caring what happens, but when it comes time to say what happens, you have to set what you hope for aside.
> 
> The reward for MCing, for this kind of GMing, comes with the discipline. When you find something you genuinely care about—a question about what will happen that you genuinely want to find out—letting the game’s fiction decide it is uniquely satisfying.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> I think, with the bowl issue, the difference pemerton (and others?) is trying to illustrate is the difference in how the DM approaches it.  So, first the player states something like, "I look for a bowl or container to catch the blood in."  Then we split.  [P]emerton's preference is that this is now a potential new element to the fiction -- he doesn't know if there's a bowl, but he'd like to find out.  The player is asked for a check, and the success or failure of that check establishes if a bowl or container exists or does not.  In this case, the existence of the bowl is an element the player is trying to establish, and the check is to see if this is the case.
> 
> On the other side, the side pemerton is calling railroading, it starts the same way with the player declaration, but instead of the check seeing if a bowl exists, the DM decides whether or not a bowl exists and how easy it is to locate the bowl.  For you, the existence of the bowl is determined as 'does' and the likelihood of finding it is '100%' so you just say, 'sure, there's a bowl on the nightstand with some random coinage and a bubblegum wrapper in it.'  But another DM using this method might determine there is no bowl.  Another might think there is a bowl, but it's under the bed and not easily noticed, so the check is to see if you find it in time.  But all of these start with the DM determining the answer to the question 'is there a bowl?' and move forward.  What I gather from pemerton is that this act is the railroad (again, I strongly disagree with this use of the term) because it's a function of the DM forcing the fiction instead of allowing it to be a collaborative event.  With pemerton, it's more important to acknowledge the player's contribution to the story, and the DM's job isn't to say yes or no or determine the answer, but to provide a challenge in the form of a die roll that will determine the success of the player's authoring of new fiction (in this case, a bowl; not all fiction is exciting).
> 
> That's the gist that I pick up from manbearcat, pemertion, and Campbell.  While it looks superficially like the standard presentation of play (present, declare, narrate), it differs fundamentally in how the narration is authored.  In the case of the bowl, pemerton's method is that the player has authored the bowl, so he's just narrating what the player established.  With the other (railroady, as permerton says) method, the DM determines the fiction and only narrates the outcome of things he (the DM) is uncertain about.
> 
> I'm not sure I'm explaining that last part very well.  I see it as a fundamentally different approach to the game, though, and one that fits with the presentation of other games and how they operationalize creation of the story.  And, again, it's a fine playstyle, a fine theory of game, one I have no issues with (although I occasionally fail to recognize it), but I don't think the DM authoring style is a railroad, per se, it just approaches the creation of fiction differently.  You can use the DM as primary author method just fine and maintain player agency in the world.  It's just the domain of player agency that shifts.  Railroading is the removal of player agency -- nothing they choose matters, they go the same place no matter what.




I think that is an accurate summary of things, as I understand them. 

My point is such that the DM judgment required to determine the DC for the perception check to notice the bowl is probably the equivalent of the amount of DM judgment to simply say yes. So I really don't see one as being more player driven and one being more railroad. 

I do see a possible issue with a DM who simply said no and did not offer any alternative way to achieve what the player wanted. But I suppose this would be the equivalent of the DM setting the DC incredibly high if calling for a perception check.

I suppose I just don't think that the chance of the die is always the best way to achieve drama or excitement or risk. 



Campbell said:


> You could get there fairly easy, although B/X or BECMI would be better fits. You would have to develop your exact Agenda and Principles to fit what the game uniquely offers and the exact sort of narrative you are after. Inspiration in its current state would have to go - it cuts against our interests in the same way that Fate Aspects do. It reinforces playing to who our characters are right now instead of making who they are a question answered through play. I would also scrap the current experience system and replace it with something more strongly tied to the sort of play I'm going for. A better rewards system is not strictly necessary for this sort of play, but the current reward structure is also counterproductive to our interests. I would probably also alter rest cycles in the same way I did when I ran 4e. Not insignificant hacks, but ones that don't really touch core systems that much. You can stop at just the principles, but there are some counter productive procedures I would not be able to help myself with.
> 
> Honestly if I were going to run 5e  it would most likely be in a West Marches style. Create a map with blanks in it, have a larger group of players create characters, and have them coordinate what they want to do. Then prep exactly that material using guidance from B/X. Either that or run Sine Nomine's Red Tide sandbox setting or utilize some Red Box Vancouver modules - not adventures, actual modules.




Gotcha. I play with an altered Inspiration mechanic, and I allow for the Bonds and Flaws and other traits to change or for new ones to be added or old ones to fade as play progresses. We're really loose with all that stuff, which I find to be more manageable than having hard and fast mechanics for everything. Same thing with experience...we ditched the traditional XP system a few editions ago. 




pemerton said:


> So, that said, there are mechanics that can be an obstacle to running this sort of style:
> *Mechanics that drag attention away from the present action of the game (eg some healing/rest mechanics; some resource-management mechanics) can push the game into a continuous narration by the GM, and continuous tracking of somewhat minor ingame causal processes, which get in the way of _asking provocative questions_ or framing scenes that _go where the action is_.
> 
> *Mechanics that emphasise the importance of GM-authored backstory (eg many traditional divination mechanics; some perception mechanics) can get in the way of _playing to find out_.
> 
> *Mechanics that allow the players to significantly reframe the ingame situation (eg teleportation; some forms of "rocket tag" combat) can tend to produce play where players _avoid_ the "hard questions" rather than actualy engage the ingame situation via their PCs.​




Do you have examples of each of these? You've given me "what", but not "how"...



pemerton said:


> There are the inspiration mechanics (although, noting  @_*Campbell*_'s comments about them), you would need to include some device for having the ideals, bonds and flaws change in response to play (the BW "trait vote" process would be one way, but not the only one).




I don't know if you need a device for that. My game does that....we just let the unfolding game and our desires shape that stuff. Works well. 



pemerton said:


> You could incorporate "say 'yes' or roll the dice" and "let it ride" into non-combat resolution; bounded accuracy is a possible issue, as I've noted, because it can make the dice domainte over player choices (in build and resource deployment), but a lot of use of inspiration might trump this problem (advantage swamping the vagaries of the dice).




Say yes or roll the die is pretty fundamental. I actually simply say yes quite a bit. But there are times where I will say no. 

I don't know if bounded accuracy is a big concern on this....especially since the DM is still free to influence the outcome by determining DC and so on. 



pemerton said:


> The XP mechanics seem pretty unhelpful as they stand, but there are a lot of variants that can be shoved in there.




I don't know how the XP system is an obstacle....but I agree it's crap, and we ditched it long ago.

Okay, so this next bit looks like a quote of mine that you accidentally inserted into your post; maybe you can answer now:
_I understand. But I don't know if the byproduct you mention is such a simple thing. In this example, perhaps....the presence of a bowl to catch the blood and therefore fulfill the PC desire seems fairly minor in the grand scheme. So minor I would feel comfortable simply saying yes and proceeding rather than relying on a check. 

But I would assume based on the focus you are giving this idea, that it can also come up in circumstances that can have a more profound impact on the game. Would you say that is true?_



pemerton said:


> Well, I see the "railroad" issue as arising at (1) and at (3).
> 
> If, at (1), the framing is always reflecting the GM's priorities and not the players', then it is the GM driving the game.
> 
> If, at (3), the resolution draws upon the GM's pre-authored conception of the situation ("secret backstory"), then it is the GM driving the game.




But why are you assuming that it's always reflecting the GM's priorities and pre-authored conception? Who is advocating for that? 



pemerton said:


> There are interactions between (1) and (3), too - if (3) reflects the players' aspirations for their PCs (either because, with success, they realise them; with failure, the GM narrates consequences that speak to those consequences, though in an adverse way), then it tends to feed back into (1), and before you know it the game looks like what  @_*Campbell*_ described.
> 
> Conversely, if the GM is going to maintain control over (1) then that puts limits on what can come out of (3) - eg there must be limits on how much the players can do at (3). Hence you see modules with advice like "If the BBEG is killed, a lieutenant takes up the standard". That is a way of making sure that, whatever the players achieve at (3), the GM doesn't have to change the (1).




This I agree with....at least with published adventures. But I also think that's more likely in pre-published adventures....they can only allow for so much lateral movement on the part of the PCs and how the story shapes up. 



pemerton said:


> Classical dungeoneering (what Campbell called "free kriegspiel") is its own interesting thing. It adds an extra phase - phase (0), if like - which is the GM writing a whole lot of backstory (like the Village of Hommlet). But then stage (1) is controlled by the _players_. In this sort of play, the GM draws upon the phase (0) backstory at (3) (eg if a divination spell is cast, the GM already knows the answer, and gives it) but this doesn't lead to GM authority over the (1).
> 
> For this to work, the GM's backstory has to be such that it leaves the players with control over (1) - hence the backstory must be metaplot-free, for instance. (I discussed this with  @_*Lanefan*_ upthread.)
> 
> Going a bit further with this: if the phase (0) backstory is something like a dungeon, then a lot of the game becomes what I've called _puzzle-solving_. The players, by choosing what (1) to engage and then keeping track of the outcomes at (3) gradually build up a picture of the dungeon and how to beat it.
> 
> If the phase (0) backstory is random content generation, a la Classic Traveller, then the game is not puzzle-solving; it's closer to collective creation of a world. The players, by choosing what (1) to engage, force the use of random tables to generate its details. The (3) is no longer about players driving the game (as per my preferred style); nor the players beating the GM's dungeon (as per classic D&D play); but simply finding out whether or not the PCs can flourish in the world that is unfolding via the random tables. It's ultra-exploratory, and - in practice, at least as I've experienced it - runs the risk of being a bit boring. But it's not a railroad.




Yeah, I don't know about that. I don't see an either/or as far as GM Driven and Player Driven. I use both...if not in equal measure, then close to it. It can fluctuate at times in favor of one over the other.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],

I think there are some substantive differences in approach, especially when we consider elements that are unique to the system, rather than just the GMing techniques. 
When MCing player intent never enters the picture and character intent seldom does. The Apocalypse World cares about what you do, not what you want.
Apocalypse World utilizes task resolution rather than conflict resolution for the most part.
The way moves tend to snowball resembles fail forward in effect, but differs in application.
 *If you do it, you do it* means that when a move applies you must roll the dice and accept the result. There is no saying yes or saying no. *Always say what the rules demand.*
There is no stake setting. You follow the fiction and make a move that fits. 
Prep has a say in a way it does not in Burning Wheel and Cortex+ where it is all in potentia. *Always say what your prep demands.* It's a very particular sort of prep with room for gaps though.

When I'm running Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, or Masks I tend to follow things pretty strictly. Dungeon World is looser in its demands. When I adopt their techniques to other games I tend to focus on the more transferrable principles and adopt them to the game. If I ever find anyone willing to play Burning Wheel I'm probably going to run it fairly strict. It's a lot easier to print off some playbooks, grab some people, and get gaming in 5 minutes.


----------



## Emerikol

I think in my own approach, the players are constrained in similar ways to people in the real world.  We are free actors in this world but that doesn't mean we can do anything.  The laws of physics prevent me from just floating around at 10000 feet.   In D&D, there is the campaign reality which for me is a combination of the rules system and that state of affairs in the world.  The players really are free to affect the world however they like and are able with their characters but the world as it stands is a given at the start of the campaign.  I try in fairness to have a lot detailed out in advance before the players even choose their class.  

I tend to prefer the treasure hunter, kingdom (in the broad sense) builder, motives to the save the universe motives.  That doesn't mean bad NPC's are not up to no good all the time.  I never create a motivated NPC though that I can't have winning.  The players may just choose to ignore him.  The world continues to move off camera in my campaign.  Kingdoms go to war, weather wrecks cities,  monsters rampage, the world is a living breathing place or at least I try my best to make it seem that way.  And a lot of it is driven my randomness, I admit.


----------



## Campbell

Emerikol said:


> I think in my own approach, the players are constrained in similar ways to people in the real world.  We are free actors in this world but that doesn't mean we can do anything.  The laws of physics prevent me from just floating around at 10000 feet.   In D&D, there is the campaign reality which for me is a combination of the rules system and that state of affairs in the world.  The players really are free to affect the world however they like and are able with their characters but the world as it stands is a given at the start of the campaign.  I try in fairness to have a lot detailed out in advance before the players even choose their class.
> 
> I tend to prefer the treasure hunter, kingdom (in the broad sense) builder, motives to the save the universe motives.  That doesn't mean bad NPC's are not up to no good all the time.  I never create a motivated NPC though that I can't have winning.  The players may just choose to ignore him.  The world continues to move off camera in my campaign.  Kingdoms go to war, weather wrecks cities,  monsters rampage, the world is a living breathing place or at least I try my best to make it seem that way.  And a lot of it is driven my randomness, I admit.




Thank you for this. I mean it. It's really nice to get some perspective. I think I would enjoy playing in your game, even if the heavy prep involved would make running a similar game pretty difficult for me. I think in many ways my most preferred approach sits somewhere between yours and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s. Pemerton, please correct me if I misspeak. My primary interest is following around the PCs and making sure they live meaningful lives full of interesting decisions, but I want to make sure they absolutely live on solid ground and we are following the established fiction to its natural ends. I leave a lot unestablished, and only really do so as needed to enable meaningful decision making. However, my fronts are very much real and have a life of their own. If engaged with or ignored there will be consequences. They are part of the fiction which we all follow.

Here's the agenda I follow in Apocalypse World, which can easily be adapted to other games:


			
				Apocalypse World Agenda said:
			
		

> Make Apocalypse World seem real.
> Make the players' characters' lives not boring.
> Play to find out what happens
> 
> Everything you say, you should do it to accomplish these three, and no other. It’s not, for instance, your agenda to make the players lose, or to deny them what they want, or to punish them, or to control them, or to get them through your pre-planned storyline (DO NOT pre-plan a storyline, and I’m not ing around). It’s not your job to put their characters in double-binds or dead ends, or to yank the rug out from under their feet.
> 
> Go chasing after any of those, you’ll wind up with a boring game that makes Apocalypse World seem contrived, and you’ll be pre-deciding what happens by yourself, not playing to find out.




I think the primary differences between our approach are that for you it is probably not enough to make the world seem real and it is the players responsible in your game to make their characters' lives not boring. I think we both play the world with integrity, even if I tend to do more building as time goes on and involve my players when I feel like it. One of my principles in most games I run is *Think Offscreen Too*. However, when I do so my primary interest is in exploring how what the players are doing through their characters is impacting what we're not seeing and thinking of new ways to make their lives not boring. Although, sometimes it's just to bring in details that make the world seem real.


----------



## Campbell

I never really responded to why I feel like thinking in terms of character arcs is counterproductive.  When I play I want everyone's attention focused on the moment. As much as possible, we should all be _present_. I don't want us to play _for the fiction_, I want us to play _in the fiction_. I want us to care very deeply, like in our bones deep, and have hopes for the future. Then I want us to push that aside and find out what really happens. We need to let go and follow the fiction, not influence it. The primary reason why I play is emotional immersion in the current situation. We cannot really have that as a group if anyone at the table is pushing for a given trajectory. For me, the output of play is not all that important. It's the experience and tension at the table.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> I never really responded to why I feel like thinking in terms of character arcs is counterproductive.  When I play I want everyone's attention focused on the moment. As much as possible, we should all be _present_.



 The character in the present is shaped by his past, and usually has some concern for his future.  Awareness of backstory & events to date gives context, and when 'arcs' come together bringing those elements to a climax, that drama happens in the present, as well.  



> The primary reason why I play is emotional immersion in the current situation.



 Immersion got over-used for a while around here, particularly as a reason to tell everyone how to play ("we can't have THAT in the game!  oh! My Immersion! It's breaaaakiiing.....").  At least it's a little easier to imagine emotional immersion happening around a table - y'know without postulating a Mazes & Monsters psychotic break - but, I also see a lot of dramatic value to story arcs.  Nor, for that matter, do I have anything against a campaign that's more episodic...


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Mechanics that allow the players to significantly reframe the ingame situation (eg teleportation; some forms of "rocket tag" combat) can tend to produce play where players avoid the "hard questions" rather than actualy engage the ingame situation via their PCs.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Don't follow that one...
Click to expand...


If the GM is trying to frame the PCs into situations that will put them (and thereby their players) under pressure, and the players have the ability to defuse or cancel the situation rather than actually engage it (eg by teleporting home; by rocket tagging all opposition; etc) - what is, in effect, an ability to reframe the situation so that it _doesn't_ put any pressure on them - then it can be hard to run a game that is all about _going where the action is_ and _asking provocative questions_.


----------



## Campbell

Tony Vargas said:


> The character in the present is shaped by his past, and usually has some concern for his future.  Awareness of backstory & events to date gives context, and when 'arcs' come together bringing those elements to a climax, that drama happens in the present, as well.




I absolutely agree that characters are shaped by their history and their aspirations for the future, and I totally want players to concern themselves in that way. That context is fundamental.  For me, it's just a question of where the primary interest is. I totally understand that for some people there is a certain joy in seeing everything come together in a beautifully crafted arc that they work with the GM to fulfill. I am just not one of those people most of the time. I tend to like things messy, fairly simple, and raw. The GM style I prefer most of the time is aimed at arriving at a particular type of narrative without trying too hard to get there - deeply personal stories where we find out what the characters really value. As a group, we're finding this out together. Being audience and participant at the same time makes this enjoyable for me. It's a set of techniques, but not like the only set of techniques. Some of these techniques and principles are also fairly useful in other contexts.

This advice, although primarily meant for a GM's NPCs describes the approach I take to playing a character as well.


			
				Monsterhearts said:
			
		

> *Treat your NPCs like stolen cars.*
> 
> Think of the characters you play as stolen cars. You’re in control of them for a time, but you don’t own them and you can’t really keep them. You hold onto them for as long as they’re fun and useful, and abandon them when they become dead weight.
> 
> The other players, they own their characters and are loyal to them. That isn’t the case for you. Joyride your characters. Play them recklessly, and play them knowing that they aren’t going to last. If you do so, you’ll have constant drama, constant sex, constant violence, and constant chaos. That’s ideal.






> Immersion got over-used for a while around here, particularly as a reason to tell everyone how to play ("we can't have THAT in the game!  oh! My Immersion! It's breaaaakiiing.....").  At least it's a little easier to imagine emotional immersion happening around a table - y'know without postulating a Mazes & Monsters psychotic break - but, I also see a lot of dramatic value to story arcs.  Nor, for that matter, do I have anything against a campaign that's more episodic...




Yeah. There definitely is a danger in going overboard. Everyone's emotional safety and consent becomes more crucial when you are playing hard. It helps to do check-ins and take breaks. Building and maintaining trust is also crucial. It's also not for everyone. For some or even most people these games are mostly diverting past times. Not everyone is fit for every game, and you don't always want full bore emotional immersion all the time. Sometimes it is okay to step back and let a fight just be a fight. Moments of catharsis are just as important as moments of high drama. 

There's a reason why I don't always play Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Urban Shadows, or Vampire - The Requiem. Sometimes you just have to stomp on some orcs. Games like Dungeon World, Masks, and Blades in the Dark allow you to break up the serious stuff with some more catharsis while employing a lot of the same techniques in different ways. Sometimes I also enjoy dungeon bashing in B/X , exploring a sandbox in Stars Without Number or Traveller, or more mythic, violent and visceral 4e play. [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has sometimes accused me of being a bit too serious in my play, and he probably is onto something.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> My point is such that the DM judgment required to determine the DC for the perception check to notice the bowl is probably the equivalent of the amount of DM judgment to simply say yes. So I really don't see one as being more player driven and one being more railroad.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I would assume based on the focus you are giving this idea, that it can also come up in circumstances that can have a more profound impact on the game. Would you say that is true?



With respect to the first of the two quoted passags: here seems to be some confusion here.

I replied to this somewhere upthread - the issue with "saying 'yes'" rather than calling for die roll, in the context of looking for a vessel, is not to do with railroading. In fact, in the OP I try to articulate why I think that setting a DC, _rather than_ just "saying 'yes'", is not railroading.

The reason for calling for a dice roll is drama and pacing. As I've already posted a couple of times (in reply to you, and to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]), by setting even low DCs at key moments a certain sort of tone is established (grittiness); over the life of the game it allows for moments of failure (perhaps black comedy) even when the risk of failure is low; it reinforces a certain "ritual" element to the game (_this_ matters, and we're going to stop in play and acknowledge that, by setting a DC and calling for a check and picking up the dice); etc.

This relates to the second of the quoted passages: what makes this a moment that is worth emphasising in the course of play is because the PC - having lost the opportunity to take the living mage to his dark naga master - has determined to take the blood instead. So the availability of a vessel is the "crunch" moment for that goal.



hawkeyefan said:


> Do you have examples of each of these? You've given me "what", but not "how"...



See my reply above to [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] for "player reframing".

Divination and similar abilities: if these are adjudicated in the traditional way, they require the GM to already have backstory authored (so that s/he can report it to the player using the divination magic). This tends to push againt generating backstory as part of framing and narrating consequences. (In terms of the history of the game, this sort of divination is a legacy as a game aimed at "beating the dungeon" - [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s "free kriegspiel".)

Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?

There are alternative approaches: divination can be handled like the old UA Portent spell, where the player rolls a die to see if the omens are good or bad - and so the casting of the spell shapes the narration of the backstory, rather than vice versa - but that is often controversial. Likewise one can use somewhat abstract resource attrition and resource recovery mechancis (BW has these) but D&D doesn't tend to have these. (Rather, it tends to use magic and magic items - LTH, Quiver of Ehlonna, etc.)



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't know if you need a device for that. My game does that....we just let the unfolding game and our desires shape that stuff. Works well.



Well, that is a device for doing it - a method or system.

The additional rule that BW adds (for one of its systems, around Belief) is that the GM is entitled to delay a change by a player if s/he thinks that the player is trying to duck a difficult choice by rewriting the Belief. The player has to resolve the situation with the existing Belief before being allowed to change it. It's an anti-squib rule.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't know if bounded accuracy is a big concern on this



To the extent that bounded accuracy tends to make PC build and player resource expenditure less important, because they get swamped by the die roll, it can potentially reduce the responsive of resolution to player choice and commitment.

I'm not saying it's an insuperable obstacle. But I don't think that it _supports_ player-driven play. As I've posted a couple of times, I think the use of inspiration and hence having advantage as a player resource might be enough of a "solution" to the issue, because spending inspiration to gain advantge is a player resource choice that will tend to dominate over the vagaries of the dice.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't know how the XP system is an obstacle



If the main way to get XP is fighting monsters, but one wants the game to be all about following the players' leads into action that engages their PCs' beliefs, ideals, goals, etc, then I think a tension in player motivation can emerge pretty easily.



hawkeyefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, I see the "railroad" issue as arising at (1) and at (3).
> 
> If, at (1), the framing is always reflecting the GM's priorities and not the players', then it is the GM driving the game.
> 
> If, at (3), the resolution draws upon the GM's pre-authored conception of the situation ("secret backstory"), then it is the GM driving the game.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But why are you assuming that it's always reflecting the GM's priorities and pre-authored conception? Who is advocating for that?
Click to expand...


I'm not assuming anything.

I've stated the conditions under which I would regard a game as railroad-y: if at (1) [ie framing] and/or at (3) [ie resolution], the GM introduces fiction in accordance with his/her priorities and/or pre-authored conception of the situation.

Of course those are not the only ways one might do (1) and (3). I've explained how I approach it; I've also sketched my conception of how classic dungeon-crawling or Traveller-style world discovery can approach it. Neither of those is railroading as I conceive of it.

Whether any other poster in this thread runs a game that is railroading in my sense is not something I'm in a position to know.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has sometimes accused me of being a bit too serious in my play, and he probably is onto something.



I don't remember that!

I'm certainly ready to admit that my game is mostly low-brow. My models are Claremont X-Men, with the occasional aspriation to echo films like Excalibur and Hero.



Campbell said:


> The primary reason why I play is emotional immersion in the current situation.



This is an instance of an alternative goal for play to puzzle-solving. I prefer it.

A couple of comments on immersion:

(1) It is quite compatible with the fiction being authored (by player or GM, depending on context) as part of the context of resolution. I know this to be so from experience. Here's one example, from a few years ago now:

The paladin PC in my main 4e game was subject to an effect from an evil cultist - turned into a frog and therefore unable to attack or use powers until the end of the cultist's next turn. The player of the paladin therefore missed a turn in the combat - he didn't want his frog-paladin to move - and muttered about not liking it very much while the rest of the table made jokes about not stepping on the frog as the other PCs moved in to confront the cultist and her flunkies.

The cultist's next turn duly ended, and the paladin was the next character in the turn sequence. I told the player of the paladin that his PC turned from a frog back to himself. The player then declared his action, which was to move into melee range with the cultist. And he said, in character, something to the effect that the cultist was now going to get it (while laying down a Divine Challenge as a minor action). The cultist replied something along the lines of "I don't think so - after all, I turned you into a frog!". And without pausing, the player of the paladin responded (in character), "Ah - but the Raven Queen [the paladin's divine patron] turned me back." And the paladin then proceeded to beat up the cultist.

As part of emotional immersion in, and "inhabitation of", the PC, the player of the paladin has introduced content into the fiction - the reason why the spell ends (as per the mechanics, which make it an "end of next turn" effect) is because the Raven Queen frees her servant from the cultist's evil magic.​
(2) As a GM, it's really exciting and rewarding to see a player, who might have been taking a bit of a back seat in a scene while some other players (and their PCs) are driving things, suddenly sit up and declare some action with passion and determination, because the player _cares_ about where the fiction is heading, or _cares_ about how his/her PC will be placed within the fiction.

There is a widely-described category of player who care mostly about fights - "Wake me up when there's a combat." I think one reason for this is that combat is a place where the stakes matter, and hence players get immersed. I think if that is expanded to other areas of the game, more players can get immersed in more parts of the game.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> If the GM is trying to frame the PCs into situations that will put them (and thereby their players) under pressure, and the players have the ability to defuse or cancel the situation rather than actually engage it (eg by teleporting home; by rocket tagging all opposition; etc) - what is, in effect, an ability to reframe the situation so that it _doesn't_ put any pressure on them - then it can be hard to run a game that is all about _going where the action is_ and _asking provocative questions_.



 So, if they can trivialize a challenge? 

That's a much more familiar issue and one that happens a lot in a lot of games.  It's usually a matter of the GM deciding how to present things taking into account that some things are going to be trivial.  

 If a character can teleport anywhere in the world at-will, then, "How do I get there" is never 'action' nor a 'provocative question.'  OTOH, it's never an impediment to 'going where the action is,' either.  Isn't giving the players an ability like that (or not) part of a larger sort of framing?  Perhaps at the system or campaign level.  

For instance, in M:tA, having the basic 1 dot in a sphere gave you some pretty crazy ability to perceive related things.  With matter 1 life 1 you could see how thick a wall was, what it was made of, and whether anyone was hiding behind it (or anything living inside it).  You can't make a big deal out of searching for secret doors.  You can, OTOH, pull the PCs into a scene based on that ability to notice things 'sleepers' cannot.  

For another, D&D is full of spells or magic items that will trivialize certain things.  Those things stop being important, but they might make other things more important, or draw them into challenges they couldn't have had anything to do with before.



pemerton said:


> Divination and similar abilities: if these are adjudicated in the traditional way, they require the GM to already have backstory authored (so that s/he can report it to the player using the divination magic). This tends to push againt generating backstory as part of framing and narrating consequences.



 Well, divination about the future (like time travel) can get pretty problematic.  But divination can also (as as I found running M:tA for years) move stories along, generate plot hooks, and suck players into challenges they didn't know existed.  And you don't need the backstory authored.  You can make it up on the spot, filling in the world ahead of them, which can be surprising and fun for the DM, too.



> Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action?



 "X weeks later..."


> If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?



 Typically, in D&D, you recover about half your non-magical arrows after each encounter, so running out isn't a common event.  A PC could always use survival to make arrows from available materials.  It shouldn't take much table time.



> There are alternative approaches: divination can be handled like the old UA Portent spell, where the player rolls a die to see if the omens are good or bad - and so the casting of the spell shapes the narration of the backstory, rather than vice versa - but that is often controversial.



 Or the divination can just give a benefit that the PC evokes later "I knew that was going to happen!"



> To the extent that bounded accuracy tends to make PC build and player resource expenditure less important, because they get swamped by the die roll



 Nod.  And, by the same tokens, it prevents large bonuses from trivializing a challenge.


----------



## pemerton

Xetheral said:


> I think some of the disagreement related to "consistency" is related to the concept of Dissociated Mechanics. The comparison isn't perfectly apt, but I think it's close:
> 
> When Pemerton decides, as a consequence of a player failure, that the brother was Evil all-along, it's effectively creating a dissociated mechanic for the player on-the-spot (instead of in the game's rules, where the label is usually applied). OOC, the player's decision to search for the mace has causally resulted in the brother's retroactive classification. But IC, the charcter's decision has causally resulted in a failure to find the mace (and finding the arrows instead). I think it's _that_ OOC/IC inconsistency, analogous to a dissociated mechanic, that's causing some posters, like me, who react badly to dissociated mechanics, to feel that Pemerton's approach _itself_ will necessarily lead to an inconsistant game world.



I find that the notion of "dissociated mechanics" is not a very helpful one, because it tries to equate a species of mechanic - _metagame mechanics_ - with a mental/cognitive state - "dissociation" - as if such a correlation is necessary or at least typical, when in fact it's rather idiosyncratic (eg many D&D players use hp, which in any but the strongest "hit points as meat" approach to play have a strong metagame element to them, but don't suffer an "dissociation").

But, as I have already posted several times upthread, there is (in general) no need for the process of authoring fiction to in any way mirror the causal processes that occur in the gameworld eg an author may think of a character, which then causes the author to think of the character's parents - whereas in the fiction, the parents were the cause of the character, not vice . This happens _all the time_ in RPGing. Eg the GM make up a village for the 1st level PCs. They discover a smuggling plot. This leads to questions - where do the smugglers come from, where do they get their stuff? The GM then makes up more of the gameworld, and it continues and grows.

I'm doing that also at the moment of action resolution. It's got no more general tendency to lead to inconsistency at that point that at the point of framing and fleshing out context, as in the smuggling example.



Xetheral said:


> I'm careful to keep the game world internally consistent



So am I.



Tony Vargas said:


> If the player knows that the revelation his character has just been hit with was just made up in the moment, then there's a disconnect between what the character knows/perceives and what the player does.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Of course, if Pemerton had kept the timing of that decision to himself, there'd be no problem.





Xetheral said:


> If I understand correctly, Pemerton keeping the timing of that decision from his players would negate the entire point of having it be a consequence of the player's failure.



Xetheral is correct about my own preferences/approach.

As far as the "disconnect" - I don't see any disconnect. The player learns just as the PC does. And the player is not authoring his/her misfortune any more than the PC is (except in the sense that the player, like the PC, chose to search the ruins rather than just bask in old memories).

This is why the GM role is important in the sort of game I prefer - it is the GM's job to author these failures. The player's check, and failure, triggers the need for the GM to author. But it is the GM who authors the fiction, not the player.



Xetheral said:


> Most of my behind-the-scenes changes are made to increase player agency, not stymie it.



Can you elaborate?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> If the GM is trying to frame the PCs into situations that will put them (and thereby their players) under pressure, and the players have the ability to defuse or cancel the situation rather than actually engage it (eg by teleporting home; by rocket tagging all opposition; etc) - what is, in effect, an ability to reframe the situation so that it _doesn't_ put any pressure on them - then it can be hard to run a game that is all about _going where the action is_ and _asking provocative questions_.



But isn't that to some extent the players' job - to in theory and in character find the safest and easiest way of dealing with whatever situations the game throws at them?  If yes, then one such way is certainly to reframe or redefine the situation into something more favourable...sounds like fair game to me.

Lan-"sometimes the safest and-or easiest way of dealing with a situation is to just leave it alone and hope it goes away"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This relates to the second of the quoted passages: what makes this a moment that is worth emphasising in the course of play is because the PC - having lost the opportunity to take the living mage to his dark naga master - has determined to take the blood instead. So the availability of a vessel is the "crunch" moment for that goal.



Actually no it isn't, as there's numerous other ways of getting blood to the dark naga provided someone thinks of one; several have been suggested earlier in this thread.  It's only a crunch moment if you-as-DM have decided that use of a cup or container is the only way the blood can possibly get to where it's going.



> Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?



Sometimes realism dictates the action just might have to stop for a while and take a breather.  This is not a bad thing.  Repeat: this is not a bad thing.

Think about it: most of the time our characters are in the field they're not engaged in "action": they're resting or camping or travelling or resupplying and sometimes a bit of attention needs to be paid to these things by the table (incluiding the DM).  Archer's out of arrows?  If the party's got any sense they'll head back to town to restock and the DM "going to the action" will just have to wait.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The paladin PC in my main 4e game was subject to an effect from an evil cultist - turned into a frog and therefore unable to attack or use powers until the end of the cultist's next turn. The player of the paladin therefore missed a turn in the combat - he didn't want his frog-paladin to move - and muttered about not liking it very much while the rest of the table made jokes about not stepping on the frog as the other PCs moved in to confront the cultist and her flunkies.​



That little excerpt right there I find highly enlightening, in that if it's reflective of a normal bit of play it tells me a very great deal about the atmosphere in which (by choice or otherwise) you DM: 

A player misses one combat turn - _one measly turn!_ - and is complaining about it.

Sheesh!

This puts a lot of what you've been saying both in this thread and others into a sharp context - a context I'd kind of suspected but this is the first confirmation of it - which is, simply put, that your players doth expect too much.

What I still don't know is which came first:

Did your DMing style and philosophies lead to these expectations, or
Did these expectations lead to your DMing style and philosophies.

Lanefan​


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> As far as the "disconnect" - I don't see any disconnect. The player learns just as the PC does. And the player is not authoring his/her misfortune any more than the PC is (except in the sense that the player, like the PC, chose to search the ruins rather than just bask in old memories).



The player learning just as the PC does is perfect!

The DM learning just as the PC does is not at all perfect as the DM should in theory have known all along.  That's the disconnect.

Lanefan


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> But isn't that to some extent the players' job - to in theory and in character find the safest and easiest way of dealing with whatever situations the game throws at them?  If yes, then one such way is certainly to reframe or redefine the situation into something more favourable...sounds like fair game to me.
> 
> Lan-"sometimes the safest and-or easiest way of dealing with a situation is to just leave it alone and hope it goes away"-efan




It's not always the case that players should seek to play it as safe as possible. My preference is that they should have aspirations and go after them with vigor, taking meaningful risks along the way. See my comments upthread about playing your character as if it were a stolen car. No media encapsulates this sort character better than John Wick.



			
				John Wick said:
			
		

> *Viggo Tarasov:* John is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will... something you know very little about. I once saw him kill three men in a bar... with a pencil, with a ing pencil. Then suddenly one day he asked to leave. It's over a woman, of course. So I made a deal with him. I gave him an impossible task. A job no one could have pulled off. The bodies he buried that day laid the foundation of what we are now. And then my son, a few days after his wife died, you steal his car and kill his ing dog.
> 
> *John Wick:* Viggo.
> *Viggo Tarasov:* Yeah?
> *John Wick:* When Helen died, I lost everything. Until that dog arrived on my doorstep... A final gift from my wife... In that moment, I received some semblance of hope... an opportunity to grieve unalone... And your son... took that from me.
> *Viggo Tarasov:* Oh, God.
> *John Wick:* Stole that from me... *Killed that from me*! People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back. So you can either hand over your son or you can die screaming alongside him!




I also feel this passage from Blades in the Dark is relevant.



			
				Blades in the Dark said:
			
		

> *EMBRACE THE SCOUNDREL’S LIFE*
> 
> The scoundrel’s lot is a tough one, to be sure. The world in which they are trapped is deeply, cruelly unfair—created by the powerful to maintain their power and punish anyone who dares to resist. Some of the systems of the game are built to bring these injustices into play. No matter how cool or how capable the PCs are, the heat will pile on, entanglements will blindside them, the powers-that-be will try to kick them down with no regard.
> 
> Depending on who you are in real life, this predicament may come as a shock to you, requiring some new understanding on your part. Or it may be all too familiar. Either way, your character is not you. Their fate is their own. We’re the advocates and fans of our characters, but they are not us. We don’t safeguard them as we might safeguard ourselves or our loved ones. They must go off into their dark and brutal world and strive and suffer for what they achieve—we can’t keep them safe here with us. They’re brave to try. We’re brave to follow their story and not flinch away. When they get knocked down, we look them in the eye and say, “You’re not done yet. You can do this. Get back in there.”




Obviously, not every Player Character is going to be the sort of risk taker John Wick is. That does not mean the game should make it easy on them. I don't really have issues with games that allow players to reframe things on behalf of their characters. Every time we declare an action for our characters we, as players, are attempting to reframe the situation. The problem comes when players get to reframe the situation without significant cost or meaningful risk. When you cast a spell in D&D that spell slot is meant to be a significant cost. Unfortunately when we place characters outside of the intended scope of play, the dungeon, then the techniques and procedures that make the decision to rest a tense one fail to work appropriately. There are also some other impacts related to simply being able to use a resource to cut through the tension of the current moment, but that deserves a post of its own.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> It's not always the case that players should seek to play it as safe as possible. My preference is that they should have aspirations and go after them with vigor, taking meaningful risks along the way. See my comments upthread about playing your character as if it were a stolen car. No media encapsulates this sort character better than John Wick.



I've never watched the John Wick films but I too prefer risk-taking characters, and tend to play them that way myself...often to their detriment. 

That said, players more rational than me would probably in-character look for the safe way...which from the character's point of view of self-preservation, only makes sense.



> Obviously, not every Player Character is going to be the sort of risk taker John Wick is. That does not mean the game should make it easy on them. I don't really have issues with games that allow players to reframe things on behalf of their characters. Every time we declare an action for our characters we, as players, are attempting to reframe the situation. The problem comes when players get to reframe the situation without significant cost or meaningful risk. When you cast a spell in D&D that spell slot is meant to be a significant cost. Unfortunately when we place characters outside of the intended scope of play, the dungeon, then the techniques and procedures that make the decision to rest a tense one fail to work appropriately. There are also some other impacts related to simply being able to use a resource to cut through the tension of the current moment, but that deserves a post of its own.



Which then all depends on how generous or not the game is in replenishing resources.  But in any case I say that if the players happen to find a win button this time through a reframe, let 'em have it.  It's not a problem until and unless it becomes a win button every time.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Sometimes realism dictates the action just might have to stop for a while and take a breather.  This is not a bad thing.  Repeat: this is not a bad thing.



I was responding to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s question about mechanics that can get in the way of running a game in the style [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] described.

Yes, if you want to run in another style (eg a "realistic" style) then those same mechanics won't be a problem. But that doesn't change the fact that they can be a problem for the style [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] was asking about.



Lanefan said:


> there's numerous other ways of getting blood to the dark naga provided someone thinks of one; several have been suggested earlier in this thread.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's only a crunch moment if you-as-DM have decided that use of a cup or container is the only way the blood can possibly get to where it's going.



In the abstract the first sentence may or may not be true. At the table, though, the player has fastened on a vessel as the method. That's what the player has chosen for the action to turn on. So that's what it turns on.

Your comment about the GM having decided something would make sense in a puzzle-solving game ("How can we get the blood to the naga?") But that's not the game I'm running

In a Star Wars game we don't decide whether or not to roll to hit the exhaust port with our missiles because, had someone else thought of something else, they might eg be using guided missiles or drones. The crunch is what it is! In my game, at that moment, the player of the PC says "The blood's escaping - is there a vessel?" That's the crunch, as put forward by the player. And so the dice come out.



Lanefan said:


> the DM should in theory have known all along.



Why? This is mere assertion.

You're running ToH. Will or won't a PC get sucked into the green devil's maw? Who knows?

The GM is not expected to know that all along. So why anything else?



Lanefan said:


> But isn't that to some extent the players' job - to in theory and in character find the safest and easiest way of dealing with whatever situations the game throws at them?  If yes, then one such way is certainly to reframe or redefine the situation into something more favourable...sounds like fair game to me.



I think [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] answers this pretty well - including with his two comments about using spells to reframe without rise (ie (i) outside a dungeon the resource economy is mucked up, and (ii) having it be fiat rather than requiring a check creates some issues around the experience of risk).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> A player misses one combat turn - _one measly turn!_ - and is complaining about it.
> 
> Sheesh!
> 
> This puts a lot of what you've been saying both in this thread and others into a sharp context - a context I'd kind of suspected but this is the first confirmation of it - which is, simply put, that your players doth expect too much.
> 
> What I still don't know is which came first:
> 
> Did your DMing style and philosophies lead to these expectations, or
> Did these expectations lead to your DMing style and philosophies.



I've replied to this in a separate post.


You have no idea what my player was saying or thinking, that I have summed up as "muttering about not liking it very much" - nearly anyone might mutter that they would prefer to be taking their turn then missing their turn because turned into a frog, especially if being ribbed by the other players.

I don't think you've got either the information or the standing to judge the character of my players, any more than I judge the character of yours.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?




This is interesting. I think we may have run into a possible area of contention in our approaches. I consider active experience of the fallout of decisions really important to giving player decisions weight. I do not think it is enough to say what the consequences are, we need to show through play what they are and really follow the fiction. I can also see where your *go to the action* might be subtly different from my *make the players' characters' lives not boring*.

The experience of being hurt or running out of arrows can provide room for all sorts of compelling fiction and meaningful decision making. Part of the challenge of running any version of D&D to using my favored approach is that it actually turns things like being hurt, death, and the experience of being without crucial resources into purely logistical problems rather than making room for compelling drama. Things like cheap and risk free healing and resurrection spells, automatic healing over time with specific daily healing rates, tracking every arrow to be certain we never run out, and assumed commodity rather than matchmaking markets tend to remove the sting of these as things we actually have to deal with on a personal level.

I think there are better ways to deal with these experiences in a way that increases dramatic tension, provides meaningful choices, and is less sensitive to dealing with minutiae. I don't wish to drive this thread too far down a tangent about resource management though. I plan to create a new thread sometime tomorrow.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] I'm starting to question, if this goes much further, whether we'll become guilty of trying to apply science to what is in fact an art.
> 
> Kind of like what the fancystats guys are doing to hockey and baseball.




Yeah, this is where things get difficult because I definitely believe that GMing is at least as much science than art!  And I'm definitely a proponent of advanced analytics in all sports!



Lanefan said:


> Which doesn't follow to my logical side, in that unless the travel is itself broken up (e.g. by a teleport) then any discoveries in any RPG system are by default going to be sequential, hm?  At location 1 this happens, at location 2 this happens, etc. with the only question being whether the party hits those locations or (intentionally or otherwise) bypasses them.




Sequential in terms of "there are these things on a granular, keyed map and play is about serially searching and exploring this granular, keyed map."  Unless you have profound means of obstacle obviation, you're going to make your discoveries and encounter your dangers in a sequential order (with respect to the spatial relations of that prepped map and temporally with respect to things like time:exploration and Wandering Monster clock odds) and there is nothing to be done about it.  

Playing out that map 10 times is not going to have profound deviation in play experience (there will be nuance, but not profundity or extreme dynamism).  

Abstract conflict resolution is very different (in terms of prep, in terms of player agency, and in terms dynamism).



Lanefan said:


> Looked at another way, it's almost like that system replaces wandering monsters with a much broader concept of wandering danger or just wandering damage.




If that helps you conceptualize the paradigm, then sure.  It forgoes the nuance, but that is a decent enough fundamental property.

Though I would probably say:

1)  the system replaces a keyed map with "an abstract, yet focused, one with room for discovery/reveal for all participants" 

2)  it replaces the wandering monster clock with "systematized and principled introduction of danger and discovery"

3)  the 7-9 result is the best result because it gives everyone something they want while perpetuating a snowballing of the present situation.



We can probably leave it at that.  I think we've gotten the mileage we're going to get out of this.  Thanks for the conversation.

I think I want to move on to "how GMing principles, an integrated and robust reward cycle, and transparent resolution mechanics and play procedures disable GM Force and Illusionism...and how the opposite enables it."  

I'll post about that this weekend.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> With respect to the first of the two quoted passags: here seems to be some confusion here.
> 
> I replied to this somewhere upthread - the issue with "saying 'yes'" rather than calling for die roll, in the context of looking for a vessel, is not to do with railroading. In fact, in the OP I try to articulate why I think that setting a DC, _rather than_ just "saying 'yes'", is not railroading.




Yes, and I agree. Your using the DC/skill check mechanic is not railroading. My point is that simply saying yes is also not railroading. Hence I don't see either approach as being much better than the other. 



pemerton said:


> The reason for calling for a dice roll is drama and pacing. As I've already posted a couple of times (in reply to you, and to [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]), by setting even low DCs at key moments a certain sort of tone is established (grittiness); over the life of the game it allows for moments of failure (perhaps black comedy) even when the risk of failure is low; it reinforces a certain "ritual" element to the game (_this_ matters, and we're going to stop in play and acknowledge that, by setting a DC and calling for a check and picking up the dice); etc.




Yes, you did make that point earlier. I mentioned in my post that I didn't think that the best way to achieve drama was always to call for a roll. Meaning, at times, the chance of failure is significant and so we need to use the dice to hep determine the outcome. Other times, I think it is easier to simply proceed and let the actual drama of the situation be the main focus rather than the result of a skill check. I think that the player's desire to try and salvage some of the blood form the corpse in order to bring it to his naga patron is an interesting idea and I'd prefer to see how that might play out more than I prefer to see if a die roll determines if there is a bowl in the room or not. 




pemerton said:


> This relates to the second of the quoted passages: what makes this a moment that is worth emphasising in the course of play is because the PC - having lost the opportunity to take the living mage to his dark naga master - has determined to take the blood instead. So the availability of a vessel is the "crunch" moment for that goal.




Is it? I mean....there's a corpse right there. It's not like a tipped pitcher of water that has drained. There's still blood in that corpse.



pemerton said:


> Divination and similar abilities: if these are adjudicated in the traditional way, they require the GM to already have backstory authored (so that s/he can report it to the player using the divination magic). This tends to push againt generating backstory as part of framing and narrating consequences. (In terms of the history of the game, this sort of divination is a legacy as a game aimed at "beating the dungeon" - [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s "free kriegspiel".)




I don't agree with that at all. First, I don't know if the DM has to already have all backstory determined in order to adjudicate divination attempts. He can simply determine that on the fly, using his judgment and all that has happened in the campaign so far as his guides. Second, there's no reason that how he approaches the divination adjudication need be "traditional". Depending on the circumstances, perhaps he can involve the players in the process. Maybe he can describe details loosely....say give a vague description of a person that the divination reveals, and then see who the players think it is. 



pemerton said:


> Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?




Well, 5E has largely removed major concerns about the time it takes to heal....they're very abstract and quick. It never takes days or weeks to be back to full fighting strength. Some see that as being a problem in and of itself. I rather like it as it keeps things moving. I prefer dynamic situations that can continue to develop separate of the PC actions to some extent rather than static environments that only change when the PCs interact with them. 

As for resource management....given how easy it would be to either handwave this entirely, or to track every arrow and every ration of food, or any point in the spectrum between those two extremes, I don't really see this as a problem. In my game, we tend to handwave this for the most part....unless there are story elements or developments that make it matter, like if they've been wandering the wilderness for some time, or something similar. 




pemerton said:


> Well, that is a device for doing it - a method or system.




A bit pedantic, but fair enough. My point being that there is no mechanic beyond DM judgment. I don't know if that really constitutes a system. Your comment made it seem like you would introduce some kind of mechanical expression. You seem to prefer to have hard and fast mechanics of some kind in place for most things, and have a distaste for anything that can be seen as DM fiat. 




pemerton said:


> To the extent that bounded accuracy tends to make PC build and player resource expenditure less important, because they get swamped by the die roll, it can potentially reduce the responsive of resolution to player choice and commitment.
> 
> I'm not saying it's an insuperable obstacle. But I don't think that it _supports_ player-driven play. As I've posted a couple of times, I think the use of inspiration and hence having advantage as a player resource might be enough of a "solution" to the issue, because spending inspiration to gain advantge is a player resource choice that will tend to dominate over the vagaries of the dice.




I don't agree with that assessment of bounded accuracy at all. PC Build is still important....in bounded accuracy, a +1 bonus tends to be more meaningful than a +1 bonus in other systems (not all other systems, I am sure, but let's say other editions of D&D and some of the OSR clones). And resource expenditure matters quite a bit if the game is played with those resources in mind (i.e. making sure there are enough encounters per day to require some decision making in that regard). 



pemerton said:


> If the main way to get XP is fighting monsters, but one wants the game to be all about following the players' leads into action that engages their PCs' beliefs, ideals, goals, etc, then I think a tension in player motivation can emerge pretty easily.




That I can agree with. I mean, as I said, we abandoned the XP system long ago, so I am actually not sure....does 5E's XP system only reward experience for the creatures defeated or otherwise overcome? I would think that there would be options for awarding XP for roleplaying or for clever play and things like that. Even if there's not, it's easy enough to do it on one's own.



pemerton said:


> I've stated the conditions under which I would regard a game as railroad-y: if at (1) [ie framing] and/or at (3) [ie resolution], the GM introduces fiction in accordance with his/her priorities and/or pre-authored conception of the situation.




Sure, and I suppose that it's the word "always" in your description that is a key to your view. I doubt that most games always rely on GM only for the framing and resolution. So if you mean that literally, then I can understand, but if you mean that any game that favors or skews toward GM driven framing and resolution is a railroad, then that's where I would disagree.


----------



## Campbell

Getting back on topic, I'm going to return to what I believe is the most relevant passage from the original post.



pemerton said:


> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, *because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot*, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.




The emphasis is my own.

I do not believe we can meaningfully analyze the impact of GM decision making on play without diving deep into *the considerations that motivate their decision making process*. The GM decides can be a fine mechanic - so can the player decides. What matters most to me is that decisions are made behind the weight of a coherent set of principles that serve the interests of the game. Assuming one of the primary interests of the game is to meaningfully play to find out a GM who makes any decision based on shaping the fiction to arrive at their pre-planned story is actively working against the interests of the game. I am not really interested in whether or not we choose to call this railroading. Either way, it is not the sort of play I am interested in.

From where I stand choosing to not have the bowl be there because you are following the fiction as established is fine. Choosing to have the bowl be there because you believe it makes the characters' lives less boring is also fine. Choosing some sort of roll to see if the players' characters' find it is awesome because we're playing to find out. What actively works against my purposes is decision making that is guided by the outcomes I want to see happen.

The games that I most enjoy rely on a lot of judgement calls. In Apocalypse World things like when to apply harm, how much harm to apply, how long it takes to recover from harm, when a given player move applies, how hard of a GM move to make, which GM move to make, the choices they are prompted to make as a result of player moves, what fronts to include, when to a move a front's countdown clock up or down, what everyone who is not a PC does, when to disclaim decision making and ask the players are all judgement calls the game calls upon me as the GM to make. When I am MCing Apocalypse World I am pretty much making judgement calls every minute of play. That's a good thing. The judgement calls we make allow us to set a unique, tone, and style of play that is uniquely ours.

Here's the thing: the players can rest easy knowing that I am not making decisions based on my own interests or to achieve certain outcomes. I am serving the agenda and principles of the game. The basis for the decisions I make is on open display right there in the MC chapter. Outside of play I am more than happy to break down my decision making process in depth with any player. It's awesome when players come to me with stuff like that. It means they are taking an active interest in the game, I get to nerd out about GMing, and it's an opportunity for me to plant the GM bug in the player.


----------



## Emerikol

Campbell said:


> Thank you for this. I mean it. It's really nice to get some perspective. I think I would enjoy playing in your game, even if the heavy prep involved would make running a similar game pretty difficult for me. I think in many ways my most preferred approach sits somewhere between yours and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s. Pemerton, please correct me if I misspeak. My primary interest is following around the PCs and making sure they live meaningful lives full of interesting decisions, but I want to make sure they absolutely live on solid ground and we are following the established fiction to its natural ends. I leave a lot unestablished, and only really do so as needed to enable meaningful decision making. However, my fronts are very much real and have a life of their own. If engaged with or ignored there will be consequences. They are part of the fiction which we all follow.
> 
> Here's the agenda I follow in Apocalypse World, which can easily be adapted to other games:
> 
> 
> I think the primary differences between our approach are that for you it is probably not enough to make the world seem real and it is the players responsible in your game to make their characters' lives not boring. I think we both play the world with integrity, even if I tend to do more building as time goes on and involve my players when I feel like it. One of my principles in most games I run is *Think Offscreen Too*. However, when I do so my primary interest is in exploring how what the players are doing through their characters is impacting what we're not seeing and thinking of new ways to make their lives not boring. Although, sometimes it's just to bring in details that make the world seem real.




Thanks.  If you way is working for you then it's a good way and by working I mean everyone is having fun.

One way I control scope creep is when building my sandbox(es), I do so one at a time.  I have a solid understanding of what I would consider the campaign world (not necessarily the entire planet think Greyhawk).  Maybe a little deeper than what is presented in a campaign book but not a ton deeper.   The sandbox though is where the player action is at.  Early on it is a few small towns and the surrounding countryside or maybe it's a single large city.  Those areas I detail a lot better.  As the players advance they may outgrow one sandbox and travel to another.  So you might think of sandboxes as level ranges too.  Now does that mean I forbid them from leaving a sandbox?  No.  I think we all though understand that leaving a sandbox will require to DM to create another and that may take some time and it may stall the game for a bit.   Normally my players are enjoying the sandbox and by the time they are ready to move on I've created another.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Yeah, this is where things get difficult because I definitely believe that GMing is at least as much science than art!  And I'm definitely a proponent of advanced analytics in all sports!



In sports, the stats themselves are sometimes interesting but what's being done with them is ruining the game...at least as far as hockey and baseball are concerned, I can't speak to other sports...as the intent seems to be to turn players and coaches/managers into robots, or as close as can be achieved.

Boring.

Same might go for DMing - if every time I made a decision as DM I stopped to put it through the process wringer that some here espouse two things would happen in random sequence: my game would stop dead, and my head would explode.  And even if I got past that, I'd worry the result might turn me into a more predictable/less spontaneous DM.

Boring. 



> Sequential in terms of "there are these things on a granular, keyed map and play is about serially searching and exploring this granular, keyed map."  Unless you have profound means of obstacle obviation, you're going to make your discoveries and encounter your dangers in a sequential order (with respect to the spatial relations of that prepped map and temporally with respect to things like time:exploration and Wandering Monster clock odds) and there is nothing to be done about it.
> 
> Playing out that map 10 times is not going to have profound deviation in play experience (there will be nuance, but not profundity or extreme dynamism).



Which makes sense from a realism perspective as what was once new becomes familiar.  Same idea as always driving down the same road on one's daily commute - the first time is interesting, the 90th or 164th or 8745th time not so much. 



> I think I want to move on to "how GMing principles, an integrated and robust reward cycle, and transparent resolution mechanics and play procedures disable GM Force and Illusionism...and how the opposite enables it."
> 
> I'll post about that this weekend.



Even by that short descriptor I think I can already see where the debate points will be. 

Lan-"this is, after all, just an illusion"-efan


----------



## Imaro

Emerikol said:


> If you way is working for you then it's a good way and by working I mean everyone is having fun.




I feel like this is my "guiding principle".  As I read over the posts in this thread I realize that I would probably be considered an "incoherent" GM... But upon further reflection I think I'm ok with that.  I don't necessarily want to be tied down to a set of principles or constructs that dictate how my game should be run or played, I'd rather be fluid and adaptable to the situation and the specific people I am gaming with. 

I notice that most of the principles being followed by GM's in this thread seem to push what they like or care about in the game but I'm not sure that should always be the case in a social game with a group.  I guess if everyone in the group enjoys the same things it works great but in a group like mine I think it would be a straight jacket that I don't believe would necessarily produce a better game for everyone.  Of course I will gladly steal techniques, suggestions and ideas from all of the posters in this thread along with anywhere else I happen to find them...and mash, twist and mix them up in whatever way produces a great game for my players so I am greatly enjoying this thread and look forward to more interesting posts from it's participants that I can scavenge for parts of my game.  Thanks.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> Getting back on topic, I'm going to return to what I believe is the most relevant passage from the original post.
> 
> 
> 
> The emphasis is my own.
> 
> I do not believe we can meaningfully analyze the impact of GM decision making on play without diving deep into *the considerations that motivate their decision making process*. The GM decides can be a fine mechanic - so can the player decides. What matters most to me is that decisions are made behind the weight of a coherent set of principles that serve the interests of the game. Assuming one of the primary interests of the game is to meaningfully play to find out a GM who makes any decision based on shaping the fiction to arrive at their pre-planned story is actively working against the interests of the game. I am not really interested in whether or not we choose to call this railroading. Either way, it is not the sort of play I am interested in.
> 
> From where I stand choosing to not have the bowl be there because you are following the fiction as established is fine. Choosing to have the bowl be there because you believe it makes the characters' lives less boring is also fine. Choosing some sort of roll to see if the players' characters' find it is awesome because we're playing to find out. What actively works against my purposes is decision making that is guided by the outcomes I want to see happen.
> 
> The games that I most enjoy rely on a lot of judgement calls. In Apocalypse World things like when to apply harm, how much harm to apply, how long it takes to recover from harm, when a given player move applies, how hard of a GM move to make, which GM move to make, the choices they are prompted to make as a result of player moves, what fronts to include, when to a move a front's countdown clock up or down, what everyone who is not a PC does, when to disclaim decision making and ask the players are all judgement calls the game calls upon me as the GM to make. When I am MCing Apocalypse World I am pretty much making judgement calls every minute of play. That's a good thing. The judgement calls we make allow us to set a unique, tone, and style of play that is uniquely ours.
> 
> Here's the thing: the players can rest easy knowing that I am not making decisions based on my own interests or to achieve certain outcomes. I am serving the agenda and principles of the game. The basis for the decisions I make is on open display right there in the MC chapter. Outside of play I am more than happy to break down my decision making process in depth with any player. It's awesome when players come to me with stuff like that. It means they are taking an active interest in the game, I get to nerd out about GMing, and it's an opportunity for me to plant the GM bug in the player.




I understand all that, and I think it's a solid approach. 

My only question is why GM desire is so bad? I don't want to assume the same preference of player driven decisions driving the story that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is advocating, but I think you are close to that. So what makes the players' desires so much more paramount to the game? The GM is a player, too, in the sense that it's a game that everyone is taking part in; yes, his role is different than the players' but he should still have a say in the game and how the story takes shape, no?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Imaro said:


> I feel like this is my "guiding principle".  As I read over the posts in this thread I realize that I would probably be considered an "incoherent" GM... But upon further reflection I think I'm ok with that.  I don't necessarily want to be tied down to a set of principles or constructs that dictate how my game should be run or played, I'd rather be fluid and adaptable to the situation and the specific people I am gaming with.
> 
> I notice that most of the principles being followed by GM's in this thread seem to push what they like or care about in the game but I'm not sure that should always be the case in a social game with a group.  I guess if everyone in the group enjoys the same things it works great but in a group like mine I think it would be a straight jacket that I don't believe would necessarily produce a better game for everyone.  Of course I will gladly steal techniques, suggestions and ideas from all of the posters in this thread along with anywhere else I happen to find them...and mash, twist and mix them up in whatever way produces a great game for my players so I am greatly enjoying this thread and look forward to more interesting posts from it's participants that I can scavenge for parts of my game.  Thanks.




This is as close a match to what I do as has been mentioned in this thread. I change things up and use different techniques and tools, and focus on different areas of the game from session to session.


----------



## Campbell

Aside: I think when it comes to the utilization of data science in sports we are still in the formative stages. There are all sorts of problems they are running into with their models, largely because they fail to account for things like team culture, player character, off the field behavior, human relationships, etc. You need to be able to understand the limitations of the current models and apply actual human judgement in utilizing them. Over time I'm sure the models will improve. There will always be a need to understand the limits of current models, but that does not mean analysis will not bear fruit. Just, you know, remember you are dealing with actual living breathing humans.


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, 5E has largely removed major concerns about the time it takes to heal....they're very abstract and quick. It never takes days or weeks to be back to full fighting strength.



 It rarely ever did in a practical sense.  In 5e, it takes two days (a long rest, the balance of 24 hrs so you can take a second, and those 6 or 8 hrs, so not even quite two) to fully recover (all hps, all slots, all other long-rest-recharge resources, and all HD).  In 4e it took one long rest (unless the disease track was involved, I suppose).  In 3e it took no more than 24 hrs (depending on how/when the characters resources refreshed, a cleric might be a certain time of day, if that had just recently passed...), but recovering hps might be trivial - from wands and such - or might add another 24 to that cycle if the healers tapped themselves out getting everyone back up and need to refresh their spells again, and they were time-of-day recharge rather than rest-and-prepare.  AD&D, it took a certain number of hours (at least 4) to rest before re-memorizing spells, and time to memorize each based on level (so a low level character could be refreshed in less than a 5e long rest, but a high level one could literally take all day).  Again, if you exhausted your healer getting everyone up, you'd need another cycle. 
Sure, in theory you could forego the wands and the infinitely-renewable resource of daily spells and sit around healing 'naturally' for days, or weeks, up to six of them in 1e, IIRC.  But that assumed an untenable party composition.



> My point being that there is no mechanic beyond DM judgment. I don't know if that really constitutes a system.



 DM judgement can override any mechanic, I think, is what you're getting at?   Obviously, 5e has plenty of mechanics, not all of which absolutely require judgment every time (though the basic resolution system certainly does).



> I don't agree with that assessment of bounded accuracy at all. PC Build is still important....in bounded accuracy, a +1 bonus tends to be more meaningful than a +1 bonus in other systems (not all other systems, I am sure, but let's say other editions of D&D and some of the OSR clones).



 You certainly want to acquire every possible +1 bonus under bounded accuracy, as every +1 in precious, because it's unlikely you've already overwhelmed the d20.  In 3.x, your ranks & synergy & magic-item & other bonuses could make another +1 meaningless on a skill you've heavily specialized in, for instance, and another +1 to hit for a fighter might mean nothing more than another +1 to throw into Power Attack (if his other bonuses exceed his BAB, it might not even mean that!).  So that's a contrast.  But pemerton is right in as much as it does mean the player has less 'agency' - and the dice, in essence, more (though 'dice agency' isn't a term I'm aware of).   

That's just the flip side of the obvious problems 3.x showcased in overwhelming the d20, though.  And, though the 5e player can't build up his character to the point it's certain to succeed at specific sorts of tasks, the DM /can/ rule that a given action declaration works without calling for a check.  So you can have the character who's strong enough he doesn't have to roll to open a stuck door - it's just not something the player can specifically design into his character based only on the system.  That ball is in the DM's court.  (Really, the 5e DM has to have a lotta balls...  in his court.)




hawkeyefan said:


> The GM is a player, too, in the sense that it's a game that everyone is taking part in; yes, his role is different than the players' but he should still have a say in the game and how the story takes shape, no?



 With power comes responsibility.  The GM has more control over the game than the players, he needs to exercise restraint.  That's part of what's behind 'railroading' being so negative - it could be symptomatic of a DM abusing his role.


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> I understand all that, and I think it's a solid approach.
> 
> My only question is why GM desire is so bad? I don't want to assume the same preference of player driven decisions driving the story that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is advocating, but I think you are close to that. So what makes the players' desires so much more paramount to the game? The GM is a player, too, in the sense that it's a game that everyone is taking part in; yes, his role is different than the players' but he should still have a say in the game and how the story takes shape, no?




It's not that GM desire is bad. GM desire is amazing, fruitful, and vital. The principles are as much for my benefit as they are for the players. I absolutely have investment, interest, and aspirations just like any other player. Like any other player I let those things go so we can play to find out. I'll have more later.


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> It's not that GM desire is bad. GM desire is amazing, fruitful, and vital. The principles are as much for my benefit as they are for the players. I absolutely have investment, interest, and aspirations just like any other player. Like any other player I let those things go so we can play to find out. I'll have more later.




I think maybe I'm a little confused by the letting go of aspirations you have expressed.  When you talk about aspirations are these the aspirations that the players have for their characters... have for the game overall... or something else?  I ask because I think I want my players to have aspirations, otherwise what is driving their character's actions?


----------



## Campbell

Imaro said:


> I think maybe I'm a little confused by the letting go of aspirations you have expressed.  When you talk about aspirations are these the aspirations that the players have for their characters... have for the game overall... or something else?  I ask because I think I want my players to have aspirations, otherwise what is driving their character's actions?




Fundamentally, it's about holding on lightly. We all have hopes and aspirations for the players' characters, the game, and the story but it is not something we should actively manage. It's about having a commitment to really following the fiction with our hearts and our minds and really playing to find out what happens. Players play their characters with integrity. The MC plays the world with integrity and follows the agenda and principles, sometimes favoring some over others. What the Agenda and Principles do is allow everyone sitting around the table to play the game with vigor and a willingness to see what comes, just letting it be what it is, and trust in the game. The MC has a say. The rest of the players have their say. The game has its say. No one controls it.

This passage from Monsterhearts explains it better than I ever will:



			
				Monsterhearts said:
			
		

> *Staying Feral*
> 
> Every moment of the game leads into the next. When you narrate something, others respond. Moves get triggered. Dice get rolled, and those rolls create new situations to react to. The fiction and the mechanics interact with one another to create an emergent story, one that has its own momentum and energy.
> 
> The interactions that you have with the other players and with the mechanics create a story that couldn’t have existed in your head alone. It’s something feral.
> 
> You might have a strong impulse to domesticate the story. Either as the MC or the player, you might have an awesome plan for exactly what could happen next, and where the story could go. In your head, it’s spectacular. All you’d need to do is dictate what the other players should do, ignore the dice once or twice, and force your idea into existence. In short: to take control of things.
> 
> The game loses its magic when any one player attempts to take control of the future of the story. It becomes small enough to fit inside one person’s head. The other players turn into audience members instead of participants.
> 
> Nobody’s experience is enriched when one person turns the collective story into their own private story. So avoid this impulse. Let the story’s messy, chaotic momentum guide it forward. In any given moment, focus on reacting to the other players and to the mechanics. Allow others to foil your plans, or improve upon them. Trust that good story will emerge from the wilderness.


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> I understand all that, and I think it's a solid approach.
> 
> My only question is why GM desire is so bad? I don't want to assume the same preference of player driven decisions driving the story that   [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is advocating, but I think you are close to that. So what makes the players' desires so much more paramount to the game? The GM is a player, too, in the sense that it's a game that everyone is taking part in; yes, his role is different than the players' but he should still have a say in the game and how the story takes shape, no?




I know I already responded to this, but I want to go at it from another angle. There are definitely what I feel are substantive differences of approach between my most preferred approach, and the approach that  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has talked about in this thread. I think I am more interested in the lived experience, moments of introspection, and slightly more interested in serial exploration of the fiction than  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. My favorite Powered By The Apocalypse games are Apocalypse World, Saga of the Icelanders, Monsterhearts, Masks, and The Veil. These are all games that focus on personal, emotional content where the PCs are not really assumed to be in lock step and might often come in conflict with one another. I am not as big on Dungeon World or The Sprawl, which are more "go to the action" and group-oriented games. I am not as conflict oriented and probably enjoy more overt conflict between player characters. That comes from a steady diet of World of Darkness play, including some LARP experience. The characters lives can be not boring in ways that do not necessitate constantly raising the stakes. Where I think we absolutely agree is focusing most of the interest of play on the other players' characters and focusing it on the decisions players make.

At least in my case, this preference does not come from a desire to be placed in a subservient role where none of my interests are met. I feel that when Vincent Baker instructs the MC to be a fan of the players' characters in Apocalypse World he is not messing with you. He is not telling you to place their interests before your own! He is telling you to really and meaningfully take an interest in these characters and the decisions players are making. You ask provocative questions because you legitimately want to know more, to feel in your bones who these characters are. You want to know what their struggles are. You want to see how they deal with adversity. You place them in situations where they need to make difficult decisions because seeing how they respond is the whole point! For me it all comes down to really valuing what the other players have to say in a way that is vital to the whole experience of play. I am generous with the truth because I want the whole experience to have meaning.

The game also provides me with plenty of opportunities to showcase my own interests. This is primarily done with fronts. Fronts are these dynamic powerful things. With fronts I get to say what interests me, and then the other players engage them as suits their interests. If they choose not to engage I follow my agenda and principles, and there are meaningful consequences. I get to have my say and the other players get to have their say. It's great!

One of the reasons why I took to this set of techniques is because I am not really interested in carrying the game on my back. I expect the other players to bring it too! I tried doing things The White Wolf way and felt constantly drained, had a bitter attitude towards my fellow players, and grew increasingly frustrated that the game was not living up to my expectations. Before I discovered scene framing through Burning Wheel and applied a variety of its techniques to 4e I constantly blamed myself and my players at the time for what I felt was a sterile, overly expository experience where things like turtling and avoiding conflict were commonplace. My players were mostly fine with things, but I was suffering. Managing my games involved so much work and I was missing out on the experience of discovery, dramatic tension, and playing the game. 

I really enjoyed my time running 4e, but I still felt like I was putting in way too much work for the payoff and was not getting the emotional payoff from play I craved. Then  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] ran a short play by post game of Dungeon World for me and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. It fell apart mostly because play by post, but everything started to click. Dungeon World led me to Apocalypse World which led me to Monsterhearts and a host of other games. Once I internalized the principles things just kind of fell into place. Things just stopped being so much work for me and the other players!

Things aren't perfect. Sometimes I mess up and don't follow my principles or the framing is off or we don't bring it like they should. There are always going to be uninspired sessions. Still, I'm having more consistently good experiences and working so much less for it. It's not for everybody. We all have our preferences. Diversity in the hobby is a wonderful thing! The great thing is that because the games are so prep light they don't have to take the place of regular sessions. You can have a Powered By The Apocalypse night in lieu of a board gaming night. Also, because everything is laid out so clearly it's a great tool for teaching new GMs.

I also do not always play Powered By The Apocalypse games or even other games run that way, but I find even when playing in other styles it has made me a more thoughtful player and GM. It has taught me to meaningfully value others contributions, play less selfishly, and turtle less. It has also taught me the value of not over planning and being more flexible in my play.


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## Emerikol

Imaro said:


> I feel like this is my "guiding principle".  As I read over the posts in this thread I realize that I would probably be considered an "incoherent" GM... But upon further reflection I think I'm ok with that.  I don't necessarily want to be tied down to a set of principles or constructs that dictate how my game should be run or played, I'd rather be fluid and adaptable to the situation and the specific people I am gaming with.
> 
> I notice that most of the principles being followed by GM's in this thread seem to push what they like or care about in the game but I'm not sure that should always be the case in a social game with a group.  I guess if everyone in the group enjoys the same things it works great but in a group like mine I think it would be a straight jacket that I don't believe would necessarily produce a better game for everyone.  Of course I will gladly steal techniques, suggestions and ideas from all of the posters in this thread along with anywhere else I happen to find them...and mash, twist and mix them up in whatever way produces a great game for my players so I am greatly enjoying this thread and look forward to more interesting posts from it's participants that I can scavenge for parts of my game.  Thanks.




An occasionally bored player is bad but a bored DM is campaign death.  I do seek out like minds and I am very upfront with playstyle.  There are plenty of players for a good DM of any style.  Choosing to be middle of the road is fine too.  Everybody needs to have fun.


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## Imaro

Emerikol said:


> An occasionally bored player is bad but a bored DM is campaign death.  I do seek out like minds and I am very upfront with playstyle.  There are plenty of players for a good DM of any style.  Choosing to be middle of the road is fine too.  Everybody needs to have fun.




I dont view it as "middle of the road"... I view it as enjoying the flexibility in techniques and results of catering to a diverse group.


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## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> In 3e it took no more than 24 hrs (depending on how/when the characters resources refreshed, a cleric might be a certain time of day, if that had just recently passed...), but recovering hps might be trivial - from wands and such



Yes. As I think I posted, D&D's solution to the pacing/dramat issues that result from "realistic" resources management is magic. (Rather than, say, abstract mechanics.)



Campbell said:


> This is interesting. I think we may have run into a possible area of contention in our approaches. I consider active experience of the fallout of decisions really important to giving player decisions weight. I do not think it is enough to say what the consequences are, we need to show through play what they are and really follow the fiction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The experience of being hurt or running out of arrows can provide room for all sorts of compelling fiction and meaningful decision making. Part of the challenge of running any version of D&D to using my favored approach is that it actually turns things like being hurt, death, and the experience of being without crucial resources into purely logistical problems
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think there are better ways to deal with these experiences in a way that increases dramatic tension, provides meaningful choices, and is less sensitive to dealing with minutiae.



I mostly agree with this.

BW, for instance, creates a "training economy" and a "living expenses" economy alongside its "healing economy", which means that healing has a mechanical heft beyond the mere passage of time. And the sorts of storylines it favours are less "save the world in a week" than D&D can sometimes tend towards (lower magic helps with that), which facilitates integrating recovery with pacing/drama on the GM side.

MHRP/Cortex has a different approach to resources - if a power has the "Gear" limitation, the GM can spend a GM-side resource to deprive the PC of his/her stuff, thereby shutting down the power. I haven't experimented with this much, but it's obviously quite different from D&D.

Back on topic:

 [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], I still think I'm not successfully conveying the following: from my point of view, as far as railroading is concerned, there is no difference between "saying 'yes'" to the presence of a vessel, and calling for a check. My reason for calling for a check is not railroad-related. It is drama/pacing related.

As to why _that's _the crunch - because the player has given it that status. _That's_ the approach to the situation that has been chosen, and so that's the one we focus on.



Campbell said:


> Outside of play I am more than happy to break down my decision making process in depth with any player.



I'll do this in play also, if it seems likely to push the players or reinforce there sense of the pressures of the situation.

I think the logic of my GMing is pretty transparent to my players, and I don't feel any need to keep anything under wraps.


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## pemerton

On the issue of GM contribution: as a GM, I get to introduce most of the detailed story elements. Jabal of the Cabal became an NPC in my BW game because the PC mage tried to reach out to him (mechanically, via a Circles check) - but I'm the one who got to decide that he lives in a tower, that he has a (now former) manservant called Athog, that he has a rag-and-bone familar, and that he is engaged to marry the Gynarch of Hardby.

The same player made Joachim the balrog-possessed mage a key figure in the game. I'm the one who decided that Joachim's father is St Bernard the Holy, one of the most revered abbots of the land (who, 50+ years ago, left the Furyondyian court for a posting in Greyhawk about the time Joachim was born).

What is key for me is that the elements that I introduce into the shared fiction are by way of framing and joining some of the dots that emerge from resolution. They aren't particularly the engine of the campaign.


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## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> It rarely ever did in a practical sense.  In 5e, it takes two days (a long rest, the balance of 24 hrs so you can take a second, and those 6 or 8 hrs, so not even quite two) to fully recover (all hps, all slots, all other long-rest-recharge resources, and all HD).  In 4e it took one long rest (unless the disease track was involved, I suppose).  In 3e it took no more than 24 hrs (depending on how/when the characters resources refreshed, a cleric might be a certain time of day, if that had just recently passed...), but recovering hps might be trivial - from wands and such - or might add another 24 to that cycle if the healers tapped themselves out getting everyone back up and need to refresh their spells again, and they were time-of-day recharge rather than rest-and-prepare.  AD&D, it took a certain number of hours (at least 4) to rest before re-memorizing spells, and time to memorize each based on level (so a low level character could be refreshed in less than a 5e long rest, but a high level one could literally take all day).  Again, if you exhausted your healer getting everyone up, you'd need another cycle.
> Sure, in theory you could forego the wands and the infinitely-renewable resource of daily spells and sit around healing 'naturally' for days, or weeks, up to six of them in 1e, IIRC.  But that assumed an untenable party composition.




My point about this is more that the 5 minute work day has been lessened. You no longer need to have magical healing for it to not take many days to recover a large amount of HP. With Hit Dice and a short rest, you can press on for longer. And then you regain all lost HP on a long rest.

So while you can still regain lost HP through magic as always, now you can also regain HP in significant quantities without magic, and quickly. 



Tony Vargas said:


> DM judgement can override any mechanic, I think, is what you're getting at?   Obviously, 5e has plenty of mechanics, not all of which absolutely require judgment every time (though the basic resolution system certainly does).




I think this was in regard to how my players and I determine the Flaws, Bonds, and other character traits as they develop over the campaign. We have them change or we add new ones or take away the originals...it all depends. How I do this is always a judgment call, we don't rely on a mechanical rule of some sort. The only example I can think of is the Insanity mechanic; when exposed to certain horrifying conditions, creatures, or effects, you roll on a table and ten you gain a new trait. My method for doing that is far less structured. 

But I do think that you've touched on what I'd say is my main point in this thread...that I think DM Judgment can be as effective as any other method, and can still be impartial and support player driven play. Yes, you may have to impose the judgment over some of the existing mechanical rules but so be it.



Tony Vargas said:


> You certainly want to acquire every possible +1 bonus under bounded accuracy, as every +1 in precious, because it's unlikely you've already overwhelmed the d20.  In 3.x, your ranks & synergy & magic-item & other bonuses could make another +1 meaningless on a skill you've heavily specialized in, for instance, and another +1 to hit for a fighter might mean nothing more than another +1 to throw into Power Attack (if his other bonuses exceed his BAB, it might not even mean that!).  So that's a contrast.  But pemerton is right in as much as it does mean the player has less 'agency' - and the dice, in essence, more (though 'dice agency' isn't a term I'm aware of).




Okay, that's a fair assessment. Mitigated by the DM as you go on to suggest....but I can see the reasoning. PCs can certainly not be built so mechanically effective as to ensure success. 




Tony Vargas said:


> With power comes responsibility.  The GM has more control over the game than the players, he needs to exercise restraint.  That's part of what's behind 'railroading' being so negative - it could be symptomatic of a DM abusing his role.




Sure...a tyrranical DM is not what i had in mind. We've probably all got stories about that kind of experience. 

What I mean is that, in my opinion, the DM's opinions and desires should matter as much as the players. I don't think that having a story or direction in mind is a terrible thing. I think it's one thing to have a direction in mind and keep that direction as an option, and another thing entirely to force that durection as the only option. 



pemerton said:


> Yes. As I think I posted, D&D's solution to the pacing/dramat issues that result from "realistic" resources management is magic. (Rather than, say, abstract mechanics.)







pemerton said:


> @_*hawkeyefan*_, I still think I'm not successfully conveying the following: from my point of view, as far as railroading is concerned, there is no difference between "saying 'yes'" to the presence of a vessel, and calling for a check. My reason for calling for a check is not railroad-related. It is drama/pacing related.




Sure, I got that. I agree. I was just adding my own view about the saying yes part. 



pemerton said:


> As to why _that's _the crunch - because the player has given it that status. _That's_ the approach to the situation that has been chosen, and so that's the one we focus on.




Understood. I can understand the method even if I don't think I would always use it myself.


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## pemerton

Adding another thought on "the crunch" - it's somewhat related to "no retries", though more at the level of framing than the nuts-and-bolts of mechanical retries:

Once the player has decided the PC is going to look for a vessel to catch the blood, that's where the focus of that bit of action has settled. If that works, then the PC's got some blood; if not, then getting the blood just became that much harder.

As a general rule (or course every rule can have exceptions), I don't think it's good for pacing to have a look for a vessel, and if that fails then try for the mattress, and if that fails than carry off the body to drain it later, etc. That might be comic in the right context, but I don't think it's that dramatic.

Maybe my intuition about this (which will then inform the way I GM it, and narrate the failures if they occur) is related to  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s distinction between scene-framing and other sorts of approaches - I'm inclined to want the scene to have some sort of focus or "crunch" and it resolves one way or the other. Not too much putzing around with "OK, this didn't work, so let's try this other thing."

That's probably also one reason why I use puzzles (riddles and the like) pretty infrequently.


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## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Adding another thought on "the crunch" - it's somewhat related to "no retries", though more at the level of framing than the nuts-and-bolts of mechanical retries:
> 
> Once the player has decided the PC is going to look for a vessel to catch the blood, that's where the focus of that bit of action has settled. If that works, then the PC's got some blood; if not, then getting the blood just became that much harder.
> 
> As a general rule (or course every rule can have exceptions), I don't think it's good for pacing to have a look for a vessel, and if that fails then try for the mattress, and if that fails than carry off the body to drain it later, etc. That might be comic in the right context, but I don't think it's that dramatic.
> 
> Maybe my intuition about this (which will then inform the way I GM it, and narrate the failures if they occur) is related to  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s distinction between scene-framing and other sorts of approaches - I'm inclined to want the scene to have some sort of focus or "crunch" and it resolves one way or the other. Not too much putzing around with "OK, this didn't work, so let's try this other thing."
> 
> That's probably also one reason why I use puzzles (riddles and the like) pretty infrequently.




I see a problem with this approach. You're basically making the entire situation hinge on the perception check when the actual fiction would not require that. Removing game mechanics and rules for a moment, why can't the player retrieve the blood in some other way?

This is another reason why I would have just said yes.


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## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> In sports, the stats themselves are sometimes interesting but what's being done with them is ruining the game...at least as far as hockey and baseball are concerned, I can't speak to other sports...as the intent seems to be to turn players and coaches/managers into robots, or as close as can be achieved.
> 
> Boring.
> 
> Same might go for DMing - if every time I made a decision as DM I stopped to put it through the process wringer that some here espouse two things would happen in random sequence: my game would stop dead, and my head would explode.  And even if I got past that, I'd worry the result might turn me into a more predictable/less spontaneous DM.
> 
> Boring.




Yeah, not going to get into this because my response would be extremely long (shocker!) and an uninteresting tangent to everyone here.



Lanefan said:


> Which makes sense from a realism perspective as what was once new becomes familiar.  Same idea as always driving down the same road on one's daily commute - the first time is interesting, the 90th or 164th or 8745th time not so much.




We have a misunderstanding.  What I was trying to communicate was that if you took 5 different groups of PCs through the same dungeon (theme, setting, map/key/stocked, puzzles, wandering monsters all the same), the resulting overall events and their sequence of encounter/discovery wouldn't be significantly different from group to group.  There would be some nuance based on classes/builds/roles, player action declarations, rolls.  Compared with (say) what could possibly unfold from World's End Bluff (discovery of the fate of the isolated settlement) > Perilous Journey (from WEB to EM) > Earthmaw (dealing with the Hobgoblins and ultimate parley with their king) part of the Dungeon World game I cited (which would probably be the equivalent of a large dungeon...certainly not in prep or play procedures, but in table time), the play results are non-dynamic.  I mean, starting at World's End Bluff...Earthmaw and the Blizzard Dragon Averandox (which they were going to appeal to for help) may have not even existed.  The game could change not just dynamically, but pretty much completely from play-through to play-through (that is what "make a map and leave blanks" and "play to find out what happens" engenders).


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## Imaro

Emerikol said:


> An occasionally bored player is bad but a bored DM is campaign death.  I do seek out like minds and I am very upfront with playstyle.  There are plenty of players for a good DM of any style.  Choosing to be middle of the road is fine too.  Everybody needs to have fun.






Imaro said:


> I dont view it as "middle of the road"... I view it as enjoying the flexibility in techniques and results of catering to a diverse group.




Just to add more clarity I was thinking of an (admittedly imperfect) analogy... would you consider Jeet Kune Do a "middle of the road" martial art since it eschewed much of the traditional constraints of classical martial arts for a use what works best in the moment philosophy?  I wouldn't, IMO it's just as hard to master and is superior in some aspects to the classical MA's.  In the UFC we are seeing less classically defined fighters (as opposed to when it first started) and more fighters who train in multiple techniques and arts to be better all around combatants... I like to think this is similar to how I view running a game should be...  

I think a mixture of techniques and principles where you pick the one most appropriate to generating fun for you and your group in the moment is what I aspire to and I think it's a perfectly legitimate agenda to have when gaming.


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## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> It's not that GM desire is bad. GM desire is amazing, fruitful, and vital. The principles are as much for my benefit as they are for the players. I absolutely have investment, interest, and aspirations just like any other player. Like any other player I let those things go so we can play to find out. I'll have more later.






hawkeyefan said:


> I think this was in regard to how my players and I determine the Flaws, Bonds, and other character traits as they develop over the campaign. We have them change or we add new ones or take away the originals...it all depends. How I do this is always a judgment call, we don't rely on a mechanical rule of some sort. The only example I can think of is the Insanity mechanic; when exposed to certain horrifying conditions, creatures, or effects, you roll on a table and ten you gain a new trait. My method for doing that is far less structured.
> 
> But I do think that you've touched on what I'd say is my main point in this thread...that I think DM Judgment can be as effective as any other method, and can still be impartial and support player driven play. Yes, you may have to impose the judgment over some of the existing mechanical rules but so be it.






hawkeyefan said:


> Gotcha. I play with an altered Inspiration mechanic, and I allow for the Bonds and Flaws and other traits to change or for new ones to be added or old ones to fade as play progresses. We're really loose with all that stuff, which I find to be more manageable than having hard and fast mechanics for everything. Same thing with experience...we ditched the traditional XP system a few editions ago.




Just quoting the above as they're relevant to the below.  Also, since  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] brought up the short little DW one-off we ran (nearly 3 years ago now!), I'm going to use the characters in that to elaborate on some concepts.  

Anyway, quick intro to:
*
How GMing principles, an integrated and robust reward cycle, and transparent resolution mechanics and play procedures disable GM Force and Illusionism...and how the opposite enables it.*

I'll start with the first part.  So below are the Bonds and Alignment for  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's characters.



> Lucann
> 
> *BONDS*
> * The king owes me their life, whether they admit it or not.
> * I have sworn to protect my lover.
> * Thurgon is a good and faithful person; I believe him to be a human worthy of my trust.
> * The half-elven warrior maiden is soft, but I will make them hard like me.
> 
> *ALIGNMENT*: Neutral - Defeat a worthy opponent.






> Thurgon
> 
> BONDS
> * Theren has stood by me in battle and can be trusted completely.
> * The people of the city remain brave in spite of their suffering; I have much to learn from them.
> * Lucann's misguided self-indulgence endangers his very soul!
> * Quinn can be brought back from the darkness into which I allowed him to fall.
> 
> ALIGNMENT:  Good- Endanger self to protect those weaker.




Here is how you earn xp in Dungeon World.



> 1)  Did you roll a 6 or less on a move (2d6 + modifier)?  If yes, mark xp.
> 
> At End of Session (group move to reflect on play)...
> 
> 2)  Choose one of your bonds that you feel is resolved (completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise). Ask the player (this would be the GM if it is an NPC) of the character you have the bond with if they agree. If they do, mark XP and write a new bond with whomever you wish.
> 
> 3)  Look at your alignment. If you fulfilled that alignment at least once this session, mark XP.
> 
> 4)  Then answer these three questions as a group:
> 
> Did we learn something new and important about the world?
> Did we overcome a notable monster or enemy?
> Did we loot a memorable treasure?
> 
> For each “yes” answer everyone marks XP.




Alright.  Now we know what the game is incentivizing.  Through examination of that reward cycle we can find out what the play premise for Dungeon World is:

* Playing to take risks and find out what happens (This is the primary source of xp in the game.  Xp on failure pushes players away from (a) turtling and (b) optimizing action declarations toward their areas of strength...or at least it puts it at tension with the inclination for character progression).

* Playing to find out about your relationships.

* Playing to find out about your highest ideal (what are you willing to risk to achieve it?).

* Playing for discovery.

* Playing to overcome notable adversaries and obstacles (mythical monsters, impossible climbs, inspiring the most stodgy to action).

* Playing to gain something...precious (lost artifacts, divine boons, or something more mundane that an NPC just doesn't want to give up).



Let's start with that and a hypothetical play example.  Take a look above at the following bonds and alignment from pemerton's character Thurgon:



> BONDS -
> * Quinn can be brought back from the darkness into which I allowed him to fall.
> * The people of the city remain brave in spite of their suffering; I have much to learn from them.
> 
> ALIGNMENT:  Good- Endanger self to protect those weaker.




What happens if I place the PCs into a situation where Quinn (now the vassal of The Queen of Air and Darkness), the focus of Thurgon's quest for redemption, endangers the brave people of the city?

Let's take a look at Lucann's bond:



> * The half-elven warrior maiden is soft, but I will make her hard like me.




She is a stout member of Thurgon's order of knights.  She is definitely not weak, but she is not the equal of Thurgon (the Knight-Commander of her order).  What happens if, in the midst of this conflict, I put her in grave peril (as the result of a 6- by one of the PCs) because of a tactical misstep on her part?  Maybe she pulls a Hot Rod in the Optimus Prime/Megatron battle in the original Transformers movie (the great one).

Let's take a look at another of Lucann's bonds:



> * Thurgon is a good and faithful person; I believe him to be a human worthy of my trust.




Maybe the situation snowballs.  Maybe Quinn is about to deliver a potential mortal blow to Dame Nequall (the half-elven knight).  Maybe Thurgon has a last gasp change to save his lieutenant from the imminent peril...but to do so would mean to allow a brave member of the city (perhaps an orphanage keep - there would lots of orphans after the war -  desperately fending off summoned shadow fiends with a hoe) to perish.  

Maybe Lucann believes Dame Nequall's failure has led to this situation.  Maybe he is convinced that it is divine (rather than natural) selection that she resolutely face her fate (a horrific lesson, perhaps maiming, perhaps death) here and now.  Like you teach a man to fish rather than fish for them, you do the same thing with the warrior to your left and your right.  They are no good to themselves, to you, or to their unit if they cannot hold their weight (or, worst still, they imperil you).

Let's find out if he thinks that and (in)acts on it!

What will Thurgon do?  My guess is he will endanger himself..but to save whom?  He could Turn Undead and with a 10+ save the orphanage keep from the shadow fiends.  He could Defend Dame Nequal.  Can't do both!

What if, in his moment of need, he whispers a powerful prayer to Kord (Revelation), seeking divine wisdom on how to save Dame Nequal and the orphanage keep.  What if the revelation is to strike down Quinn with a weapon imbued of light (he would take +1 forward to act on this).  

A lot turns on this.  Will Thurgon fell the focus of his quest, ensuring that he lives with his sense of failure to Quinn forevermore?  If he does, he still has to bring the weapon to bear (Hack and Slash) and enspell it with divine Light (Cast a Spell).  Things can go wrong there (though he does have +1 forward), or at least go sideways (leading to snowballing).

What if he endangers himself to save Dame Nequal (perhaps his prospects for defense are much higher than anything else) but lets the orphanage keep perish?

What if Lucann doesn't like his answer to the question?  What happens to that trust between the two?



So that is how robust reward cycles in a game where the GM is instructed to "follow the rules, "fill the characters' lives with danger and adventure" and "play to find out what happens" aids me in avoiding having to apply force to achieve dramatic tension, danger and adventure.

The players tell me what is important to them and what they care about.
The system rewards them for taking risks.
Then I just follow the rules, think dangerous, and make my moves as the fiction unfolds and the play procedures dictate.

Next post I'll go deeper into how transparent (and simple, yet robust) resolution mechanics and play procedures prevent me from having to rely on Force to create dramatic situations which lead to compelling/thematic decision-points for the PCs, which in turn leads to unforeseeable outcomes and snowballing narrative.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I also do not always play Powered By The Apocalypse games or even other games run that way, but I find even when playing in other styles it has made me a more thoughtful player and GM. It has taught me to meaningfully value others contributions, play less selfishly, and turtle less. It has also taught me the value of not over planning and being more flexible in my play.



Please allow what might seem a stupid question:

You mention running all kinds of different "modern" RPGs - some for better, some for worse - but how much experience do you have in running old-school games e.g. 0-1e D&D or Hackmaster or any of the various OSR options?

I ask because experience frames perspective; and if most or all of your experience is with games whose year of release beguns with a '2' then your perspective will naturally be much different from that of an old-schooler like me. 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Emerikol said:


> An occasionally bored player is bad but a bored DM is campaign death.



Ayup.  Been there.


> There are plenty of players for a good DM of any style.



This one's situationally dependent.  In a large city or if one does remote play (by post, by email, VTT, whatever) it's true.  In a smaller town or isolated area, not so much; and one somewhat has to deal with what one has.


> Everybody needs to have fun.



Hear hear!

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Adding another thought on "the crunch" - it's somewhat related to "no retries", though more at the level of framing than the nuts-and-bolts of mechanical retries:
> 
> Once the player has decided the PC is going to look for a vessel to catch the blood, that's where the focus of that bit of action has settled. If that works, then the PC's got some blood; if not, then getting the blood just became that much harder.
> 
> As a general rule (or course every rule can have exceptions), I don't think it's good for pacing to have a look for a vessel, and if that fails then try for the mattress, and if that fails than carry off the body to drain it later, etc. That might be comic in the right context, but I don't think it's that dramatic.
> 
> Maybe my intuition about this (which will then inform the way I GM it, and narrate the failures if they occur) is related to  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s distinction between scene-framing and other sorts of approaches - I'm inclined to want the scene to have some sort of focus or "crunch" and it resolves one way or the other. Not too much putzing around with "OK, this didn't work, so let's try this other thing."



Am I reading too much into this if I say it's telling me you don't like trial-and-error because it slows things down too much?  If no and my assessment is correct then we've a whole other discussion a-coming. 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Yeah, not going to get into this because my response would be extremely long (shocker!) and an uninteresting tangent to everyone here.



The purely sports side, maybe; but there might be some benefit in using the analogy as it relates to how it seems you view DM process management.



> We have a misunderstanding.  What I was trying to communicate was that if you took 5 different groups of PCs through the same dungeon (theme, setting, map/key/stocked, puzzles, wandering monsters all the same), the resulting overall events and their sequence of encounter/discovery wouldn't be significantly different from group to group.  There would be some nuance based on classes/builds/roles, player action declarations, rolls.



Which makes perfect sense. (though a well-designed dungeon can lead to vastly different play experiences here too, but that's another topic entirely)



> Compared with (say) what could possibly unfold from World's End Bluff (discovery of the fate of the isolated settlement) > Perilous Journey (from WEB to EM) > Earthmaw (dealing with the Hobgoblins and ultimate parley with their king) part of the Dungeon World game I cited (which would probably be the equivalent of a large dungeon...certainly not in prep or play procedures, but in table time), the play results are non-dynamic.  I mean, starting at World's End Bluff...Earthmaw and the Blizzard Dragon Averandox (which they were going to appeal to for help) may have not even existed.  The game could change not just dynamically, but pretty much completely from play-through to play-through (that is what "make a map and leave blanks" and "play to find out what happens" engenders).



Not sure I see the comparison here.

Your first comparitor is running the same dungeon 5 times for different parties.  Your second is running a series of adventures/encounters once for a single party, that you may or may not ever run again.  On the surface that's almost like comparing apples to motorboats unless I'm really missing something.

Lan-"sometimes I don't get it; other times I don't even get what I'm not getting"-efan


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> Yes. As I think I posted, D&D's solution to the pacing/dramat issues that result from "realistic" resources management is magic. (Rather than, say, abstract mechanics.)



 It's not a 'solution' exactly, because the problem isn't that it takes weeks to heal, or that you can heal overnight.  The problem is that DMs (and their players) may want different pacing in a campaign, and that D&D has never done much to allow for that, with the time it takes to recover - whether hps or spells or other resources - being fixed in the in-world time, rather than flexible to the pacing of the campaign (13A, for contrast, goes to the other extreme with a purely 'meta' full-heal up every 4th encounter - thus pacing is whatever the DM wants, from minutes between encounters to, at theoretical extremes, perhaps years, it doesn't matter).  

In 3.x & earlier systems that don't just have overnight healing like 5e, the days/weeks it theoretically took to heal were moot, because magical healing that re-charged in a day or less was an infinitely-renewable resource.  It's not that 'natural healing was slow,' it's that natural healing might as well not have existed, as it had no meaningful impact on play.  




hawkeyefan said:


> My point about this is more that the 5 minute work day has been lessened. You no longer need to have magical healing for it to not take many days to recover a large amount of HP. With Hit Dice and a short rest, you can press on for longer. And then you regain all lost HP on a long rest.



 And you have at-wills, and at least some classes (fighter, monk, warlock - oddly, wizard) recover useful resources other than hps (via HD) on a short rest.  OTOH, HD take two days to fully recover, so they can't be used too freely on multiple short rests, and most classes (all the daily slot casters, Warlock mystic arcanum, barbarian rage) have daily resources, while for the 'full casters' those daily resource represent the most significant portion of their effectiveness.  So the impetus to the 5MWD is lessened relative to 3.5 or AD&D, but the impact is still very much there, with encounter and class balance likely to swing significantly - thus it's important to keep close to the 6-8 encounter/2-3 short rest guidance (nor, for an Empowered DM, is that difficult to do).



> I think this was in regard to how my players and I determine the Flaws, Bonds, and other character traits as they develop over the campaign. We have them change or we add new ones or take away the originals...it all depends. How I do this is always a judgment call, we don't rely on a mechanical rule of some sort.



 Sounds good to me...
...as good as RP-carrots can, anyway. 



> But I do think that you've touched on what I'd say is my main point in this thread...that I think DM Judgment can be as effective as any other method, and can still be impartial and support player driven play. Yes, you may have to impose the judgment over some of the existing mechanical rules but so be it.



 I agree, in general.  Exercising judgement can work as well as any other style of GMing, in just about any game - it requires the DM take responsibility, but it can get excellent results.  I'd go further and say that, in the context of our forum, here - 5e, with it's emphasis on DM Empowerment - exercising judgement is the /best/ way to run.



> What I mean is that, in my opinion, the DM's opinions and desires should matter as much as the players. I don't think that having a story or direction in mind is a terrible thing. I think it's one thing to have a direction in mind and keep that direction as an option, and another thing entirely to force that durection as the only option.



 Ideally, I suppose, that's not unfair. But with the implied responsibility of taking up the Empowerment that 5e offers the DM, it's good to remember that it's much easier for the DM to impose those opinions and desires.  The the DM should err on the side of putting the players' experience of the game first.



Manbearcat said:


> What I was trying to communicate was that if you took 5 different groups of PCs through the same dungeon (theme, setting, map/key/stocked, puzzles, wandering monsters all the same), the resulting overall events and their sequence of encounter/discovery wouldn't be significantly different from group to group.  There would be some nuance based on classes/builds/roles, player action declarations, rolls.



 I wouldn't consider a range of results from 'TPK' to 'boring roll-over' to be mere 'nuance.'  



Manbearcat said:


> *How GMing principles, an integrated and robust reward cycle, and transparent resolution mechanics and play procedures disable GM Force and Illusionism...and how the opposite enables it.*



 I get the idea and I have no arguments against it, per se.  But, if "GM Force & Illusionism" - or DM Empowerment & good DMing, to spin it hard in the other direction - isn't seen as a bad thing, or even seen as a good thing because it leads to enjoyable play experiences for the whole table, then that insight just means, 'well, you have choice.'  

I'm not sure I buy it, either - I feel like I could enable the style myself, regardless of system.  

Certainly in any version of D&D, given some willingness on the part of the players.



Lanefan said:


> You mention running all kinds of different "modern" RPGs - some for better, some for worse - but how much experience do you have in running old-school games e.g. 0-1e D&D or Hackmaster or any of the various OSR options?
> 
> I ask because experience frames perspective; and if most or all of your experience is with games whose year of release beguns with a '2' then your perspective will naturally be much different from that of an old-schooler like me.



 Three editions of D&D have released in years beginning with a '2,' including the current one, of course. 

The old-school perspective is not an unusual one, either, our's is a fairly grey hobby and D&D is the most common point of entry to it.  Everyone knows our perspective, it's the perspective all others struggle against to be understood.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> The purely sports side, maybe; but there might be some benefit in using the analogy as it relates to how it seems you view DM process management.
> 
> 
> 
> We have a misunderstanding.  What I was trying to communicate was that if you took 5 different groups of PCs through the same dungeon (theme, setting, map/key/stocked, puzzles, wandering monsters all the same), the resulting overall events and their sequence of encounter/discovery wouldn't be significantly different from group to group.  There would be some nuance based on classes/builds/roles, player action declarations, rolls.



Which makes perfect sense. (though a well-designed dungeon can lead to vastly different play experiences here too, but that's another topic entirely)

Not sure I see the comparison here.

Your first comparitor is running the same dungeon 5 times for different parties.  Your second is running a series of adventures/encounters once for a single party, that you may or may not ever run again.  On the surface that's almost like comparing apples to motorboats unless I'm really missing something.

Lan-"sometimes I don't get it; other times I don't even get what I'm not getting"-efan[/QUOTE]

Misunderstanding again.  Lets try again.

Starting point B/X dungeon entrance.  Play through 5 times with different groups.

Starting point World's End Bluff (where the PCs discover the Roanoke-like disappearance of the settlers) in Dungeon World through the table time equivalent of Earthmaw (or whatever might happen after WEB if things go differently).  Play through 5 times with 5 different groups.

Alright, I'm out for the day.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Here is how you earn xp in Dungeon World.
> 
> 1) Did you roll a 6 or less on a move (2d6 + modifier)? If yes, mark xp.
> 
> At End of Session (group move to reflect on play)...
> 
> 2) Choose one of your bonds that you feel is resolved (completely explored, no longer relevant, or otherwise). Ask the player (this would be the GM if it is an NPC) of the character you have the bond with if they agree. If they do, mark XP and write a new bond with whomever you wish.
> 
> 3) Look at your alignment. If you fulfilled that alignment at least once this session, mark XP.
> 
> 4) Then answer these three questions as a group:
> 
> Did we learn something new and important about the world?
> Did we overcome a notable monster or enemy?
> Did we loot a memorable treasure?
> 
> For each “yes” answer everyone marks XP.



number 1 above has my interest - xp for messing up! 

The rest, though...the whole idea of bonds and rewards for adhering to them really doesn't fly with me; it seems an artificial way of forcing characters to get along.

And number 4 flies in the face of my unshakeable belief that xp for things like combat etc. should only go to those who actually participated in it.  That said, in this system it seems xp are trying to reflect something different (not sure exactly what) than I'm used to; I've always seen xp as a game-mechanical attempt to reflect the character's learning curve. (side note: this is also why I rather detest the idea of giving xp as a player reward e.g. for bringing snacks to the game)

That all said, however:



> Alright.  Now we know what the game is incentivizing.  Through examination of that reward cycle we can find out what the play premise for Dungeon World is:
> 
> * Playing to take risks and find out what happens (This is the primary source of xp in the game.  Xp on failure pushes players away from (a) turtling and (b) optimizing action declarations toward their areas of strength...or at least it puts it at tension with the inclination for character progression).
> 
> * Playing to find out about your relationships.
> 
> * Playing to find out about your highest ideal (what are you willing to risk to achieve it?).
> 
> * Playing for discovery.
> 
> * Playing to overcome notable adversaries and obstacles (mythical monsters, impossible climbs, inspiring the most stodgy to action).
> 
> * Playing to gain something...precious (lost artifacts, divine boons, or something more mundane that an NPC just doesn't want to give up).



This looks good (well, except for the relationships part; that could get messy).



> So that is how robust reward cycles in a game where the GM is instructed to "follow the rules, "fill the characters' lives with danger and adventure" and "play to find out what happens" aids me in avoiding having to apply force to achieve dramatic tension, danger and adventure.
> 
> The players tell me what is important to them and what they care about.
> The system rewards them for taking risks.
> Then I just follow the rules, think dangerous, and make my moves as the fiction unfolds and the play procedures dictate.



So, quite player-centric (as opposed to DM-centric).

Are all the characters' bonds etc. known to the other players, or can some or all be kept secret? (e.g. my character Bjorn might have as a bond a secret crush on your character Twylia; not much of a secret if you-as-Twylia's-player know about it)

One thing it seems to deny you as DM is the ability to make stuff up that breaks the rules, which in traditional D&D we've always kind of had.  Seems a bit constraining.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Misunderstanding again.  Lets try again.
> 
> Starting point B/X dungeon entrance.  Play through 5 times with different groups.



Depending on various factors, probably the most important of which is the design of the dungeon itself, the results might be very similar each time or might be wildly different each time.  See below...



> Starting point World's End Bluff (where the PCs discover the Roanoke-like disappearance of the settlers) in Dungeon World through the table time equivalent of Earthmaw (or whatever might happen after WEB if things go differently).  Play through 5 times with 5 different groups.



Depending on various factors, in this case the most important of which is probably whether the PCs in fact choose to move on to each next step when presented, the results might be very similar each time or might be wildly different each time.

Getting back to the B/X dungeon example:

If the dungeon is a straight-ahead linear design (as some old tournament modules are) there might not be all that much difference in experience from one group to the next, assuming at least vague similarity between the groups e.g. number of characters, average level, etc.  But if the dungeon has numerous entrances and - once inside - numerous different interweaving paths and stairs and ways to go such that parties might encounter things in a much different sequence each time then the in-play experience might never be the same (or anywhere even close) twice.

L1 Secret of Bone Hill is a great example of the latter.  There's about 5 or 6 different ways into the thing and once inside there's various options as to what to do next.  I've played in this twice (three times?) and run it twice and the results have been vastly different each time as you just never know what order things will happen in or from which direction(s) the party will approach any given scenario.

Judges' Guild's Dark Tower (which I'm currently running) is another and perhaps even better example.  In fact, I'm finding the module writer even managed to defeat himself with his impressive dungeon design: in numerous instances the answer for the problem in area x, say, is to be found in area y; with the implicit assumption the party will hit them in the order y-then-x.  However there's so many different ways a party can go once inside that thing* that the odds of hitting these areas in the right order is almost miniscule!

* - including vertical access: I've never seen a dungeon with so many different ways of getting from one floor to another.  It's excellent! 

Lanefan


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Please allow what might seem a stupid question:
> 
> You mention running all kinds of different "modern" RPGs - some for better, some for worse - but how much experience do you have in running old-school games e.g. 0-1e D&D or Hackmaster or any of the various OSR options?
> 
> I ask because experience frames perspective; and if most or all of your experience is with games whose year of release beguns with a '2' then your perspective will naturally be much different from that of an old-schooler like me.
> 
> Lanefan




Far from it. I love B/X with all my heart and soul as a player which I discovered around the same time as Apocalypse World. Vincent Baker's raves about Moldvay convinced me to give it a shot. I absolutely adore D&D played as a war game. I am not very adept at module design so I do not tend to run it that often. If you want to see me get really excited talk to me about running a West Marches game. There's nothing like a good hex crawl with cheap death and treasures and dangers behind every corner.

I am also a fan of Sine Nomine's Stars Without Number and Godbound, two sandbox games built on a modified B/X chassis. I enjoy both games run either in my most preferred style or pure sandboxing fun. Classic Traveller is another example of this type.

Generally the only sort of roleplaying games I am not fond of are those run in a *middle school* way - a set of techniques that suggest keeping player agency as low as possible, focus on exploration of setting minutia and metaplot, and the GM telling the players a story. Vampire - The Masquerade is the classic example, but the texts of AD&D 2e, Shadowrun, certain ways of playing Champions, and Numenera are other examples.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> Generally the only sort of roleplaying games I am not fond of are those run in a *middle school* way - a set of techniques that suggest keeping player agency as low as possible, focus on exploration of setting minutia and metaplot, and the GM telling the players a story. .



 Sounds better than the Basic D&D I played in *middle school*.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Far from it. I love B/X with all my heart and soul as a player which I discovered around the same time as Apocalypse World. Vincent Baker's raves about Moldvay convinced me to give it a shot. I absolutely adore D&D played as a war game. I am not very adept at module design so I do not tend to run it that often. If you want to see me get really excited talk to me about running a West Marches game. There's nothing like a good hex crawl with cheap death and treasures and dangers behind every corner.



Cool! 



> Generally the only sort of roleplaying games I am not fond of are those run in a *middle school* way - a set of techniques that suggest keeping player agency as low as possible, focus on exploration of setting minutia and metaplot, and the GM telling the players a story. Vampire - The Masquerade is the classic example, but the texts of AD&D 2e, Shadowrun, certain ways of playing Champions, and Numenera are other examples.



I guess I fall somewhere between old and middle school by these measures.  My game worlds will always have (a) stor(y/ies) but it's up to the players in character whether and-or which one(s) they want to engage with should they decide to make that choice; but if they don't do anything about it they're going to get my story as default.   That said, even when there's engagement with a story there's always time and oppotunity for side treks, other stories, diversion adventures, red herrings, and so forth.

Just as an example, the last string of adventures in my current campaign:

(preamble - shortly before this one of the PCs had pulled a keep and title from a Deck of Many Things; this drives some of what follows)
--- Mysteries in Lariana: heart-and-soul meta-story adventure, party is acting as secret agents in an Elvish town trying to find out what's driving the Elves to invade...well, everywhere.
--- Halls of Azarius / Volcano: a strange split-party adventure where half of them help the PC investigate some ruins near his castle while the others follow up on some leads from the previous adventure...until one of them gets captured by the enemy and the rest get beat to rat-spit.  Volcano part would have been meta-plot had they got in the front door; the Halls were a diversion.
--- King of the Woodlands: they're not powerful enough yet to try a rescue so they go and bash some Giants not too far from where the PC put his castle.  Complete diversion at the characters' behest.
--- Rescue!: a scry-buff-teleport rescue of their captive comrade...and another who they'd kind of forgotten about.  Character-driven, arising from the meta-story.
--- Deep Dwarven Dead: a Ranger had joined the party for the Giant-bash; this adventure to help him out with some undead was the trade-off for his help.  Another character-forced diversion (but again tangentially related to the PC's castle) but I put some elements in to set up the next adventure.
--- Against Saith: an old meta-story about some Undead Lords meets a new one (the Elves) as the party's quasi-mentor (in fact the vampire referenced at various points in this thread!) asks them to take out Saith the Lich before the Elves recruit him.  The background bits for this adventure have been on my "storyboard" since before Day One; 9 real-world years later it sees the light of day.  This one's still in progress.  And, by sheer luck (a random effects roll at one point) one of the characters has picked up a mission quest that will nicely lead to another adventure I've had in the mill for a while.

So of 6 adventures only one (plus the abortive Volcano) is true meta-plot, another is the culmination of things brewing for ages, and the rest are either character-driven or standalone diversions.  So - old school or middle school?

Lan-"storyboard still has about 5 years worth of game on it even without whatever the characters might come up with in the meantime"-efan


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> number 1 above has my interest - xp for messing up!
> 
> The rest, though...the whole idea of bonds and rewards for adhering to them really doesn't fly with me; it seems an artificial way of forcing characters to get along.
> 
> And number 4 flies in the face of my unshakeable belief that xp for things like combat etc. should only go to those who actually participated in it.  That said, in this system it seems xp are trying to reflect something different (not sure exactly what) than I'm used to; I've always seen xp as a game-mechanical attempt to reflect the character's learning curve. (side note: this is also why I rather detest the idea of giving xp as a player reward e.g. for bringing snacks to the game)
> 
> That all said, however:
> 
> This looks good (well, except for the relationships part; that could get messy).
> 
> So, quite player-centric (as opposed to DM-centric).
> 
> Are all the characters' bonds etc. known to the other players, or can some or all be kept secret? (e.g. my character Bjorn might have as a bond a secret crush on your character Twylia; not much of a secret if you-as-Twylia's-player know about it)
> 
> One thing it seems to deny you as DM is the ability to make stuff up that breaks the rules, which in traditional D&D we've always kind of had.  Seems a bit constraining.
> 
> Lanefan




Bonds are not really about reinforcing the relationship. They are about meaningfully exploring it. Here's the relevant passage:


			
				Dungeon World said:
			
		

> *Resolving Bonds*
> 
> At the end of each session you may resolve one bond. Resolution of a bond depends on both you and the player of the character you share the bond with: you suggest that the bond has been resolved and, if they agree, it is. When you resolve a bond, you get to mark XP.
> 
> A bond is resolved when it no longer describes how you relate to that person. That may be because circumstances have changed—Thelian used to have your back but after he abandoned you to the goblins, you’re not so sure. Or it could be because that’s no longer a question—you guided Wesley before and he owed you, but he paid that debt when he saved your life with a well-timed spell. Any time you look at a bond and think “that’s not a big factor in how we relate anymore” the bond is at a good place to resolve.
> 
> If you have a blank bond left over from character creation you can assign a name to it or write a new bond in its place whenever you like. You don’t get an XP for doing so, but you do get more defined bonds to resolve in the future.




One way to resolve the bond between Lucann and Thurgon would be for me as the player of Lucann to decide he does not trust Thurgon anymore but it trying to salvage their relationship. The new bond might be "Thurgon is too wrapped up in this Iron Tower business. I must convince him to honor The Accords." Alternatively, if I am willing to go there I might decide that Thurgon is now my enemy. The new bond might be "Thurgon has stepped on the Accords for the last time. By Sehanine, I shall end him."

Thurgon might see things differently and have conflicting bonds. If I declare that he is now my enemy    [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] might decide that Thurgon wants Lucann to see reason. "Lucann is my friend. I will bring him into the Storm Lord's light." Here we have compelling play with multilayered relationships where players' characters act in opposition.

Think of bonds as questions to be answered, rather than statements of truth.

A significant portion of Powered by the Apocalypse games actually expect that players' characters might end up opposed to one another. Dungeon World, Masks, and The Sprawl are fairly group focused. They do not really get in the way of conflict though. Apocalypse World and Monsterhearts do not assume the characters will even be allies in any way. That's up to the players.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Generally the only sort of roleplaying games I am not fond of are those run in a *middle school* way - a set of techniques that suggest keeping player agency as low as possible, focus on exploration of setting minutia and metaplot, and the GM telling the players a story. Vampire - The Masquerade is the classic example, but the texts of AD&D 2e, Shadowrun, certain ways of playing Champions, and Numenera are other examples.



That doesn't surprise me about Numenera. Monte Cook is the author of Dead Gods.


----------



## pemerton

The dynamics between PCs are an interesting part of RPGing.

Generally I run games based around party play, but with no assumption that the PCs are allied in any ultimate sense. Ie there may be alliances of convenience.

The reason for party play: the games I run don't generally have good systems for supporting plot dynamics between PCs who are not relatively proximate in space and time.

Examples of alliances of convenience: in the situation that is unfolding in the OP, the assassin may still end up working with the PCs who carried her off from the mage's tower, because they all have an interest in the fate of the dead mage's soul.

Examples of PC conflict: the PC mage wants to redeem his brother; the naga-serving PC wants to take the blood to the naga. These may not be compatible goals.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I see a problem with this approach. You're basically making the entire situation hinge on the perception check when the actual fiction would not require that. Removing game mechanics and rules for a moment, why can't the player retrieve the blood in some other way?



In the fiction - maybe the familiar has lapped it all up?

From the point of view of the mechanics of play - because retries are boring, and tend to push play away from "go to where the action is" and towards puzzle solving.



Lanefan said:


> Am I reading too much into this if I say it's telling me you don't like trial-and-error because it slows things down too much?



More or less, yes.


----------



## Manbearcat

Tony Vargas said:


> I get the idea and I have no arguments against it, per se.  But, if "GM Force & Illusionism" - or DM Empowerment & good DMing, to spin it hard in the other direction - isn't seen as a bad thing, or even seen as a good thing because it leads to enjoyable play experiences for the whole table, then that insight just means, 'well, you have choice.'
> 
> I'm not sure I buy it, either - I feel like I could enable the style myself, regardless of system.
> 
> Certainly in any version of D&D, given some willingness on the part of the players.




Well, now we're running into further posts I was planning to do about what impedes GM Force or Illusionism.  If I could do a very abridged version it would be any system that constrains GM latitude by:

(a) principally guiding GMs in situation framing and adversity/obstacle introduction

(b) requiring little to no GM intervention/adjudication in the resolution mechanics

(c) obstructing the GM from imposing their own will on outcomes (rather than letting the system and the players have their say)

Obviously if we want to sort out facilitates GM Force or Illusionism, we merely have to invert the above, the abridged version being any system that indulged GM latitude by:

(d) giving the GM broad, sweeping authority in situation framing and adversity/obstacle introduction

(e) mandating GM intervention/adjudication in, or subordination of, the resolution mechanics

(f) permitting and materially supporting the GM in imposing their own will on outcomes

So the only real question becomes...why would you be playing the first system if you want GM Force or Illusionism to be featured in the course of play?  And why would you be playing the second system if you do not want it featured?



Tony Vargas said:


> I wouldn't consider a range of results from 'TPK' to 'boring roll-over' to be mere 'nuance.'






Lanefan said:


> Depending on various factors, probably the most important of which is the design of the dungeon itself, the results might be very similar each time or might be wildly different each time.  See below...
> 
> Depending on various factors, in this case the most important of which is probably whether the PCs in fact choose to move on to each next step when presented, the results might be very similar each time or might be wildly different each time.
> 
> Getting back to the B/X dungeon example:
> 
> If the dungeon is a straight-ahead linear design (as some old tournament modules are) there might not be all that much difference in experience from one group to the next, assuming at least vague similarity between the groups e.g. number of characters, average level, etc.  But if the dungeon has numerous entrances and - once inside - numerous different interweaving paths and stairs and ways to go such that parties might encounter things in a much different sequence each time then the in-play experience might never be the same (or anywhere even close) twice.




Going to put these two together.

What I'm trying to juxtapose is consistent and truly inevitable dynamism in output versus consistent nuance (with the some prospects for stray dynamism)

Imagine, if you will, the below B/X dungeon crawl.  For now, lets bridle the opinions of "I don't like that sort of player agency", "that negatively impacts my personal ability to immerse", "I feel like this would be boring to GM", "that dungeon will inevitably have crappy decision-points, puzzles, and continuity", and "OMG SCHRODINGER'S DUNGEON!"  None of those things are the point.  Let's just focus on the evaluation of dynamism.  Alright:

You have a starting point; an initially framed theme, opening chamber/entrance, and obstacle to overcome.  From there, literally everything is up for grabs.  Everything is generated in the moment as an emergent property of what came before and is the product of the creative reservoir of the GM (with some help from the players) + the fundamental procedures and principles of play.  The subsequent map (from structural layout, to stairs, to traps, to secret doors, et al).  The stocking of the dungeon (from set dressing to puzzles to encounters).  The endgame (be it boss or grand puzzle which opens to corridor leading down to the next level of the dungeon).

Where B/X's dynamism is mostly (but not wholly, as the decision-tree component of the dungeon itself and the players' decisions have their role to play) dependent upon (the beautifully elegant mechanics of) (1) Wandering Monsters and (2) Monster Reaction Rolls.

Now, the obvious caveat for the obvious rejoinder.

Yes, if you have a crappy Dungeon World GM (who isn't creative, who doesn't have a forensic knowledge-base and deep well of genre tropes to call upon, who doesn't improvise well) contrasted with a very skilled B/X GM (who masterfully creates complexes with deep and compelling decision trees, stocks them with engaging puzzles, and who describes each corridor/chamber with pithy and skillfully provocative - in both mood and subtle hints/misdirection - narration)...then yes, of course the B/X dungeon crawl experience is going to yield more dynamism on subsequent play-through by different groups.

But assuming an apples to apples comparison, one formula is going to inevitably produce an emergent play experience that is dramatically and dynamically different from any predecessor (given the same starting point).


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> number 1 above has my interest - xp for messing up!
> 
> The rest, though...the whole idea of bonds and rewards for adhering to them really doesn't fly with me; it seems an artificial way of forcing characters to get along.
> 
> And number 4 flies in the face of my unshakeable belief that xp for things like combat etc. should only go to those who actually participated in it.  That said, in this system it seems xp are trying to reflect something different (not sure exactly what) than I'm used to; I've always seen xp as a game-mechanical attempt to reflect the character's learning curve. (side note: this is also why I rather detest the idea of giving xp as a player reward e.g. for bringing snacks to the game)
> 
> That all said, however:
> 
> This looks good (well, except for the relationships part; that could get messy).




Four comments:

1)  Since you are keen on "xp as process simulator for learning curve", given the adage of "we learn more from our failures than we do our successes" (unless you don't subscribe to that), it would seem that you would be a fan of "xp for messing up"?  

2)  What exactly is "xp for gold" modeling?  If you solve a myriad of death defying puzzles, strategically map and explore a dizzying engineer marvel, special-ops-style storm the den of the horrific denizens such that nary a scratch is incurred, yet your huge score of gold is disintegrated by the Beholder boss at the end of the dungeon (which you subsequently slay...but have little to show for it)...what exactly is happening in the fiction?  Why do our adventurers go from leveling up to status quo?

3)  What the xp system is trying to accomplish is general Skinner Box Reward Cycle psychology while rewarding risky, emotionally-invested, genre-coherent action declarations by the players (from which emerges the behavioral portfolio of the PCs).

4)   @_*Campbell*_ took care of the Bonds question.  Bonds aren't prescriptive constraints like classic D&D Alignment (neither is Alignment for that matter - see 3 above).  They are questions to be answered or statements to be verified (or upturned), in play, about relationships.  "Resolving a Bond" (done at End of Session after both players agree it has taken place) just means that we've achieved the answering, verification, or upturning.  Mark xp and write a new Bond (perhaps signifying the change of state if there was one).



Lanefan said:


> So, quite player-centric (as opposed to DM-centric).
> 
> Are all the characters' bonds etc. known to the other players, or can some or all be kept secret? (e.g. my character Bjorn might have as a bond a secret crush on your character Twylia; not much of a secret if you-as-Twylia's-player know about it)
> 
> One thing it seems to deny you as DM is the ability to make stuff up that breaks the rules, which in traditional D&D we've always kind of had.  Seems a bit constraining.
> 
> Lanefan




As to the first:  

The text is entirely silent on whether Bonds have to be known to all the players.  Since the text is silent, that means that you would handle that however you'd like as a table (basically just social contract).  It certainly isn't incoherent for Dungeon World for the PCs to have secrets and a bit of intra-party strife/disagreement.  The resolution mechanics support that.

On the second:

It doesn't "seem to deny you the ability to break the rules", it explicitly forbids it!  The first page on Gamesmastering has "Follow the Rules" as a primary tenant!

But what if you don't need to break the rules?  What if awesome, exciting, genre-coherent stuff just happens (all the time) by simply following the rules, following your principles, being creative, and merely playing the game?

Where is the romance with/need for rule-breaking then?


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> What exactly is "xp for gold" modeling?



I'm not sure what XP system [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] uses, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't use "XP for gold".

Gygax makes it clear in his DMG that the classic XP system doesn't model anything.

The only _XP system_ I know that really tries to model learning is the RM one - which I would put under the label "you learn from hard field training"!

The classic model for learning is, of course, RQ (after using a skill - in the standard rules, it is _succeeding_, but that could easily be drifted) make a % check to improve (where the % chance of improvement = 100-current bonus).

BW uses a system superficially similar to RQ, though with enough changes to produce quite a different dynamic in play.



Manbearcat said:


> what if you don't need to break the rules?  What if awesome, exciting, genre-coherent stuff just happens (all the time) by simply following the rules, following your principles, being creative, and merely playing the game?
> 
> Where is the romance with/need for rule-breaking then?



Quite.


----------



## Lanefan

Real quick notes here; I'll get to some other replying tomorrow sometime...







Manbearcat said:


> 2)  What exactly is "xp for gold" modeling?



I've no idea, which might be part of why I've never given xp for gold. (with the lone exception sometimes being xp-for-value-stolen by a Thief)



> 3)  ... Skinner Box Reward Cycle psychology ...



Whatever this is...never heard of it.  Explain, please?



> But what if you don't need to break the rules?  What if awesome, exciting, genre-coherent stuff just happens (all the time) by simply following the rules, following your principles, being creative ...



Problem here is this assumes both my principles and my creativity are willing to be bound by rules.  One of the joys of RPGs (as opposed not just to other games but to almost any other social activity) is that in many ways the creativity side has few if any borders at all.  And, oftentimes following my principles as DM leads directly to coming up with something the rules as written simply don't support...so which wins, rules or principles?



> Where is the romance with/need for rule-breaking then?



Hey, maybe I'm just more Chaotic than you are. 

Lan-"agent of chaos"-efan


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure what XP system [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] uses, but I'm pretty sure he doesn't use "XP for gold".
> 
> Gygax makes it clear in his DMG that the classic XP system doesn't model anything.




Yup.  Its interesting.  I think "XP for gold", the "Wandering Monster Clock", and "Monster Reaction Rolls" are probably D&D's greatest tech from AD&D through 3.x.  I wonder how many people who play those versions of D&D ignore one or all of them?



pemerton said:


> The only _XP system_ I know that really tries to model learning is the RM one - which I would put under the label "you learn from hard field training"!
> 
> The classic model for learning is, of course, RQ (after using a skill - in the standard rules, it is _succeeding_, but that could easily be drifted) make a % check to improve (where the % chance of improvement = 100-current bonus).
> 
> BW uses a system superficially similar to RQ, though with enough changes to produce quite a different dynamic in play.




Yup.  And, of course, Torchbearer uses the BW model and Dungeon World's was inspired by it (BW).



pemerton said:


> Quite.




We're about to learn!


----------



## Campbell

I would add morale and exploration turns as great D&D tech that is often ignored to the game's detriment.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Real quick notes here; I'll get to some other replying tomorrow sometime...I've no idea, which might be part of why I've never given xp for gold. (with the lone exception sometimes being xp-for-value-stolen by a Thief)




Fascinating.  Why not?  Because you want to model learning curve?  How is xp rewarded in your game?



Lanefan said:


> Whatever this is...never heard of it.  Explain, please?




Sorry.  Operant Conditioning Chamber.  Subject animal (in this case humans) is in a controlled environment.  Subject animal has a basic need.  Some sort of apparatus is introduced to obtain that need (classically a lever or a switch for food or water).  Subject animal learns to manipulate said apparatus to obtain fulfillment of basic need. 

So here we're talking about the game's basic need to address premise and play risky married to the player's basic need of character progression and chosen archetype manifesting in the fiction.

Reward Cycle.



Lanefan said:


> Problem here is this assumes both my principles and my creativity are willing to be bound by rules.  One of the joys of RPGs (as opposed not just to other games but to almost any other social activity) is that in many ways the creativity side has few if any borders at all.  And, oftentimes following my principles as DM leads directly to coming up with something the rules as written simply don't support...so which wins, rules or principles?
> 
> Hey, maybe I'm just more Chaotic than you are.
> 
> Lan-"agent of chaos"-efan




Again, fascinating.  Are you talking about stuff related to GM agency or player agency?  Or are you talking about stuff like genre mash-up?  

Let's imagine a scenario where you're gaming and all of the stuff that you want to happen in actual play is just plain happening by following the rules (not subordinating them).  The GM isn't exercising any more agency than the system requires of them (and the system states that their agency ends where the players' agency and the system's agency begins).  The GM isn't bearing any extra cognitive workload beyond what the system requires of them (so they're mentally fresh and vigorous to flex their creativity muscle to the max and able to sustain it).

What would be the value in upending that equilibrium?  

Or do you think that equilibrium is absolutely impossible to achieve by following a system's rules?  

Or are you saying something else?

Can you give a hypothetical play example of something that you believe is completely impossible for a principled system (with coherent/robust rules) to achieve?


----------



## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> I would add morale and exploration turns as great D&D tech that is often ignored to the game's detriment.




Yeah.  I was folding Exploration Turns into Wandering Monsters clock and just failed to mention Morale mechanics/checks.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Fascinating.  Why not?  Because you want to model learning curve?  How is xp rewarded in your game?



In brief*:
1 - combat: those who help out get xp, those who did nothing or who weren't even there get nothing (one could argue those who were there but did nothing still learned, but I intentionally do it this way to encourage involvement rather than sitting back)
2 - significant new experiences other than combat, e.g. the first time someone of importance (king, deity, etc.) is met, or the first time a major spell gets cast 
3 - encounter avoidance (but only if they both a) know the encounter was there to be avoided and b) don't later go back and deal with the encounter, to avoid double-dipping)
4 - significant other actions e.g. disarming a particularly difficult trap, finding a creative way out of a tight spot, risky scouting, etc. 
5 - successful negotiations or social interactions of relevance
6 - "dungeon bonus" given at the end of each adventure to reflect both a) the experience of having completed the mission and b) to handwave all the little tiny bits of xp they'd otherwise pick up during day-to-day adventuring that I can't be bothered to calculate
7 - there's probably a couple of minor or infrequent things I'm forgetting (one I just remembered is Thief xp for value stolen - in my current campaign this has come up maybe two or three times in nine years of play)

1 4 and 6 above are (usually) given individually i.e. not everyone gets the same amount.  For 6 it's usually based on how much of the adventure you were around for thus a character who joined halfway through will only get (usually) half dungeon bonus.

2 and 3, while sometimes variable, are more often given equally to all who were present.

5 is tricky - usually the character(s) who actually do the talking get a bit more but everyone gets some assuming they had input ahead of time.

By far the majority of xp earned come from combat and dungeon bonus, though it varies from one adventure to the next - one might be lots of stealth work while the next is a full-on slugfest.

I give them out now and then - maybe once per 4 or 5 sessions on average - unless someone is close to bumping in which case it's done much more often; and in any case the characters don't get xp for actions on any given day until they wake up the next morning.

* - well, maybe not so brief 



> Sorry.  Operant Conditioning Chamber.  Subject animal (in this case humans) is in a controlled environment.  Subject animal has a basic need.  Some sort of apparatus is introduced to obtain that need (classically a lever or a switch for food or water).  Subject animal learns to manipulate said apparatus to obtain fulfillment of basic need.
> 
> So here we're talking about the game's basic need to address premise and play risky married to the player's basic need of character progression and chosen archetype manifesting in the fiction.
> 
> Reward Cycle.



OK.



> Again, fascinating.  Are you talking about stuff related to GM agency or player agency?  Or are you talking about stuff like genre mash-up?



There's an 'or' in there, so I can just answer yes. 

Genre mash-up is an obvious: if the rules say no laser rifles but I want to chuck in a laser rifle, in it goes.  If the rules say a player or DM doesn't have the right (or the agency) to do x but it makes more sense to me that they should, the rules lose.  The reverse is also true: if the rules give more agency to one or the other than makes sense to me, the rules again lose.



> Let's imagine a scenario where you're gaming and all of the stuff that you want to happen in actual play is just plain happening by following the rules (not subordinating them).  The GM isn't exercising any more agency than the system requires of them (and the system states that their agency ends where the players' agency and the system's agency begins).



Up to here, if it's working all is good.  However...



> The GM isn't bearing any extra cognitive workload beyond what the system requires of them (so they're mentally fresh and vigorous to flex their creativity muscle to the max and able to sustain it).



If I'm the DM and my creativity leads me to think of something outside the rules (e.g. a laser rifle) then suddenly the rules are constraining me - if I let them.  But in the philosophy I go by, where it's the DM's game and she can do what she likes, this can never be an issue.  Flip side, however, is the DM has to take care and be responsible about what she's doing or changing to avoid butchering her own game.



> What would be the value in upending that equilibrium?



Variable, dependent on too many factors to list.  But: the key is that if the rules say not to do x and you thus never try doing x you'll never know whether doing x is in fact better or worse than not doing it. (this applies to the player side as well - 3e's 'a rule for everything' design tends to discourage such out-of-the-box thinking, which to me is a shame)  My take as DM is to just try it, knowing that it'll either work or it won't, and if it doesn't just be prepared to admit to a mistake and move on. (which is how I go about it when I kitbash the system - it's either gonna work or it isn't but I won't know until I try)



> Or do you think that equilibrium is absolutely impossible to achieve by following a system's rules?



Equilibrium is very possible to achieve within a (halfway-well-designed) system's rules.  However, that equilibrium may or may not come at cost of either a) constraining creativity on one or both sides of the screen or b) boredom. EDIT: or c) frustration, as either the DM or one or more players has come up with a better rule or way of improving play.

And we haven't even got to houserules yet.



> Can you give a hypothetical play example of something that you believe is completely impossible for a principled system (with coherent/robust rules) to achieve?



Offhand, not really; as I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "a principled system" as opposed to any other system.  But the genre-breaking element is an obvious place to start.  Hypothetically if the rules state there are no "modern" elements included in the game how can I then run "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" or an equivalent?  I either have to make up rules for it myself (and I've no idea how these sort of systems react to kitbashing or houseruling), or abandon the idea of running that adventure (thus, I as DM am constrained in what I can do).  Neither is an ideal solution, though my own preference would be to make up the rules, hope for the best, and plow ahead with it.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I would add morale and exploration turns as great D&D tech that is often ignored to the game's detriment.



Second the motion re morale.  Not as much of a fan of hard-coded exploration turns; I've always been more freeform about that sort of thing.  Never liked (and thus never used) xp-for-gold.  Wandering monsters and monster reaction - again, I'm way more freeform than the system would probably want me to be.

Two other old mechanics that I think the newer editions are worse for not having at least in some form are a) system shock and-or resurrection rolls and b) cleric matrix vs. undead.

Lan-"and don't get me started on changes to spellcasting over the editions or we'll be here all day"-efan


----------



## Xetheral

pemerton said:


> I find that the notion of "dissociated mechanics" is not a very helpful one, because it tries to equate a species of mechanic - _metagame mechanics_ - with a mental/cognitive state - "dissociation" - as if such a correlation is necessary or at least typical, when in fact it's rather idiosyncratic (eg many D&D players use hp, which in any but the strongest "hit points as meat" approach to play have a strong metagame element to them, but don't suffer an "dissociation").




I see a difference between an abstract model simulating an in-game concept (e.g. HP as an abstract model of resiliency) and a mechanic where the IC and OOC consequences of a player's decisions diverge (e.g. failure searching IC leads to not finding the mace/discovering that the brother has always been evil, but OOC visibly _causes_ brother to have always been evil).

But if you don't like the analogy because you don't like the underlying terminology, that's fine. To rephrase my point without the analogy: the difference between the IC and OOC consequences of player actions in your style of play seems inconsistent to me. That inconsistency makes me viscerally expect your campaign itself to be inconsistent, even though intellectually I _know_ it's often possible to change things on the fly to that degree and still keep the campaign consistent, because I do it too.



pemerton said:


> But, as I have already posted several times upthread, there is (in general) no need for the process of authoring fiction to in any way mirror the causal processes that occur in the gameworld eg an author may think of a character, which then causes the author to think of the character's parents - whereas in the fiction, the parents were the cause of the character, not vice . This happens _all the time_ in RPGing. Eg the GM make up a village for the 1st level PCs. They discover a smuggling plot. This leads to questions - where do the smugglers come from, where do they get their stuff? The GM then makes up more of the gameworld, and it continues and grows.
> 
> I'm doing that also at the moment of action resolution. It's got no more general tendency to lead to inconsistency at that point that at the point of framing and fleshing out context, as in the smuggling example.




I agree with your conclusion. I just had a hard time reconciling that agreement with my visceral dislike to making that kind of change be a visible consequence of action resolution. I shared my theory as to why I felt one thing and thought another as a possible explanation for where the "inconsistency" complaints against your style might be coming from.



pemerton said:


> As far as the "disconnect" - I don't see any disconnect. The player learns just as the PC does. And the player is not authoring his/her misfortune any more than the PC is (except in the sense that the player, like the PC, chose to search the ruins rather than just bask in old memories).




The player and the PC learn at the same time that the brother was always evil, but the player _also_ knows that the brother was always evil because of a failed die roll. That's the disconnect.

For reference, I might have decided at the same point in the game you did to make the brother have always been evil. At my table usually the players won't be aware of when such decisions are made, and so the player knowledge matches the PC knowledge, and there's no disconnect. But even if the players are aware (or become aware) they'll know that the _cause_ of the change was that I realized it would make for a better story and a more enjoyable game, not the PC's failure.



pemerton said:


> xetheral said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Most of my behind-the-scenes changes are made to increase player agency, not stymie it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can you elaborate?
Click to expand...



Happy to. Here are some examples:


If my players think to search a very clever hiding spot that I hadn't thought to hide anything in, I might add a reward or something special to that location on the fly.
If my players come up with a solution to a mystery that makes for a better, more exciting story than what I'd had in mind, I might change the solution to match.
If my players make a logical (but incorrect) deduction about the game world from exisiting evidence, I might change the game world to match their deduction.
If the players make a good plan that would fail due to factors they happened not to learn, I might modify those factors.
If the players make a good plan that depends on obtaining a particular resource, I might make that resource obtainable (although not necessarily easily), even if it arguably shouldn't have been available were I ruling "impartially".

Of course, in all of these situations I also might _not_ make a change (and usually don't). My goal isn't to make everything the PCs do succeed--that would be boring. But when I _do _make on-the-fly changes my goal is to facillitate the PC's attempts to interact with the game world, not to shut down those attempts.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION]

You probably won't be surprised that I want to present a hypothetical example of play that puts pressure on the "disconnect" idea. I'm curious what you make of it.

Scenario: The PCs have busted some smugglers (eg Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh). One of the PCs has, as part of her backstory, that her hometown is a "hive of scum and villainy" (including smugglers). The player of this PC tells the the GM, "I look at the smuggled crates - is there any mark to suggest that they came from, or passed through, my hometown?" The GM has to respond - and, for the sake of this example it is stipulated that the GM has nothing prewritten about this (ie about where the smuggled goods came from).

Now we have a moment of action declaration, which forces the GM to author something. There are different ways of doing that - my way is one of them!

Upthread [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and I made some posts about "transparency" - ie being clear to players about how GMing decisions are made. So generally I wouldn't expect the players not to know how something is being authored at that point.



			
				Xetheral;7063845At my table usually the players won't be aware of when such decisions are made said:
			
		

> cause[/I] of the change was that I realized it would make for a better story and a more enjoyable game, not the PC's failure.



Well, the player knows that the reason for narrating the PC finding the cursed black arrows is because it will "make for a better story and a more enjoyable game" ie I am narrating that sort of consequence for that sort of reason. If the check was a success, then I wouldn't have the chance to do so - because the ensuing events would be those that the player (and PC) wanted (ie finding the nickel-silver mace where it was left in the tower, many years ago).

More generally, I don't think it can ever be the case that the player knowledge matches the PC knowledge - the players inevitably know that this stuff was authored, by the GM, for some reason or other.

My point here being that the line - if it exists - is a very fine one.


----------



## Campbell

I never really responded to  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] about transparency up thread. I will do so now. I think transparency of GM decision making during the moment of play can be somewhat tricky for my interests. I want to ensure that players have enough information in order to make meaningful decisions, but I also want to maintain focus on the fiction. Sometimes full transparency in the moment of play can pull players away from the fiction and make playing their characters with integrity more difficult. I do want player facing mechanics to be transparent though and keep a meta channel open, but mostly for clarifying fiction and maintaining emotional safety.

The key principles I am thinking about here from an MC's perspective are *Make your move, but misdirect* and *Make your move, but do not speak its name*. The agenda item I am thinking of is *Make the Apocalypse World Seem Real*.

I also think that intent based resolution can be somewhat tricky. We want players to have a good handle on the possible consequences for their actions, but the weakness of intent based resolution for my purposes is that sometimes it can be a little too on the nose and interfere with the experience of playing in the fiction. It's possible to constrain intent to the immediate fictional situation, but that requires a strong amount of discipline from the GM and other players. Blades in the Dark has some strong tooling that absolutely allows for a conversation about stakes while keeping it strongly in the fiction. Rather than having direct intent based resolution, Blades frames all actions in terms of position (risk-level) and effect level. The idea is that once a player makes an action declaration, the GM tells them what the position and effect are. The player then can change their action declaration. We get to clarify the fiction before the roll so players have a good idea of the impact of their decisions.

There's also the fact that perception and knowledge checks are extremely problematic for my interests. It is difficult to introduce meaningful complications for failure and often takes the place of actual clarifying the fiction. They also are not usually resulting from actual action declarations. It can be difficult to determine what is actually going on in the fiction. They also tend to get in the way of saying what honesty demands sometimes. I prefer for GMs to simply tell players what they know and see based on fictional positioning.

One of the reasons I have been so adamant about laying out various GMing approaches and the distinctions I see between them is because I feel we often deal with very broad assumptions that fail to cover the diversity of play. If you are coming from a position of ignorance it can be very easy to put traditional games in one box and indie games in another. This goes for the GMing techniques described in their texts as well. They look at Fate, Marvel Heroic, Burning Wheel, and Apocalypse World and assume these games must be all played and run in the same way. These are very different games with very different procedures and GMing principles. I also feel that the war gaming approach embraced by the OSR often is forgotten. I sometimes feel like I do a disservice by using such broad categories. There is a lot of nuance I am leaving on the table here.


----------



## Campbell

I should clarify. When MCing I want players to have a general awareness of my agenda and principles if they desire to. It is just in the moment of play I want their primary focus to be on the fiction.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I also think that intent based resolution can be somewhat tricky. We want players to have a good handle on the possible consequences for their actions, but the weakness of intent based resolution for my purposes is that sometimes it can be a little too on the nose and interfere with the experience of playing in the fiction.



Burning Wheel takes one particular approach to this. The rules text advises always establishing failure consequences up front. Luke Crane doesn't actually do this when GMing, however, and neither do I.



Campbell said:


> perception and knowledge checks are extremely problematic for my interests. It is difficult to introduce meaningful complications for failure



I tend to run these as: What are you looking for? Or, What are you hoping to find? That way an intent is established that then gives the basis for narrating failure.

"I look around" is not, in itself, an action declaration - there is task, but no intent.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> (a) principally guiding GMs in situation framing and adversity/obstacle introduction



 Not sure I follow that, do you mean like a published adventure, or that the game has a specific scope or something?



> (b) requiring little to no GM intervention/adjudication in the resolution mechanics



 Yep, I can see that.  With RPGs it's rare not to see some DM judgement applied to resolution, at least some of the time (which rule applies, for instance), but a core resolution system like 5e's, that requires DM adjudication prettymuch every time, conditions players to accept that aspect of the DM role, leading to an atmosphere of DM Empowerment, and thus enabling 'illusionism.'  



> (c) obstructing the GM from imposing their own will on outcomes (rather than letting the system and the players have their say)



 How does a game do that, when the GM might go ahead and change it's rules?



> So the only real question becomes...why would you be playing the first system if you want GM Force or Illusionism to be featured in the course of play?  And why would you be playing the second system if you do not want it featured?



 IMX, groups often play the game they do not because it's theoretically ideally suited for the style they prefer (even assuming they all prefer the same style, each have a strong style preference, or can even articulate any such preference), but because it's the game they can all agree to play - often due to all having some familiarity with it, already.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]

It's all about the culture of play as a thing that can be and should be designed. So, the war gaming approach posits one culture of play - one where the GM is a referee whose job it is to ensure that play follows the fiction and protects the integrity of the scenario. The referee is expected to step in when the rules do a poor job at adequately reflecting the situation and is assumed to have no other agenda. The referee is also expected to have a respect for the rules and only step in when their expert knowledge supersedes what the rules say. The Storyteller approach posits a culture of play where the rules exist to serve the desires of the GM. The overriding priority is to maintain the integrity of the GM/ST's story. The approach to GMing formalized in Apocalypse World comes from a different culture of play. In this culture of play the GM is not the first among equals, but is instead just another player in the game. They have a different set of responsibilities, but they are a player like any other player. The rules of the game are just as binding on them as they are on other players. How does this work?

You have an agenda. Everything you say and do while you play is in service to this agenda and no other. In Apocalypse World, your agenda is:

Make the Apocalypse World seem real.
Make the players' characters' lives not boring.
Play to find out what happens.

Every moment of play it is your job to be working towards at least one of these and nothing else. This is your responsibility in the same way that the players are responsible for playing their characters with integrity and pushing hard for the things they care about.

Then you have the things you always say. This not what you sometimes say, say if you feel like it, say when you want to, etc. It is what you always say as best as you are able. In Apocalypse World you *always* say:

What the principles demand
What the rules demand
What your prep demands
What honesty demands

I think the use of the word *demand* here is pretty important. These are a set of rules to live by when taking this particular approach. They help to ensure a consistent and rewarding experience for all players, including the GM. Some games within the same family modify this to achieve a different sort of experience of play.

The principles are *demanding*. They are to help ensure you meet the game's agenda without flinching or second guessing. They also serve to help crystallize decision making and will eventually make running the game like second nature.

The rules are *demanding*. The game has something to say. There is a reason why we are playing this particular game. We care about what it has to say. We also care that players get the things that they earn through play and actually deal with the consequences of their decisions. The rules enable this. We all agreed to sit down and play this game. Let's do that. We can all decide to change the rules or add rules to make the game our own, but that is an act of game design and an activity to be undertaken as a group.

Your prep is *demanding*. We don't prep very much, but what we do prep is important. Part of playing the world with integrity and playing to find out what happens is making sure that the challenges we create for players in the form of fronts are something that players can meaningfully engage with as they choose. If we change this stuff on the fly there is some danger that player decision making is being made based on incorrect information. We are also not playing to find out what happens. This is the most tenuous of the demands and the most frequently changed of the demands. Some Powered By The Apocalypse games eschew prep or utilize more flexible prep.

Honesty is *demanding*. Players depend on having information that they can really use about the fiction to make meaningful decisions that make an impact. We also want to make sure that we are not playing games with the other players to get them to do the things we want them to do. It is important that they get choose their level of engagement with the things they put out there. We play the whole world and they get one character. We should be mindful of that and ensure they get to have their say. I consider this the most important of the demands. Everything else flows from honesty about the fiction, about the rules, about what the game is all about. We can only get to a place where we are all playing a game together to really see what happens through honesty.

When all of this comes together we end up with a game and a story that is bigger than any one person. Something that we cannot control and would not want to control. It does not belong to any of us. It belongs to all of us in a real and genuine way. We have a culture of play that values every participant and does not demand too much from anyone.

As a GM I follow this approach for many reasons. The social footprint is less demanding of me. I get to play to find out and get many of the same kicks from playing in a good game while running the game. The mental overhead is far less once you have internalized the principles. Finally, it helps get us all to a place where we can step out of our comfort zone and get to where the real magic happens far more readily than any other way to run the game I have discovered.


----------



## Lanefan

To avoid misunderstandings later, are you trying to say or suggest that this...







Campbell said:


> So, the war gaming approach posits one culture of play - one where the GM is a referee whose job it is to ensure that play follows the fiction and protects the integrity of the scenario. The referee is expected to step in when the rules do a poor job at adequately reflecting the situation and is assumed to have no other agenda. The referee is also expected to have a respect for the rules and only step in when their expert knowledge supersedes what the rules say.



...and this... 







> The Storyteller approach posits a culture of play where the rules exist to serve the desires of the GM. The overriding priority is to maintain the integrity of the GM/ST's story.



...are the same?

It kinds reads as though you are, and putting both in contrast to this...


> The approach to GMing formalized in Apocalypse World comes from a different culture of play. In this culture of play the GM is not the first among equals, but is instead just another player in the game. They have a different set of responsibilities, but they are a player like any other player. The rules of the game are just as binding on them as they are on other players.



{EDIT: I had something to say here but it vanished, and now I don't remember it.  Bah.}



> You have an agenda. Everything you say and do while you play is in service to this agenda and no other. In Apocalypse World, your agenda is:
> 
> Make the Apocalypse World seem real.
> Make the players' characters' lives not boring.
> Play to find out what happens.
> 
> Every moment of play it is your job to be working towards at least one of these and nothing else. This is your responsibility in the same way that the players are responsible for playing their characters with integrity and pushing hard for the things they care about.



Making the world seem real: absolutely true for any system!

Making the PC's lives not boring should be as much up to the players as the DM, again in any system.



> Then you have the things you always say. This not what you sometimes say, say if you feel like it, say when you want to, etc. It is what you always say as best as you are able. In Apocalypse World you *always* say:
> 
> What the principles demand
> What the rules demand
> What your prep demands
> What honesty demands
> 
> I think the use of the word *demand* here is pretty important. These are a set of rules to live by when taking this particular approach. They help to ensure a consistent and rewarding experience for all players, including the GM.



Do the same strictures apply to the players?  If not, this leans well toward my earlier notion of the DM becoming more and more like a robot.



> When all of this comes together we end up with a game and a story that is bigger than any one person. Something that we cannot control and would not want to control. It does not belong to any of us. It belongs to all of us in a real and genuine way. We have a culture of play that values every participant and does not demand too much from anyone.
> 
> As a GM I follow this approach for many reasons. The social footprint is less demanding of me. I get to play to find out and get many of the same kicks from playing in a good game while running the game. The mental overhead is far less once you have internalized the principles. Finally, it helps get us all to a place where we can step out of our comfort zone and get to where the real magic happens far more readily than any other way to run the game I have discovered.



Which implies a game mostly played not for relaxation and fun but for challenge and (sometimes) discomfort; which is what I thought real life was for.  The game's where you go to kick back and relax. 

Lan-"magic doesn't happen when you work at it - it happens when you don't work at it and often when you least expect it"-efan


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## Campbell

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION],

I absolutely meant to provide a three way contrast between GM as referee, GM as storyteller, and GM as Master of Ceremonies. I thought that most people would have a better grasp on the distinction between GM as referee and GM as storyteller, and wanted to focus on GM as MC. Here's what I see as the meaningful distinctions between GM as referee and GM as storyteller:

A referee is careful to never purposefully bias their rulings towards particular outcomes. When they step in to make a ruling they do so only to maintain the integrity of the fiction. They also are careful to be as transparent as possible about their rulings to ensure that players can make meaningful decisions. They also have a deep respect for the rules of the game, and only step in when their expert knowledge applies.
A storyteller very much wants to bias outcomes towards what they would feel would make the best story. It is the integrity of the fiction that matters to them, but the integrity of their story. Meaningful decision making is not a priority for them. Sometimes the point is to make players feel powerless. The rules are only there as a tool for them.
A referee uses dungeons, modules or scenarios, never adventures. The difference is that the game content never assumes what actions players will or should take. Who they ally with, who their enemies are, what they decide to do in any moment of play is entirely on them. In a war game there is no figuring out what you should do. Only decision and consequence. Lateral decision making is the order of the day.
While a storyteller might use adventures with branching paths there is absolutely a path or set of paths players are assumed to follow. In play this feels very much like playing an adventure game. The players' job is to hunt for the story and provide color to the proceedings. If you get to far off the path, they will either nudge or push you back on it.
In a war game you engage with the world for your character's own purposes. You get to decide what those are.
A storyteller's game involves being obliged to explore the setting and story as an end in itself. It's the GM's creativity on display after all.
A wargame is absolutely played to find out what happens. This is anathema to the storyteller.

Obviously, I am making broad statements here. A person's particular approach might to differ. My points of reference here are Moldvay B/X and Vampire: The Masquerade, both played according to the text. If you don't have access to Vampire, AD&D 2e makes a reasonable substitute.


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## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> A referee uses dungeons, modules or scenarios, never adventures.



side note

Interesting use of terminology.  I use "adventure", "module" and "dungeon" interchangeably to mean much the same thing as each other, while a "scenario" is something much smaller such as a particular set-piece battle or a single negotiation.

/side note

That said, by your definitions above I guess I'm about half and half referee and storyteller.  And that said,


> A wargame is absolutely played to find out what happens. This is anathema to the storyteller.



In my case, not at all.  While I-as-DM might have a preconceived story in mind the run of play is what determines how (or even if) it gets told, and how (or even if) it ends.

Lanefan


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## Campbell

The distinction I make is that adventures put designs on the players, whereas the other forms of GM preparation commonly used in older forms of D&D do not.

One thing I will add is that for the purpose of describing the approaches in as distinct a manner as I can I tend to use the purest form of any given approach as my reference point. There is definitely room for combining approaches. Here are my frames of reference:

Scene Framing - Burning Wheel
Storytelling - Vampire
Refereeing - Moldvay B/X
Master of Ceremonies - Apocalypse World

There are definitely ways to combine these approaches in different ways to achieve different results. Some examples from published games:
Monsterhearts and Masks utilize a combination of scene framing and MCing approaches. More active framing of scenes and a more flexible attitude toward prep are features of play. They are still less interested in intent than more pure scene framing approaches.
Later Gygax work absolutely features a strong drift towards storytelling. The Drow and Giant series absolutely have a set story path.
Blades in the Dark takes a more relaxed approach to MCing. The mechanisms are tools for all players to utilize together, as needed. It also has features inspired by war gaming and scene framing that creates a pretty unique experience. Blades utilizes city as dungeon and cutting to the action over overt planning, addresses intent in a unique way that keeps things focused on the fiction, and has a set of systems that make both heists and downtime consequential.
Typical Fate play sits somewhere between storytelling and scene framing. In Fate play we do not play to find. We play to confirm. The primary difference between most forms of Fate and Storytelling is that the players are in on it.

I just happen to have a particular allergy to Storytelling as a feature of the games I run and play. I will say that while I think you can combine features of the broad approaches to realize different sorts of play I don't believe you gain the benefits of both. You design a different sort of experience that is uniquely its own. I dearly love Blades in the Dark, but it does not like replace Apocalypse World as the way to GM. There are many ways to GM. This is mine, sometimes.


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## Campbell

One thing I will say about combining approaches is that I feel there is tension between GMing in a way that is fundamentally about playing to find out and traditional storytelling techniques. Once we accept that manipulation of players, the fiction, or the rules are tools that a GM has in their wheelhouse to move towards a "better" story than even when there is no intervention there is always the choice to intervene. 

We are not playing to find out anymore. We are playing to find out unless the GM wishes otherwise which feels fundamentally different in play to me. Players no longer earn things. They are given them. Their choices only matter as much as the GM allows them to. It also places what I feel is a tremendous burden on the GM for the quality of the game. The actual game and the players are no longer near as responsible, and the GM carries the game on their back. This tends to move into the social arena as well where the GM is often expected to act like a parent to their players.

As a GM I don't want all that responsibility. I don't want things to be that hard or take that much work.


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## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> One thing I will say about combining approaches is that I feel there is tension between GMing in a way that is fundamentally about playing to find out and traditional storytelling techniques. Once we accept that manipulation of players, the fiction, or the rules are tools that a GM has in their wheelhouse to move towards a "better" story than even when there is no intervention there is always the choice to intervene.
> 
> We are not playing to find out anymore. We are playing to find out unless the GM wishes otherwise which feels fundamentally different in play to me. Players no longer earn things. They are given them. Their choices only matter as much as the GM allows them to. It also places what I feel is a tremendous burden on the GM for the quality of the game. The actual game and the players are no longer near as responsible, and the GM carries the game on their back. This tends to move into the social arena as well where the GM is often expected to act like a parent to their players.
> 
> As a GM I don't want all that responsibility. I don't want things to be that hard or take that much work.



Interesting, in that I see what you seem to be doing as representing far more work than what I do.  Your players also seem to have to do more consistent heavy lifting than I'd usually want to do as a player.  Me, when I play I just want to kick back and relax, and when I DM I want my players to be able to do the same.  Different desires, I suppose.

And the quality of the DM is almost certainly going to set the quality of the game no matter what system you use.

Lan-"where's my beer?"-efan


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## hawkeyefan

I think you can enjoy benefits from different styles. I definitely have storytelling aspects in my campaign...there is an overarching plot, but there are many subplots that I've thrown out into play to see what the players want to do. I don't think that the fact that I do have some pre-determined elements means that's I cannot also play to find out. Things come up in play all the time that surprise me. The players do something unexpected, or some inspiration strikes me as the GM in the right moment, or (more likely) some combination of those two things happens, and the story veers in a new direction. 

There are perhaps some games where this is less likely, or even almost impossible; some published adventures are very close to true railroads, and I expect many people learn how to run a game by emulating the published material that they know. I know that's how I first started. 

But if we're actually talking about a blend or combination of styles, then play can benefit from both styles. I don't think that having storytelling elements or ongoing plots preclude the players earning anything. Their choices still matter a great deal.


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## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Interesting, in that I see what you seem to be doing as representing far more work than what I do.  Your players also seem to have to do more consistent heavy lifting than I'd usually want to do as a player.  Me, when I play I just want to kick back and relax, and when I DM I want my players to be able to do the same.  Different desires, I suppose.
> 
> And the quality of the DM is almost certainly going to set the quality of the game no matter what system you use.
> 
> Lan-"where's my beer?"-efan




Once I ran Apocalypse World a couple times most of this stuff became like second nature to me. Most of the time I barely have to think about it. It's pretty easy stuff for me to keep in mind, most of the time. Sometimes I make mistakes, but it is what it is. At the end of the day the agenda, stuff you always say, and the principles are things I want to be doing anyway even if they do not always come naturally. I gain all sorts of other stuff in the process that make GMing far easier and far more rewarding for me. It sometimes feels like cheating to get many of the same kicks I get when I play while running a game and not engaging in much prep.


I do not have to worry about what's best for the story.
I get to let the game actually bear part of the responsibility for the experience. I am not responsible for constantly considering if the rules are doing what they should. I simply trust that they are.
I don't have to worry about keeping the players on any path.
I get to be emotionally invested in the game.
I don't get frustrated with the other players anymore. Sometimes things don't turn out how I hoped, but that's part of the point of playing.
I do almost no prep. For Apocalypse World there is no prep for the first session, about 40 minutes after that, and occasional prep in like 15 minute increments from time to time. I have run Masks and Monsterhearts with 5-10 minutes of prep for a 4 hour session before.
The GM moves give me ideas that keep things flowing. 

I do expect a lot from the other players. I'm expected to bring it, so should they. However, I try as much as possible to make engagement a choice. Players participate as much as they want to and are rewarded for what they bring to the table, both socially and through the game. I am a big believer in individual experience. Our games can get emotionally charged, but we utilize emotional safety techniques to make sure no one's boundaries are pushed too far.

The social footprint is also far less onerous to me. The power dynamics at the table put everyone on a more even footing, which tends to lead to a more open and communicative environment. I run my games in seasons, usually about 8-15 sessions, but a season can be cancelled at any time if we're not feeling it anymore. We get together and play whenever everyone agrees to. Once a season has run its course, I'm usually primed to run a different game for awhile or play in someone else's game. We might return to favorite games later for another season, but it's like not required. I don't really do weekly time commitments for years. I kind of approach gaming in the same way I do board games.

I do think we need to be careful in how we approach the quality of the GM bit. First, because I view every form running the game as a skill that can be developed over time with practice. Second, because they are different skill sets. Running an enjoyable B/X game as outlined requires a very different set of skills than running an enjoyable Apocalypse World game as outlined. The same person can be skilled at one and not the other. Finally, I think we should be cognizant and value the very real contributions of the other players in the game who are just as vital to its success.


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> I think you can enjoy benefits from different styles. I definitely have storytelling aspects in my campaign...there is an overarching plot, but there are many subplots that I've thrown out into play to see what the players want to do. I don't think that the fact that I do have some pre-determined elements means that's I cannot also play to find out. Things come up in play all the time that surprise me. The players do something unexpected, or some inspiration strikes me as the GM in the right moment, or (more likely) some combination of those two things happens, and the story veers in a new direction.
> 
> There are perhaps some games where this is less likely, or even almost impossible; some published adventures are very close to true railroads, and I expect many people learn how to run a game by emulating the published material that they know. I know that's how I first started.
> 
> But if we're actually talking about a blend or combination of styles, then play can benefit from both styles. I don't think that having storytelling elements or ongoing plots preclude the players earning anything. Their choices still matter a great deal.




What I was trying to argue in a very simplistic manner is that when you blend in techniques from different approaches to running a game what you end up with is not all benefits of the approaches, but with an approach all its own that has its own strengths and weaknesses. I think most games use a blending of at least a couple of the broad approaches I outlined in some way, but that does not mean they are more flexible than the pure forms of the approaches, just different in orientation, and will result in different experiences. This is something you should consider very carefully and hone over time through playtesting and iteration. It is the very essence of game design.


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## Manbearcat

Tony Vargas said:


> Originally Posted by Manbearcat
> 
> (a) principally guiding GMs in situation framing and adversity/obstacle introduction
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not sure I follow that, do you mean like a published adventure, or that the game has a specific scope or something?
Click to expand...



Negative, neither like a public adventure nor like writing an adventure.  

Quick example for principally guiding GMs in situation framing and obstacle/adversary introductions:

Dogs in the Vineyard is a game about the duty, heart, will, relationships, faith, and sin (*) of gun-toting paladins as they mete out justice and uphold righteousness in a frontier land shot through with vice, wickedness, and possibly supernatural corruption.  Consequently, when you make your towns (filled with obstacles and adversaries) and introduce conflict-charged situations, they need to threaten, challenge, provoke, and expose all of (*) above.



Tony Vargas said:


> Originally Posted by Manbearcat
> 
> 
> (c) obstructing the GM from imposing their own will on outcomes (rather than letting the system and the players have their say)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> How does a game do that, when the GM might go ahead and change it's rules?
Click to expand...



There are several ways.  A quick 3 off the top of my head are:

1)  Outright tell all the participants up front that "playing by the rules" is expected, a virtue.  Tell them it is a feature and show them how, merely by playing things straight, the good stuff will inevitably emerge.

2)  Make the resolution mechanics and play procedures simple, intuitive, consistent, and transparent.  And make them work, all the time, to produce the sort of play you've communicated the game is about.

3)  Either have the players roll _*all *_the dice, or expect the dice to be rolled out in the open (or make it impossible not to do so because of the nature of play procedures).


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## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> That said, by your definitions above I guess I'm about half and half referee and storyteller.






hawkeyefan said:


> I think you can enjoy benefits from different styles.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't think that having storytelling elements or ongoing plots preclude the players earning anything. Their choices still matter a great deal.




Here is the rub though.  The reason why GM as Storyteller and GM as Referee push toward being mutually exclusive is very simple.

One's *apex priority* is about fidelity to GM-preferred outcomes and/or the exhibition of setting/prepared material. To that end, the (typically covert) manipulation of play (action-blocking, not honoring/upturning fictional results earned, resolution mechanic subordinating, resolution mechanic result fudging) toward those preferred outcomes and/or toward the exhibition of that setting/prepared material is wholly legitimate.

The other's *apex priority* is about constructing scenarios that present tactically and strategically engaging decision-points, knowing the rules and impartially applying them as you fairly run the challenges within those scenarios, and ultimately letting the players sink or swim by virtue of their (un)skilled play.  The concept of "preferred outcomes" and the massaging/manipulating of play toward those outcomes is anathema.


They don't play nice with each other.  At all.

So you can be a Storyteller GM with a veneer of Referee, but you can't truly claim the virtues of both simultaneously.

Now, if you don't have preferred outcomes/metaplot/setting or prepared material that you massage/manipulate play toward (typically by way of the techniques in my parenthetical above), then you're not a Storyteller GM.


----------



## Xetheral

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION]
> 
> You probably won't be surprised that I want to present a hypothetical example of play that puts pressure on the "disconnect" idea. I'm curious what you make of it.
> 
> Scenario: The PCs have busted some smugglers (eg Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh). One of the PCs has, as part of her backstory, that her hometown is a "hive of scum and villainy" (including smugglers). The player of this PC tells the the GM, "I look at the smuggled crates - is there any mark to suggest that they came from, or passed through, my hometown?" The GM has to respond - and, for the sake of this example it is stipulated that the GM has nothing prewritten about this (ie about where the smuggled goods came from).
> 
> Now we have a moment of action declaration, which forces the GM to author something. There are different ways of doing that - my way is one of them!




Are you asking how I would approach answering the player's question? If so, I can't answer specifically, but I can list some of the factors I'd include when making my decision:


Is the player asking the question getting sufficient spotlight time?
Is the player asking the question getting too much spotlight time?
Will answering "yes" speed up or slow down play at the table, and is the current pace faster or slower than the mood of the players warrants?
Is the player asking the question currently invested in the direction the players are taking the game?
Will answering "yes" decrease or increase that investment?
What answer would be consistent with details the players have learned so far?
Are both answers eqally plausible?
Does either answer let me relate back to previous details?
Does the situation (and either possible answer) provide an opportunity to roll an underused skill?
Is there a way to make the answer more interesting than either yes or no?
How close are we to the end of the session?
Will my answer increase or decrease the number of extant plot threads?
*Which answer will be more fun?*
My decision process (including whether the answer was determined ahead of time or on the fly) is invisible to the players (and largely instinctual), but if players ask questions later I'm happy to explain my decision making process, often preceeded by making certain they're _sure_ they want to know the answers.



pemerton said:


> Well, the player knows that the reason for narrating the PC finding the cursed black arrows is because it will "make for a better story and a more enjoyable game" ie I am narrating that sort of consequence for that sort of reason.




Even trusting that you were doing your best to pick fun failure consequences, knowing that those consequences were *caused* by my failure would be enough to be problematic for me. It would make me feel like I was playing a game rather than immersed in a fictional world, as I prefer. I want the OOC consequences of my choice to match the IC consequences of my PC's action. I don't mind if you make up the fiction as you go along (although ideally whether or not something is on-the-fly is invisible), but I certainly don't want you to do so to frustrate my intent in addition to the failed action itself. (This is, of course, only my personal playstyle preference.)



pemerton said:


> More generally, I don't think it can ever be the case that the player knowledge matches the PC knowledge - the players inevitably know that this stuff was authored, by the GM, for some reason or other.




I agree that it's inevitable that player knowledge won't match PC knowledge, but the difference between the two can be minimized, and some of what difference remains can be concealed or hidden. (Also, I'm primarily concerned with in-the-moment knowledge that affects decision making. I certainly don't care that the players know in the abstract that they're playing a game and that the GM is creating content.)



pemerton said:


> My point here being that the line - if it exists - is a very fine one.




Fine or not, the difference between _knowing in the abstract_ that the GM is authoring content and _feeling in the moment_ that the GM is authoring content is critically important to what I value in a roleplaying game.



Campbell said:


> I absolutely meant to provide a three way contrast between GM as referee, GM as storyteller, and GM as Master of Ceremonies. I thought that most people would have a better grasp on the distinction between GM as referee and GM as storyteller, and wanted to focus on GM as MC. Here's what I see as the meaningful distinctions between GM as referee and GM as storyteller:
> 
> A referee is careful to never purposefully bias their rulings towards particular outcomes. When they step in to make a ruling they do so only to maintain the integrity of the fiction. They also are careful to be as transparent as possible about their rulings to ensure that players can make meaningful decisions. They also have a deep respect for the rules of the game, and only step in when their expert knowledge applies.
> A storyteller very much wants to bias outcomes towards what they would feel would make the best story. It is the integrity of the fiction that matters to them, but the integrity of their story. Meaningful decision making is not a priority for them. Sometimes the point is to make players feel powerless. The rules are only there as a tool for them.
> A referee uses dungeons, modules or scenarios, never adventures. The difference is that the game content never assumes what actions players will or should take. Who they ally with, who their enemies are, what they decide to do in any moment of play is entirely on them. In a war game there is no figuring out what you should do. Only decision and consequence. Lateral decision making is the order of the day.
> While a storyteller might use adventures with branching paths there is absolutely a path or set of paths players are assumed to follow. In play this feels very much like playing an adventure game. The players' job is to hunt for the story and provide color to the proceedings. If you get to far off the path, they will either nudge or push you back on it.
> In a war game you engage with the world for your character's own purposes. You get to decide what those are.
> A storyteller's game involves being obliged to explore the setting and story as an end in itself. It's the GM's creativity on display after all.
> A wargame is absolutely played to find out what happens. This is anathema to the storyteller.
> 
> Obviously, I am making broad statements here. A person's particular approach might to differ. My points of reference here are Moldvay B/X and Vampire: The Masquerade, both played according to the text. If you don't have access to Vampire, AD&D 2e makes a reasonable substitute.




We're certainly coming from different backgrounds in regards to roleplaying games. Even knowing you're using broad strokes, I've not encountered _any_ of the styles you describe. (Of course, I've also not played most of the games you've been referencing.) All the games of Vampire the Masquerade I've played in (and run), for example, have been almost entirely sandbox games, with dozens of threads to choose from and plenty of opportunity to create your own. Indeed, I've seen more VtM games suffer from decision paralysis stemming from being _too_ open ended, rather than being too Storyteller-directed.



			
				Campbell said:
			
		

> We are not playing to find out anymore. We are playing to find out unless the GM wishes otherwise which feels fundamentally different in play to me. Players no longer earn things. They are given them. Their choices only matter as much as the GM allows them to. It also places what I feel is a tremendous burden on the GM for the quality of the game. The actual game and the players are no longer near as responsible, and the GM carries the game on their back. This tends to move into the social arena as well where the GM is often expected to act like a parent to their players.
> 
> As a GM I don't want all that responsibility. I don't want things to be that hard or take that much work.




From my standpoint, the hard work of DMing is one of the things that makes it so amazingly rewarding. Seeing the excitement and delight on your friends' faces at the end of a session is all the more satisfying knowing that it was your own doing. My style of GMing tends not to be very heavy on pre-game prep, but it's (frequently) mentally, creatively, and emotionally exhausting in play, and I _like_ that. It's challenging and engrossing, and there's always room for improvement.

For reference, while I'm frequently surprised and delighted by the direction a game takes, "playing to find out" is not one my priorities. (I was unfamiliar with the concept until this thread.) I still consider my games player-driven because the decisions of the players determine the shape of the game and I don't force them to adhere to a pre-authored sequence of events.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Once I ran Apocalypse World a couple times most of this stuff became like second nature to me. Most of the time I barely have to think about it. It's pretty easy stuff for me to keep in mind, most of the time. Sometimes I make mistakes, but it is what it is. At the end of the day the agenda, stuff you always say, and the principles are things I want to be doing anyway even if they do not always come naturally. I gain all sorts of other stuff in the process that make GMing far easier and far more rewarding for me. It sometimes feels like cheating to get many of the same kicks I get when I play while running a game and not engaging in much prep.



I've added numbers to your list below to make it easier to reply to different bits.




> 1 - I do not have to worry about what's best for the story.
> 2 - I get to let the game actually bear part of the responsibility for the experience. I am not responsible for constantly considering if the rules are doing what they should. I simply trust that they are.
> 3 - I don't have to worry about keeping the players on any path.
> 4 - I get to be emotionally invested in the game.
> 5 - I don't get frustrated with the other players anymore. Sometimes things don't turn out how I hoped, but that's part of the point of playing.
> 6 - I do almost no prep. For Apocalypse World there is no prep for the first session, about 40 minutes after that, and occasional prep in like 15 minute increments from time to time. I have run Masks and Monsterhearts with 5-10 minutes of prep for a 4 hour session before.
> 7 - The GM moves give me ideas that keep things flowing.



From my end, running a 1e-based game with a somewhat predetermined backstory and also-pre-determined-but-untimately-malleable plot arc, I can agree with you on points 2 5 and 6 for different reasons.  For 2, I trust the rules because my system is so kitbashed it's halfway to being my own system anyway, so I'd better trust it.   Fully agree on 5.  For 6, I do very little prep on a session-to-session basis; most of the prep was done before the campaign even started and now quite a bit of it kinda runs itself.

For points 1 and 3, for me it's more a matter of keeping an eye on what the run of play is potentially doing to the story, what the downstream effects might be (if any), and whether they've given me any ideas I hadn't thought of, to work in later.  This speaks to point 7; it's not so much the "GM moves" that keep ideas flowing but a combination of player moves, external input, and new ideas that crop up over time.

4 is a bad idea.  If I as DM start getting emotionally involved in the game I'm running that's a clear sign I'm about to start railroading it.  Best I stay a little detached.



> The social footprint is also far less onerous to me. The power dynamics at the table put everyone on a more even footing, which tends to lead to a more open and communicative environment. I run my games in seasons, usually about 8-15 sessions, but a season can be cancelled at any time if we're not feeling it anymore. We get together and play whenever everyone agrees to. Once a season has run its course, I'm usually primed to run a different game for awhile or play in someone else's game. We might return to favorite games later for another season, but it's like not required. I don't really do weekly time commitments for years. I kind of approach gaming in the same way I do board games.



8 to 15 sessions?  That's it?  Hell, when I come up with a campaign I'm looking for it to last 8 to 15 years!

Which probably also explains our differing approach to things like backstory and pre-planned plot.  For a campaign that's only intended to last 8-15 sessions it probably doesn't matter so much if it starts to wobble a bit as it'll soon be over anyway: you really can in effect make it up as you collectively go along.  In my case I have to worry about things that happened in year 2 possibly affecting things happening in year 9; which in fact is exactly what happened in last night's session: the party revisited a dungeon site that was first played in 2009 by - except for one NPC who is along this time as a guide - an entirely different group of characters but still in the same campaign.



> I do think we need to be careful in how we approach the quality of the GM bit. First, because I view every form running the game as a skill that can be developed over time with practice. Second, because they are different skill sets. Running an enjoyable B/X game as outlined requires a very different set of skills than running an enjoyable Apocalypse World game as outlined. The same person can be skilled at one and not the other. Finally, I think we should be cognizant and value the very real contributions of the other players in the game who are just as vital to its success.



I disagree a bit here: a bad DM is a bad DM no matter what system she's running; and a good DM is a good DM ditto.  Most DMs are best when running a system they both know and like, but that's only common sense; and they're unlikely to try (or to last long at) running a system they don't like.

Lan-"not sure I'll get 15 years out of this current campaign but as of this month I've got 9 and things look good for at least another 2 or 3"-efan


----------



## Campbell

I am not using coded language. Play to find out literally means we're playing to find out what happens and who these characters are as revealed through the decisions they make. The GM conveys the fictional world honestly. Players make decisions for their characters that spur action. The actions characters take impact the fictional world. If the rules come up we follow them, making allowances for where they do a poor job of handling the fiction. This all happens without the GM manipulating the fiction, players, or the game to privilege his or her desired outcomes. This is like the very essence of a role playing game to me.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Here is the rub though.  The reason why GM as Storyteller and GM as Referee push toward being mutually exclusive is very simple.
> 
> One's *apex priority* is about fidelity to GM-preferred outcomes and/or the exhibition of setting/prepared material. To that end, the (typically covert) manipulation of play (action-blocking, not honoring/upturning fictional results earned, resolution mechanic subordinating, resolution mechanic result fudging) toward those preferred outcomes and/or toward the exhibition of that setting/prepared material is wholly legitimate.
> 
> The other's *apex priority* is about constructing scenarios that present tactically and strategically engaging decision-points, knowing the rules and impartially applying them as you fairly run the challenges within those scenarios, and ultimately letting the players sink or swim by virtue of their (un)skilled play.  The concept of "preferred outcomes" and the massaging/manipulating of play toward those outcomes is anathema.
> 
> They don't play nice with each other.  At all.



Sure they do.  Pretty much every week, in fact.

How?

Difference of scale.

The first apex - the overarching plots and story arcs, the prefered (but not necessarily always achieved) outcomes, the directional nudging - that happens on the macro level: what adventure comes next (or in my case, even what party gets played next after this adventure's done), how those adventures are introduced/framed/placed, and how it all gets logged after the fact.  And even then, if the players decide to do something else that's what will happen; though I'll make sure the meta-plot rears its ugly head again at some point down the road.  This is noteworthy as it's what we'll all see when we read back over the game logs later and tie it all together.

The second apex - the impartial rules knowledge and application, the sink-or-swim outcomes, the engaging decision points - that happens on a more micro session-to-session and even within-session level: the actual run of play at the table at any given time or session or adventure.  This is noteworthy in that it's what we all see and experience every week.



> Now, if you don't have preferred outcomes/metaplot/setting or prepared material that you massage/manipulate play toward (typically by way of the techniques in my parenthetical above), then you're not a Storyteller GM.



Ah, but I do; on the macro level.  But it's malleable and there's numerous possible storylines, so if one falters I can always ooze over to another...unless the players have their own ideas for what to do, which IME doesn't happen as often as it might.

Also, keep in mind that my campaign is open ended in terms of time (see comments in previous post about number of years) which gives me nigh-endless opportunity to weave the story back in if the game goes off on a diversion for a while.

Lan-"it's easier than you think"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Xetheral said:


> Are you asking how I would approach answering the player's question? If so, I can't answer specifically, but I can list some of the factors I'd include when making my decision:
> 
> 
> Is the player asking the question getting sufficient spotlight time?
> Is the player asking the question getting too much spotlight time?
> Will answering "yes" speed up or slow down play at the table, and is the current pace faster or slower than the mood of the players warrants?
> Is the player asking the question currently invested in the direction the players are taking the game?
> Will answering "yes" decrease or increase that investment?
> What answer would be consistent with details the players have learned so far?
> Are both answers eqally plausible?
> Does either answer let me relate back to previous details?
> Does the situation (and either possible answer) provide an opportunity to roll an underused skill?
> Is there a way to make the answer more interesting than either yes or no?
> How close are we to the end of the session?
> Will my answer increase or decrease the number of extant plot threads?
> *Which answer will be more fun?*



Yikes!

For even the most critical decisions I have to make I might ask myself the last of those questions along with the consistency one and maybe one or two others.

If I'd ever been told I had to think through that whole lot every time I probably would have stopped DMing shortly after I started.



> My decision process (including whether the answer was determined ahead of time or on the fly) is invisible to the players (and largely instinctual),



"Instinctual" and "going through that big list o' questions" don't seem to be in synch somehow. 



> I agree that it's inevitable that player knowledge won't match PC knowledge, *but the difference between the two can be minimized, and some of what difference remains can be concealed or hidden*.



Hear hear!!!



> Fine or not, the difference between _knowing in the abstract_ that the GM is authoring content and _feeling in the moment_ that the GM is authoring content is critically important to what I value in a roleplaying game.



You're on to something here.  It's a key difference.



> For reference, while I'm frequently surprised and delighted by the direction a game takes, "playing to find out" is not one my priorities. (I was unfamiliar with the concept until this thread.) I still consider my games player-driven because the decisions of the players determine the shape of the game and I don't force them to adhere to a pre-authored sequence of events.



Even if it is in theory supposed to be a pre-authored sequence of events, you still never know what's in fact going to happen until the players sit down and the dice start hitting the table.  That's what makes it fun! 

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> A storyteller very much wants to bias outcomes towards what they would feel would make the best story.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The rules are only there as a tool for them.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> While a storyteller might use adventures with branching paths there is absolutely a path or set of paths players are assumed to follow. In play this feels very much like playing an adventure game. The players' job is to hunt for the story and provide color to the proceedings. If you get too far off the path, they will either nudge or push you back on it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> A storyteller's game involves being obliged to explore the setting and story as an end in itself.



This is, more-or-less, what I described in the OP as "railroading". I'm ultimately not fussed about labels, but that's a well-known one which conveys why I personally am not a big fan (either as player or as GM) of "story-teller" RPGing.



Campbell said:


> I am not using coded language. Play to find out literally means we're playing to find out what happens and who these characters are as revealed through the decisions they make. The GM conveys the fictional world honestly. Players make decisions for their characters that spur action. The actions characters take impact the fictional world. If the rules come up we follow them, making allowances for where they do a poor job of handling the fiction. This all happens without the GM manipulating the fiction, players, or the game to privilege his or her desired outcomes. This is like the very essence of a role playing game to me.





Campbell said:


> One thing I will say about combining approaches is that I feel there is tension between GMing in a way that is fundamentally about playing to find out and traditional storytelling techniques. Once we accept that manipulation of players, the fiction, or the rules are tools that a GM has in their wheelhouse to move towards a "better" story than even when there is no intervention there is always the choice to intervene.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> As a GM I don't want all that responsibility. I don't want things to be that hard or take that much work.



I agree with this, although I think I incline more towards the scene-framing approach than you do.

I think _the actions character take impact the fictional world_ is especially important. I would add (if it needs to be rendered explicit) _in ways that matter_, given the theme/subject matter of the game. Choosing what colour hat my PC wears is not, per se, impacting the fictional world, unless perhaps I'm playing The Dying Earth. Choosing how to work through my suite of resources (eg do I fireball this round or next?) is not impacting the fictional world.

Choosing whether to befriend a NPC, or oppose that NPC (or both) - that's impacting the fictional world. Especially if it's the player's own backstory for his/her PC that made the NPC salient in the game.

One issue with scene-framing in relation to the above: what does it mean to _convey the fictional world honestly_? I think this has a few components: (i) respecting the backstory that has been established through play; (ii) honouring the players' successes and failure, with respect to how _intent_ intersects with _fictional positioning_ intersects with _goals/theme/aspirations_; (iii) feeding (ii) through the filter of (i) when framing new scenes. Which in turn connects back to the impact of declared actions upon the fiction. The framing of new scenes should respect that. It's not just an ingame causal logic; it's a protagonistic narrative logic.



Manbearcat said:


> GM as Storyteller and GM as Referee push toward being mutually exclusive
> 
> <snip>
> 
> They don't play nice with each other.  At all.
> 
> So you can be a Storyteller GM with a veneer of Referee, but you can't truly claim the virtues of both simultaneously.



I've been re-reading some old AD&D modules. One of them, Five Shall be One, is virtually incoherent in its attempt to mix "referee" and "storyteller".

It's full of these combats that (on paper, at least) look rather brutal - and in a system, AD&D, where the default consequence for losing in combat is PC death. And it has all this advice and urging to the referee to make these combats hard, to play the ambushing NPCs to the hilt, etc. Yet the whole thing is predicated on the assumption that the PCs will survive these combats - and not just survive them, but triumph in them, defeating the "bad guys". Eg there's no provision, in the scripted events, for the PCs ever _surrendering_ so as to avoid dying.

The module has some interesting ideas, and I remember using a bit of it a few years after it came out in my RM game. Unlike some quest-y type modules of that era, there is a certain thematic logic to the whole thing, and some of the encounters speak to that thematic logic in a reasonable way. But the whole thing, as written, just makes no sense. It's almost as if the author simply didn't notice that you can't just take the "build a tough dungeon room" idea (ie GM as referee) into a scenario based on a sequence of scripted events (ie GM as storyteller) and expect it to work. Given the unforgiving nature of the mechanics, the GM is practically guaranteed to have to fudge _something_ along the way if the module is to be played through - but unlike the Dragonlance modules, the author doesn't actually come out and give advice on how/when to do this.



Campbell said:


> I do think we need to be careful in how we approach the quality of the GM bit. First, because I view every form running the game as a skill that can be developed over time with practice. Second, because they are different skill sets. Running an enjoyable B/X game as outlined requires a very different set of skills than running an enjoyable Apocalypse World game as outlined. The same person can be skilled at one and not the other.



Absolutely. I like Luke Crane's description of classic D&D as a cross between Telephone and Pictionary. It's a style of GMing that I suck at, partly because I'm a bit too sloppy, and moreso I think because I find that emotional distance too hard to maintain: I want to rib the players (or mock them if its warranted), urge them on, be the conscience on their shoulder, remind them of what's at stake.

(It's an approach I learned at a Con 20-something years ago, from a really evocative free-form Cthulhu GM - that was actually one of the few CoC scenarios I've played which wasn't a railroad, because although the progress through the Dreamlands setting was pre-ordained, the actual focus of the game was the transformative effect on our characters, and this was something that we were allowed to play out among ourselves, with the GM playing the role I just described.)


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I've been re-reading some old AD&D modules. One of them, Five Shall be One, is virtually incoherent in its attempt to mix "referee" and "storyteller".
> 
> It's full of these combats that (on paper, at least) look rather brutal - and in a system, AD&D, where the default consequence for losing in combat is PC death. And it has all this advice and urging to the referee to make these combats hard, to play the ambushing NPCs to the hilt, etc. Yet the whole thing is predicated on the assumption that the PCs will survive these combats - and not just survive them, but triumph in them, defeating the "bad guys". Eg there's no provision, in the scripted events, for the PCs ever _surrendering_ so as to avoid dying.
> 
> The module has some interesting ideas, and I remember using a bit of it a few years after it came out in my RM game. Unlike some quest-y type modules of that era, there is a certain thematic logic to the whole thing, and some of the encounters speak to that thematic logic in a reasonable way. But the whole thing, as written, just makes no sense. It's almost as if the author simply didn't notice that you can't just take the "build a tough dungeon room" idea (ie GM as referee) into a scenario based on a sequence of scripted events (ie GM as storyteller) and expect it to work. Given the unforgiving nature of the mechanics, the GM is practically guaranteed to have to fudge _something_ along the way if the module is to be played through - but unlike the Dragonlance modules, the author doesn't actually come out and give advice on how/when to do this.



Unless the module is assuming (but not coming right out and saying) that the players will just churn in new characters to replace those lost?

Lan-"doesn't cover a surrender, though - DM's on her own for that one"-efan


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Lanefan said:


> Unless the module is assuming (but not coming right out and saying) that the players will just churn in new characters to replace those lost?




_Dark Sun flashbacks.. _


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Unless the module is assuming (but not coming right out and saying) that the players will just churn in new characters to replace those lost?



I don't think that saves it from incoherence. I mean, what's the point of that? It doesn't seem to support the "competition" element, if a loser just gets to bring in a new playing piece; and it doesn't seem to support the "story" element, if the quest is not undertaken by a single dedicated party but rather an ever-changing roster of conveniently-present adventurers.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> I think _the actions character take impact the fictional world_ is especially important. I would add (if it needs to be rendered explicit) _in ways that matter_, given the theme/subject matter of the game. Choosing what colour hat my PC wears is not, per se, impacting the fictional world, unless perhaps I'm playing The Dying Earth. Choosing how to work through my suite of resources (eg do I fireball this round or next?) is not impacting the fictional world.
> 
> Choosing whether to befriend a NPC, or oppose that NPC (or both) - that's impacting the fictional world. Especially if it's the player's own backstory for his/her PC that made the NPC salient in the game.




Doesn't that depend on who or what is being targeted with the fireball (or the alternative resource should the fireball not be chosen)? Isn't that as important and have as much impact on the fictional world as whether or not the PCs choose to befriend or oppose an NPC? I suppose, ultimately, it may not matter whether the PC is using a fireball or a lightning bolt (assuming there are no collateral casualties), but it isn't clear from your statement that's the level of choice you're getting at. But, in general, the act of choosing an offensive resource rather than a peaceful one like some form of charm is certain to have a similar impact on the fictional world to making the choice between friendship and enmity.


----------



## Xetheral

Lanefan said:


> Yikes!
> 
> For even the most critical decisions I have to make I might ask myself the last of those questions along with the consistency one and maybe one or two others.
> 
> If I'd ever been told I had to think through that whole lot every time I probably would have stopped DMing shortly after I started.




I think I made it sound more methodical than I intended. Usually (if I'm on the ball) I'm already aware of spotlight time, game pacing, surplus/deficit of plot threads, session timing, etc. The active decision is filtering the question "What would be more fun?" through that pre-existing framework of current priorities. Hence the reason I described it as instinctual. 

In practice, at any given moment only two or three of the factors are likely to be dominant. So, at least for big decisions (I tend to forget the small ones) I can usually later deconstruct which of the factors I listed predominated in a given decision.



Lanefan said:


> "Instinctual" and "going through that big list o' questions" don't seem to be in synch somehow.




A lot of the factors I listed are just a question of being aware of what's going on at the table, how my players are reacting, and what their emotional state is.



Campbell said:


> I am not using coded language. Play to find out literally means we're playing to find out what happens and who these characters are as revealed through the decisions they make.




Oh ok. I had assumed "playing to find out" was a defined term, but since it seemed pretty clear what it meant in context, it doesn't really make a difference either way.

While in a way I would agree that I'm playing to "find out what happens", it isn't the primary focus of my games. If they go in an unexpected direction, great. If the players happen be somewhat predictable, that's ok too.

I would not agree, however, that I'm playing to "find out who these characters are as revealed through the decisions they make". While characters can and do evolve in my games (usually dependent on campaign length and how much the player in question enjoys such evolution), usually "who [the characters] are" is determined by the players at character creation, typically with an increase in detail as the game goes on. Some important context: usually my games only cover a year or two of in-game time, although they can last longer than that OOC. So there isn't a ton of time for characters' identities to evolve at a realistic pace. (Caveat: occasionally a character ends up playing differently than the player expected, but that isn't the norm at my table. Also, new players often start with only a brief outline, so their first characters' identities tend to develop in play.)


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't think that saves it from incoherence. I mean, what's the point of that? It doesn't seem to support the "competition" element, if a loser just gets to bring in a new playing piece; and it doesn't seem to support the "story" element, if the quest is not undertaken by a single dedicated party but rather an ever-changing roster of conveniently-present adventurers.



Maybe that's where I fall down in my "story-teller" side: while I assume the party that starts the series will be the party that finishes I also assume that few if any of the original characters in it will still be around.

Comes back to my old sports-team analogy: 
 - some of the players on the field may change from season to season but the team carries on regardless.
 - some of the characters in the field may change from adventure to adventure but the party carries on regardless.



			
				Xetheral said:
			
		

> Caveat: occasionally a character ends up playing differently than the player expected



Yeah, been there done that. 

Lanefan


----------



## Campbell

I am going to say a couple of things that I expect to be contentious. The first will address fun's role in game design and GM decision making. The second will address playing to win and seeing games as games. I do not wish to universalize my preferences or argue that everyone should do things in the way I do them. I just believe my points will provide some fertile ground for further discussion.

I do not believe you can meaningfully design a game to be fun. To the extent that a GM's responsibilities intersect with game design I do not believe a GM can meaningfully make determinations about what is fun in the moment. What I think game designers and GMs can do is design a particular experience they believe is interesting, rewarding, and their audience may enjoy overall. People enjoy and find all sorts of different things rewarding and enjoyable. I enjoy political discussions, chess, watching football, F/X dramas, and reading swords and sorcery and weird fiction novels. I find watching introspective dramas that address real world problems, software engineering, playing sports, and all sorts of analysis rewarding.

When it comes down to game design I think all we can do is use our insight into the human animal, what we know about our audience, and accumulated experience and knowledge that comes from playing, designing, and running a game that we believe will provide players with a compelling experience that is rewarding sometimes, enjoyable sometimes, and frustrating in good ways at other times. That good frustration is very important because it is necessary to make things really rewarding. There is a very intricate relationship between that good sort of frustration and enjoyment that brings about a rewarding experience that has a measure of meaning to the player.

I used to do a lot of raiding in World of Warcraft. It was a very rewarding experience for me, but I did not always enjoy it. Getting those kills, making meaningful progress, and all sorts of social stuff was enjoyable. Failing to make progress, missing interrupts, having to change strategies, dealing with screwups all could be frustrating experiences. The thing is they were vital to the entire endeavor. It was rewarding to learn a new boss, find a strategy that worked, and eventually execute until we get the kill. There were also bad sorts of frustration, but in the moment it all felt bad. Part of what made our skilled execution so rewarding was all the frustrating moments that happened in the interim.

As a GM I do not meaningfully feel capable of determining in the moment what the difference between good frustration and bad frustration is. I have a general idea about the things the players I play with value because I ask them, but in the moment I don't really have a clue. I can't read their minds. Sometimes I will ask them if they really want to play something out in detail or ask them about how they want the fiction to go. That's where *sometimes disclaim decision making* comes from. I just do not believe I can have a handle on that without asking them. I also do not want to rob them of meaningful success won through blood, sweat, and tears. That's why I value honesty, the rules, and following the fiction so much. I also have an interest in seeing them actually earn things because its exciting for me. It's just as rewarding for me as it is for them.

Here's where I get really contentious. I believe that roleplaying games are games where we create compelling fiction to be experienced in the moment, but they are still games. You don't win or lose at Dungeons or Dragons, but there is still winning and losing involved. You can win at a social exchange, a combat, a dungeon, or a scenario. You can win by realizing as a player what your character hoped for and what you as a player hoped for. Those small wins mean very little if there is no chance at losing, no real chance at winning, or if the GM manipulates things to their own ends. I think we very much should see role playing games as games that involve luck and skill.

We are telling stories, but we are also playing games. What makes this hobby so great is we can do both at the same time. I also believe the stories are often better if we do not put designs on them, but instead experience them as they come in the same way we experience stories when we watch a good TV show or movie.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Choosing how to work through my suite of resources (eg do I fireball this round or next?) is not impacting the fictional world.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Doesn't that depend on who or what is being targeted with the fireball (or the alternative resource should the fireball not be chosen)? Isn't that as important and have as much impact on the fictional world as whether or not the PCs choose to befriend or oppose an NPC? I suppose, ultimately, it may not matter whether the PC is using a fireball or a lightning bolt (assuming there are no collateral casualties), but it isn't clear from your statement that's the level of choice you're getting at. But, in general, the act of choosing an offensive resource rather than a peaceful one like some form of charm is certain to have a similar impact on the fictional world to making the choice between friendship and enmity.
Click to expand...


My example wasn't choosing whether to fight or befriend. Nor whether to attack via fire or via enchantment.

The latter might or might not impact the fiction - if I use a Fear spell, or Turn some undead, rather than blowing them up with a fireball, then (everything else being equal) that doesn't strike me as meaningfully impacting the fiction.

If I use some sort of charm or domination to turn the king's advisor into my mental slave, thereby taking control of the kingdom, that _does_ seem to be meaningfully impacting the fiction, and in a different way from just blowing up the advisor and taking his/her place.

But my example was choosing whether to use fireball this round or the next - ie about managing resources in the context of a fight. That can be an important element of play, especially in a certain sort of wargaming style (eg in the great hall of the hill giants in G1). It's an expression of player agency. In an of itself, however, I don't think that it counts as meaningfully impacting the fiction.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> What I was trying to argue in a very simplistic manner is that when you blend in techniques from different approaches to running a game what you end up with is not all benefits of the approaches, but with an approach all its own that has its own strengths and weaknesses. I think most games use a blending of at least a couple of the broad approaches I outlined in some way, but that does not mean they are more flexible than the pure forms of the approaches, just different in orientation, and will result in different experiences. This is something you should consider very carefully and hone over time through playtesting and iteration. It is the very essence of game design.




Perhaps that's what you were trying to argue, but since you only pointed out the negatives, I felt obliged to say that a blended approach has positive factors. I think you're probably right by saying such an approach is its own thing, and also that most games are likely such a blend. 



Manbearcat said:


> Here is the rub though. The reason why GM as Storyteller and GM as Referee push toward being mutually exclusive is very simple.
> 
> One's apex priority is about fidelity to GM-preferred outcomes and/or the exhibition of setting/prepared material. To that end, the (typically covert) manipulation of play (action-blocking, not honoring/upturning fictional results earned, resolution mechanic subordinating, resolution mechanic result fudging) toward those preferred outcomes and/or toward the exhibition of that setting/prepared material is wholly legitimate.
> 
> The other's apex priority is about constructing scenarios that present tactically and strategically engaging decision-points, knowing the rules and impartially applying them as you fairly run the challenges within those scenarios, and ultimately letting the players sink or swim by virtue of their (un)skilled play. The concept of "preferred outcomes" and the massaging/manipulating of play toward those outcomes is anathema.
> 
> 
> They don't play nice with each other. At all.
> 
> So you can be a Storyteller GM with a veneer of Referee, but you can't truly claim the virtues of both simultaneously.
> 
> Now, if you don't have preferred outcomes/metaplot/setting or prepared material that you massage/manipulate play toward (typically by way of the techniques in my parenthetical above), then you're not a Storyteller GM.




I disagree that they are mutually exclusive. I use both elements in my game. I think @_*Lanefan*_'s reply about the macro versus micro scale of the game is one reason. The other is the frequency of usage. 

Every game has some sort of restriction on player action. We could say that a heavily plot focused, linear game has more restrictions than other games. Such a game may even accurately be called a railroad. But even very open, player-driven sandbox style games still have restrictions. It's unavoidable that there are at least some. If your game is a post-apocalyptic setting of some sort, then the player's aren't necessarily free to abandon their search for fuel and safety in the badlands and instead examine suburban life in contemporary times. 

So it's a sliding scale, with opposite extremes. Most games would be somewhere in the middle. My game certainly contains DM-authored content in the form of a main plot. But I still leave the players a good amount of leeway in how they engage that plot, and in what other plots are incorporated. Perhaps it works for me because when the characters are created, we work together to incorporate them into the existing world. So my players are constantly driving the story in the ways that I hoped they would. Sure there are some detours here and there, but that's fine. We go where the play takes us, but it inevitably goes back to the main plot. 

That plot is much more open then you likely expect. It's very loose because I want the players to come up with their own ideas on how to engage the story. I don't really need to steer events in order for the players to interact with the main story. 

So I see no reason that player-driven material and DM-driven material cannot be in alignment at times, and how they cannot dovetail nicely together at other times. Sure, it is easy to imagine them being at odds...but it is not something that must be so.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> I disagree that they are mutually exclusive. I use both elements in my game. I think @_*Lanefan*_'s reply about the macro versus micro scale of the game is one reason. The other is the frequency of usage.
> 
> Every game has some sort of restriction on player action. We could say that a heavily plot focused, linear game has more restrictions than other games. Such a game may even accurately be called a railroad. But even very open, player-driven sandbox style games still have restrictions. It's unavoidable that there are at least some. If your game is a post-apocalyptic setting of some sort, then the player's aren't necessarily free to abandon their search for fuel and safety in the badlands and instead examine suburban life in contemporary times.
> 
> So it's a sliding scale, with opposite extremes. Most games would be somewhere in the middle. My game certainly contains DM-authored content in the form of a main plot. But I still leave the players a good amount of leeway in how they engage that plot, and in what other plots are incorporated. Perhaps it works for me because when the characters are created, we work together to incorporate them into the existing world. So my players are constantly driving the story in the ways that I hoped they would. Sure there are some detours here and there, but that's fine. We go where the play takes us, but it inevitably goes back to the main plot.
> 
> That plot is much more open then you likely expect. It's very loose because I want the players to come up with their own ideas on how to engage the story. I don't really need to steer events in order for the players to interact with the main story.
> 
> So I see no reason that player-driven material and DM-driven material cannot be in alignment at times, and how they cannot dovetail nicely together at other times. Sure, it is easy to imagine them being at odds...but it is not something that must be so.




Let me see if I can come at this from another direction.

You know the term "the game is fixed", right?  For those who don't, that means that someone who serves as an intermediary (typically a Referee) between the rules, the players, and the play outcomes has violated the role of their stewardship.  The role of their stewardship being to ensure the integrity of the game and its results or, put another way, the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes that are an organic outgrowth of competition within the boundary of the rules.  

If they partially or completely leverage their stewardship as rules intermediary to put into effect a pre-determined outcome, they have subordinated, to their own will, the competitive integrity of the game and the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes.

Again, this could be "somewhat innocuous" point-shaving to calling one or more subjective penalties on one side but allowing the other side to get away with it, or to something more egregious like giving an undeserved 10-8 round (especially if it should have been 9-10 the other way) or a few undeserved 10-9 round wins in Boxing/MMA.  Bare minimum, the trajectory of play is influenced.  At the other end of the spectrum, the result is actually decided.


This is why the apex priority, and the attendant techniques to enforce that priority, of outcome-biased Storyteller GMing and outcome-neutral Refereeing are completely incompatible.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> Let me see if I can come at this from another direction.
> 
> You know the term "the game is fixed", right?  For those who don't, that means that someone who serves as an intermediary (typically a Referee) between the rules, the players, and the play outcomes has violated the role of their stewardship.  The role of their stewardship being to ensure the integrity of the game and its results or, put another way, the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes that are an organic outgrowth of competition within the boundary of the rules.
> 
> If they partially or completely leverage their stewardship as rules intermediary to put into effect a pre-determined outcome, they have subordinated, to their own will, the competitive integrity of the game and the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes.
> 
> Again, this could be "somewhat innocuous" point-shaving to calling one or more subjective penalties on one side but allowing the other side to get away with it, or to something more egregious like giving an undeserved 10-8 round (especially if it should have been 9-10 the other way) or a few undeserved 10-9 round wins in Boxing/MMA.  Bare minimum, the trajectory of play is influenced.  At the other end of the spectrum, the result is actually decided.
> 
> 
> This is why the apex priority, and the attendant techniques to enforce that priority, of outcome-biased Storyteller GMing and outcome-neutral Refereeing are completely incompatible.




That's an effective analaogy. I get your point, and I even agree with it in the general sense. Subverting the rules in order to ensure a specific outcome is generally not good for a game. 

However, sports are competitive activities where a level playing field is vital. Is that also true of an RPG? In a way, sure.. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] just posted about the players playing to win, and I think that people may debate that, but I think it's a matter of semantics. There are elements of success or failure, so there is winning and losing. And if winning and losing are involved, then people tend to expect things to be fair. 

What is missing in an RPG that is present in sports is the competition. There is no side being favored over the other in an RPG in order to ensure a specific outcome. In sports, ensuring a specific outcome means deciding the winner. 

What does it mean in an RPG? Does it mean the same thing? Who are the sides? Is the GM in competition with the players? Most of us would say no, I expect. 

Now, this is not me advocating for subverting the rules to favor specific outcomes...I'm not gonna say I've never done that, or won't ever do it again, but it's something I avoid at the very least. But it brings me to my second point. 

When we talk about storytelling, I'm not sure I understand why it's automatically a case of the GM bending the rules or influencing results to get his desired outcome. Why must the rules be broken for that? I honestly don't feel the need to alter results of dice rolls or anything of the sort to keep the game moving in the way I would like. 

This was my point about GM desire and player desire being in alignment. If your argument were true...that they are mutually exclusive...then they could never be in alignment. But that's not the case. 

If I as the GM want the players to become involved in the political machinations at court, I can introduce NPCs, story hooks, goals, and other elements that align with PC motivations or desires. If one of the PCs has a goal to discover his father's killer, then I create a connection...a clue that one of the members  of the court may have something to do with his father's death. 

This leads the PCs down the path that the GM had in mind. It's also the choice of the players to pursue that goal based on the one PCs motivation. It also required no subverting of the rules or anything "dishonest". 

The truth is that you can use a combination of techniques to achieve alignment in the expectations of the GM and the players.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=9200]Hawkeye[/MENTION],

What are your feelings on the following passage from Monsterhearts?



			
				Staying Feral said:
			
		

> Every moment of the game leads into the next. When you narrate something, others respond. Moves get triggered. Dice get rolled, and those rolls create new situations to react to. The fiction and the mechanics interact with one another to create an emergent story, one that has its own momentum and energy.
> 
> The interactions that you have with the other players and with the mechanics create a story that couldn’t have existed in your head alone. It’s something feral.
> 
> You might have a strong impulse to domesticate the story. Either as the MC or the player, you might have an awesome plan for exactly what could happen next, and where the story could go. In your head, it’s spectacular. All you’d need to do is dictate what the other players should do, ignore the dice once or twice, and force your idea into existence. In short: to take control of things.
> 
> The game loses its magic when any one player attempts to take control of the future of the story. It becomes small enough to fit inside one person’s head. The other players turn into audience members instead of participants.Nobody’s experience is enriched when one person turns the collective story into their own private story.
> 
> So avoid this impulse. Let the story’s messy, chaotic momentum guide it forward. In any given moment, focus on reacting to the other players and to the mechanics. Allow others to foil your plans, or improve upon them. Trust that good story will emerge from the wilderness.




When I talk about playing to find out what happens and following the fiction to wherever it leads I really mean it. I mean it even when its painful. I mean it especially when things do not turn out in the way I want them to. My biggest regrets, both as a GM and a player of a character, have come from the times when I tried to control the experience and make it mine. It usually comes from a good place. 

You want to keep your character safe so you hold back in a crucial moment where you should be laying it on the line. You have a particular arc in mind for your character so you justify a decision you made after the fact that if you were playing with integrity you would not have made. You do not want to deal with the consequences of a decision you made so you give the GM doe eyes in hopes they will rule in your favor. 

A player has ignored your soft moves and is in a position that would likely result in the loss of a PC so you make another soft move because you love the PC. You designed an elaborate set piece battle, but the PCs came up with a plan that circumvents it. You put a lot of work ito said set piece and want to use it so you pull some chicanery with the fiction. A player makes doe eyes at you because of a risk they do not want to deal with the consequences of so you fudge a dice roll or change some stats on the fly. Your players steamroll the villain in your planned epic confrontation through a series of crits so you add some hp. The players are off track so you nudge them with social pressure. The PCs side with a character who was supposed to be an antagonist so you contort the fiction to make them regret it. You really want that big reveal so you pull back from conveying the fictional world honestly. Robilar soloed your favorite dungeon so you send an army after him to take all his stuff!

These are the things that keep me up at night. There's a very good reason why I talk about the discipline that is required to play and run the game to find out what happens and follow the fiction vigorously. Sometimes this stuff is hard! No one is immune to this underlying tension. A commitment to it helps. Embracing principles that help you get there really helps. I personally find it really rewarding in a very real way. It's not like super hard though! This is the same sort of way seasoned poker players approach the game. It's also the same way that software engineers need to approach their work. Holding on lightly and not trying to control things is also super valuable in all sorts of relationships.

John Harper explains this stuff in far less words than I am able to.

[video=youtube;FdVK_w9uDv8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdVK_w9uDv8[/video]

Brevity is the soul of wit.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I do not believe you can meaningfully design a game to be fun. To the extent that a GM's responsibilities intersect with game design I do not believe a GM can meaningfully make determinations about what is fun in the moment. What I think game designers and GMs can do is design a particular experience they believe is interesting, rewarding, and their audience may enjoy overall.



I think you can generate fun by design, if only because I also think it's very possible - almost easy, in fact - to design fun out of a game and therefore logically it must be possible to design fun in by the simple means of intentionally not designing it out.

Does that make any sense at all? 



> Here's where I get really contentious. I believe that roleplaying games are games where we create compelling fiction to be experienced in the moment, but they are still games. You don't win or lose at Dungeons or Dragons, but there is still winning and losing involved. You can win at a social exchange, a combat, a dungeon, or a scenario. You can win by realizing as a player what your character hoped for and what you as a player hoped for. Those small wins mean very little if there is no chance at losing, no real chance at winning, or if the GM manipulates things to their own ends. I think we very much should see role playing games as games that involve luck and skill.



This might come as a surprise, but I largely agree with this particularly at the in-the-moment level of play.

It's at the macro level where the DM can mess with things and (hopefully) generate a better game by doing so, which is the opposite of this bit:



> I also believe the stories are often better if we do not put designs on them, but instead experience them as they come in the same way we experience stories when we watch a good TV show or movie.



If I-as-DM know my players and have found an adventure I think they'll enjoy playing, I'm going to do my best to gently steer them into it.  But once they're in it then the referee side comes out. 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Let me see if I can come at this from another direction.
> 
> You know the term "the game is fixed", right?  For those who don't, that means that someone who serves as an intermediary (typically a Referee) between the rules, the players, and the play outcomes has violated the role of their stewardship.  The role of their stewardship being to ensure the integrity of the game and its results or, put another way, the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes that are an organic outgrowth of competition within the boundary of the rules.
> 
> If they partially or completely leverage their stewardship as rules intermediary to put into effect a pre-determined outcome, they have subordinated, to their own will, the competitive integrity of the game and the agency of the players in determining authentic play outcomes.
> 
> Again, this could be "somewhat innocuous" point-shaving to calling one or more subjective penalties on one side but allowing the other side to get away with it, or to something more egregious like giving an undeserved 10-8 round (especially if it should have been 9-10 the other way) or a few undeserved 10-9 round wins in Boxing/MMA.  Bare minimum, the trajectory of play is influenced.  At the other end of the spectrum, the result is actually decided.



Except that there's some massive differences between sports matches and RPGs:

In an RPG the DM is both player and referee.  

Further, in an RPG the DM is also in part the designer of the game being played: she determines the system being used, often sets the game world parameters (e.g. determines or designs the setting), and sometimes even has a large hand - via kitbashing and houseruling - in what rules get used.

And further, in an RPG you don't have set teams or individual combatants.  You have a table full of people who each individually may or may not at any given moment be competing with each other and-or the DM, co-operating with each other and-or the DM, or doing neither of the above.

Even further yet, an RPG doesn't (usually) have a pre-set or pre-known win condition either going in to play or coming out of it.



> This is why the apex priority, and the attendant techniques to enforce that priority, of outcome-biased Storyteller GMing and outcome-neutral Refereeing are completely incompatible.



Still don't agree with you. 

Lan-"for the win!"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The latter might or might not impact the fiction - if I use a Fear spell, or Turn some undead, rather than blowing them up with a fireball, then (everything else being equal) that doesn't strike me as meaningfully impacting the fiction.



If you mean the in-the-moment fiction during actual play this choice certainly will have an impact, in that a Turned or Feared undead is probably going to come back later once the effect wears off (and thus have to be dealt with again) where a blown-to-bits one probably will not.

If you mean the meta-fiction then no, this choice will have limited impact unless the Turned undead manage to kill a character or two when next they're met.

Lanefan


----------



## Campbell

One of my intellectual interests is more modern approaches to understanding markets as a way to analyze human behavior. One of the guiding principles of market design is *every participant decides their own level and type of involvement in any given market*. This has application in software engineering, the way we approach relationships, and I believe has a fundamental impact on GMing. The concept of a hook implies that we must either bite it or not. As GMs I think we should strive to offer the players to approach the fiction as they see fit. Instead of thinking in terms of hooks I think it is far more useful to think in terms of providing opportunities for players to resolve their characters own goals and desires. 

Blades in the Dark says to *Provide Opportunities, Follow Their Lead*. The basic conceit is that you provide them with information they can use, and they determine how to act on that information if at all. One of their rivals is being closed in on by their enemies. Do they take this as an opportunity to deliver a telling blow to that rival? Do they support them in order to rehabilitate that relationship? Do they stand back and hope their enemies finish each other off? Do they engage in a bidding war for who to support? Asking a series of provocative questions here can be really helpful, but we should strive not to put designs on what they do. Whatever the case, follow their lead and be a curious explorer of the fiction. Leave room for lateral thinking.

One of the things I am careful to do in my own GMing is to not prepare social or combat encounters. I leave that choice up to the players in how they choose to engage with the fiction. They are showing you their interests through the actions they take. Embrace that.

I believe we have to be careful about our use of the implied social cache of the GM not to prod or pull too much. We should be asking questions more than providing answers to create an inquisitive spirit in our players and to enable them to make choices about how they approach the situation.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Campbell said:


> I do not believe you can meaningfully design a game to be fun. To the extent that a GM's responsibilities intersect with game design I do not believe a GM can meaningfully make determinations about what is fun in the moment. What I think *game designers and GMs can do is design a particular experience they believe is interesting, rewarding*, and their audience may enjoy overall. People enjoy and find all sorts of different things rewarding and enjoyable.




_Emphasis is obviously mine._

_''..as long as kids have been playing cops and robbers or cowboys and indians, they've been playing roleplaying games.''_

We're all 'game designers' by and large. We've all had to entertain ourselves at some point during our lives. With practice, testing and development, we made some pretty great games - for an audience of one, that being ourselves.

Approaching game design from a macro perspective leads us with generic experiences - we aim to capture as much of an audience as possible, which ultimately means lumping folks together under 'target groups' and other all-encompassing labels. We deal in trends, fads and popularity in order to generate appeal. Sure, there is a challenge to making a super _popular_ game and it's certainly an area of research that I find fascinating, much akin to those folks that build and develop the latest boy/girl band pop sensation, or the latest Hollywood Summer Blockbuster.

There seems to be a modern mentality that game design means, _'making a game for everyone'_, which is, much like any other form of entertainment, simply not possible. Especially with D&D, we're given the tools and advice to go forth and entertain ourselves. With time, others may join us in our play where upon we may have to modify our game design to their tastes. And if we can do this while keeping things fun for ourselves, great! If not, then we either have to go play a different game - perhaps they'll go on to make a game we find fun to play. 

After all, how many people are we playing with at a given time? How many people are we having fun with? When we step back from our current culture of game design that predominately focuses on 'mass appeal', where and when have we had the most fun? For me at least, its been with a small group of people doing something we enjoy - be it on the many MMOs I've been with or kicking a ball around.

While academia is slowly catching up to game design as a formal field of research, I've always maintained that a good game designer is a good people person - they watch, study and try to understand people first and foremost. A game designer is, at the heart of it, an entertainer and without knowing their audience a prospective game designer will not get far. And they're making games for themselves - because heck, if we're not having fun, why should we expect anyone else to? 

This starts with learning about ourselves - what do we find fun. How do we find fun. Where do we find fun and so on. Then, we can compare our 'funning***' to that of others. At this stage, with our small audience of perhaps a single friend at the most, mistakes are made, rules and systems need to be checked and changed - testing, development - until everyone involved is having fun. I'm sure folks out there with siblings will be able to relate - you make a game for you, you make a game for your brother/sister(s). Sure, you might need to tweak the rules, modify the experience here and there but hey, you'll get to where you're both having fun. Likewise, if you've ever gamed with the same group/table for a good few years you'll learn what they love/like, hate, want and so forth. Sometimes we take this for granted, assuming how we play is, 'the norm'. _Thankfully, this is challenged as soon as a newcomer unfamiliar with the group/table comes along, with an outsiders view and expectations, and all those little tweaks and adjustments, be it actual mechanical or something more ephemeral - come to light.

Personally, this is why I love pen & paper rpgs. Compared to board games and computer games, the development cycles can by lightning fast, empowering us to really design, test and develop for our own fun and that of those we wish to consider. And all of this does help us teach ourselves how to design, how to to build for fun - for us and those with us, on a more personal level. I know I have, for myself and for my friends and folks that became my friends - and bless their manically hearts, they've done the same for me. We not looking to be famous or get rich - simply enjoy the medium of game design, the art of making fun



[sblock]****Funning* is totally a real word.[/sblock]_


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Every game has some sort of restriction on player action.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If your game is a post-apocalyptic setting of some sort, then the player's aren't necessarily free to abandon their search for fuel and safety in the badlands and instead examine suburban life in contemporary times.



But this is not a restriction that results from the GM acting as "storyteller", so I don't really see how it bears on  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point. It's a "restriction" that follows simply from the group's consensus about the subject-matter and genre of the game.



hawkeyefan said:


> My game certainly contains DM-authored content in the form of a main plot
> 
> <snip>
> 
> We go where the play takes us, but it inevitably goes back to the main plot.



This isn't really giving enough information to draw a connection between your GMing approach and the categories that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] have set out. After all, my games have GM authored content - eg rooms in mage's towers where other unconscious mages are recuperating - and this content is among the elements of the shared fiction that figure in the "main plot". But my games are neither "referee" nor "storyteller" as those terms have been used over the past few pages of this thread.

For instance, by "main plot" do you mean _events happening in the gameworld that are (in some tenable sense) "interesting"_? Or do you mean _dramatic sequence of events in which the PCs will participate, as protagonists_?

If the former, then I can't tell - at this stage of the discussion - what effect (if any) those events in the fiction are having on the content and outcome of player action declarations for their PCs.  And I also can't tell whether those events are part of the framing of the circumstances of those action declarations (ie part of the fictional situation to which the players are responding), or are "secret" events or states of affairs that only the GM knows about, and uses as a type of "filter" for determining the success or failure of player action declarations.

And if the latter - eg in something like the way that a module like Dead Gods or the Dragonlance modules has a series of events in which the PCs will participate - how do you manage the causal flow from event A to event B? Eg how do you ensure that player-generated consequences of event A don't destabilise your anticipated "entry point" into event B?

These are the sorts of considerations that relate the use of GM content authoring, including perhaps GM force, to the outcomes in the shared fiction.



hawkeyefan said:


> When we talk about storytelling, I'm not sure I understand why it's automatically a case of the GM bending the rules or influencing results to get his desired outcome. Why must the rules be broken for that? I honestly don't feel the need to alter results of dice rolls or anything of the sort to keep the game moving in the way I would like.



Well, this connects to the transition from event A to event B.

If the outcome of event A is _literally_ hostage to the interaction between the choices the players make and the rolls of their dice, then the likelihood of a smooth transition to a pre-authored event B must be fairly slim. Eg to relate that to the OP example, one outcome of that episode of resolution ("scene", to use some jargon) was that one PC was trying to escape across town lugging two bodies while his companion is carrying a jug and a chamber pot full of blood, and with a severed head sitting in the chamber pot as well. That event, and the resulting consequence (on a failed check by the body-lugger to see how well the bodies are lugged) of encountering the night watch, couldn't have been pre-scripted, because until the scene was resolved it wasn't known, or even knowable, what its resolution would be (eg the PCs might instead have tried to reach some sort of accord with the mage whose tower it is and just leave all the bodies there).

In my experience of reading modules and referee advice books, there are two main ways of avoiding making the outcome of event A hostage to the players and their dice.

(1) Fudge results. This is White Wolf's "Golden Rule", and 2nd ed AD&D also advocates this fairly strongly (under the motto "Don't let a die roll spoil the story").

(2) Use GM authority over framing and backstory to negate the consequences of players' declared actions for their PCs. Eg the PCs kill the BBEG, but a lieutenant steps in so that the actual signficance of the PCs' victory is negated. Or the PCs get arrested when the plot "needs" them to be free, so a deus ex machina NPC bails them out with no other costs, consequences or dramatic significance. Or the players sail off into the sunset, but a (GM-authored) storm occurs and blows them back onto the reefs and coast of "the plot". Etc.

Some modules - like the incoherent one I mentioned not too far upthread - don't advoctae either (1) or (2) but seem to just assume that, _somehow_, event A will lead to event B even though - given the way the game works, in terms of action declaration, resolution systems, etc - it would be a minor miracle for things to just turn out that way.



hawkeyefan said:


> If I as the GM want the players to become involved in the political machinations at court, I can introduce NPCs, story hooks, goals, and other elements that align with PC motivations or desires. If one of the PCs has a goal to discover his father's killer, then I create a connection...a clue that one of the members of the court may have something to do with his father's death.
> 
> This leads the PCs down the path that the GM had in mind. It's also the choice of the players to pursue that goal based on the one PCs motivation. It also required no subverting of the rules or anything "dishonest".



At this level of abstraction, we could be talking about a player-driven game or a GM-driven one. Eg if the player has built and played a PC who is hutning for his father's killer among the nobles of the court, then in effect you are following the player's hook (not vice versa) and framing the PC into situations that speak to the player's interests.

Conversely, if the real action is all about whatever you as GM have conceived in relation to court machinations, so that the "father's killer" thing is really just a "bread crumb" (to borrow  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s term) to lure the player into your stuff - and if, no matter how hard the player tries to shift the focus onto the quest for the killer, it somehow always seems to lead back to the stuff you as GM are interested in - then I would say it is a GM-driven game.

In practice, too, to achieve that sort of GM-driven game where all roads lead to what the GM cares about rather than the players' concerns is probably going to require using "secret" backstory (ie stuff that is not part of the framing of the situation that the players are engaging via their PCs) as an element in adjudication - eg the player has his PC look in a room for clues about his father's killing but has no chance of being successful because the GM has already decided that whatever is discovered in the room will really be about the GM's "main plot".

To finish off: my take in this post, and especially the last few paragraphs, is really displaying my inclination towards a "scene framing" approach to GMing. I'll have to leave it to  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], if he's interested, to try and frame a response from the perspective of AW-style "principled GMing".



Campbell said:


> One of the things I am careful to do in my own GMing is to not prepare social or combat encounters. I leave that choice up to the players in how they choose to engage with the fiction.



Absolutely.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If I-as-DM know my players and have found an adventure I think they'll enjoy playing, I'm going to do my best to gently steer them into it.



Why be gentle? Why not just say "Hey, people, here's a fun thing to play!"

I'm also not clear how this relates to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] talking about "steering towards outcomes". Entering the Tomb of Horrors isn't an outcome - it's a starting point, a framing.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=9200]Hawkeye[/MENTION],
> 
> What are your feelings on the following passage from Monsterhearts?




It's interesting. I think it's a pretty cool idea in general. I don't agree with all of it, but I don't have a problem with it. It seems to imply that any example of "story discovered through play" must be better than any example of "story designed ahead of play", which is of course ludicrous. 

Again, I am not advocating the opposite extreme. I don't think that a railroad is the best form of game. That's just my opinion, others may love them...but I do like to have a good deal of player driven material in my game. I like for their decisions to matter and to help shape events. 

My stance is that the GM can also shape events. Not to invalidate player choice or anything like that, but in order to craft a story. To add resonance to the events in play, and help form a narrative of some sort. 



Campbell said:


> When I talk about playing to find out what happens and following the fiction to wherever it leads I really mean it. I mean it even when its painful. I mean it especially when things do not turn out in the way I want them to. My biggest regrets, both as a GM and a player of a character, have come from the times when I tried to control the experience and make it mine. It usually comes from a good place.
> 
> You want to keep your character safe so you hold back in a crucial moment where you should be laying it on the line. You have a particular arc in mind for your character so you justify a decision you made after the fact that if you were playing with integrity you would not have made. You do not want to deal with the consequences of a decision you made so you give the GM doe eyes in hopes they will rule in your favor.




Again, control is too strong a term for what I am advocating. 



Campbell said:


> A player has ignored your soft moves and is in a position that would likely result in the loss of a PC so you make another soft move because you love the PC. You designed an elaborate set piece battle, but the PCs came up with a plan that circumvents it. You put a lot of work ito said set piece and want to use it so you pull some chicanery with the fiction. A player makes doe eyes at you because of a risk they do not want to deal with the consequences of so you fudge a dice roll or change some stats on the fly. Your players steamroll the villain in your planned epic confrontation through a series of crits so you add some hp. The players are off track so you nudge them with social pressure. The PCs side with a character who was supposed to be an antagonist so you contort the fiction to make them regret it. You really want that big reveal so you pull back from conveying the fictional world honestly. Robilar soloed your favorite dungeon so you send an army after him to take all his stuff!




Some of that may come up a bit....I don't tend to take it too easy on PCs or feel so attached to any one of them in particular that they have the equivalent of "plot armor". But I could see, when a judgment call may be needed to adjudicate the results of failure, that I don't automatically assume the worst consequence of failure and inflict that on the party. For a really basic example, perhaps a PC is taken captive rather than killed. Is that an egregious use of GM Force? I don't think so....not if there is any plausibility to the villains doing so. 

As for the series of crits example or the set piece battle.....I tend not to worry about that stuff, and let it play out as needed. I will adjust some items at times if I feel that it was my initial judgment that was in error. Or if I think that there is some compelling reason to do so at the time of play that I was not privy to at the design stage, then I may make such changes. But these are not done without consideration, and are not done to preserve the outcome I am hoping for. 

I think it is the outcome that is the sticking point. I don't necessarily have a preferred outcome. I have a few possible outcomes in mind, and which will happen depends on what the players do. Then, once an outcome to a certain encounter or action is determined, then I determine the impact on the world. The consequences of the outcome. 



Campbell said:


> These are the things that keep me up at night. There's a very good reason why I talk about the discipline that is required to play and run the game to find out what happens and follow the fiction vigorously. Sometimes this stuff is hard! No one is immune to this underlying tension. A commitment to it helps. Embracing principles that help you get there really helps. I personally find it really rewarding in a very real way. It's not like super hard though! This is the same sort of way seasoned poker players approach the game. It's also the same way that software engineers need to approach their work. Holding on lightly and not trying to control things is also super valuable in all sorts of relationships.




Sure. Hold on loosely is a decent philosophy in general. It is not absent from my game, I don't think. 

As for your style of play, this is where you start to sound a little one-true-wayish. Your style takes discipline and commitment....implying that other styles are undisciplined and lack commitment? I don't really think that is what you mean, but it's pushing that way. 

It's just a tool to use or not use. 




Campbell said:


> John Harper explains this stuff in far less words than I am able to.
> 
> Brevity is the soul of wit.




Brevity? 

Again, this is nothing that I think is absent from my game. I am perfectly comfortable (most of the time) when my plans are dashed by the PCs in some way. I like that it forces me to adapt on the fly...I find some really strong elements of our game come from those moments. 

It's just that no matter what the players do, eventually, things will steer back to the "main story", for lack of a better term. My predetermined elements are more at the macro level....the campaign level...rather than at the micro level of actions or encounters. 




pemerton said:


> But this is not a restriction that results from the GM acting as "storyteller", so I don't really see how it bears on  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s point. It's a "restriction" that follows simply from the group's consensus about the subject-matter and genre of the game.




They are elements of the story, so I think they do relate to the GM as storyteller. But I do see your distinction that this is likely discussed ahead of time. But perhaps so is the main story of the campaign? Or perhaps character goals are determined at the time of character creation, and those are incorporated into the game....baked in right from the start. This means that it isn't very difficult to keep the characters motivated to engage in the main story that the GM has prepared. 

Having those kind of agreement prior to play inherently limits the players to some degree. To go back to the Tolkien example, the PCs have been given a quest...this is the GM determined content. They must destroy the One Ring, and they know of only one way to do that. How they reach that goal is ultimately up to them....they have many paths to choose from, and many choices to make in how they engage with that "main story". But to simply abandon the quest seems to be a violation of the agreement made at the start of the game. 

This is of course assuming that the players have agreed to the game as described. 



pemerton said:


> This isn't really giving enough information to draw a connection between your GMing approach and the categories that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] have set out. After all, my games have GM authored content - eg rooms in mage's towers where other unconscious mages are recuperating - and this content is among the elements of the shared fiction that figure in the "main plot". But my games are neither "referee" nor "storyteller" as those terms have been used over the past few pages of this thread.




Perhaps some of my comments in this post have clarified. I am talking more at the high level....the general flow of the "main story". I use that term because I am not sure how else to describe it. The point of the campaign. In the specific case of my campaign, there is quite a lot to it, but ultimately it boils down to opposing a specific group of enemies and their goals. 

That goal, which all the players understand and have agreed to, is never far from playing a part of the action taking place. However, it is loose and broad enough that I don't need to undermine player agency to keep them along that general path. 

Hopefully that helps. Let me know if I need to elaborate further. 



pemerton said:


> For instance, by "main plot" do you mean _events happening in the gameworld that are (in some tenable sense) "interesting"_? Or do you mean _dramatic sequence of events in which the PCs will participate, as protagonists_?




I mean the ultimate goal. The sequence of events is largely undetermined because the players can change things, but I do have a general outline in mind. But I don't do much more than sketch things because they can and do change. 

Again, to lean on Tolkien...the players may never become embroiled in the machinations of Saruman at Isengard. Their decisions have kept the Fellowship together and they never go that way. That does not mean that I do not then introduce Saruman later on as a sever threat that needs to be dealt with. So I know Saruman is up to something....but when that comes into play, and how, is largely up to the actions of the PCs.



pemerton said:


> If the former, then I can't tell - at this stage of the discussion - what effect (if any) those events in the fiction are having on the content and outcome of player action declarations for their PCs.  And I also can't tell whether those events are part of the framing of the circumstances of those action declarations (ie part of the fictional situation to which the players are responding), or are "secret" events or states of affairs that only the GM knows about, and uses as a type of "filter" for determining the success or failure of player action declarations.
> 
> And if the latter - eg in something like the way that a module like Dead Gods or the Dragonlance modules has a series of events in which the PCs will participate - how do you manage the causal flow from event A to event B? Eg how do you ensure that player-generated consequences of event A don't destabilise your anticipated "entry point" into event B?
> 
> These are the sorts of considerations that relate the use of GM content authoring, including perhaps GM force, to the outcomes in the shared fiction.




I actually used a good deal of the Dead Gods adventure in my campaign. This was one story arc. I used the main plot of that adventure, but I didn't force the players down any particular path. I also removed certain elements that I felt were the most arbitrary....moments where they only know how to proceed because of X. I introduced several means of reaching each part of the adventure, and allowed the players to go their way, and find the path. 

It also helped that I knew I would be using elements from that adventure, and worked some of them into things at the start of this campaign. So a lot of it was information that I made available to one or more players as elements of backstory. 






pemerton said:


> Well, this connects to the transition from event A to event B.
> 
> If the outcome of event A is _literally_ hostage to the interaction between the choices the players make and the rolls of their dice, then the likelihood of a smooth transition to a pre-authored event B must be fairly slim. Eg to relate that to the OP example, one outcome of that episode of resolution ("scene", to use some jargon) was that one PC was trying to escape across town lugging two bodies while his companion is carrying a jug and a chamber pot full of blood, and with a severed head sitting in the chamber pot as well. That event, and the resulting consequence (on a failed check by the body-lugger to see how well the bodies are lugged) of encountering the night watch, couldn't have been pre-scripted, because until the scene was resolved it wasn't known, or even knowable, what its resolution would be (eg the PCs might instead have tried to reach some sort of accord with the mage whose tower it is and just leave all the bodies there).
> 
> In my experience of reading modules and referee advice books, there are two main ways of avoiding making the outcome of event A hostage to the players and their dice.
> 
> (1) Fudge results. This is White Wolf's "Golden Rule", and 2nd ed AD&D also advocates this fairly strongly (under the motto "Don't let a die roll spoil the story").
> 
> (2) Use GM authority over framing and backstory to negate the consequences of players' declared actions for their PCs. Eg the PCs kill the BBEG, but a lieutenant steps in so that the actual signficance of the PCs' victory is negated. Or the PCs get arrested when the plot "needs" them to be free, so a deus ex machina NPC bails them out with no other costs, consequences or dramatic significance. Or the players sail off into the sunset, but a (GM-authored) storm occurs and blows them back onto the reefs and coast of "the plot". Etc.
> 
> Some modules - like the incoherent one I mentioned not too far upthread - don't advoctae either (1) or (2) but seem to just assume that, _somehow_, event A will lead to event B even though - given the way the game works, in terms of action declaration, resolution systems, etc - it would be a minor miracle for things to just turn out that way.




Well, I don't know if either of those methods are required. I try to avoid the first in most cases, and the second I try to use with care and with far less force than implied in the examples. 

But again, I am talking more high level. 

So in your example of the mage's towere and the beheading, and the lugging of bodies....did you have no sense of where things would go after that? Obviously, the PCs actions helped shape where things went....but did you have no idea? For me, I would have a few possibilities sketched out....then the PCs do what they do, and it takes things in an unexpected direction (they get caught by the watch lugging dead bodies around town)....I don't feel the need to simply handwave or otherwise invalidate these events. I let them play out....and then I decide how they affect where things were going after that. So if the PCs are thrown in jail or if they are coerced by the captain of the guard to perform some task for him or what have you, I proceed with that to see what happens. 

But once that plays out, things are going to head back in some direction I had previously expected. I look at such instances as sidetracks...noting wrong with them at all. But once they've played out, it's back to the main story, with any possible consequences of the sidetrack taken into consideration. 



pemerton said:


> At this level of abstraction, we could be talking about a player-driven game or a GM-driven one. Eg if the player has built and played a PC who is hutning for his father's killer among the nobles of the court, then in effect you are following the player's hook (not vice versa) and framing the PC into situations that speak to the player's interests.




Yes, precisely. 




pemerton said:


> Conversely, if the real action is all about whatever you as GM have conceived in relation to court machinations, so that the "father's killer" thing is really just a "bread crumb" (to borrow  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s term) to lure the player into your stuff - and if, no matter how hard the player tries to shift the focus onto the quest for the killer, it somehow always seems to lead back to the stuff you as GM are interested in - then I would say it is a GM-driven game.




But it need not be "all about" the GM conceived items. It can be about that, and the PC's father's killer plot can be woven in so taht they are two elements of the same story. This is the approach that I am talking about. The GM having a metaplot if that's what you want to call it, but incorporating player authored material, whether it be at the inception of the game or as consequence of in game player choice. 




pemerton said:


> In practice, too, to achieve that sort of GM-driven game where all roads lead to what the GM cares about rather than the players' concerns is probably going to require using "secret" backstory (ie stuff that is not part of the framing of the situation that the players are engaging via their PCs) as an element in adjudication - eg the player has his PC look in a room for clues about his father's killing but has no chance of being successful because the GM has already decided that whatever is discovered in the room will really be about the GM's "main plot".




Again, I am not arguing in favor of the opposite extreme. "All roads leading to what the GM cares about" is not really what I am talking about, and it's as negative a way to look at it as possible. 

Let me ask you....do you think that the GM and the players could actually want the same things in play?


----------



## Campbell

The GM and the other players absolutely should want the same things in play. There absolutely are players who are interested in being told a story. There are also players who are interested in shaping the narrative and exerting their influence in a way that exceeds the impact they can have through playing their characters with integrity. I know this because I have been those players. Sometime those desires and urges still rise up within me. It is just contrary to my interests of late.


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> Again, I am not arguing in favor of the opposite extreme. "All roads leading to what the GM cares about" is not really what I am talking about, and it's as negative a way to look at it as possible.



 I guess I won't argue that, either - but I'll drop a one-liner in favor of it:

_Why would I run something I don't care about?_



pemerton said:


> Entering the Tomb of Horrors isn't an outcome - it's a starting point, a framing.



 Poor Acererak wasn't guilty afterall:  he was framed!


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> The GM and the other players absolutely should want the same things in play. There absolutely are players who are interested in being told a story. There are also players who are interested in shaping the narrative and exerting their influence in a way that exceeds the impact they can have through playing their characters with integrity. I know this because I have been those players. Sometime those desires and urges still rise up within me. It is just contrary to my interests of late.




Sure, I agree with that. But again, these are the two extremes. There are also players that like to be told a story that they can help shape through their decisions. A blending of the two.


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, I agree with that. But again, these are the two extremes. There are also players that like to be told a story that they can help shape through their decisions. A blending of the two.




Absolutely. However, I believe there will always be a certain amount of tension there. This is particularly true if an approach to GMing is utilized where players and often GMs have no meaningful way of knowing where we are truly following the fiction and playing to find out what happens and when GM intervention through social pressure, "deft" framing of consequences and situation, not conveying the fictional world honestly, and subtle or overt handling of the rules at run time to nudge, push, or violently pull things towards either a particular narrative or what they feel makes for a better story. They might not notice the tension. It might even be fruitful for them - something they value. There is also often a culture of extreme metagame aversion so when you feel this tension you are supposed to actively avoid calling it by name or asking about fruitful avenues to explore.

I get it. I have been a player in these games. I have run some of these games. Even in the most GM Force prone games of Vampire run according to the text there are always open questions where players can have an impact on the fiction. My experience on both sides of the screen with this tension and my inability to address it due to the chilling effects of metagame aversion and a lack of social equity informs my current preferences. I used to play and run a lot of World of Darkness games. I have felt the weight of the responsibility for everyone's enjoyment, the pull to make this thing my own, felt guilty about using my social power to steer players towards my story, and felt responsible for guiding the players when I really just wanted to see what their characters would do. As a player I have been in many situations where my interest laid everywhere except the main story, dealt with the frustration of trying to find the story hidden in indiscernible motives and hazy fiction, doggedly pursued things that could never happen because of story reasons, had social pressure applied to give up on things in the interest of the narrative, and played in games only because of the downtime between adventures. 

This tension is something I very much have felt and continue to feel when I play in these sorts of games because I have friends who like them. I see it as an *authentic avenue of criticism*. I will expand on this in a future post.


----------



## Campbell

I want to take a moment and clarify something - principled play utilizing a Storyteller approach is absolutely possible and there are several games out there that highlight various approaches.

Vampire - The Masquerade and Ars Magica are absolutely principled and require dedication, discipline, and commitment on the part of the GM/ST. I happen to think this approach is subject to some very worthy criticism when it comes to social equity and the tension that metagame aversion exhibits on play. This is considered a necesarry feature by the designers to evoke the personal horror they are seeking. I believe there are better ways to do so.
Call of Cthulhu uses a slightly different set of techniques and assumptions, but is much more up front about the types of situations PCs can meaningfully make an impact on. The sanity mechanics do much more heavy lifting. There is still a great deal of tension, but less so than Vampire.
Fate makes the players into co-conspiritors in the process of building a narrative. Metagame aversion goes out the window and meaningful discussions about where an impact can be made can occur. The Fate Point economy serves as a tangible form of agency we can feel. I am not really a fan of fate, but there is far more social equity and transparency involved in the process. One common complaint is that you can see the sausage being made. Another is that we can all see where things are going in any given moment of play. There is almost no meaningful tension on display, except what we bring ourselves. Everyone is assumed to be emphatically exerting their will on the narrative.
Night's Black Agents and Trail of Cthulhu represent a different approach. We all know we are there to investigate the story and we do not have to rely on social pressure or other forms of chicanery unless the players are resisting the aims of the game. We do not make checks to find stuff out because that would run counter to players solving the mystery. There is very little tension here, largely because hopes of agency are largely dashed and the players are complicit in the act. We still do not like talk about it and make that real. There is no real social equity here.


----------



## Campbell

I should explain what I mean by my contention that I feel like GM as MC results in better stories. Obviously, this is an aesthetic judgement that applies to me personally.

When Monsterhearts recommends to *Keep It Feral* it is not really talking about the quality of the story as something  we can enjoy after play, but rather our experience of the active tension in the fiction in play. It depends on this idea that, like film or television, roleplaying is an experiential medium. Unlike those media it is also participatory. When these techniques are used the entire group is on edge of their seats, genuinely curious about the fiction. We all want to see how things will unfold. 

When you are playing a character in a tense situation there is no escape valve. You cannot look to the GM to get your character out of it. All you have available to you are your own skilled play, your knowledge of the fiction, your fictional resources, and the rules of the game. Furthermore, because everyone at the table is interested in curiously exploring the fiction you owe it to them and yourself to play your character with integrity. The cool thing is that the game will actively reward you for this. More importantly, the personal and social rewards are tremendous.

When you are the MC you actually get to see what happens in play in a very meaningful way. Because you are *disclaiming decision making* and *putting it in the hands of an NPC* while playing out the scene you get to experience the fiction for a moment in the same way the other players get to. Because you are *saying what the rules demand* and *following the fiction* you also have no safety valve. You get to have your heart broken. There is nothing that you can do about it while following your principles.

This can be a really intense experience. It is particularly intense when we are exploring problematic material like we so often do in Monsterhearts and Apocalypse World. It is important that we respect each other's emotional boundaries when we do so. The lack of a safety valve can be a pretty potent criticism of this sort of play. My preference is to utilize a variety of emotional safety techniques including setting boundaries, check-ins, and taking breaks. This is part of the reason why I tend to run shorter games and play different games between seasons. 

View attachment Safe Hearts.pdf goes over this stuff in detail.

Here's a few brief excerpts.

This one goes over taking mental and physical breaks to create emotional distance when necessary.



			
				Breathing said:
			
		

> There are a lot of reasons to explore problematic content in play. Most of them are situated at the table - telling stories about this stuff is engaging, rewarding, and exciting. But there’s another reason, one that can take a little longer to hit home. When we play a game like this, we have the opportunity to live through some experiences second-hand. We see a glimpse of what it might be like to inhabit someone else’s skin. It’s a fiction, yes, but the more vulnerable and sincere we are when we play, the greater the likelihood that this fiction contains truth. We can better understand and challenge problematic ideas by playing through them.




This one explains why we do this thing.



			
				Reasons To Play said:
			
		

> There are a lot of reasons to explore problematic content in play. Most of them are situated at the table - telling stories about this stuff is engaging, rewarding, and exciting. But there’s another reason, one that can take a little longer to hit home. When we play a game like this, we have the opportunity to live through some experiences second-hand. We see a glimpse of what it might be like to inhabit someone else’s skin. It’s a fiction, yes, but the more vulnerable and sincere we are when we play, the greater the likelihood that this fiction contains truth. We can better understand and challenge problematic ideas by playing through them.




This set of techniques is also uniquely suited to playing out a particular sort of story - the sort that are fundamentally about characters, the decisions the make, and the resultant fallout. These stories as experienced through play tend to be deeply personal and emotional in nature. We want them to be somewhat messy. It is important that they feel organic and not forced or neatly wrapped up. I happen to have an aesthetic preference for this type of story. Think early Sons of Anarchy, Taboo, John Wick or Breaking Bad.

It is less while suited to deep mythology, grand narrative, epic clashes, Tom Clancying and the like. I have other approaches that I prefer for those types of games.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> the GM can also shape events. Not to invalidate player choice or anything like that, but in order to craft a story. To add resonance to the events in play, and help form a narrative of some sort.



This is true, but again on its own it doesn't differentiate very much. Framing by the GM might fit this description, but that's very different from (say) massaging or nudging at action declaration or resolution so as to produce a pre-planned outcome.

In my personal experience, the GM doesn't need to shape events - beyond framing - in order to _form a narrative of some sort_.



hawkeyefan said:


> I do see your distinction that this is likely discussed ahead of time. But perhaps so is the main story of the campaign? Or perhaps character goals are determined at the time of character creation, and those are incorporated into the game....baked in right from the start.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> To go back to the Tolkien example, the PCs have been given a quest...this is the GM determined content. They must destroy the One Ring, and they know of only one way to do that. How they reach that goal is ultimately up to them....they have many paths to choose from, and many choices to make in how they engage with that "main story". But to simply abandon the quest seems to be a violation of the agreement made at the start of the game.



Speaking roughly, and trying to generalise from my own experience (always risky!), I see three broad approaches, with the difference between them speaking to the concerns of the passages I have quoted:

(1) The player authors a PC who is the heir to a dangerous ring. That would be similar to how, in the game mentioned in the OP, the player authored a PC whose brother is possessed by a balrog.

In this game, the revelation of the backstory about the ring would be a result of action resolution (a bit like the cursed black arrows in the OP game). The decision to take the ring to Mount Doom would itself arise in play - and one could envisage it being a result of failure ("I make a check to persuade Elrond to tell us how it can be destroyed" <rolls dice, fails> "Elrond looks at you gravely - 'It cannot be destroyed unless thrown into the fires in which it was forged"), or being the result of success ("It must have been forged by Sauron in his evil volcano forge, and so I bet we could destroy it by dropping it back into the lava!" <rolls dice for a ring lore/obscure history/whatever check, succeeds> "Yep, Elrond and Gandalf agree that that's the only reliable way to be rid of it"). If another character has built some sort of backstory into his/her PC that relates to redeeming a failure of an ancestor to destroy the ring, the GM might even make the ring's immunity to destruction other than in Mt Doom a part of the _framing_ - as part of setting up a situation where the concerns, backstories and goals of multiple PCs will intersect.

Notice that, on this approach, there is no reason why Gandalf couldn't be a PC, whose exposition of lore is a mixture of successful and failed checks. I have a Gandalf-style loremaster as a PC in my main 4e game.

That is largely how I tend to run my games. It is, more or less, what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has called "scene framing". Another label give to more-or-less this sort of style is "no myth".

I hope you can see, from this, why I had the reaction I did upthread to the presentation of LotR as being - if a transcript of a RPG - an account of a certain sort of approach to GMing. Because I look at LotR and see how it could result from all sorts of different approaches, including the one I've just outlined.


(2) Another way to produce LotR as a RPG experience would be the following. I think this is probably a pretty widespread approach to play, and is implicit in many modules, APs, etc.

The GM decides that the game will be about the PCs taking a cursed ring to Mt Doom. The GM reveals this to the players partly in campaign set-up, and partly (perhaps mostly if very metagame averse) via in-character exposition and "recruitment" by a "significant" NPC (eg Gandalf, and later Elrond; in this approach, those characters are almost certainly NPCs). The players, in order to participate in the game, have to agree (perhaps up front, but more importantly in the play of their PCs) to take the quest.

The GM has a series of events, locations etc written up in advance. The players will go through these more-or-less in the prepared sequence, with some variations depending on the details of play (eg maybe they skip Saruman, although in some systems - eg orthodox D&D - this might then cause issues around having earned enough XP to be the right level to tackle the rest of the adventure). The players generally won't know what is the GM feeding in the pre-written material, and what is the GM responding to the actual events of play. If one of the PCs dies - especially if it's the one prophesied to deliver the ring to Mt Doom - or there is a TPK, it is a problem for the campaign. The story might grind to a halt, or go on some sort of hiatus, or need emergency plugging. Sometimes the GM will fudge or otherwise manipulate outcomes to avoid this problem.

I think this would count as an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] have called "storytelling". It would also count as an instance of what I, in the OP, characterised as "railroading" (while noting that my usage was probably broader than typical). I would certainly regard it as a very GM-driven game.

(3) Similar to (2), but the whole quest situation is agreed to, at the table, up front. The players might even play a role in sorting out the details: PCs are created with the right sorts of hooks and interrelationships to the GM's idea for a quest, geography and history, etc. As the game unfolds, everyone is more-or-less overt and on the same page about where things are going and where they're ultimately going to end up. It's a collective "playing out" of the agreed story.

I don't know what label [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] would give this. I think Fate and Trail of Cthulhu, at least as Campbell is presenting them (I've read but not played them, but Campbell's account of them makes sense to me), fit this picture. I think CoC can easily fit this picture too, although the nature of the agreement is rather high level (the GM keeps the details secret, because part of the fun is being surprised by the precise nature of the mad stuff you discover and the insanity you have to play out for your PC).

I would not count this as "playing to find out": the important stuff is already pre-determined. I wouldn't call it "illusionism", either, because there's no illusion. It's overt. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has used the word "participationism" to describe (roughly) a consensual railroad, but I'm not sure that's quite right for this approach either - that seems more like a useful label for (2) when the table is happy with it.

I don't mind (3) for one-offs - I think it especially suits CoC one-offs, because CoC doesn't have action resolution mechanics that lure the players into making action declarations that can then lead to results that destabilise the agreed scenario. I wouldn't like it for an ongoing game, though.

I think (2) and (3) are not separated by a hard boundary. I think both are fairly different from (1), though.



hawkeyefan said:


> I am talking more at the high level....the general flow of the "main story". I use that term because I am not sure how else to describe it. The point of the campaign. In the specific case of my campaign, there is quite a lot to it, but ultimately it boils down to opposing a specific group of enemies and their goals.
> 
> That goal, which all the players understand and have agreed to, is never far from playing a part of the action taking place.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So in your example of the mage's tower and the beheading, and the lugging of bodies....did you have no sense of where things would go after that? Obviously, the PCs actions helped shape where things went....but did you have no idea? For me, I would have a few possibilities sketched out....then the PCs do what they do, and it takes things in an unexpected direction (they get caught by the watch lugging dead bodies around town)....I don't feel the need to simply handwave or otherwise invalidate these events. I let them play out....and then I decide how they affect where things were going after that. So if the PCs are thrown in jail or if they are coerced by the captain of the guard to perform some task for him or what have you, I proceed with that to see what happens.
> 
> But once that plays out, things are going to head back in some direction I had previously expected. I look at such instances as sidetracks



I hope my (1) to (3) above, in the context of LotR as an RPG, go some way to explaining how I think about the things you mention here.

I don't find the notion of "sidetrack" at all helpful. The action is what it is. There's just one track.

As far as a sense of where things will go - well, given the PCs' beliefs, which include stuff about the dead mage, the naga, and the mage whose tower the action happened in, I'm fairly confident that those elements will continue to figure. There is also, now, the nightwatch, into whose custody two of the PCs have fallen. So they're going to figure too - that will almost certainly be the starting point for our next session.

But what the events will be in which those elements figure - no, I don't have much of a sense of what those will be.

A few sessions ago, the session commenced where the last one had ended - with a PC locked in an iron maiden, having been captured by death cultists in the catacombs beneath the city of Hardby. That session ended with the PC having reached a truce with the chief death priest, and then practically befriending him. The two reached an agreement, which both honoured. The death priest explained the cult's rationale, and the PC ceased trying to kill them all. In the future, it's not beyond question that the PC might even call upon the death cultists as allies!

That's an instance of what I think of under the rubric "playing to find out". And it's not something that I anticipate in advance. It's the result of framing, plus the application of the mechanics to resolve action declarations, and then feeding those outcomes of resolution back into the framing. It means that things unfold in ways that weren't known, or even knowable, at the start of the session. (This is what I take to be meant by the idea of the story being "feral" - though if I've got that wrong [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] can correct me.)



hawkeyefan said:


> do you think that the GM and the players could actually want the same things in play?



Absolutely, but what?

If they all want to play to find out, then they both have to be ready to engage techniques - eg the ones I've talked about - to do that. So no one can pre-author the story.

If they all want to play through a story of destroying a ring in Mt Doom (ie my (3) above) then the situation is completely different. To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure how mechanics figure into that - what are they for? if everyone at the table wants to tell the same story, why are we rolling dice to find out whether or not the story we all want to tell is the one we're "allowed" (by the rules of the game) to actually tell? That's another reason I think CoC is fairly well suited to aproach (3) - the dice don't really get checked except as a device for parcelling out insanity, and that helps contribute to the feeling on the player side that one's sanity is not under one's own control.

But if everyone at the table wants to tell the LotR story, why are we rolling dice? What are they contributing to the experience? I'm sure there's an answer, but I personally don't know what it is.


----------



## Xetheral

Campbell said:


> It is less while suited to deep mythology, grand narrative, epic clashes, Tom Clancying and the like. I have other approaches that I prefer for those types of games.




Out of curiousity, do you consider D&D 5e better suited to the type of game you prefer, or a deep mythology/epic clash sort of style? Or do you consider it to be style-agnostic?



pemerton said:


> This is true, but again on its own it doesn't differentiate very much. Framing by the GM might fit this description, but that's very different from (say) massaging or nudging at action declaration or resolution so as to produce a pre-planned outcome.
> 
> In my personal experience, the GM doesn't need to shape events - beyond framing - in order to _form a narrative of some sort_.




And what if the massaging and nudging has nothing to do with achieving pre-planned outcomes, and everything to do with sheparding and enhancing the narrative that emerges to the tastes and preferences of the players?

I would be inclined to suspect that an emergent narrative tailored on-the-fly to the players (and PCs) in question would be far more reliably _fun_ than a "let the chips fall where they may approach" where the appeal of the emergent narrative will have much greater variability.



pemerton said:


> I don't find the notion of "sidetrack" at all helpful. The action is what it is. There's just one track.




I'm not sure if this is another example of where our styles radically diverge, or if we're just using similar language to refer to different things. It sounds like you're saying that you see no value in having multiple things going on at once in the game--that all you care about is the action in the moment. Is that correct? For me, both as a player and a DM, I highly value "plot-weaving" where there are a multitude of things going on at once, both related to each other and unrelated, pulling the PCs in different directions at once and offering a vibrancy/complexity that one-thing-at-time doesn't seem to provide. (Note that all of the "plots" can still be emergent results of play--I'm not referring to predetermined outcomes or paths, although those can be woven too.)

Out of curiousity, how would you classify the DMing style I've described, where the DM is heavily involved in sheparding the game, there is a "secret backstory" that informs action resolution but isn't set in stone until revealed, and there are no predetermined outcomes or paths? That doesn't seem to fit into any of the categories you and Campbell have suggested, nor is it an obvious hybrid of two categories.


----------



## hawkeyefan

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

I think your scenario 3 is the closest I'd say to the game I play. Although it's far from a great match. 

And in this scenario, there is still plenty to find out through play...it is not a case of all the important bits having already been decided.

Most prominently would be "do they succeed?" Just because the campaign is going to revolve around a quest does not mean that the quest has been completed. You play the game to find out if the PCs can accomplish their task.

Also...how they go about doing so. "How" is such a vital part of the story....all we've established is what they have to do. How they do so is up to them. The players utilize the elements of the fictional world that are established through play to determine how they try to complete their quest.

There is no need for each step of the journey to already be determined by the DM. There's no reason your style of scene framing cannot be put to use in this game. There's no reason why some level of player authorship cannot take place, either prior to the star or during play, if that's what the group would like. 

There's also not a need for the DM to undermine player choice in order to "keep things on track". There is no outcome that the DM is steering for. The players are aware of the ultimate goal, and so they tend to stay relatively aimed in that direction, so to speak. There may still be plenty of room for them to wander a bit...examine other story elements that are tangential to the main quest, but may be important in some other way.


----------



## Manbearcat

This has been a very good thread.  Thanks  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION],  [MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION],  [MENTION=6799753]lowkey13[/MENTION] , and  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] for participating (and for the nature of your participation).  Unfortunately,  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] , and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] , your contributions have been mostly crap.

I don't have time to respond/comment tonight, but I will in the coming days.


----------



## pemerton

Xetheral said:


> And what if the massaging and nudging has nothing to do with achieving pre-planned outcomes, and everything to do with sheparding and enhancing the narrative that emerges to the tastes and preferences of the players?



Then I want to know why we're using a broken game that doesn't do that already!

(Or even - why are we rolling dice at all, if we already know what we want and are going to nudge and massage to get there anyway?)



Xetheral said:


> I would be inclined to suspect that an emergent narrative tailored on-the-fly to the players (and PCs) in question would be far more reliably _fun_ than a "let the chips fall where they may approach" where the appeal of the emergent narrative will have much greater variability.



Again, this makes me think the system is broken.



Xetheral said:


> It sounds like you're saying that you see no value in having multiple things going on at once in the game--that all you care about is the action in the moment. Is that correct?



I don't think so.

In the game mentioned in the OP, here are the things currently "going on": two PCs are in custody; one of those PCs wants to get blood to his naga master; one of those PCs wants the wizard-assassin who killed his brother to help summon his brother's dead spirit; a third PC wants to do right by his employer (the mage who owns the tower) but also to see his former master (killed by a black arrow) avenged; the tower-owning mage is betrothed to the Gynarch of Hardby, but the marriage taking place was contingent on him finding the (now dead) brother for her; the wizard-assassin has stolen a chest of gold intended as a wedding gift and has squirrelled it away; the stolen wedding gifts also included Thelon's Orb, a corrupted and demon-summoning elvish jewel, but the brother PC stole this from the assassin PC and has hidden it in the altar of the Cathedral of Hardby; the same brother PC wants to travel to the Bright Desert to explore a pyramid that may contain clues to the ancient battle between angels and demons that he believes presages what he believes to be the coming apocalypse (of which he's seen signs, including a hellfire preacher whom he wants to track down); and probably other stuff I'm not remembering right now.

My point is that there is no "main plot" vs "side plot" here. There's just _the stuff that is happening in the game_.



Xetheral said:


> Out of curiousity, how would you classify the DMing style I've described, where the DM is heavily involved in sheparding the game, there is a "secret backstory" that informs action resolution but isn't set in stone until revealed, and there are no predetermined outcomes or paths?



Can you say more about "secret backstory" that informs action resolution but isn't set in stone until revealed?

Here's an example. As far as I know it's not at all what you've got in mind, but it would fall under the phrase you use:

A PC casts a spell to charm the king's chamberlain. The GM decides (unilaterally) that the chamberlain has a ring of immunity to mind control, and so tells the player "Your spell doesn't work."​
That is a case of "secret backstory" not being set in stone until revealed. I would normally consider that, though, to be an instance of what (in the OP) I called railroading. A possible exception might be if it is an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has called "refereeing" - but personally I would expect a "referee" GM to make that sort of decision in advance of actually resolving the episode where the PC confronts the chamberlain, so that the players have a chance to learn about the chamberlain's anti-magic ring (eg by scrying, spying, collecting rumours etc).


----------



## Xetheral

pemerton said:


> Xetheral said:
> 
> 
> 
> And what if the massaging and nudging has nothing to do with achieving pre-planned outcomes, and everything to do with sheparding and enhancing the narrative that emerges to the tastes and preferences of the players?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Then I want to know why we're using a broken game that doesn't do that already!
> 
> (Or even - why are we rolling dice at all, if we already know what we want and are going to nudge and massage to get there anyway?)
Click to expand...



In response to your first question, how can a game be designed by a third party to take into account the specific tastes and preferences of the players at your table? As I see it, one of the key advantages of having a DM is the ability to tailor the game to the table.

Your second question makes me think you missed the part where I described the massaging and nudging as "[having] nothing to do with achieving pre-planned outcomes". If you did miss it, I can't emphasize it enough: it's a key part of the question I asked you. If you didn't miss it, then I don't at all understand your second question: if there are no pre-planned outcomes, the dice would seem to be extremely relevant to determining what the outcomes are. 



pemerton said:


> I don't think so.
> 
> ...
> 
> My point is that there is no "main plot" vs "side plot" here. There's just _the stuff that is happening in the game_.




Ok cool--I was misunderstanding what you were saying. Thank you for clarifying.



pemerton said:


> Can you say more about "secret backstory" that informs action resolution but isn't set in stone until revealed?




Happy to.

When I DM I have certain elements of the setting already in mind. For one thing, I use a persistant campaign world, so, at a minimum, the events of previous campaigns are established lore. (New players, of course, will not know this lore.) On top of that, I usually come up with elements of the starting setting for a new campaign, including geography, culture, NPCs the party might come into contact with (both specifically-placed and generic), events likely to occur in the near future, plots the PCs may be interested in, etc. Based on this thread, it is my understanding that you consider all of that to be "secret backstory". I will use that backstory to inform action resolution: if , e.g., a player asks a local to find out what inns are in town, I will answer with the details I already have (possibly filtered through the opinions of the NPC sharing the information).

However, until I share it, the details are flexible. If, at the time the player asks, they're looking for a specific variety of inn, I might well change one of the pre-planned inns (or add one) to provide some or all of what the player is looking for. I will only do this if the following conditons are met:


I think having the type of inn the PC is looking for will make the game more enjoyable for the players as a group.
It's just (or almost) as plausible for that type of inn to be present instead of, or in addition to, the ones I had planned.
I can make the change invisibly.

If what the PC is looking for is plausible but unlikely, I might announce probabilities and then roll percentile dice to determine if it is present. (What I will _never_ do is make the presence of the desired type of inn depend on player's check to gather information.)

If instead what the player is looking for is already on my list, I'm not going to remove it from the list to frustrate the player. Exception: if the player is trying to take the game in a direction the other players are trying to avoid and wouldn't enjoy, then I _might_ remove it from the list, depending heavily on the specifics at the table at the time. For example, if the player of a racist PC is looking for an inn catering to Elven patrons specifically to go make trouble in order to hog the spotlight, _then_ I might remove an Elven inn from a premade list (and have an OOC talk with the player after the game). Otherwise, I don't make changes to try to thwart the PCs.



pemerton said:


> Here's an example. As far as I know it's not at all what you've got in mind, but it would fall under the phrase you use:
> 
> A PC casts a spell to charm the king's chamberlain. The GM decides (unilaterally) that the chamberlain has a ring of immunity to mind control, and so tells the player "Your spell doesn't work."​
> That is a case of "secret backstory" not being set in stone until revealed. I would normally consider that, though, to be an instance of what (in the OP) I called railroading. A possible exception might be if it is an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has called "refereeing" - but personally I would expect a "referee" GM to make that sort of decision in advance of actually resolving the episode where the PC confronts the chamberlain, so that the players have a chance to learn about the chamberlain's anti-magic ring (eg by scrying, spying, collecting rumours etc).




I would also consider that railroading, but since I don't make changes to the "secret backstory" to thwart the PCs, your example can't arise under my style.

If the presence of the ring was pre-planned, instead I'd make a big deal of the fact that the spell failed, give a vivid description of what the failure felt like to the caster and how unusual it was (or how familiar if the PC had encountered such rings before), and let the players decide if they want to further investigate the cause and/or the significance of the fact that the chamberlain has such a ring.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Minor epiphany, here:



Xetheral said:


> In response to your first question, how can a game be designed by a third party to take into account the specific tastes and preferences of the players at your table?



 One obvious way is to have a market.  Many game designers produce many, many games, each tailored to a very specific set of tastes and preferences.  Gamers participate in the market, buying the game that's best for them, then find groups playing that specific game.  If a group's collective tastes change over time, they change to playing a different game.

Game designers have plenty to do.

Now that I think of it, this would be the ideal state of affairs under the Forge's theories.  And, the Forge were, of course, indie game designers.  



> As I see it, one of the key advantages of having a DM is the ability to tailor the game to the table.




Or, of course, you could have a single game, played universally, that is so bad that the DM /must/ change or ignore the system to run it at all, so will naturally tailor the experience to the specific tastes and preference of his table ("bad rules make good games").

Gamers all pay the same game so there's no inefficiency of evaluating and learning many different games, instead gamers join groups based on commonly-held preferences and tastes.  If those tastes change, the DM just caters to the new tastes.  



Neither of those ideals sound ideal, to me, nor do hypothetical 'middle road' compromises between them.  ;(


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But if everyone at the table wants to tell the LotR story, why are we rolling dice? What are they contributing to the experience? I'm sure there's an answer, but I personally don't know what it is.



What if everyone at the table just wants to tell *a* story (which the DM may or may not have pre-determined to a large extent) but won't know what it is until it's been played through?  The underlying reason for play - from the players' side - then becomes untangling the mystery of the story, while allowing for diversions and unrelated adventuring along the way as well.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Can you say more about "secret backstory" that informs action resolution but isn't set in stone until revealed?
> 
> Here's an example. As far as I know it's not at all what you've got in mind, but it would fall under the phrase you use:
> 
> A PC casts a spell to charm the king's chamberlain. The GM decides (unilaterally) that the chamberlain has a ring of immunity to mind control, and so tells the player "Your spell doesn't work."​
> That is a case of "secret backstory" not being set in stone until revealed. I would normally consider that, though, to be an instance of what (in the OP) I called railroading. A possible exception might be if it is an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has called "refereeing" - but personally I would expect a "referee" GM to make that sort of decision in advance of actually resolving the episode where the PC confronts the chamberlain, so that the players have a chance to learn about the chamberlain's anti-magic ring (eg by scrying, spying, collecting rumours etc).



Secret backstory decisions are by their very nature made in advance - or should be, at least.  If the chamberlain is in fact an undercover spy for the Corvites then (in theory) the DM already knows this and (again in theory) knows what defenses said chamberlain might have going for him that a more ordinary chamberlain might not.

But if the chamberlain's just a chamberlain then giving him an immunity on the fly to just what the PC is trying at that moment is, I agree, very bad form.

Then again, the DM simply saying "your spell doesn't work" could just be the narration of a made save.  Only after repeated attempts would the caster realize (I hope!) there's more to this guy than meets the eye.

Lan-"NOOOoooooooo, not the chamberlain again!"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> Or, of course, you could have a single game, played universally, that is so bad that the DM /must/ change or ignore the system to run it at all, so will naturally tailor the experience to the specific tastes and preference of his table ("bad rules make good games").
> 
> Gamers all pay the same game so there's no inefficiency of evaluating and learning many different games, instead gamers join groups based on commonly-held preferences and tastes.  If those tastes change, the DM just caters to the new tastes.
> 
> Neither of those ideals sound ideal ...



::shrug:: This one sounds fine to me, provided that said "single game" is flexible enough to withstand some kitbashing and remain (or become) playable.  Also, it's always possible that the "single game" might not be so bad as to be completely unplayable as written, and thus a DM could run it stock if that's what worked for her and her group.  1e was this.  5e is trying to be.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> This has been a very good thread.



Agreed.  One of the better ones of late.  







> Unfortunately,  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] , and   [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] , your contributions have been mostly crap.



Disagreed.  Without these three (along with the rest of you) saying what they've had to say this thread wouldn't have been nearly as interesting, or as much fun.  After all, it's not much of a debate if everyone's on the same side. 

Lan-"and without [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] we'd not have had the thread at all: he did, after all, start it"-efan


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> ::shrug:: This one sounds fine to me, provided that said "single game" is flexible enough to withstand some kitbashing and remain (or become) playable.



 /Requires/ some kitbashing to 'become playable,' was part of the premise, yes.  

And, yes, single game.  One game to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them.



> Also, it's always possible that the "single game" might not be so bad as to be completely unplayable as written



 Nod.  It is an ideal, not a practical formula:  not playable as written, so every DM must modify it, so every DM perforce runs a game customized to ideally suit his group.

The extreme opposite of the huge marketplace of games each of which is perfect for an extremely narrow audience - one game that's perfect for no one.  

Like the old specialist/generalist joke.



> , and thus a DM could run it stock if that's what worked for her and her group.  1e was this.  5e is trying to be.



 Sort of.  If you talk to 12 different long-time D&Ders who say they ran 1e 'stock' ('straight,' by-the-book, whatever), and ask them to describe it in detail, they'll tell you about 13 different systems.  Because 1e was such a glorious mess that you couldn't run it that way, not really, not because it might not theoretically work, but because you'd inevitably mis-interpret some of it, or miss bits of it, or toss out large sections without thinking; and, because it was also so close to the Ideal 'bad system that makes good games' that it was very, very often heavily modified (which it encouraged), and groups played with those mods so long that individuals now remember them as the 'real' by-the-book rules.  

And, yes, where 1e was trying to be a more complete 0e (which had tried to be a fantasy wargame and been an RPG instead) and became the above more or less by accident, 5e is trying to be that* _on purpose_. 

AFAICT, it's succeeding.







* and, eventually, a bit more, for the sake of B/X, 3.x & 4e fans


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> After all, it's not much of a debate if everyone's on the same side.




Just using this as a jumping on point because I have something to say.

I do not think it is particularly helpful to think of this discussion in terms of a debate with sides.  As I tend to view things it is often counterproductive and leads us down roads where we engage in points and counterpoints, rather than meaningfully chewing over the underlying ideas, really thinking them over, and responding with how we view things.

One of the hardest parts of being involved in these sorts of discussions on the internet is the pervasive culture of debate. In my own posts I try to do a couple of things that I believe help to counter the usual effects of internet debate culture.


I do not engage in multiquote point by point analysis. I believe this helps me to stay focused on engaging ideas over engaging in debate. It also creates some emotional distance between what I am responding to and the ideas I am putting forward.
 Whenever possible I try to highlight differences of opinion between myself and those I broadly agree with in some ways. Often I find these are the most fruitful avenues to go down. As an example, in this thread I have highlighted how I am not always particularly interested in constant conflict and escalation in the "go to the action" variety. In the future I shall strive to do this more.
 When I engage in lines of inquiry I try to do so with genuine interest. I really want to know what people have to say about things. That is no guarantee that I will necesarily agree with the things they have to say, but I will strive to engage with what they have to say. I do not always succeed in this endeavor.
 When people say things that I find particularly irksome I try to take some time to chew on it until there is some emotional distance. This is a constant struggle for me. My passions runs deep and my temper often gets the best of me.
 I strive to only speak for myself and not for others. This can sometimes be very difficult. There are posters on this board I regard as friends on some level, and I am deeply protective of my friends. We are still not like the same person though and often see things very differently.

I am not saying that you have to stop engaging in debate and move more towards analysis. It's my favored approach to discussion and scholarship of all sorts, but I cannot tell anyone how or what they should think. I can only say the things that I think in a way that I believe will shed light on certain things. I mainly just wanted everyone to know where I am coming from and the sort of approach I will be striving for in the future.

There are many lines of discussion that I feel are worth responding to, but I am unsure that within this thread is necessarily the best place to do so. Later today I will have some additional meta commentary that I believe will help build some understanding of where I specifically am coming from.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> What if everyone at the table just wants to tell *a* story (which the DM may or may not have pre-determined to a large extent) but won't know what it is until it's been played through?  The underlying reason for play - from the players' side - then becomes untangling the mystery of the story, while allowing for diversions and unrelated adventuring along the way as well.



If the GM hasn't pre-determined the story, then how do you envisage the players (via their PCs) untangling the mystery?

(I have my own answer to this question, that I talked about upthread, but I'm curious what yours is.)


----------



## pemerton

Xetheral said:


> if there are no pre-planned outcomes, the dice would seem to be extremely relevant to determining what the outcomes are.



You referred to "sheparding and enhancing the narrative that emerges to the tastes and preferences of the players". That does imply something pre-planned, or known in advance. Hence my question about the roll of the dice: if there is something that will suite the tastes/preferences of the players; and if rolling the dice isn't going to yield it; then why roll the dice?

I think you've got something in mind in relation to this bit of the discussion that's eluding me.



Xetheral said:


> how can a game be designed by a third party to take into account the specific tastes and preferences of the players at your table? As I see it, one of the key advantages of having a DM is the ability to tailor the game to the table.



I'm not sure what you mean here by "the game".

If you mean _particular story elements_ eg noble paladins, sneaky hobbits, etc - well, yes, the participants at the table add this stuff in. (Different games approach this in different ways: Burning Wheel, which has a small publishing footprint, includes elaborate rules for player and PC generation of this content; 4e D&D, which has a big publishing footprint, publishes volumes and volumes of list entries - monsters, classes, items, etc - which the participants pick and choose from.)

But a 3rd party absolutely can design a game which, when played according to the published rules, will deliver experiences as promised. If the promise is "engaging story", then what is needed are mechanics that reliably transmit the story/thematic concerns of the participants _into_ the moments of action resolution, and then back out again.

1st ed AD&D is not really such a game, without a fair bit of stretching and departure from default assumptions (Oriental Adventures is an example of such sort of stretching). This is because, approached in the default way, concerns of story/theme don't factor into either framing (which in AD&D is a mixture of random tables and GM pre-authorship of the dungeon) or resolution (which is a mixture of impartial adjudication of fictional positioning, and random rolls).

But there are plenty of games that do do this - ie that do incorporate story/theme into framing and resolution, and then deliver it back out as part of the consequences of resolution.

This sort of game doesn't require massaging or nudging to produce what the particpants have asked for (in virtue of what they feed into it).



Xetheral said:


> I use a persistant campaign world, so, at a minimum, the events of previous campaigns are established lore. (New players, of course, will not know this lore.) On top of that, I usually come up with elements of the starting setting for a new campaign, including geography, culture, NPCs the party might come into contact with (both specifically-placed and generic), events likely to occur in the near future, plots the PCs may be interested in, etc. Based on this thread, it is my understanding that you consider all of that to be "secret backstory". I will use that backstory to inform action resolution: if , e.g., a player asks a local to find out what inns are in town, I will answer with the details I already have (possibly filtered through the opinions of the NPC sharing the information).



A PC asking a local about inns sounds more like etablishing colour, or maybe part of framing, rather than an action declaration.

Unless the player wants his/her PC to be at the inn for a certain reason (eg "I'm looking for an inn that the smugglers hang out in - I ask subtle questions of locals, approach my contacts in the thieves' guld, etc"). That's the point at which "secret backstory" as a factor in resolution becomes significant.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> If the GM hasn't pre-determined the story, then how do you envisage the players (via their PCs) untangling the mystery?



I'm allowing for the DM to make some of it up as she goes along (though still ahead of time) to take into account:

a) things that arise during play that she hadn't foreseen or thought of but that fit in well, and-or
b) new ideas or twists she might come up with after the campaign begins and later integrate, and-or
c) pre-visioned story bits that just don't work out in play, or are intentionally or otherwise ignored by the PCs and thus dropped

Using my own current campaign as an example: it's been running for 9 years now and needless to say (well, I certanly hope it's needless to say!) I've had some new ideas for the storyboard during those 9 years, some of which I've incorporated.  Also, the players have come up with ideas of their own that have fit in well* and also been incorporated.  

* - some while ago (2010?) one of my players wasn't too pleased with a particular adventure; the look on his face when I told him that he was in fact responsible for its existence due to him saying about half a year earlier what a neat idea such an adventure would be was priceless!

I'm up to about version 11 of the master storyboard; which slowly morphs over time as adventures get completed, things happen in the game world (not least of which is the rising average character level, which makes some of the lower-level adventure ideas redundant), and things happen in the real world (e.g. lots of changes when I dropped down from running two parties a week to one).  That said, I've still no real idea of how much of that storyboard will actually make it to play.

What the storyboard is useful for is long-term planning, including trying to guess about how long the campaign has left in it (in other words, when do I need to start worrying about designing the next one).  For shorter-term planning it helps me know what adventures I need to dream up as opposed to what I can squeeze out of some canned module, and-or what sort of things I need to keep my eye out for when reading over a canned module.  An example of this: since day 1 (i.e. before March 2008) there's been an adventure on the storyboard regarding dealing with a lich named Saith, but it wasn't until just a year or two ago when I got a copy of Dark Tower that I realized this module would be perfect for that storyboarded adventure.  They're in it now.

And there's still things about the basic setting they don't know, though various more or less obscure hints have been laid down over time.

So yes, the story is more or less pre-determined; but the farther out it is from play the more malleable some elements of it remain.  Some elements and mysteries, however, have been baked in all along and aren't going anywhere.

What I've no idea at all about is what happens if we ever run off the end of the storyboard.  Fortunately as far as I can tell I've still got a few years at least to think about this.  It's always possible that by then I'll have had my fill of this world/campaign and-or will have had some bright idea for another; it's also quite possible I just keep dreaming up adventures for the current one, or even that we start a different storyline in the same world.

Lan-"it's also possible that at some point the PCs manage to break the world (and end the campaign) instead of save it; I don't think the players realize how close they've come now and then over the years"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> A PC asking a local about inns sounds more like etablishing colour, or maybe part of framing, rather than an action declaration.



Terminology again...a PC doing anything at all - even something as banal as asking where an inn might be found - is an action declaration as far as I'd ever use the term: it's something that the DM has to respond to.

It could in this case be an extremely innocuous or almost irrelevant action declaration, but that's not the point; and for all we know maybe the PC wants to know where the inn is so she can burn it down.

Lan-"smoke on the water"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Terminology again...a PC doing anything at all - even something as banal as asking where an inn might be found - is an action declaration as far as I'd ever use the term: it's something that the DM has to respond to.
> 
> It could in this case be an extremely innocuous or almost irrelevant action declaration, but that's not the point; and for all we know maybe the PC wants to know where the inn is so she can burn it down.



But this is what I'm getting at when I'm saying that [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] aren't always making it clear to me what they are describing, when they ask "Would pemerton characterise such-and-such as railroading? Or what sort of label would I put on the approach?"

When the action is described only in in-fiction terms (a PC looks for an inn), who can tell. To judge what sort of dynamic and approach is going on at the table, we need to be told about the action in real-world terms: what does the player want for his/her PC, and why? And where did that come from?

For instance, if the PC is asking about an inn because _a NPC, conceived of entirely by the GM, dropped a hint or clue about an inn_, then we have a GM-driven game. The player seems to be searching for the next bit of plot.

If the PC is asking about an inn because the game assumes that the PCs need somewhere to eat, sleep, etc, then it's just colour - it's establishing the necessary fiction around the PC's living conditions, and maybe involves deducting a few gp from an equipment list. But nothing is actually _happening_ in the game.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But this is what I'm getting at when I'm saying that [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] aren't always making it clear to me what they are describing, when they ask "Would pemerton characterise such-and-such as railroading? Or what sort of label would I put on the approach?"
> 
> When the action is described only in in-fiction terms (a PC looks for an inn), who can tell. To judge what sort of dynamic and approach is going on at the table, we need to be told about the action in real-world terms: what does the player want for his/her PC, and why? And where did that come from?



Why, at that point, does it matter?  She's asking about an inn.  DM gives an answer.  Doesn't seem worthy of any further analysis, really. 



> For instance, if the PC is asking about an inn because _a NPC, conceived of entirely by the GM, dropped a hint or clue about an inn_, then we have a GM-driven game. The player seems to be searching for the next bit of plot.



Do we?  Taking it one step further, the DM's baited the hook but does the PC (or meta, the player) feel compelled that she must take the bait in order to keep the game going, or can she in fact choose to ignore it (but in this case has intentionally chosen not to)?  The latter doesn't sound very DM-driven to me.



> If the PC is asking about an inn because the game assumes that the PCs need somewhere to eat, sleep, etc, then it's just colour - it's establishing the necessary fiction around the PC's living conditions, and maybe involves deducting a few gp from an equipment list. But nothing is actually _happening_ in the game.



Depends on one's definition of "nothing", I suppose.  To some, this sort of thing is very much an important part of the game particularly at low to very low levels when both the players and their characters are trying to establish immersion and-or a toehold in the game world.

And what if she's asking about an inn for a completely different reason than the DM might have ever envisioned e.g. to burn it down, rob it, buy it, whatever?

Lan-"and remember the third rule of DMing: no adventuring party is capable of entering any city, town, village or hamlet without at some point making a complete mess of it"-efan


----------



## Manbearcat

@_*Lanefan*_ ,   @_*hawkeyefan*_,  @_*Xetheral*_ , I've broken down the Dungeon World play excerpt  in both its original mechanical state of Dungeon World  and transliterated it how it would work out procedurally in B/X .  Its original incarnation of Dungeon World would be "Story Now/Play to Find Out".  B/X would obviously be "Gamist/Refereeing."  

I'm now going to start the process of transliterating it to 5e using a Storyteller agenda and Illusionism techniques so we can compare and contrast.  Going to do this piecemeal so we can focus like a laser beam.  For ease of reference, here are a few initial parts of the conversation of play for that excerpt.  I'll get to the 5e procedures (using a Storyteller agenda, which is my takeaway from the 5e texts) after.

* Disclaimer - I am not saying here that 5e imposes either a Storyteller agenda or Illusionism techniques.  But it certainly plays very nice with both (explicitly and implicitly).

Alright, here we go.



> ELF
> 
> After I've regeared, I'll pocket the coins and place the choker around my neck, feeling the welcomed heat in my breast. I'll then make sure all of my supplies are in order, light the torch, and warily head up the path that leads out of this chamber, a silent prayer on my lips that it might lead to somewhere hospitable.






> GM
> 
> The path moves upward and switches back a few times at a fairly steep grade. Soon you hear the sounds of spoken language echoing off the tunnel halls. Goblin tongue. Something about "King Ornrak not letting anyone leave...going to starve them all...tired of eating cave-shrooms...soon they're going to be sifting through their own dung or eating their dead...the starved dead...humans with their goats haven't been here for weeks." Someone answers with a "shut up and get rid of the garbage."
> 
> The sound of a portcullis raising. A "Hurrrrrk..." and then a weird liquid sounding shuffling from further in. The first goblin calls back to the second "you say something?" A muffled sound and then wet, squishing sounds.
> 
> You round a final bend and as your torch-light plays off the stone walls of the narrow path, it exposes the edge of the raised portcullis you heard prior. Fresh blood emerges from somewhere beyond your line of sight...around that final bend...oozing down toward you with the steep descent of the path (ascent for you).
> 
> All is still save your dancing torchlight and the advance of the blood toward your feet.






> ELF
> 
> I don't want to step in that blood and leave tracks everywhere, possibly incriminating myself as well. The goblins surely have light sources in the chambers ahead of me. Assuming the tunnel is just a few feet wide here, maybe 3-4 feet like a normal hallway, I'm going to do a Spider Man thing and leap up and wedge myself with my legs, spread eagle. I'll sheathe my sword, put my torch in my mouth and use my hands to carefully move forward while wedged. When I get around the bend and can see the raised portcullis and into the room I'm going to take the torch from my mouth and throw it into the room, hoping to attract the attention of whatever is in there. With my legs wedged and my hands freed, I'm going to rip my bow from my back and string an arrow, training it on my line of sight into the center of the room and my torch.
> 
> What happens and what do I see?






> GM
> 
> 1) A dimly lit room with a worked stone floor, a few torches in recesses in the walls, and refuse-filled barrels.
> 
> 2) The grisly remains of the two goblins you heard talking. They appear to have been engulfed violently with random appendages severed in the consumption. The legs of the goblin who raised the portcullis are the source of the blood that was seeping down the path.
> 
> 3) Puddles of transparent, pinkish goo near where both of the remains lie.
> 
> For a moment, all is still and quiet as you survey from your wedged perch between the walls. Then, suddenly a grotesque creatures darts into view; a pile of amorphous pink flesh with an impossibly large mouth, 3 eyes aligned vertically above the mouth and tentacles strewn about the mess of a "face". Something of a "tail" trails the bulbous mass.
> 
> Its clearly an "advanced" version of what you've seen before. A rancid smell accompanies the nastiness it secretes. It skirts the torch you threw, a weird, sliding, squishing locomotion aided by the whip of the tail and the tentacles.






> ELF
> 
> I don't waste any time. My strung arrow flies free.




1)  I'm going to say that the PC is a level 7 Elven Eldritch Knight (that is pretty close to the equivalent of a level 3 or 4 Dungeon World Elven Arcane Duelist).  He won't have Prestidigitation (he didn't in DW) so he would have to be concerned about getting the blood on his boots (the incrimination aspect, the stealth penalty, and the obvious tracks).

2)  So, as GM, I've rendered the Earthmaw Basement dungeon in the typical way that happens in D&D.  I've mapped it, stocked it with denizens and stuff, and I have some tables for Random Encounters.  Lets say I've initially decided that I'm going to roll Random Encounters once every 30 minutes and if some noticeable event occurs (such as loud combat or structural failure of the complex).  The player decides to go with exploring at the Normal Pace of 30 sq/minute.  My map tells me that its going to probably end up with maybe one or two Random Encounter check in the course of playing through the Earthmaw Basement dungeon.

3)  Alright so the player wants to do this Spider Man move.  They're looking to (a) avoid the blood, (b) maybe get Advantage on the subsequent Stealth roll against the Advanced Aboleth Spawn.  

What do I want?  Broadly, I want things to go pear-shaped to at least generate some excitement and maybe to hopefully further complicate the future parley with the Hobgoblin King!

So, because of this, despite the Elf having a 20 Dex and being trained in Acrobatics (and this being an archetypal shtick), I'm going to not "say yes" to this action declaration.  I'm going to say there is an uncertain outcome.  Further, I'm going to make the DC a bit more difficult than I otherwise would (lets say DC 15 - Moderate - when maybe it should just be 12 - Slightly more than Easy)!  But the player doesn't know the DC as I keep that to myself.

4)  I give the news to the player and the player rolls their Dex (Acrobatics) check + 8.  He gets a 7!  Right on the DC that I...artificially inflated...I mean set!  

However...my response?

"Oh man, so close!  Just missed!  Alright...you get out of the way of the flow of blood and shimmy up the wall!  However...as you pull your exchange your sword for your bow and draw back an arrow, one of your feet almost slides free.  In your recovery, the arrow shaft rattles against your bow, making a bit of racket...

...though you cannot see it yet, something makes a slippery...shifting sound in the chamber before you"

This bit of Illusionism does 2 things.  It (a) sets up the PC to have Disadvantage on Dex - Stealth and (b) allows me to to roll Wisdom - Perception (giving further ability for Illusionism) rather than using Passive Perception (because it is now a contest with the Aboleth aware of a possible prey item/foe and actively scanning).



Let us stop there.  What do you think so far?  If you would, contrast against the initial Dungeon World procedures/play resolution and the B/X transliteration.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> When the action is described only in in-fiction terms (a PC looks for an inn), who can tell. To judge what sort of dynamic and approach is going on at the table, we need to be told about the action in real-world terms: what does the player want for his/her PC, and why? And where did that come from?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Why, at that point, does it matter? She's asking about an inn. DM gives an answer. Doesn't seem worthy of any further analysis, really.
Click to expand...


Well, it matters if you're trying to answer questions like _is this railroading?_ or _does this game involve a high level of player agency?_

Those are questions about the way that the content of the shared fiction is being created. So you can't answer them without having information about how the content of the shared fiction is being created. And you can't get that information simply from a description of in-fiction events.



Lanefan said:


> Taking it one step further, the DM's baited the hook but does the PC (or meta, the player) feel compelled that she must take the bait in order to keep the game going, or can she in fact choose to ignore it (but in this case has intentionally chosen not to)? The latter doesn't sound very DM-driven to me.



Well, if I heard a game described in that way I would form the working hypothesis that it is completely GM-driven: that play is driven by the GM "baiting hooks" and the players following them.

I can envisage circumstances in which tht working hypothesis might be refuted; the fact that the GM baited two hooks wouldn't be one of them, though.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If the PC is asking about an inn because the game assumes that the PCs need somewhere to eat, sleep, etc, then it's just colour - it's establishing the necessary fiction around the PC's living conditions, and maybe involves deducting a few gp from an equipment list. But nothing is actually happening in the game.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Depends on one's definition of "nothing", I suppose. To some, this sort of thing is very much an important part of the game particularly at low to very low levels when both the players and their characters are trying to establish immersion and-or a toehold in the game world.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> no adventuring party is capable of entering any city, town, village or hamlet without at some point making a complete mess of it
Click to expand...


Why do the PCs need to establish "immersion" in the world? They're of it, aren't they?

This notion, especially in conjunction with the last quoted passage, suggests an idea of the PCs as "id", as outsiders who have nothing but the most basic drives. And the GM's job is to somehow discipline or channel that. It's a conception of RPGing that seems very widespread (eg DM of the Rings and Darths and Droids both lampoon it). I tend to see it as one consequence and manifestion of GM-driven RPGing.

There are all sorts of ways for the _players_ to establish immersion and a toe-hold within the world than looking for an inn.



Lanefan said:


> And what if she's asking about an inn for a completely different reason than the DM might have ever envisioned e.g. to burn it down, rob it, buy it, whatever?



Why wouldn't the player just tell the GM this? That seems like the most effective way to get the fiction to move in the direction one wants it to.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Well, it matters if you're trying to answer questions like _is this railroading?_ or _does this game involve a high level of player agency?_
> 
> Those are questions about the way that the content of the shared fiction is being created. So you can't answer them without having information about how the content of the shared fiction is being created. And you can't get that information simply from a description of in-fiction events.
> 
> Well, if I heard a game described in that way I would form the working hypothesis that it is completely GM-driven: that play is driven by the GM "baiting hooks" and the players following them.
> 
> I can envisage circumstances in which tht working hypothesis might be refuted; the fact that the GM baited two hooks wouldn't be one of them, though.



So it's GM-driven if the players/PCs can choose whether to follow the hooks or not and it's also GM-driven if the players/PCs have to follow the hooks with no choice?

Turn it around: instead of asking about inns let's say our hypothetical PC is in town looking to see if there's any adventuring needs doing, that her party can handle.  She inquires with the local militia, maybe the MU's guild, one or two other places...and it would seem by your definitions that _any answer the GM provides_ is going to make it a GM-driven game.  This seems overly harsh, given as you seem to equate "GM-driven" with a lesser experience or poorer game.



> Why do the PCs need to establish "immersion" in the world? They're of it, aren't they?



Players establish immersion, PCs gain a toehold.  Didn't type that the most clearly in previous post.



> Why wouldn't the player just tell the GM this? That seems like the most effective way to get the fiction to move in the direction one wants it to.



Strange to see you asking this, when you've been advocating all along for the GM to be able to be surprised by what transpires. 

Maybe in this case the player doesn't want anyone else to know the fiction's moving in a particular direction until it's already got there.  Maybe she's looking to surprise everyone with her seemingly-out-of-the-blue purchase/stickup/torching of the inn (or with whatever other action she's got in mind - this particular example isn't the best for what I'm getting at).

Anyway...got a session to run...

Lanefan


----------



## hawkeyefan

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]

I don't have the time to give your post the reply that I think it deserves. But I will make a few points as I see them. I am sure I am missing something because I don't play Dungeon World, and I'm only vaguely familiar with its mechanics; your references to different types of moves aren't all that clear to me, why do some have names like Defy Danger and others are just described as hard moves? Is it a player move versus GM move? I'm not sure....and I'd rather not big things down with an explanation of all the rules.

What I get out of the DW description is that the dice determine the success or failure of a given action, and the GM then uses judgment to determine the results. 

In your 5E description, I feel you're assuming manipulation of the roll results. And I see how one system may lend itself to such abuse more than the other, but I don't really see how the DW example avoids GM driven material. 

Perhaps I am mixing different parts of the discussion?

The way i see the scenario, this little sojourn into Earthmaw is a kind of "side trek" (sorry [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]!)...meaning it happened as a result of the PC falling into a crevasse and then into an underground river. You also said this was all determined on the fly. 

So the story of the hobgoblin kingdom and the PCs' relationship (and their kingdom/home?) is still there in the background. A kind of main story that looms over everything. And this "side trek" is turning out to be more than that because how the PC handles the situation could impact things in the larger conflict. 

That's the situation as I understand it. If I'm wrong let me know.

I see a GM presence in the scenario either way. It seems more a question of how. Let's set aside actual manipulation of roll results and the like. The GM in DW is determining this scenario on the fly, and yet it dovetails into the "larger" story. How is that not nudging things toward what the GM wants? 

I think that perhaps the crux of the matter comes down to a question of the Outcome. I don't think that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] or [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] or myself are abdicating a predetermined outcome. I think that we all expect the actual outcome to depend on how the PCs deal with what comes their way.

Which is why I think your example of 5E play was a bit of an exaggeration. Yes, the DM can set a DC and keep that DC secret and then twist the die result to whatever he wants. In this case the implication is a nudge towards conflict with the hobgoblins. This could happen of course, but without good reason I don't think it's a good idea, nor do I think anyone is saying that would be the way to handle it.

I think instead, when those of us in the thread are advocating for GM driven material, what we're talking about is that "main plot" of the relationship with the hobgoblin kingdom. That's the main focus of the campaign/adventure/what have you, and so we try to keep things from moving too far afield from that. That's what the GM has worked on, that's how things have taken shape in the game, and so on. 

It doesn't mean that the GM has decided the outcome must be war, or anything quite so strict.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan, right on the cusp of bed, so let me try to clarify right quick.



hawkeyefan said:


> [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]
> 
> I don't have the time to give your post the reply that I think it deserves. But I will make a few points as I see them. I am sure I am missing something because I don't play Dungeon World, and I'm only vaguely familiar with its mechanics; your references to different types of moves aren't all that clear to me, why do some have names like Defy Danger and others are just described as hard moves? Is it a player move versus GM move? I'm not sure....and I'd rather not big things down with an explanation of all the rules.
> 
> What I get out of the DW description is that the dice determine the success or failure of a given action, and the GM then uses judgment to determine the results.




So there is a suite of Basic Moves common to all player characters.  Defy Danger is one of them.  It is the equivalent of a D&D Saving Throw.  You roll dice when you *act despite an imminent threat* or *suffer a calamity* and we need to find out what happens.  

Player Character moves all have names (whether that be specific to your Class/Race playbook or just a Basic Move).  For instance, the Barbarian has:



> *Herculean Appetites*
> Others may content themselves with just a taste of wine, or dominion over a servant or two, but you want more. Choose two appetites. While pursuing one of your appetites if you would roll for a move, instead of rolling 2d6 you roll 1d6+1d8. If the d6 is the higher die of the pair, the GM will also introduce a complication or danger that comes about due to your heedless pursuits.
> 
> Pure destruction
> Power over others
> Mortal pleasures
> Conquest
> Riches and property
> Fame and glory




These moves occur when their trigger (the bolded is Defy Danger's trigger) happens within the fiction.

GM moves don't have names.  We just make soft moves (these are (a) scene openers or (b) triggered on a 7-9 PC move outcome) and hard moves (triggered on a 6- PC move outcome or when a player, through their PC, ignores or doesn't handle a soft move where I've telegraphed some impending threat or danger).  Soft moves present hard choices, offer hard bargains, or put folks in tough spots.  Hard moves are immediate and irrevocable consequences (like falling from the sled into the glacial crevasse's icy river and waking up in the pitch-black basement of Earthmaw and freezing to death...with terrible denizens about).

And the GM doesn't use judgement in the classical sense.  This gets into the "principled GMing" that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] spoke of.  Dungeon World GMing has a very specific Agenda and a system of Principles to guide GMs in their moves.  I've spoken about them above (as has Campbell), but have a look here here if you want to have a refresher.  It is short and light reading.



> In your 5E description, I feel you're assuming manipulation of the roll results. And I see how one system may lend itself to such abuse more than the other, but I don't really see how the DW example avoids GM driven material.




The reason why you feel I'm assuming manipulation of the roll results in the 5e description is because I intended it that way (I said as much in that post).  I'm trying to provide a contrast between Storyteller GMing which features Illusionism, classic Refereeing, and Principled "Story Now"/"Play to Find out" GMing.  We've already covered the latter two with B/X and DW so I'm using 5e for Storyteller GMing which features Illusionism.

I also caveated that I know 5e doesn't have to be GMed in this fashion (I know for a fact that it doesn't have to be as when I fill in for another GM every 6 weeks or so, I don't run it that way).  It just "plays nice with it" due to a number of features of the system (and its general GM mandate).



> The way i see the scenario, this little sojourn into Earthmaw is a kind of "side trek" (sorry [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]!)...meaning it happened as a result of the PC falling into a crevasse and then into an underground river. You also said this was all determined on the fly.
> 
> So the story of the hobgoblin kingdom and the PCs' relationship (and their kingdom/home?) is still there in the background. A kind of main story that looms over everything. And this "side trek" is turning out to be more than that because how the PC handles the situation could impact things in the larger conflict.
> 
> That's the situation as I understand it. If I'm wrong let me know.




I'm trying to stay away from the big picture stuff and just focus on the nuts and bolts of the play excerpt (not how we got to that point in the overall game).  The actual play conversation and how player action declarations > resolution mechanics > and GMing get us from "here" to "there."

But if you want further context for things, here you go:

There is no side trek here.  I was forced to make a Hard Move due to a Scout move (one of the Undertake a Perilous Journey roles) that was a 6 or less.  I followed the play agenda, the fiction, and my principles and introduced the glacial crevasse hazard where the sled was falling in.  The Hard Move I made would fall under the rubric of "use a monster, danger, or location move."

This snowballed in a dramatic way.  The Elf PC helped save everyone else, (the sled was pulled out of the hazard), but he ultimately fell into the drink and emptyied out in Earthmaw's basement (after a Defy Danger - Strength move resulted in another 6-).  

This sort of thing isn't a "side quest".  This is just the sort of "play to find out" snowballing of events that generates emergent story in Powered By the Apocalypse games.  The PCs were going to Earthmaw (a place that was generated on the play map as a result of a 10+ Spout Lore move by this same Elf PC) to Resupply (a move), to attempt to locate some refugee families from the ruined settlement of World's End Bluff, and to hopefully gain audience with the Ancient Blizzard Dragon Averandox (NPC generated as a result of that same Spout Lore move) about some stuff.  

GMs in Dungeon World don't prepare metaplot.  They make a map with blanks and prepare 1 or 2, what is called *Fronts*.  These are a collection of threats, and ill omens that are there to provide obstacles and dangers to the PCs.  They fill their lives with danger and interpose themselves between the PCs and their goals.  You make the very low resolution map (again...lots of blanks to be filled out during play) and the Fronts after character creation.

Everything else is generated during play through the basic play procedures and following the games Agenda and GMing principles.  

So at the start of play we had a few adventuring sites/locales including the eerily quiet settlement (World's End Bluff) in the highlands that the PCs were going to.

As far as *Fronts *go, I had Apocalypse Cult (_impulse_; to bring about the end of the world) and Otherworldly Aboleths (_impulse_; to change everything and pave the way for The Mother).



Hopefully that clarifies a bit.  Again, I'm just trying to focus here on specific stuff; the play excerpt, the GMing styles, and how "here" to "there" emerges as a result of the play conversation and the varying procedures I outlined.  If that doesn't change your analysis/response, then I'll answer the rest of your post tomorrow or the next day.  If it does, I'll respond to your next post.


----------



## Campbell

I do not know how we can meaningfully analyze play without taking a critical look at what's actually happening between the very real people sitting around a very real table having an actual conversation. Part of that includes their motives. That also includes the unspoken cultural expectations that inform play. Is the player trying to get something in particular done, perhaps building some relationships with the locals they can use later? Are they trying to get the lay of the land? Are they just trying to make a statement about their character? Are they giving the GM an opportunity to share some of their world building? Are they biting a plot hook? Looking for general opportunities to exercise some protagonism? What sort of response are they expecting from the GM? This sort of stuff absolutely impacts play.

My general approach to this sort of thing will depend on the game and how I am running it. Generally, I think all sorts of fiction can be interesting and if a player is showing interest in something I will try to follow their lead and see if we can get some of the other players involved. I generally leave that up to the players though. This is where asking questions and building on the answers can be extremely helpful to get us from a general idea to some meaningful fiction with consequence that we can explore and play in.

I do not generally make the same distinctions that    [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] does between mere color, framing, and action declaration. My focus is on player decision making and how we can make it consequential. This is part of the reason why I make the distinction between Scene Framing and GM as MC. 

Generally speaking a GM who primarily frames scenes is going to be asking themselves questions like -


Where's the conflict?
What's the intent?
What's at stake?
What's the possible fallout of the conflict?
What sort of conflicts can this lead to?

Generally speaking, a Master of Ceremonies (MC) is going to be asking themselves questions like -

Where's the interest?
What's the fiction like?
What can we find out about these characters?
What sort of opportunities and decisions does this present the players with?
What sort of fictions and decisions can those decisions lead to?

These subtle distinctions have powerful effects on play. Both are primarily concerned with keeping things in the fiction. Scene Framing or Conflict Resolution is biased towards higher stakes, action adventure, and keeping things tense in every moment of play. Player decisions are focused on immediate concerns almost exclusively. An MC is more interested in exploring things, teasing out the fiction, letting conflicts arise more organically through player decision making, following the players' characters around. There is more room for lateral decision making, altering strategies, gaining leverage, and the like.

It is important to remember that the style of play Apocalypse World formalized organically grew out of games played in war gaming style. Games like Moldvay B/X, Traveler, Talislanta, and the like. It is entirely a cogent strategy in Apocalypse World for a player to make moves without like making moves by doing things like engaging in peaceful negotiations where the game mechanics do not apply. The GM still makes their moves, but is very concerned with following the fiction. One of the things that separates this style of play from scene framing is that players decide their own level of engagement. Part of the tension of play in Apocalypse World is if there will be a conflict at all. Conflicts don't even have to be resolved immediately. Ongoing conflicts are often a fixture of play. A Burning Wheel PC fights for what they believe in, and giving up on a belief is a transformative experience. What an Apocalypse World PC decides is worth fighting for tells you what they believe in and that can change on a whim.


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## Campbell

One of the ways that Apocalypse World and its close cousins make GM manipulation of outcomes, consequences, and the fiction more apparent is ironically by giving them much more latitude than is typical in most mainstream games. You do not get to hide behind mechanisms like attack and damage rolls or little procedural bits like health regen per day. In Apocalypse World you *deliver harm (as established)* and decide how long it takes to recover from harm. In Masks the GM gets to declare an NPC has *Influence* over you or has made you *Angry*. In Monsterhearts the GM can declare an NPC has a *String*, a bit of emotional leverage, on you or that you *Become Your Darkest Self*. There are no real stats for NPCs, only the fiction. No action economy either. You never roll the dice. Their moves, your prep, and the fiction as established always apply to you. They form very real constraints on your play.

Combined with having your agenda and principles laid bare, an overt expectation of honestly conveying the fictional world, very low system cognitive overhead for the player, and being true to your prep it creates an environment where it is easy to see when a GM is taking it easy on you or or pushing for things to go a certain way. You gain an intuitive grasp of what soft moves and hard moves look like pretty quickly. You can tell when you are being screwed with.

Another feature of play that limits this is that we are following these characters around as they live their daily lives, not generally going off on adventures or exploring unknown dungeons. Obviously this is somewhat different for Dungeon World. Players' characters are assumed to really belong in the milieu, like emphatically belong. They get to really know your NPCs, the things that drive them, what they really want and are after. When you are not a fish out of water it is easy to get a bad smell off an NPC. 

Additionally, on a system level, there are player moves like *Read A Charged Sitch*, *Read A Person*, and *Open Your Brain to the World’s Psychic Maelstrom* that if successful oblige you to give players real information they can use to make decisions. There's always a risk involved, but that's the fun part. These moves were designed to allow GMs to quickly transition to referee mode.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

_Alive._ _Country may not be after the vote but hey._



Campbell said:


> Combined with having your agenda and principles laid bare, an overt expectation of honestly conveying the fictional world, very low system cognitive overhead for the player, and being true to your prep it creates an environment where it is easy to see when a GM is taking it easy on you or or pushing for things to go a certain way. You gain an intuitive grasp of what soft moves and hard moves look like pretty quickly. You can tell when you are being screwed with.




I'll catch up with the swathes of text over the last couple of pages when I can. In the meantime, this description of play/style of play - what is it/are we calling it? I ask because it seems to describe how we run our D&D sessions, at least today, rather well. Many moons ago, we'd expect the DM to fudge things - or at least realise that there was always some covert DM play involved, where aspects of play would be changed - during play - in order to better tailor the experience to the players.

Today, we prefer a more, for lack of a better term, simulationist approach. I've never played Apocalypse World_, _only read the rulebook briefly though if I am inferring the style of play correctly, from your descriptions Manbearcat & Cambell, it seems close to how we play.

Our expectation have shifted over time - things like attack rolls, skill checks, saving throws are fairly straight forward, and with the relative simplicity of the Advantage/Disadvantage system, 'soft' and hard moves' on the part of the DM become more apparent. D&D is not a complicated system _('low system cognitive overhead')_, so folks can quickly gauge the outcomes of many situations when engaged with situations with a clear mechanical element. And when I personally feel the DM is making a soft move on my behalf, I feel dis-empowered as a player.

As a result, the expectation is that the DM will be, 'true to their prep' as much as possible - let the events and the dice fall as play develops. Players are empowered through choice - to explore, engage with the world and to fail. However, saying all this, the 'prep' can and has been tailored to the players and continues to be tailored to the players between sessions, though it is obviously constrained by the choices and outcomes that have occurred during play from previous sessions. [sblock]_For example, recently most of a character party were killed outright, no chance of healing or resurrection. The result was all down to the choices the players had made - they chose to push on with minimal resources. Their plan relied on some risky elements and luck was not on their side. The DM played it 'true', letting events unfold as the dice and circumstances dictated. 

However, rather than winking out of existence, the players then found themselves floating in a void, another time a space. Cue lots of astral craziness, where the characters first had to recognize what they were, where and what the other characters were before finally being approached by the patron of one of the (still living) characters. A terrifying chat later and they woke up near their bodies as ghosts, with a message for the living warlock character etched upon their souls. 

They then used their undead state to exact vengeance on their killer and right the wrongs of the town they were trying to protect and the last three sessions have had them hunting down an NPC in order to reunite them with their decaying bodies.

Now, none of this was  planned at at the beginning of the campaign creation or the session or considered during play. Instead it was produce in reaction to the events, driven by players, during play._[/sblock]


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## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I do not know how we can meaningfully analyze play without taking a critical look at what's actually happening between the very real people sitting around a very real table having an actual conversation. Part of that includes their motives. That also includes the unspoken cultural expectations that inform play. Is the player trying to get something in particular done, perhaps building some relationships with the locals they can use later? Are they trying to get the lay of the land? Are they just trying to make a statement about their character? Are they giving the GM an opportunity to share some of their world building? Are they biting a plot hook? Looking for general opportunities to exercise some protagonism? What sort of response are they expecting from the GM? This sort of stuff absolutely impacts play.



Unsurprisingly I agree with all of this.



Campbell said:


> My general approach to this sort of thing will depend on the game and how I am running it.



I tend to have a "default" approach - my own GMing habits and practices, formalised to some extent by the systems I'm running.

More coming up on how system affects my approach. 



Campbell said:


> I do not generally make the same distinctions that pemerton does between mere color, framing, and action declaration.



Just for clarity (probably unnecessary): these aren't formal categories that I use at the table (subject to system considerations coming up [-]shortly[/-] below). They are analytic categories I use to help explain what I'm doing when posting, and occasionally they will inform my judgement calls as GM (but generally I am following intuitions, which have been developed over many years of using a roughly similar approach).

(And my sense of these as analytic categories has obviously been informed by other RPG writers, especially Luke Crane and Ron Edwards.)

For me, colour is stuff that is established in the fiction, but isn't actually at stake in, or contributing to, the crunch of play. In my games, setting maps generally have this status; so do a lot of setting details. On the other hand, by "framing" I am trying to get at those elements of the fictional situation that the GM is deliberately using to push the players - forcing some sort of decision - or perhaps through them a bone.

Eg in a session I GMed yesterday (following on from the OP), a PC was in prison. The PC can shapechange into a falcon, and - as I can tell even before he mentions it - the player is thinking that his PC will change shape and fly out through the bars. I explain that timber is cheaper than metal, and that the door is a heavy timber one. That the door is _timber_ is colour (part of establishing verisimilitudinous fiction, immersion in the setting, etc); that the door has no opening a falcon might fly through, though is _framing_. As a GM I'm developing the consequences of the failed checks around dealing with the watch, and pushing the player harder if he wants his PC to escape.

The player declared a Circles check - it seemed possible that his clerical acquaintance, who sees it as her holy mission to heal the sick, might do the rounds of the watch house - but the check failed. So no clerical friend came buy, and instead the magistrate decided that the PC can rot in their for some indeterminate amount of time. The fact that it is the magistrate who decides this is, at this point, colour - it's just establishing a fictional element to make sense (in the fiction) of the consequence of the failed check, which is that no friend is coming, and no one else is going to open the door any time soon (so the PC can't easily sneak out invisibly). The magistrate's reasons were that this PC is a known troublemaker, a member of the sorcerous cabal who was banished from the city by the cabal's leader (ie the mage who owns the tower) over a year ago (this was the first session of play, following another failed Circles check), but seems to have made his way back into the city and caused more trouble! This is partly colour - it's reinforcing established elements of the fiction, and keeping a key NPC (the leader of the cabal,who is betrothed to marry the Gynarch of Hardby) at the forefront of everyone's minds - but also sowing the seeds of future framing, involving perhaps that NPC or the magistrate or the government of Hardby more generally (which includes the Gynarch, an important NPC who so far has always been completely off-screen - so to date she's just colour, but almost certainly framing-in-waiting).

Another example: when the PC (and player) learns that the magistrate is leaving him there to rot, I mention that bread is being passed into the cell every couple of days. (I hadn't mentioned a hatch, but the player didn't query this so I think we're both roughly on the same page in what we're imaging here.) Now in the cell with him is the assassin of the brother, consciousness regained. Given that the PC has a Belief about the assassin helping him summon his brother's dead spirit, her presence in the cell is not just colour but _framing_. An interaction ensues - it looked like it might be a social conflict over a bargain, but it went in a different direction: she said that she would help him only if he told here where he had hidden Thelon's Orb, a cursed elven gem that enhances both the management of estates and the summoning of demons, which she had found among the wedding gifts (to be explained in the post below) but which the other PC had then taken from her and hidden in the altar of Hardby's cathedral. Because of the curse, it requires an extremely difficult will-based check to relinquish the Orb - so by having the assassin respond to the request for help in this way, I turned a bit of player-introduced colour ("I hide the orb in the altar") into framing. The player then devoted a LOT of player-side resources into the resulting will check to renounce the Orb, and succeeded, and so was able to sincerely make the promise the assassin wanted, in return for her promise to help with summoning. But the summoning requires drawing a circle; and they have nothing to draw with - and I made a point of having the assassin say that she would _not_ try to work with a circle drawn in bread crumbs - they needed to escape and the PC then supply her with proper chalks and other pigments for drawing summoning circles. This turned the bread into a potential element of framing - the PC could have pushed for social conflict on this point - but the player (and therefore the PC) accepted the assassin's request and so instead they came up with a plan to escape, and he promised to find her proper equipment for drawing circles.

Unfortunately, the escape check failed and so, just as the assassin is trying to pick the lock with nothing but the buckles from her armour _something_ bad happens (to be established and resolved next session).

Anyway, that's a somewhat lengthy series of examples to try and show how the distinction between _colour_ and _framing_ plays out in my GMing. In his account of "the standard narrativistic model" - which is basically scene-framing - Eero Tuovinen talks about the role of the GM being "to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications." I would say that my categories of "colour" and "framing" are ways of thinking about this. The backstory includes colour and past framing elements - but it is by changing stuff from mere colour to framing that _complications_ are introduced that will _provoke thematic moments_.

As far as a game being player-driven or GM-driven - which relates also to my current discussion with   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - what matters to me is the basis on which content is introduced as part of framing, or moves from being mere colour to framing. If that's all being determined by the GM more-or-less unilaterally I would see the game as GM-driven. If the GM is riffing off themes, concerns, and/or story elements that the players have brought into the game then I see the game as player-driven. In the examples above, the framing and hence the game is a player-driven one (eg _No, the door isn't one you can fly through as a falcon_; _No, because you failed a check you're stuck in this prison indefinitely, and I'm making it true in the fiction that that is because of your past shenanigans involving NPCs and social dynamics that you've made central to our shared fiction_; _To get the help you want from the assassin, you have to relinquish the Orb that you chose to take from her and that you hid in the cathedral altar_; _You've accepted the assassin's insistence that she won't summon without proper circle-drawing equipment, and so you've made yourself hostage to her ability to pick the lock and get you both out of prison_; etc).

As I said, a long example - but I hope for Campbell and for other participants in the thread it offers something concrete as an example of the sort of thing I'm trying to get at in the OP, and also in light of the way the thread has developed from that.

And to finish this post: the promised comment on system. Marvel Heroic/Cortex Plus has the notion of a _distinction_. All (or nearly all) characters have distinctions - features or attributes that can be strengths or flaws (a bit like Fate aspects) - and part of what is involved in building a dice pool is including a dice for the relevant distinction that informs the action being declared. (If the distinction is helping - eg when the berserker in my viking game is Touched by the Spirit of Battle while fighting goblins - it gives a big die in the pool; when it is hindering - eg when the berserker is so Angry! that he can't think straight - then it gives a small die but also a "plot point" (=, very roughly, a fate point). The player is the one who gets to choose helping vs hindering, based on his/her sense of what fits the fiction.)

There are also Scene Distinctions. These are established by the GM when framing a scene (normally three of them). Both GM and players can incorporate these, too, into their dice pools in various ways. In my session yesterday, at one point most of the PCs were deep in a dungeon surrounded by Darkness, and Webs; and The Dungeon Itself was Against Them.

These Scene Distinctions in a very real and mechanically significant way separate "framing" from mere colour. Here's an example.

While most of the PCs were dealing with the (web-creating) giant spiders, a fourth PC was in a different part of the dungeon on his own. He had earlier been run off by the berserker after refusing to treat the latter's wounds (at the table, this was the result of the players making a series of plays for XP - the healer player got XP for following his greedy instincts (to not heal for free) even though that placed a fellow party member at risk; and the berserker player then got XP for threatening an ally with violence - plus stuff on the GM side: after confirming that the threat of violence had genuinely been made I spent a GM-side resource to split the party, in the fiction describing this as the healer PC having been run off). That PC stumbled into a chamber with an Eeerie Phosphorescence, a Strange Mist, and a Charnell Smell. And I described various niches in the wall, about 2' wide by 1' high, and a body length or so deep.

The niches are part of the fiction, but - because not a Scene Distinction - they are mere colour. To actually leverage them, the player would have to succeed at a check to establish an asset (eg High Above the Floor, Having Climbed up the Niches; or, as in the session yesterday, a Realisation that the Niches are Full of Bodies Apt to be Necromantically Animated).

I've never run or played Fate, so I don't know quite how close this is to how Fate works. But as a feature of the system it's still something I'm getting used to. It gives the GM a different sort of influence over the situation from (eg) Burning Wheel or even 4e. It tends to make the game less about _the struggles and concerns of the PCs_, and more about _what happens to the PCs in these dramatic environments they find themselves in_. It's certainly less demanding on the players, I think, and less intense.

I'm going to do another post which responds to other aspects of   [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post above, and also elaborates a bit more about "intense" RPGing.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I think all sorts of fiction can be interesting and if a player is showing interest in something I will try to follow their lead and see if we can get some of the other players involved. I generally leave that up to the players though.



I agree with this, but perhaps more than you might be inclined to I will try and connect that fiction to some sort of conflict or opportunity for action or decision. The dark naga came into my BW game because (i) one player wrote a new Belief for a (seer-type) PC that included, as an element, that she could feel a dark power rising in the land; and (ii) another player brought in a snake-handling PC with the belief that "sorcery is the venom of the fangless". So a dark naga seemed to make perfect sense, as a way of following these leads into a place that requires some sort of action or decision.



Campbell said:


> Generally speaking a GM who primarily frames scenes is going to be asking themselves questions like -
> 
> 
> Where's the conflict?
> What's the intent?
> What's at stake?
> What's the possible fallout of the conflict?
> What sort of conflicts can this lead to?
> 
> Generally speaking, a Master of Ceremonies (MC) is going to be asking themselves questions like -
> 
> Where's the interest?
> What's the fiction like?
> What can we find out about these characters?
> What sort of opportunities and decisions does this present the players with?
> What sort of fictions and decisions can those decisions lead to?
> 
> These subtle distinctions have powerful effects on play. Both are primarily concerned with keeping things in the fiction. Scene Framing or Conflict Resolution is biased towards higher stakes, action adventure, and keeping things tense in every moment of play. Player decisions are focused on immediate concerns almost exclusively. An MC is more interested in exploring things, teasing out the fiction, letting conflicts arise more organically through player decision making, following the players' characters around. There is more room for lateral decision making, altering strategies, gaining leverage, and the like.



This is interesting. I'm still assimilating it.

Part of the art of building and playing an effective BW PC is framing Beliefs that straddle the immediate and the long term. It's not easy to get this right; and while the GM is duty-bound to put those Beliefs to the test, there is no obligation to make it easy. And if the PC squibs, the GM is (I think) under an obligation to step up the pressure.

I remember one session quite a while ago now where the PCs were in the Keep on the Borderlands, and sharing the inn with them were some travellers from Urnst carrying wedding gifts to Hardby. One of the PCs - the assassin, who at that point was not an NPC, and whose player was sick of continual money troubles - had the Belief "I will steal the wedding gifts". And it was established, via a process of transmuting colour (_the Urnst NPC arrived in a wagon_) into _framing_, that the wedding gfits were in the wagon (which was always under guard). That "process" consisted in my narration as GM - when the PCs first approached the Keep from the hills of the Abor-Alz I mentioned the NPC party being visible on the plain below them (establishing colour), and then later on it became clear that the wedding gifts were in the wagon (I can't remember the details now, but - in the context of a PC with that Belief - that is a move from mere colour to framing a context for action declaration).

But the PC hemmed and hawed and passed up the initial chance to have a go at the wagon. (Something else was happening with another PC - I think the elven princess was confronting a death cultists described as a friendly priest - and the other players, in their "free roleplaying", decided it was too risky to tackle the wagon.) It was only later, when the party from Urnst was about to depart - taking their wagon with them - that the PC made the attempt! (Which is to say, I reframed the situation with higher stakes - _act now or miss out on your chance to get the gifts!_ - and the player chose to have the PC act.)

I think there is overlap there with your MC list. There is definitely scope in scene-framing play to develop leverage, including via lateral decision-making (eg in our 4e game at one point the fighter PC took on a rescued dwarf NPC as a herald - this was not the resolution of any immediate conflict, but played into subsequent events in the game where the PC needed to engage effectively with the ruling clique of a city; in BW there are Resources and Circles tests, linked tests, and the like, all of which have significance - both mechanical and in the fiction - that unfold over time).

But from my side perhaps the biggest difference I see, when I try and related your lists to my own experience, is the idea of _pressure_. The BW GM is meant to pour pressure onto the players. Which means the fiction isn't just _engaging_ to the PCs (and thereby the players), or offering interesting avenues for decision. The players should feel that the fiction is bearing down on them (and their PCs). This is where I would say the intensity of the play experience is located. (And it can be quite intense - not in a "You'll need therapy after this session" sense, but in the sense of your heart being in your mouth as stuff that matters to the PCs is happening, and there's no avoiding it - if you (the player) don't act (via action declarations for your PC), even against adverse odds, you'll lost what you were hoping for.) I don't know if that speaks to your sense of the differences?


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> So it's GM-driven if the players/PCs can choose whether to follow the hooks or not and it's also GM-driven if the players/PCs have to follow the hooks with no choice?
> 
> Turn it around: instead of asking about inns let's say our hypothetical PC is in town looking to see if there's any adventuring needs doing, that her party can handle.  She inquires with the local militia, maybe the MU's guild, one or two other places...and it would seem by your definitions that _any answer the GM provides_ is going to make it a GM-driven game.  This seems overly harsh, given as you seem to equate "GM-driven" with a lesser experience or poorer game.



Well, this thread is - or has become - at least in part about what we enjoy in our RPGing. I prefer a game that is player-driven.

Whether I would describe your scenario as GM-driven would depend on the details. (Not the in-fiction details. The play-at-the-table details.)

If _looking around to see if there's any adventuring that needs doing_ is about gaining rumours or otherwise collecting information that will help with (say) raids on dungeons or similar outposts, that makes the game seem like a fairly classic sandbox. Which would potentially feed into the sort of "refereed" game that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] have posted about.

In that case the player is declaring an action in looking for the inn, and is going to signal the intent to the GM: _I head to an inn looking for rumours_. Once the player has some info, s/he will tackle the dungeon(s) s/he thinks most amenable to being tackled.

But if _looking around to see if there's any adventuring that needs doing_ is about looking for a GM-authored patron offering a GM-authored hook, connecting the PC into some GM-authored trajectory of backstory, then to me that does look like a GM-driven game.


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## Campbell

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and        [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],

What is important to me in both my war gaming and Apocalypse World style play is that players choose not just whether to engage an opportunity, but also their level of commitment and means by which they pursue it. I want to be able to use that information for whatever ends I have in mind and whatever decisions I make need to be consequential. The fiction is what it is. We follow wherever it leads. If our group sends in allies to handle the problem while we pursue other ends I want the GM to really chew on it and approach it from the standpoint of a curious explorer of the fiction. If we want to exploit the goblin uprising to unseat local leadership the GM should follow our lead and the fiction where it lies. If we want to pursue an alliance with the goblins same thing. If some us support the town and others decide to work with the goblins we'll have a group discussion about it, settle on an approach that works, and then same thing. If we want to attempt to route the goblins towards another of our enemies in hopes they destroy each other same thing. We also reserve the right to pack up our things and abandon or change trajectory at anytime.

If where the fiction seems to be leading is uncomfortable or uninteresting to them we can talk that stuff out. Using their position to lead us down only the road or roads they want the game to go is not kosher to me. Any player is welcome to start the same sort of conversation.

This all depends on stuff like themes and premise of the game in question. We'll hash this stuff if we need to for everyone to get on the same page. Obviously our scoundrels in Blades in the Dark will not become upstanding citizens who commit no crimes, and our teenage superheroes will not turn to a life of crime. Unless we all decide to pursue those aims, but that would definitely involve hacking the game.


----------



## Campbell

Awesome stuff  [MENTION=6846794]Gardens & Goblins[/MENTION]!

What to call it? This is harder than it seems because it wasn't like designed alongside in particular game. Prior to this set of approaches being formalized in Apocalypse World there really was no name for it. The response a lot of people gave, including John Harper, designer of Blades in the Dark, when Apocalypse World came out was - Isn't that just how you GM? For the groups that independently discovered these techniques it was just how you like play a roleplaying game. I tend to refer to it as either GM as Master of Ceremonies for what Vincent Baker named it as when he showed people how to do it in Apocalypse World. He did not really invent it, but Whitewolf did not really invent GM as Storyteller either. Sometimes Principled GMing for the set of principles that informs GM decision making and its relation to Principled Freeform which is just people roleplaying with some formalized stuff about how they treat characters, resolve disputes, and reach consensus. Thing is it really is a specific set of principles that show a way to GM - not *the way to GM* or *the set of principles*. Some people call it *Fiction First Gaming* or *Play To Find Out*, but those things describe just some of the features. 

I mean as long as we can communicate this stuff it does not really matter. John Harper just calls it GMing in Blades in the Dark, then shows you the hows and whys. He changes some stuff as well, drawing in a bit more war gaming and scene framing techniques. The formalized techniques being out there for new GMs is what really matters. Actually showing people how to play and not leaving them grasping in the dark is what I care about. This fusion of experienced narrative, character driven play, and playing in the fiction, not for it, that lets the GM be a player too and experience the tension of the narrative experience was a revelation for me. With a bit of discipline, minimal prep, and commitment to following the fiction I could get all the same kicks I do from playing in a good game. I could approach the other players as a creative equal. That's what really matters to me.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> The reason why you feel I'm assuming manipulation of the roll results in the 5e description is because I intended it that way (I said as much in that post).  I'm trying to provide a contrast between Storyteller GMing which features Illusionism, classic Refereeing, and Principled "Story Now"/"Play to Find out" GMing.  We've already covered the latter two with B/X and DW so I'm using 5e for Storyteller GMing which features Illusionism.
> 
> I also caveated that I know 5e doesn't have to be GMed in this fashion (I know for a fact that it doesn't have to be as when I fill in for another GM every 6 weeks or so, I don't run it that way).  It just "plays nice with it" due to a number of features of the system (and its general GM mandate).




Thanks for clarifying the DW mechanics a bit for me. I get it a bit better now. Does not sound at all like something I'd be interested in except as a one off or change of pace type of game. 

From what I can see, GM judgment absolutely comes into both games, just in different ways. In D&D, the DM sets the DC of a proposed task based on prevailing conditions within the fiction, which can largely determine failure or success on the PC's part. Where as DW seems to have set target numbers for any and all actions, and then the GM uses his judgment to determine the specific outcome. 

I can certainly see how the D&D style lends itself more to the Storyteller GM approach as you have described it. I agree with that. However, I don't think that it must be so by any stretch. And I would also say that DW seems just as subject to GM manipulation, it would just come about in a different way. 




Manbearcat said:


> I'm trying to stay away from the big picture stuff and just focus on the nuts and bolts of the play excerpt (not how we got to that point in the overall game).  The actual play conversation and how player action declarations > resolution mechanics > and GMing get us from "here" to "there."




Fair enough. Do you think that I could describe the action you've provided through the lens of 5E mechanics and come up with the same result? I would expect so. In your description of hte player declaration/action resolution dynamic, I don't see any reason that 5E must go about things differently. 



Manbearcat said:


> But if you want further context for things, here you go:
> 
> There is no side trek here.  I was forced to make a Hard Move due to a Scout move (one of the Undertake a Perilous Journey roles) that was a 6 or less.  I followed the play agenda, the fiction, and my principles and introduced the glacial crevasse hazard where the sled was falling in.  The Hard Move I made would fall under the rubric of "use a monster, danger, or location move."
> 
> This snowballed in a dramatic way.  The Elf PC helped save everyone else, (the sled was pulled out of the hazard), but he ultimately fell into the drink and emptyied out in Earthmaw's basement (after a Defy Danger - Strength move resulted in another 6-).




I used the term side trek just for ease of reference, and because it seems to be somewhat tangential to the main story....meaning that if the PC had succeeded and not forced a hard move on your part, he would not have fallen into the river and been swept away. 

I also kind of view it as a side trek (in a loose sense) because of practical concerns of play; for instance, what are the other players doing while this is all happening? 



Manbearcat said:


> This sort of thing isn't a "side quest".  This is just the sort of "play to find out" snowballing of events that generates emergent story in Powered By the Apocalypse games.  The PCs were going to Earthmaw (a place that was generated on the play map as a result of a 10+ Spout Lore move by this same Elf PC) to Resupply (a move), to attempt to locate some refugee families from the ruined settlement of World's End Bluff, and to hopefully gain audience with the Ancient Blizzard Dragon Averandox (NPC generated as a result of that same Spout Lore move) about some stuff.
> 
> GMs in Dungeon World don't prepare metaplot.  They make a map with blanks and prepare 1 or 2, what is called *Fronts*.  These are a collection of threats, and ill omens that are there to provide obstacles and dangers to the PCs.  They fill their lives with danger and interpose themselves between the PCs and their goals.  You make the very low resolution map (again...lots of blanks to be filled out during play) and the Fronts after character creation.
> 
> Hopefully that clarifies a bit.  Again, I'm just trying to focus here on specific stuff; the play excerpt, the GMing styles, and how "here" to "there" emerges as a result of the play conversation and the varying procedures I outlined.  If that doesn't change your analysis/response, then I'll answer the rest of your post tomorrow or the next day.  If it does, I'll respond to your next post.




It does clarify things a bit, I think. 

I think that, in my personal games, campaigns tend to have some kind of central theme to them, or central goal or task. very often this is at least loosely determined prior to the start of the campaign. Not always, but in general. So for example, a campaign may be something like "this is the story of the frontier town of Bastion and its peoples' struggles in a harsh environment" or "this is the story of a group of people, all wronged in some way by the Duke of Westmont, seeking revenge" or something similar. Some can be very specific, others can be very loos. For instance, my current campaign started out as test of 5E by running through Lost Mines of Phandelver. Once we played that pre-published module, and everyone seemed happy with 5E and their character choices, we continued play and the campaign started taking on a much larger scope as they now interacted with a much larger world. 

To me that is a GM driven approach....but I don't think that it prevents the players from also driving play. They're free to proceed however they'd like in many ways. I do have enemies in mind, and specific story ideas that I expect to come up...but no preconceived outcomes. How everything plays out very much depends on the players and the choices they make. 

In that way, I think it's different than the Fronts system from DW that you've described, but not all that different as it may first seem, I think. DW has a map representing a physical location, with a couple of detailed Fronts and then a bunch of blanks. My campaign could be similarly described....except that the "map" wouldn't be a physical location so much as story options.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Campbell said:


> Awesome stuff  @_*Gardens & Goblins*_!
> 
> What to call it? This is harder than it seems because it wasn't like designed alongside in particular game. Prior to this set of approaches being formalized in Apocalypse World there really was no name for it. The response a lot of people gave, including John Harper, designer of Blades in the Dark, when Apocalypse World came out was - Isn't that just how you GM? For the groups that independently discovered these techniques it was just how you like play a roleplaying game.




Honestly, it's a bit like the question doing the rounds in academic circles, 'What is a game?'. There's a lot of lengthy debate on the matter. But really, will knowing help us make a better game? Personally I doubt it but hey.

But really, I do get the value in stepping back and attempted to analyse something, to better understand and develop the medium. And part of that is developing an agreed upon terminology so folks can have more agile conversations without having to continuously explain/express what they mean. Responvise Campaign Arbitration/Arbitrator or something then, perhaps? _Master of Ceremonies will get me weirder looks among certain peers than I already get!_

On one hand it is simulationist, in that it attempts to present a collection of elements under the banner of 'The Campaign' which involves the DM running and maintaining a system while players engage with it - locations are set before hand, narrative elements placed for possible discovery, actions are taken and the events during play are played 'true', with no DM in-game tweaking _(soft/hard plays)_.

On the other hand, that nature of the campaign can change from one session to the next, in response to how players have engaged with system previously. Narrative elements maybe be introduced or removed, Non player characters and forces developed, areas of interest expanded upon & written up as the player's make their approach and so on. Of course, done poorly and the players will feel disconnected from one session to the next as the campaign world morphs beyond recognition. Done well though and play unfolds in response to play, reacting to their choices, their successes and their failures. Often the 'story' is what is told at the end of the session, by the players to each other, based on what just happened - which I personally greatly enjoy listening to when I DM.

The closest comparison I can think of is those screen writers that write for TV series, where they take feedback from each episode or series of episodes and tweak accordingly.

Reactive Episodic DMing. Macro DMing? Campaign DMing? 

_Eh.._

Bob. 

I vote we call it 'Bob'.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and         [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],
> 
> What is important to me in both my war gaming and Apocalypse World style play is that players choose not just whether to engage an opportunity, but also their level of commitment and means by which they pursue it. I want to be able to use that information for whatever ends I have in mind and whatever decisions I make need to be consequential. The fiction is what it is. We follow wherever it leads. If our group sends in allies to handle the problem while we pursue other ends I want the GM to really chew on it and approach it from the standpoint of a curious explorer of the fiction. If we want to exploit the goblin uprising to unseat local leadership the GM should follow our lead and the fiction where it lies. If we want to pursue an alliance with the goblins same thing. If some us support the town and others decide to work with the goblins we'll have a group discussion about it, settle on an approach that works, and then same thing. If we want to attempt to route the goblins towards another of our enemies in hopes they destroy each other same thing. We also reserve the right to pack up our things and abandon or change trajectory at anytime.



By "we" do you here mean the players, the DM, a subset of both, or everyone?



> If where the fiction seems to be leading is uncomfortable or uninteresting to them we can talk that stuff out. Using their position to lead us down only the road or roads they want the game to go is not kosher to me.



Again, "them" in the first sentence and "their" in the second - who are "they"? 



> Any player is welcome to start the same sort of conversation.



That sounds like trouble: if one player finds a fiction boring but another is really into it, who wins?

============================

Beyond that, I'm beginning to think the analytics here are getting far enough down the rabbit hole to have left Mystara and emerge in Hollow World.  It's also beginning to sound more and more like some of you get way more intense within your games than anything I've ever been involved in - hell, at the root if it all I'm just looking for a laugh and a good time when I sit down to play or DM one of these games.   I keep stats, logs and records, sure; and use them sometimes to analyze what the trends are in what classes/races/etc. people are playing at any given time, what our advancement rate is, etc., etc.  But none of us here ever get anywhere near this elaborate in analysing how we play/DM - and I think if we did ever do this it could end up sucking a lot of the fun out of it (similar to my earlier comment regarding analytics and fancystats sucking the fun out of hockey).

So while I'll keep on with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] about style of play I think I'll step back from the [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] deep analytics at this point...though I will keep reading. 

Lanefan


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Again, "them" in the first sentence and "their" in the second - who are "they"?




They:




Them:


----------



## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> They:
> 
> View attachment 83013




We've got one that can see.....


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Whether I would describe your scenario as GM-driven would depend on the details. (Not the in-fiction details. The play-at-the-table details.)
> 
> If _looking around to see if there's any adventuring that needs doing_ is about gaining rumours or otherwise collecting information that will help with (say) raids on dungeons or similar outposts, that makes the game seem like a fairly classic sandbox. Which would potentially feed into the sort of "refereed" game that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] have posted about.



OK.



> In that case the player is declaring an action in looking for the inn, and is going to signal the intent to the GM: _I head to an inn looking for rumours_. Once the player has some info, s/he will tackle the dungeon(s) s/he thinks most amenable to being tackled.
> 
> But if _looking around to see if there's any adventuring that needs doing_ is about looking for a GM-authored patron offering a GM-authored hook, connecting the PC into some GM-authored trajectory of backstory, then to me that does look like a GM-driven game.



With a DM who halfway knows what she's doing, from the player side what's the functional difference?  Player can't tell whether what's learned is a rumour or a hook.  Consider this hypothetical exchange:

Situation: party finds itself at a loose end with no immediate mission or adventure on their plate.  They send their "face" character (say, a Rogue or Bard type) out into the town to gather information and find out what needs doing.  This town is a place they've been to before and they have contacts here; they've also met occasional raiding orc bands in the past off to the east aways.

*Player:* "I ask around various places - mercenaries' guild, local militia HQ, my old contacts from the Thieves' guild - and find out what's on for adventuring this season."

*DM:* <rolls some dice, consults some notes>  "OK.  You get some hits.  First off, the mercenaries for sure have something on the boil but they won't say what it is - very secretive.  

"The militia have a few things: there's been orc raids - again! - on some of the farms to the east maybe 20-30 miles out [*Player:* "Sigh - I thought we already dealt with that!"]; there's been some problems in the lakes to the south <a few days travel away> - travellers and caravans being attacked, that sort of thing, from survivor reports they think it's by lizardmen; and we've heard rumours (but nothing confirmed) of something really big being sighted in the air over that old tower near Dumont.

"Your old guild buddies confirm the orc and lizardman raids but throw in some concerns they have about these things somehow maybe being related to each other.  They've also heard about some strange activity going on over Dumont way; and they've also got wind that Baron Larchwood <previously-known-of ruler of a nearby city-state similar to this one> has been putting spies about here in town and they'd like to know what he's up to this time.

"After a day's good digging, that's what you get."

*Player: *"Cool.  So there's orcs and-or lizardmen, or spies, or Dumont tower.  Got it.  Busy place!  I'll report back to the party." <the party then eventually either take on one or more of these adventures or move on to a different town>

Now, knowing nothing more about anything (as in theory a player wouldn't know anything more about the workings of the DM's mind), can you tell whether the DM dreamed those adventure ideas up on the spot or whether she had them pre-planned.  If you can't tell, then why is anyone worried about anything?  The player(s) has(have) gobs of information to work with (and can always seek out more), the game has loads of directions it can go from here, and everything's just rockin' on.

Notice here I've woven in some secrets (the mercenaries won't say what they've got going on) and some plot questions (is there a connection between the orcs and lizardmen or not) and hinted at some previously-hidden backstory (the Thieves guild tossed off a remark about what's the Baron up to "this time", implying this has happened before).

Also notice that while I point out the DM rolls dice and consults notes I make no reference as to whether these actions are for real or for show.

My question here is not whether this is player-driven or DM-driven, but whether it even matters in the slightest?

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> With a DM who halfway knows what she's doing, from the player side what's the functional difference?  Player can't tell whether what's learned is a rumour or a hook.



This is something like saying: with a halfway competent card shark, who can tell whether s/he's dealing off the top or the bottom? But to some extent the meaning of the experience depends upon the way in which it is generated.

I think this is part of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is trying to get at in repeatedly emphasising the significance of motives, expectations, etc. What counts as good faith vs (at the extreme, say) cheating depends heavily on these facts about the participants.



Lanefan said:


> My question here is not whether this is player-driven or DM-driven, but whether it even matters in the slightest?



Well, matters to whom? Presumably not you. But that sort of thing matters to me in respect of the games that I'm part of. And some posters seemed to care when I expressed a preference in the OP.



Lanefan said:


> party finds itself at a loose end with no immediate mission or adventure on their plate.



Just in passing - there is already _quite a bit of assumption_ built into this. For instance, it already presents the PCs as "A-Team"-types who "go on missions" and then take time off between them. I have not GMed a game that has that sort of underlying structure since around 1986.



Lanefan said:


> They send their "face" character (say, a Rogue or Bard type) out into the town to gather information and find out what needs doing.  This town is a place they've been to before and they have contacts here; they've also met occasional raiding orc bands in the past off to the east aways.
> 
> *Player:* "I ask around various places - mercenaries' guild, local militia HQ, my old contacts from the Thieves' guild - and find out what's on for adventuring this season."
> 
> *DM:* <rolls some dice, consults some notes>  "OK.  You get some hits.  First off, the mercenaries for sure have something on the boil but they won't say what it is - very secretive.
> 
> "The militia have a few things: there's been orc raids - again! - on some of the farms to the east maybe 20-30 miles out [*Player:* "Sigh - I thought we already dealt with that!"]; there's been some problems in the lakes to the south <a few days travel away> - travellers and caravans being attacked, that sort of thing, from survivor reports they think it's by lizardmen; and we've heard rumours (but nothing confirmed) of something really big being sighted in the air over that old tower near Dumont.
> 
> "Your old guild buddies confirm the orc and lizardman raids but throw in some concerns they have about these things somehow maybe being related to each other.  They've also heard about some strange activity going on over Dumont way; and they've also got wind that Baron Larchwood <previously-known-of ruler of a nearby city-state similar to this one> has been putting spies about here in town and they'd like to know what he's up to this time.
> 
> "After a day's good digging, that's what you get."
> 
> *Player: *"Cool.  So there's orcs and-or lizardmen, or spies, or Dumont tower.  Got it.  Busy place!  I'll report back to the party." <the party then eventually either take on one or more of these adventures or move on to a different town>
> 
> Now, knowing nothing more about anything (as in theory a player wouldn't know anything more about the workings of the DM's mind), can you tell whether the DM dreamed those adventure ideas up on the spot or whether she had them pre-planned.  If you can't tell, then why is anyone worried about anything?



Well, I personally wouldn't be worried because I wouldn't be playing the game.

But if we're asking whether the game just described is player- or GM-driven, I find it very hard to conceive of that as anything but a GM-driven game. It doesn't seem to have the somewhat static, reactive nature of a classic sandbox - which nature is part of what enables the players to drive the play of such a campaign, by choosing which elements of the sandbox to engage.



Lanefan said:


> The player(s) has(have) gobs of information to work with (and can always seek out more), the game has loads of directions it can go from here, and everything's just rockin' on.



The game seems vulnerable to a player deciding that his/her PC is no longer going to be a soldier of fortune, but instead wants to (say) become a local magistrate. It's not even clear what happens if a player wants his/her PC to become leader of the mercenaries' guild, or of the militia, or become advisor and confidant to Baron Larchwood.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> We've got one that can see.....



I really liked that movie.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Well, I personally wouldn't be worried because I wouldn't be playing the game.
> 
> But if we're asking whether the game just described is player- or GM-driven, I find it very hard to conceive of that as anything but a GM-driven game. It doesn't seem to have the somewhat static, reactive nature of a classic sandbox - which nature is part of what enables the players to drive the play of such a campaign, by choosing which elements of the sandbox to engage.




So the players being able to choose any of the things the DM brought up is not the players being able to choose which elements of the sandbox to engage?  There is also the option for players to just decide to have their PCs become barbarian kings and head north to the barbarian lands.  The PCs asked because nothing was on their plate, putting that example into the DM's hands.  It doesn't mean that they are constrained to only the DM's ideas.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> So the players being able to choose any of the things the DM brought up is not the players being able to choose which elements of the sandbox to engage?



As described, it's not a sandbox. It's a collection of "event-sequences" being authored and narrated to the table by the GM.



Maxperson said:


> There is also the option for players to just decide to have their PCs become barbarian kings and head north to the barbarian lands.



That wasn't mentioned. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] said "*Player*: So there's orcs and-or lizardmen, or spies, or Dumont tower. Got it."



Maxperson said:


> The PCs asked because nothing was on their plate



I feel that this in itself is enough to tell me that it's not a player-driven game: rather, the players are waiting to be led by the GM, who seems to be the dominant figure in establishing the content of the shared fiction.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Maxperson said:


> So the players being able to choose any of the things the DM brought up is not the players being able to choose which elements of the sandbox to engage?  There is also the option for players to just decide to have their PCs become barbarian kings and head north to the barbarian lands.  The PCs asked because nothing was on their plate, putting that example into the DM's hands.  It doesn't mean that they are constrained to only the DM's ideas.




I think permerton is using 'sandbox' in an unexpected way.  Might help to ask what he means when he says 'sandbox.'
 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], what do you mean when you say 'sandbox'?


----------



## seebs

There's a remark in an old scifi novel referring to a culture which distinguishes between "bias" and "prejudgment" in judges. "Bias" is "I will rule for this side if I can", while prejudgment is "I will rule for this side regardless." Bias is permitted.

I think there's three things that can be involved here. One is a pure ruling based on "what I think the situation is like". One is that the situation will always be adjusted or retconned or redefined to prevent or require a specific course of action. And in the middle, there's nudging things a bit because you have a notion of intent but you're willing to be persuaded.

Think about it this way: If you're running a fairly typical D&D game, and a player decides to look for a Porsche 911 fully fueled with the keys in the ignition because they want to bypass your cleverly designed travel adventure, you're not really "railroading" them to say "uh, no, there's no such thing". You're just following the setting.


----------



## pemerton

seebs said:


> If you're running a fairly typical D&D game, and a player decides to look for a Porsche 911 fully fueled with the keys in the ignition because they want to bypass your cleverly designed travel adventure, you're not really "railroading" them to say "uh, no, there's no such thing". You're just following the setting.



I don't think issues of genre fidelity have much to do with the question of GM- vs player-driven RPGing.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This is something like saying: with a halfway competent card shark, who can tell whether s/he's dealing off the top or the bottom? But to some extent the meaning of the experience depends upon the way in which it is generated.



Doesn't matter if the card shark is dealing off the top or bottom: if the resulting hand is fair for all involved the experience is exactly the same.



> I think this is part of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is trying to get at in repeatedly emphasising the significance of motives, expectations, etc. What counts as good faith vs (at the extreme, say) cheating depends heavily on these facts about the participants.
> 
> Well, matters to whom? Presumably not you. But that sort of thing matters to me in respect of the games that I'm part of. And some posters seemed to care when I expressed a preference in the OP.



Maybe I'm misreading this, but how can something matter to you if you don't know what it is?

If you're the DM what goes on behind your screen - or how, or why - is none of my business as a player.  I'd expect the same courtesy in return were the positions reversed.  Therefore, you in theory have no way of knowing any processes that go into the game you're playing other than those I-as-DM might reveal.



> Just in passing - there is already _quite a bit of assumption_ built into this. For instance, it already presents the PCs as "A-Team"-types who "go on missions" and then take time off between them. I have not GMed a game that has that sort of underlying structure since around 1986.



So characters in your games never find themselves with nothing pressing?  Never get a chance to take some downtime and then decide what to do next?  Never get a chance to step back and look at the big picture?  Hell, that all sounds way more DM-driven than anything I run.



> But if we're asking whether the game just described is player- or GM-driven, I find it very hard to conceive of that as anything but a GM-driven game. It doesn't seem to have the somewhat static, reactive nature of a classic sandbox - which nature is part of what enables the players to drive the play of such a campaign, by choosing which elements of the sandbox to engage.



Er...in order to choose which elements to engage don't they first need to find out what elements might be out there awaiting engagement?  And the only way to do that is to...wait for it...ask!



> The game seems vulnerable to a player deciding that his/her PC is no longer going to be a soldier of fortune, but instead wants to (say) become a local magistrate. It's not even clear what happens if a player wants his/her PC to become leader of the mercenaries' guild, or of the militia, or become advisor and confidant to Baron Larchwood.



Of course it's vulnerable to this sort of thing - that's what player agency is all about, which is the very thing you've been arguing for all the way along!

If a character's next logical in-character move is to do something that takes it out of the party, then out it goes.  I've role-played myself out of many a party in the past.

If a single PC decides to pack it in and become a local magistrate, or take over the local mercenaries' guild, that's just fine - the PC retires from adventuring (and the player either already has a replacement or rolls one up, assuming she is staying in the game) and at some point we'll update it to see how its magisterial or mercenary career might be going.

If the party as a whole decide out of the blue to chuck in with Baron Larchwood then I've got to be ready to DM that, wherever it might go.  In fact, one thing that separates a good DM from a bad one is the ability to hit those sort of curveballs.

Lan-"next man up"-efan


----------



## seebs

pemerton said:


> I don't think issues of genre fidelity have much to do with the question of GM- vs player-driven RPGing.




They sorta do, though, because there's games in which the accepted outcome would be "okay, we've just established that this is a world where you could find a Porsche, why didn't we know that before?"


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> As described, it's not a sandbox. It's a collection of "event-sequences" being authored and narrated to the table by the GM.
> 
> That wasn't mentioned. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] said "*Player*: So there's orcs and-or lizardmen, or spies, or Dumont tower. Got it."



_As her way of summing up what she'd learned during her questioning that day._  You didn't quote the next bit, where she reports back to the party and they then decide whether to go after any of those possible adventures or to just go on to another town.



> I feel that this in itself is enough to tell me that it's not a player-driven game: rather, the players are waiting to be led by the GM, who seems to be the dominant figure in establishing the content of the shared fiction.



The DM establishes the content of the game world...which includes (among many other things) some of the adventuring possibilities.  The PCs are only going to find out about them through one of these means:

1. Asking around in the game world (this is what I used as an example earlier)
2. Hearing about them without explicitly asking (e.g. other adventurers' tavern talk)
3. Being told about them in whatever information the DM gives out about the game world going in (e.g. the Southron Hills are known to be dangerous)
4. Running into them by sheer chance as the PCs wander around in the game world (the farmhouse goblin raid in B-10 is a not-great version of this)
4a. Running into them because the DM arbitrarily put them in the path of the PCs who are otherwise wandering around in the game world (usually out of sheer boredom)
5. Making an adventure out of nothing (the PCs suddenly decide to become a gang of street thieves; their adventures then become the "jobs" they do and the scrapes with authority they get into)

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

seebs said:


> They sorta do, though, because there's games in which the accepted outcome would be "okay, we've just established that this is a world where you could find a Porsche, why didn't we know that before?"



Whether you get attacked by a wandering Porsche or not is irrelevant - the roads in most game worlds will tear it apart before it gets to its second tank of...oh, wait...


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> As described, it's not a sandbox. It's a collection of "event-sequences" being authored and narrated to the table by the GM




The only way that is possible is if the players have no input at all.  You are describing a story, not a roleplaying game.  He is describing a roleplaying game, and one with many ways for the players to choose to go.



> That wasn't mentioned. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] said "*Player*: So there's orcs and-or lizardmen, or spies, or Dumont tower. Got it."




Why do you get to say things like, "Well, dozens of moons are not excluded." and "A third moon that is not mentioned is constent.", but when I say something that is consistent and not exluded, you bring up that it wasn't mentioned?  Why is what's good for the goose, not good for the gander?



> I feel that this in itself is enough to tell me that it's not a player-driven game: rather, the players are waiting to be led by the GM, who seems to be the dominant figure in establishing the content of the shared fiction.



You're assuming rather badly.  I like to drive the game with my ideas, but sometimes I just don't feel like it and look for something the DM comes up with.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> I think permerton is using 'sandbox' in an unexpected way.  Might help to ask what he means when he says 'sandbox.'
> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], what do you mean when you say 'sandbox'?




If he has then I'm not going to engage it.  I will do as I always do and use the common usage of the term.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

I think I've seen this discussion before...

The bottom line for me is that there are a lot of valid ways to play and DM, and not all groups like all of the ways. One of my recent groups could not choose a direction without a hook to follow. Often a very big hook. In general, they preferred a railroad. So I obliged, while providing many, many options to consider alternatives.

The theory is fun to discuss and consider, but in the end, as a DM you need to learn to meet your group with what works for them, or you find a different group.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> Thanks for clarifying the DW mechanics a bit for me. I get it a bit better now. Does not sound at all like something I'd be interested in except as a one off or change of pace type of game.




You're welcome.



hawkeyefan said:


> From what I can see, GM judgment absolutely comes into both games, just in different ways. In D&D, the DM sets the DC of a proposed task based on prevailing conditions within the fiction, which can largely determine failure or success on the PC's part. Where as DW seems to have set target numbers for any and all actions, and then the GM uses his judgment to determine the specific outcome.
> 
> I can certainly see how the D&D style lends itself more to the Storyteller GM approach as you have described it. I agree with that. However, I don't think that it must be so by any stretch. *And I would also say that DW seems just as subject to GM manipulation, it would just come about in a different way.*




Can you try explain how you think this might come about in a Dungeon World game (despite the fact that it is a transparent violation of the game's play Agenda, a few GMing principles, and would actually be more difficult to do than just letting things unfold naturally)?  I think I may have an idea of what you have in mind.

My own thoughts on the above?

Here is the thing on this.  You can break the sum agency of a game down into:

GM Agency
Player Agency
System Agency

I've brought this up before a few times in this thread, but I truly cannot stress how integral this is to our discussion (generally across the scope of this thread and specifically for the you and I right now).

So you're correct that all three of B/X, Dungeon World, and 5e require GM judgement.  However, there are significant differences in:

a)  Scope and type of System Agency (this includes top-down play Agenda, resolution mechanics, and general procedures)
b)  Latitude or constraints on GM Agency due to System Agency and GMing principles (or lackthereof)
c)  Expectant Player Agency as a result of genre, social contract and that provided by System Agency (including PC build mechanics).

As a result of this, GMing in each of these systems has different kind and type of cognitive workload in each moment of play and mental overhead sum total in the course of their duties.  

More on this directly below:



hawkeyefan said:


> Fair enough. Do you think that I could describe the action you've provided through the lens of 5E mechanics and come up with the same result? I would expect so. In your description of hte player declaration/action resolution dynamic, I don't see any reason that 5E must go about things differently.




Do I think running 5e without deploying any Illuiosionism at all could yield precisely the sequence of the Dungeon World excerpt upthread?  Yes, I do, but it would have a considerably more difficult time doing it reliably because (i) the fundamental system maths disparity, (ii) the very different resolution mechanics/resource models/play procedures, and (iii) the deep disparity of System Agency and GMing Agency between the two systems.  

So with that said, let us go back to a - c above and then consider the following components of 5e's GMing ethos:

** ...as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.

* <the DM> creates and runs adventures that drive the story. 

* Inventing, writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, refereeing...Focus on the aspects you enjoy and downplay the rest. 

* ...the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game. *

There is a lot more than that including the profound role that the GM plays in determining outcomes merely in the course of mediation procedures.  On the continuum of GM Agency, 5e is on the extreme of one side.  As GM Agency becomes more prolific, System Agency becomes less so.  The game outright gives the GM a mandate to ignore/change/downplay/subordinate the rules.  Also consider the expectation that the GMs created/run adventures drives the story.  That has a lot to say about (c) vs (b) when compared to Dungeon World.  Also consider the fact that the games encounter building tools are absolutely broken (and I said they would turn out that way during the playtest because of fundamental design decisions).  When the apex priority of play is to "create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama", all of this stuff combined puts a lot of pressure on the GM (while enabling them considerably) to deploy Force/Illusionism techniques (which you see advocated for in some of the early WotC modules) such that the yield of play is indeed that "tension and memorable drama" with the gross becoming "epic stories."

So with all of this in mind, I'm left wondering why GM Force/Illusionism is something to be protested in 5e?  The text certainly doesn't decry it as taboo.  In fact, it at least tacitly embraces it due to all of the above (and I'd say tacitly is a massive understatement).

Again, all of that being said, I still stand by my position that you can absolutely run 5e without any Force or Illusionism.  When I run it, I use my friend's hexcrawl/setting/maps, pick up where he left off the week before, deploy the resolution mechanics in orthodox process sim fashion (with the 10 Ability Score laymen as the model) and basically just eyeball the Encounter Budget with a keen eye toward numerical superiority, spellcasting, and team action economy (my profound experience with these games is more robust than their, predictably, wobbly encounter design).  I use Success with Complications (DMG 242) except use failure by 3 or less rather than 2.  

Still, while my experience and my house-ruled use of Success with Complications certainly helps along yielding "tension and memorable drama" in most moments of play, it doesn't remotely produce it as organically (and with less cognitive workload and attendant stress) and inexorably as Dungeon World (and I certainly don't get to "play to find out" in the way that I do with DW).  It seems to me that 5e's answer to that is GM Force/Illusionism to bridge those gaps.



hawkeyefan said:


> I used the term side trek just for ease of reference, and because it seems to be somewhat tangential to the main story....meaning that if the PC had succeeded and not forced a hard move on your part, he would not have fallen into the river and been swept away.
> 
> I also kind of view it as a side trek (in a loose sense) because of practical concerns of play; for instance, what are the other players doing while this is all happening?




I'm going to sblock the entirety of the "Sled into the Glacial Crevasse" scene for your reference.  This may give you further insight into things and may help our conversation along so I'll put the work in:

[sblock]







> Saerie
> 
> Alright. We're right up against our ration allotment, so we can't afford something to happen there. So no goblins on Quartermaster. I'll have Otthor take care of managing our provisions and overseeing setting up and breaking down camp, etc. With his 8 on his QM check, we'll consume the right amount of rations. I'll take Trailblazer. My 10+ will get us there quicker and cut down on some rations used. That leaves Scout. The goblins know this territory best. They know the signs of dangerous geographical hazards, the wind fields in case storms blow in suddenly, and they should know where dangerous avian predators lair. They can take the Scout role. Here we go for them:
> 
> Scout (Goblins)
> 2, 3 + 0 = 5
> 
> Mark 1 xp
> 
> During camp along the way, I want to speak with the dog and find out what the old boy knows about what happened in this settlement.
> 
> I'll also talk to Otthor about, upon our return, picking up the corpse of the poor young man that was changed. The old Remorhaz tunnel where I mercilessly slew him will be easy to find. Hopefully we can locate the two refugee families and they can give him a fitting burial in their cemetery. Surely they know the family. They might even be his kin.






> GM:
> 
> 1)  Despite his deafness, you're able to communicate with the dog somewhat. This is what he is able to relay:
> 
> Some time ago, people started going crazy and killing each other. One man gouged another man's eyes out, for no reason, in the middle of broad daylight and bashed his head in with a rock. The dog actually discovered him. He was found just sitting there, with the body, babbling incoherently. When he developed strange symptoms, the townsfolk executed him and burned the body. People became terrified that there was a sickness and folks weren't leaving their houses much. But more of the same followed not long after. The murdered were buried in the cemetery. The "sick" were executed and burned.
> 
> Things got really, really bad shortly thereafter when the goats started all going mad, stampeding and killing people and each other. More people died but several of the goats were put down. All bodies were burned. The men who were outside fighting the goats began to lose their minds and change. It seemed like people did better if they stayed inside so the whole town banded together, fought off the afflicted, and barricaded themselves in the common building, thinking that they could wait it out and that there would be safety in numbers. When tempers erupted later that night, two families fled the settlement together, sure the place was cursed. They tried to convince everyone else to leave with them. No one else would go. The dog's master stayed so he stayed with him.
> 
> By the next morning, everyone had killed each other or began changing and then cocooning. The dog hid for days and then tried to escape when everything was still. That is when you guys showed up and everything happened.
> 
> 2)  You cut off a significant amount of travel via a handy shortcut you discover (2 rations off of your total used, so you spend 8 instead of 10). You locate some elevation on the icy tundra and use the prolonged downslope to lessen the wolves burden and sustain momentum on the ice. For a good 4 hours, the wolves expend no real energy and they're able to take turns resting on the front of the sleds.
> 
> The land starts to rise and fall and is fraught with boulders and sharp rocks on the final approach. The elevating earth ascends angrily toward the White Dragon's domain and the entrance to the Coldlands beyond. In the distance, you can see the great open cavern, cut naturally into the bottom of the mountainside's face. Earthmaw.
> 
> The small goblin stands up and points, beginning to celebrate. The moment that he does so, a terrible sound begins beneath you. To date, the goblins have guided you away from the lairs of nesting Wyverns, Perytons, and navigated around the dangerous terrain of false-floors. However, when the sound of cracking ice begins and a jagged, zig-zagging line accelerates in front of the sleds (the cowardly, but useful, goblin was able to tie/rig together both sleds, creating something of a master sled with a larger platform (1) that could be pulled by all 8 wolves and (2) that he could drive as neither of the other goblins are proficient enough), terror turns his celebrations into a shriek. Almost immediately thereafter, the false layer of thin ice gives way and the crevasse reveals itself with a terrible noise. The cracking, gravelly yawn of the glacier threatens to swallow you all as the back end of the sled goes in first.
> 
> The goblin driver leaps for safety above and barely finds it.
> 
> One of the two armored goblin brothers is almost immediately claimed by the deadly darkness below. His brother dives for him and grabs hold of his arm...both of them hanging dangerously by a hand meagerly grasping the sled.
> 
> Rawr is easily able to use his claws to hang onto the sled but the dog is going to go over if he isn't saved. And you two are going to need to defy some danger as well and figure this thing out.
> 
> The wolves are up top, howling and growling...trying desperately to pull the precarious sled out. But its far, far too much weight for them and, despite their efforts, they are slowly sliding backward toward the indifferent chasm...






> Otthor
> 
> The first thing I'm going to do is position my body so that when the dog falls, he falls into me. I'll accept the blow and try to hang on so he doesn't fall.
> 
> Defy Danger (Con)
> 4, 2 + 1 = 7
> 
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.






> GM
> 
> The dog's mouth loses its grip on the rope tying the two sleds together. He falls hard into your body and lets out a terrified howl that resounds in the darkness below. You're able to intercept him and get him so that his paws and mouth are able to hang onto the many ropes that bind the sleds.
> 
> However, in doing so, your own grip is compromised and you loose it. You fall to the end of the sled with the two goblins, barely hanging on to the last bit of rope and wood. There are no handholds to climb here. If you're going to get out of it, you'll need to find another way.






> Saerie
> 
> As Otthor rescues the dog, I'm going to shout to Rawr. "Get up top, Rawr! Now!" I'm thinking that if he can get his weight off of the sleds and the two of us can get top-side, we can probably anchor things and keep the wolves from going over the precipice. He must weigh 350 to 400 lbs, if not more, so just getting that much weight off of things should help immensely. My weight, plus his, plus the two of us pulling the sled out might do the trick!
> 
> Is his _Hobbled _tag still a problem enough that he can't climb?






> GM
> 
> He is pretty close to healed. Besides, the situation is so dire that adrenaline alone would allow him to make the climb if nothing else. He'll be able to make it no problem. But you need to go ahead and Defy Danger.






> Saerie
> 
> Alright, given that the dog is stably holding onto the ropes of the sled, I'm going to use his furry body as hand-holds and to pull myself up top and over the edge.
> 
> So + 1 to Defy Danger but I can't get a 10 +.
> 
> Defy Danger (Str)
> 2, 4 + 0 (+ 1 dog) = 7
> 
> Whew. Good thing I went with the dog's _Intervene_!
> 
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.






> GM
> 
> As you're cresting the top, your climbing over the dog loosens the grip of his muzzle on the rope. Further, in your efforts, the ties to your cornpurse that hold it tautly in place have been severed. You see them both begin to drop to the chasm below.
> 
> You can grab only one.






> Sarie
> 
> I reach down and grab the dog by the scruff of his neck, pull him back to the rope that he had his muzzled wrapped around. When he is secure, I crest the top, listening closely for the sound of the coin purse hitting the bottom so that I might be able to discern how far down the drop is.






> GM
> 
> Within about 3-4 seconds, you hear the sound of a sploosh as the coin purse meets a watery grave in a subterranean (freezing no doubt...but flowing) body of water.






> Saerie
> 
> When I get to the top, I'm grabbing the harness and putting it firmly in Rawr's muzzle so that he can keep it from fully going over and maybe help pull the huge weight of the two wooden sleds and my companions. "Everything you have Rawr! PULL!"
> 
> I'm looking for a thick spot in the ice that I can drive a piton into it to anchor a rope in.
> 
> Discern Realities (Wis)
> 4, 5 + 2 = 11
> 
> 3 questions and + 1 forward. The only one I'm interested in is:
> 
> What here is useful to me?






> GM
> 
> The weight of you and Rawr off the sled helps immensely. The wolves' backward momentum is fully stopped once Rawr sets his might to the task of pulling the sleds up. The dog, Otthor, and the two goblins hang there precariously when the sleds begin to slowly...ever so slowly...inch forward.
> 
> You look around, the glaciers ice is thick almost everywhere you look. A piton driven down into it will hold.






> Saerie
> 
> I grab the mountaineers gear that I found in the Remorhaz tunnel (so I'm spending that 1 Adventuring Gear). I drive a piton into the ice with a hammer and quickly knot a rope around it. When finished, I'm throwing it down to them.
> 
> Defy Danger (Int)
> 4, 1 + 1 (+ 1 DR) = 7
> 
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.






> GM
> 
> Precious time.  That is your complication.
> 
> You get it done as quickly as you can, but your hands are frozen and aching and you fumble for a moment getting the pitons out of your pack. The first knot doesn't hold perfectly and you have to redo it before you loop it over the head of the piton. You sprint to the edge and throw the rope over. What you find when you get to the edge and toss it over?Let's find out.
> 
> Both yourself and the goblins are in grave danger and at risk of dropping into the frozen, watery depths. What are you going to do about it Otthor?






> Otthor
> 
> When I see Rawr and Saerie make it to the top and I feel the downward slide of the sleds end, I know deliverance is on its way. As we begin to slowly rise I can hear the grunts and gasps for breath. A look next to me reveals the goblin holding the sled by one hand and his brother in the other is struggling mightily. His mental and physical fortitude to hang on are failing. I let go with one hand knowing that it will likely cost me. Having a much longer reach than the goblin, I can grab his brother's furs. With my physical strength waning, I rely on my spirit and tenacity, hoping to inspire not only the goblin but myself. "Hang on! MMMMRPH! You're going to make it!"
> 
> Defy Danger (Cha)
> 4, 3 + 1 = 8
> 
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice.






> GM
> 
> The load off the goblin brother immediately invigorates him as his other hand firmly grasps the sled. Your heroic efforts and seeing his brother have to firm hand-holds on the sled instills further strength in him to survive.
> 
> The sled very, very slowly rises as the weight is still immense. Your fingers are growing so very weary. There is little chance that you can just hold on like this for the time it will take for the sled to rise to the top.






> Otthor
> 
> With my extra weight off the sled, I know it will rise more quickly. If I fall, so be it.
> 
> Defy Danger (Str)
> 1, 1 - 1 = 1
> 
> Mark 1 xp
> 
> My strength is gone. Before my hands let go of their own volition, I shout to Saerie in elven. "Fear not for me. Carry on. I will find you. May gentle breezes guide you and sweet waters comfort you, my friend."
> 
> I let go.






> GM
> 
> As you descend into the darkness, Saerie appears in the crack of light above with a dangling rope for the goblins. The dog crests the top and the whole of the sleds begin to ascend rapidly.
> 
> You plunge into icy water and are carried in a hard current over unforgiving rocks.
> 
> You take b[2d8] from the freezing cold and the rocks, no armor applies.






> Otthor
> 
> 8, 3. I take 8 damage.






> GM
> 
> Saerie, all three goblins, all eight wolves, the sheepdog, and your steadfast bear Rawr are all accounted for. Everyone takes a moment, gasping for breath from the exertion and collecting themselves from the intensity of what just took place.
> 
> Earthmaw is within reach. Just a jaunt over a small stretch of glacial rises. The darkness that swallowed your friend lies below you and his words echo in your mind.
> 
> What are you doing?






> Saerie
> 
> We share a brief moment similar to the shock that befell that Fellowship after Gandalf's fall in Moria.  I help everyone up and give them time to catch their breath and let the adrenaline subside.  I briefly glance at the ominous blizzard on our flank and then stare out at the fading rays of sunlight across the windswept tundra.  Trusting my friend despite my pang of guilt, I simply say "...on to Earthmaw."



[/sblock]



hawkeyefan said:


> In that way, I think it's different than the Fronts system from DW that you've described, but not all that different as it may first seem, I think. DW has a map representing a physical location, with a couple of detailed Fronts and then a bunch of blanks. My campaign could be similarly described....except that the "map" wouldn't be a physical location so much as story options.




Agreed.  Generating a full hexcrawl/setting map with a metaplot vs "make a map with blanks" + "play to find out" + "generate a few Fronts that challenges the player's goals" is definitely not a different species.  The devil is in the details of prep, system, and play (both procedures and outcome).


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], what do you mean when you say 'sandbox'?



In referring to a "classic sandbox" with a "somewhat static, reactive character" I'm following [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post 65; and [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s post 41:



Campbell said:


> There are multiple ways to play to find out, including one way that is far older than the hobby. Examples include:
> *Free Kriegsspiel.* Kriegsspiel was a very detailed Prussian wargame developed in the 1800s in order to train junior officers. Playtesting revealed that Kriegsspiel war games took entirely too much time to resolve and removed much of the immediacy of decision making required on the battlefield. In order to get around it, a variant named Free Kriegsspiel was introduced. In Free Kriegsspeil, rather than an elaborate rule book to resolve military matters an experienced senior officer would take on the role of Game Master and rely upon their knowledge to resolve maneuvers. Play depended on detailed scenarios and the historical warfare knowledge of the Game Master. Free Kriegsspeil formed the foundations of the war gaming tradition that Dungeons and Dragons grew out of. Rather than taking on the role of military commanders, players would play individual adventurers. The fundamentals of this playstyle are relatively simple: The GM or referee utilizes scenarios that players are free to engage with in any way, and the GM makes judgement calls based on his own knowledge of the fiction, based on what would be most likely. In cases where he is uncertain he utilizes random rolls to disclaim decision making. We simply play the fiction out. The weakness of this method of play is that it leans heavily on scenario design and the expertise of the Game Master. Think of a dungeon is a front on a war against civilization. Games that embrace this method include Stars Without Number, OD&D, Moldvay D&D, Traveller, and RuneQuest. Playing at the World does a very good job of explaining how this play style came about, and how it generally functioned.





chaochou said:


> Early rpgs taught us that we got to make tactical decisions about when to use spells, when to run and hide, when to sneak and when to fall into a spiked pi.... I mean check for traps. But very soon we got games like Traveller, where the players could easily decide against whatever a 'patron' said and be in a different planetary system within minutes.
> 
> The sandbox - describing everything, everywhere, either through prep or tables - was one way of coping with player expectations of broader, more fundamental decisions about their characters' lives.




The "scenarios" in this style are essentially "static" situations that the PCs engage via their PCs. The examples I have in mind, based on my own experience with material being published c1977-c1982, are for B/X, OD&D and early AD&D, RQ and Traveller.

The Village of Hommlet is an example that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and I discussed upthread - we were in agreement that the situation is "static" until the PCs inject themselves into it, which I regarded as a virtue but Lanefan as a weakness.

The classic dungeon is another example - be that a semi-serious dungeon, like the example of The Haunted Keep in Moldvay Basic, or a funhouse dungeon like White Plume Mountain, or some intermediate example like Moldvay's Castle Amber.

In the case of Traveller, I'm thinking of White Dwarf scenarios like The Sable Rose Affair or Amber to Red; or GDW modules like Mission on Mithril.

These scenarios don't have a trajectory of their own. They are situations conceived of by the referee for the players to engage via their PCs - poking here, asking questions there, gradually building up a picture of the situation so that (ultimately) they can "beat" it.

Because the situation is static but for the response to the PCs, the actual sequence of events in play is driven by player choices - they choose which rooms the PCs enter and which they ignore; they choose whether the PCs try to  sneak past the guards or assault them; when these sorts of scenarios are incorporated into a larger "world", the players choose which "hits" to make and which to leave.

In this sort of play, a lot of NPC responses are determined randomly (reaction rolls; evasion rolls; etc - with the players being able to influence this by standard strategies like offering bribes) or by generic scripts (hobgoblins hate elves and always attack them; skeletons fight until destroyed; etc) which the players are capable of learning via divination magic, collecting lore from NPCs (think of classic D&D's elaborate rules for sages), etc.

When the GM turns the "world" into a "living, breathing one" - ie the sorts of changes [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], upthread, said that he would prefer to see made to T1 - it is no longer the players who are choosing what parts of the "world" to engage, and driving the fiction by their choices. The world is going to come to them (eg if the players ignore the orcs, the GM works out orcish events offscreen, and these then feed back into the events that occur to the players). The extreme example of this is the players whose PCs ignore the cultist plot and find, X amount of game time down the track, that the world has come to an end in a great apocalypse. But the same trajectory of play can unfold in less extreme cases.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> So with that said, let us go back to a - c above and then consider the following components of 5e's GMing ethos:
> 
> ** ...as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.
> 
> * <the DM> creates and runs adventures that drive the story.
> 
> * Inventing, writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, refereeing...Focus on the aspects you enjoy and downplay the rest.
> 
> * ...the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game. *



 IDK if that's the whole thing or how everyone may approach it, but sounds pretty reasonable.  

Some of it, like the GM's role being to interpret the rules and change them if desired isn't really a game-specific thing but a mere truism, no ruleset can stop a DM who decides to use it from also deciding to mod it. 



> There is a lot more than that including the profound role that the GM plays in determining outcomes merely in the course of mediation procedures.



 I would say 'resolution system' rather than 'mediation prodedures,' but that's an important point...  


> On the continuum of GM Agency, 5e is on the extreme of one side.



 The "Empowerment" side.  


> As GM Agency becomes more prolific, System Agency becomes less so.  The game outright gives the GM a mandate to ignore/change/downplay/subordinate the rules.



 OTOH, 3.x did the same thing with Rule 0.  Well, it /said/ the same thing with Rule 0, yet it spawned the Zealot Cult of RAW.  Clearly there's more to it than giving a mandate that the DM can't be prevented from just taking.

The difference is the above important point.  From the core resolution system on out, the system leaves things for the DM to finish.  You can't 'play the game RAW,' by RAW, you get as far as the first action declaration and the impartial just-RAW-DM is stuck making a ruling.  It's Rulings not Rules because the Rules don't work without Rulings.  That conditions players to expect continuous DM 'Agency,' and conditions DMs to exercise it.

That's Empowerment.  With teeth.  



> Also consider the expectation that the GMs created/run adventures drives the story.   Also consider the fact that the games encounter building tools are absolutely broken



 It's not a paint-by-numbers game.  To run a good game, you need have or develop the more-art-than-science skill (or have the natural talent).  That means not everyone can DM.  When a player isn't happy, and you say "well, fine, you run something," he's probably not going to bite, if he does, it's probably going to suck, because running with as much responsibility as DMing demands is /hard/.  That makes DM's rare, which makes DMs special, and feeling special is (gasp) Empowering.  




> (and I said they would turn out that way during the playtest because of fundamental design decisions)



 Yeah, yeah, don't strain your back-patting arm.  ;P



> So with all of this in mind, I'm left wondering why GM Force/Illusionism is something to be protested in 5e?  The text certainly doesn't decry it as taboo.  In fact, it at least tacitly embraces it due to all of the above (and I'd say tacitly is a massive understatement).



 Maybe it's just the name, it sounds a little underhanded, perhaps?  I have no problem with it, though.  
Sure I'm a DM Illusionist, watch me pull a great session outta my hat (I actually wear a hat, so I can say that)...
nuth'n up m' sleeve... 


Or, we could just call it what 5e calls it:  DM Empowerment.  
The DM takes responsibility for his game, he make rulings rather than depending on rules.  



> Again, all of that being said, I still stand by my position that you can absolutely run 5e without any Force or Illusionism.



 Sure. You are totally empowered to do that!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> how can something matter to you if you don't know what it is?



Is the wrong in cheating _cheating_? Or in _being caught_?

I think many would say the former - ie that cheating matters to the victims of it even if they don't know about it.

But there is an additional consideration here when it comes to the practicalities of a social experience like a RPG - namely, that as a general rule the participants can tell where various contributions came from. To refer back to my post 536 upthread:

In the examples above, the framing and hence the game is a player-driven one; eg,

No, the door isn't one you can fly through as a falcon;

No, _because you failed a check_ you're stuck in this prison indefinitely, and I'm making it true in the fiction that that is because of _your past shenanigans_ involving NPCs and social dynamics that you've made central to our shared fiction;

To get the help _you want_ from the assassin, you have to relinquish the Orb that _you chose to take_ from her and that _you hid_ in the cathedral altar;

_You've accepted_ the assassin's insistence that she won't summon without proper circle-drawing equipment, and so _you've made yourself hostage_ to her ability to pick the lock and get you both out of prison;​
Etc​
It is quite transparent to the player how the choices that he made about his character, and thereby about the fiction, are driving the fiction into which his PC is being framed. It's equally transparent how, had the player made different choices, or had different outcomes on checks, the fiction would have been different. For instance, had the player not failed the check to carry the bodies through the city, the shared fiction would not have included the PC being in prison; had the player not failed the check to have the PC's cleric friend come by the prison, the shared fiction would not have included the PC being in prison indefinitely; had the player not chosen to take the Orb from the assassin and hide it, I wouldn't have narrated the assassin making the relinquishing of the Orb (which was a very difficult check) her price (indeed, if the PC had been able to escape from the prison with the help of the cleric, probably he would have made the assassin's cooperation in summoning the brother's spirit a price of helping her get out); had the player chosen to have his PC try and talk the assassin into using a circle of breadcrumbs for summoning the spirit, then that might have worked, and the summoning might have taken place inside the prison cell.

At every point, the player can see how the content of the fiction that is at the centre of play is being shaped as a result of his play of the game. There is no cunning GM manipulation or nudging taking place.

I feel that the contrast with the player having his PC go to the mercenaries' guild, so that the GM can have a NPC tell the PC (and thereby the player) that there is an adventure with orcs on the other side of the hills, is pretty apparent.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Is the wrong in cheating _cheating_? Or in _being caught_?



In the case of a DM, the illusion only works until someone sees through it.  The solution is either to a) not look, or b) be ready to willingly accept and deal with whatever you see when you do look.



> But there is an additional consideration here when it comes to the practicalities of a social experience like a RPG - namely, that as a general rule the participants can tell where various contributions came from. To refer back to my post 536 upthread:
> 
> In the examples above, the framing and hence the game is a player-driven one; eg,
> 
> No, the door isn't one you can fly through as a falcon;
> 
> No, _because you failed a check_ you're stuck in this prison indefinitely, and I'm making it true in the fiction that that is because of _your past shenanigans_ involving NPCs and social dynamics that you've made central to our shared fiction;
> 
> To get the help _you want_ from the assassin, you have to relinquish the Orb that _you chose to take_ from her and that _you hid_ in the cathedral altar;
> 
> _You've accepted_ the assassin's insistence that she won't summon without proper circle-drawing equipment, and so _you've made yourself hostage_ to her ability to pick the lock and get you both out of prison;​
> Etc​



Every one of those is a single event, or close, within an adventure.  Different scale.



> It is quite transparent to the player how the choices that he made about his character, and thereby about the fiction, are driving the fiction into which his PC is being framed. It's equally transparent how, had the player made different choices, or had different outcomes on checks, the fiction would have been different. For instance, had the player not failed the check to carry the bodies through the city, the shared fiction would not have included the PC being in prison; had the player not failed the check to have the PC's cleric friend come by the prison, the shared fiction would not have included the PC being in prison indefinitely; had the player not chosen to take the Orb from the assassin and hide it, I wouldn't have narrated the assassin making the relinquishing of the Orb (which was a very difficult check) her price (indeed, if the PC had been able to escape from the prison with the help of the cleric, probably he would have made the assassin's cooperation in summoning the brother's spirit a price of helping her get out); had the player chosen to have his PC try and talk the assassin into using a circle of breadcrumbs for summoning the spirit, then that might have worked, and the summoning might have taken place inside the prison cell.



This all seems kind of obvious, really: one thing leads to the next within an adventure.

But what if there is no "one thing"?  The spirits have been summoned, the PC is out of jail, the dark naga's got its blood to play with, the PCs have done their jobs, the adventure's over with no obvious sequels or follow-ons to worry about, they've divided their treasury (and done their training) and now they've all gone down to the pub for a well-earned beer to toast their own success.

Next morning, they wake up and through their hangovers ask each other "So.  What do we do next?"

One or more of the PCs may have (an) idea(s) for this, and may well talk the party into going there.  Fine.

But if not, what's wrong with the DM providing some hooks?

And you never did answer my question about whether the PCs in your game ever get any breaks or downtime like this.

Lan-"33 years later and I'm finally starting on my stronghold...which'll probably take another 33 to finish"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> The DM establishes the content of the game world



According to what principles? For what reasons? Until we answer those questions, how can we know whether the game is GM- or player-driven?



Lanefan said:


> Every one of those is a single event, or close, within an adventure.  Different scale.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> one thing leads to the next within an adventure.



But in a player-driven game as I understand it, _that's all there is_. There is a sequence of events, in which the PC(s) are at the centre.

And it's not just a case of one thing leading to another. I think that to describe it that way is to miss the point.

There is no _inevitability_ to my (i) narrating that the magistrate decides they are to be imprisoned indefinitely, and (ii) connecting this, in the fiction, to the PC's past (mostly unhappy) dealings with the leader of his sorcerous cabal.

That is a _choice_ - a _judgement call_, to use the language of the OP. Other choices were, in principle, available, but I didn't make them _because those other choices would have taken the game away from its focus on the matters that the player has put into play via his choices in playing the game_.

The analogue, in your example of a player having his PC go to the mercenaries' guild and the militia HQ, might be something like this:

The player has written into his PC backstory, "I will be avenged upon the lizardmen for their destruction of my farm."

The PC goes to the mercenaries' guild, and learns (via the GM's narration) that _the lizardmen are readying an attack on Dumont tower - if you sign up now to join the defenders, you'll be handsomely paid_.

The PC goes to the HQ, and learns (via the GM's narration) that _the orcs are attacking the farms, and we need every able body we can get to help in defence._

In putting these two scenarios on the table, the GM forces the player to make a choice: _do I seek vengeance upon the lizardmen?_ or do I postpone, even abandon, my quest for vengeance in order to help other defend their farms against a different threat?​
That would be the GM putting _the player_ at the centre of things. And thereby creating the space for the game to be player-driven in the sense I've tried to get at.

Rather than the GM putting his/her desires for the content of the fiction, and the trajectory of things, at the centre.

Which is why simply noting that the GM manages the backstory doesn't tell us who is driving the game. Because it depends crucially on the reasons for narrating one thing rather than another, and the way that that narrated stuff then speaks to the players one way rather than another.



Lanefan said:


> But what if there is no "one thing"?  The spirits have been summoned, the PC is out of jail, the dark naga's got its blood to play with, the PCs have done their jobs, the adventure's over with no obvious sequels or follow-ons to worry about, they've divided their treasury (and done their training) and now they've all gone down to the pub for a well-earned beer to toast their own success.
> 
> Next morning, they wake up and through their hangovers ask each other "So.  What do we do next?"
> 
> One or more of the PCs may have (an) idea(s) for this, and may well talk the party into going there.  Fine.
> 
> But if not, what's wrong with the DM providing some hooks?



If everything the PCs care about has been resolved, then the campaign is over.

As for "what's wrong"? Nothing's _wrong_ if that's the sort of RPGing you enjoy. It just happens to not really be my thing.



Lanefan said:


> If a character's next logical in-character move is to do something that takes it out of the party, then out it goes.  I've role-played myself out of many a party in the past.



See, this is is pretty much the opposite of the answer I just gave. The player has to stop playing the PC - ie as far as that PC is concerned, it's "campaign over" - if the "logical" play of the PC takes that character away from the GM's hooks. Whereas my answer, above, is that the campaign is over _when the players, via their PCs, no longer have any "hooks" to offer the GM_.



Lanefan said:


> And you never did answer my question about whether the PCs in your game ever get any breaks or downtime like this.



The PCs in the game mentioned in the OP spent 18 months in the ruined tower, trying to eke out enough of a living to buy food from the locals (mechanically, this involves the game's Resources sub-system) while also training and, in one case, healing from a near-mortal wound.

But during that time the PCs (and their players) weren't at a loss for things to do. They made a choice to postpone their pursuit of the thing they cared about so they could spend that time that way.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> The theory is fun to discuss and consider, but in the end, as a DM you need to learn to meet your group with what works for them, or you find a different group.



GM advice is a real thing, just like their can be advice to help with other activities that require skill and judgement to do well.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Why do you get to say things like, "Well, dozens of moons are not excluded." and "A third moon that is not mentioned is constent.", but when I say something that is consistent and not exluded, you bring up that it wasn't mentioned?  Why is what's good for the goose, not good for the gander?



I can't follow this.

Here is one question: _Is the existence of X in fictional place Y consistent with the established fiction with respect to Y?_

Here is a different question: _Does the GMing approach that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] described allow the players to introduce content that the GM hasn't already signalled in some fashion?_

I don't see what the two questions have in common. One is about the inner logic of a fiction. Roughly speaking, it belongs to the domain of literary criticism (or some discipline in that neighbourhood). The other is about the permissible and expected moves at [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s table, given that the GM is adopting a certain approach to running the game. Roughly speaking, it belongs to the domain of anthropology (or some discipline in that neighbourhood).

The methods for answering one have almost nothing in common with the methods for answering the other.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> Can you try explain how you think this might come about in a Dungeon World game (despite the fact that it is a transparent violation of the game's play Agenda, a few GMing principles, and would actually be more difficult to do than just letting things unfold naturally)?



To me, this is a key question. And it's not a rhetorical question.

To those who assert that GM force can play the same role in (say) DungeonWorld or MHRP or Burning Wheel as it can in (say) 2nd ed AD&D, my response is, _show me_.

Either relate an actual play anecdote that illustrates the point, or at least sketch a conjectural example that engages with the system.

I'll focus just on BW:

If a PC's Belief is at stake (as in the OP), and the GM "says 'yes'" rather than framing a check and calling for a roll of the dice, _the player can tell_. Which is to say, the player can tell that the GM is departing from the principles that are stated, in the game's rulebooks, to govern the game.

If a GM calls for a check when nothing relevant to a PC's Belief is at stake, then again _the player can tell_.

If a GM calls for a re-check when "Let it Ride" should be in force, then again _the player can tell_.

If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the _the player can tell_. For starters, the player will know that s/he doesn't feel any tension related to his/her conception of his/her PC (as expressed via those Beliefs).​
In other words, there's no way - in Burning Wheel - for the GM to nudge or manipulate the fiction in his/her preferred direction, away from the concerns the players have expressed via their Beliefs, without this being flagrantly obvious to the players.

Could you do this in 5e? Sure, in the sense that you could (i) graft on a Belief mechanic, and (ii) have the GM frame scenes in accordance with BW principles. But some issues will come to light fairly quickly: the asymmetry of player resource suites with respect to rest periods, for instance; a degree of lack of a robust non-combat resolution system to interface with "Let it Ride"; some maths issues, which tend to allow guaranteed success at low DCs (which means that "say 'yes' or roll the dice" won't work on those occasions) and can make it hard to muster the resources to allow the player's choices to swamp the d20 at high DCs; the fact that unless you change the XP system from the published ones (XP for combat, or "milestones"), you won't have any robust correlation between playing the game and PC advancement; and probably other stuff I'm not thinking of.

Which is to say - if I wanted to use 5e to run a player-driven game I wouldn't necessarily be looking to BW as my model. Classic B/X or AD&D, with some sort of attempt to integrate the rest mechanics into the dungeon exploration time cycle, would (I think) be a more profitable route.

(I don't have enough DungeonWorld experience to know how well you could try and emulate that with 5e, but besides [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s points - or maybe taking the one about different resolution systems and making it more precise - there is the fact that DW has mechanics that are almost guaranteed to produce a cycle of success and failure, driving the dynamics of the game. And there are very definite rules about what happens on a success, and what happens on a failure. I think it would be non-trivial to introduce that into 5e - eg for a start some of the most dramatic actions in 5e, like casting spells, can succeed automatically.)


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> In referring to a "classic sandbox" with a "somewhat static, reactive character" I'm following [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post 65; and [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s post 41:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The "scenarios" in this style are essentially "static" situations that the PCs engage via their PCs. The examples I have in mind, based on my own experience with material being published c1977-c1982, are for B/X, OD&D and early AD&D, RQ and Traveller.
> 
> The Village of Hommlet is an example that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and I discussed upthread - we were in agreement that the situation is "static" until the PCs inject themselves into it, which I regarded as a virtue but Lanefan as a weakness.
> 
> The classic dungeon is another example - be that a semi-serious dungeon, like the example of The Haunted Keep in Moldvay Basic, or a funhouse dungeon like White Plume Mountain, or some intermediate example like Moldvay's Castle Amber.
> 
> In the case of Traveller, I'm thinking of White Dwarf scenarios like The Sable Rose Affair or Amber to Red; or GDW modules like Mission on Mithril.
> 
> These scenarios don't have a trajectory of their own. They are situations conceived of by the referee for the players to engage via their PCs - poking here, asking questions there, gradually building up a picture of the situation so that (ultimately) they can "beat" it.
> 
> Because the situation is static but for the response to the PCs, the actual sequence of events in play is driven by player choices - they choose which rooms the PCs enter and which they ignore; they choose whether the PCs try to  sneak past the guards or assault them; when these sorts of scenarios are incorporated into a larger "world", the players choose which "hits" to make and which to leave.
> 
> In this sort of play, a lot of NPC responses are determined randomly (reaction rolls; evasion rolls; etc - with the players being able to influence this by standard strategies like offering bribes) or by generic scripts (hobgoblins hate elves and always attack them; skeletons fight until destroyed; etc) which the players are capable of learning via divination magic, collecting lore from NPCs (think of classic D&D's elaborate rules for sages), etc.
> 
> When the GM turns the "world" into a "living, breathing one" - ie the sorts of changes [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], upthread, said that he would prefer to see made to T1 - it is no longer the players who are choosing what parts of the "world" to engage, and driving the fiction by their choices. The world is going to come to them (eg if the players ignore the orcs, the GM works out orcish events offscreen, and these then feed back into the events that occur to the players). The extreme example of this is the players whose PCs ignore the cultist plot and find, X amount of game time down the track, that the world has come to an end in a great apocalypse. But the same trajectory of play can unfold in less extreme cases.




I didn't see anything in Lanefan's description that violates your definition, though -- he presented various things going on that the players then can choose to engage with.  

As for the 'sandbox in motion' idea, you using a narrow definition that requires a static world, only changing due to player engagement, is harmful to full discussion.  A sandbox, generally, is a place where players choose what to engage -- the world is open to player engagement.  Nothing about this requires that the box not move when the players aren't there.  Your example of a cult ending the world behind the scenes is using a bad example to dismiss an idea -- having a game end without any player engagement in the reasons is just bad GMing, in any system or method.  But having the players have to deal with complications for things they knew about and ignored isn't -- ie, if they learn about the cult and decide to go knit sweaters, having the town they knit in taken over by summoned demons isn't a failed sandbox.  The concept of Fronts, above, largely mirrors the ideas I have for a living sandbox.  A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> To me, this is a key question. And it's not a rhetorical question.
> 
> To those who assert that GM force can play the same role in (say) DungeonWorld or MHRP or Burning Wheel as it can in (say) 2nd ed AD&D, my response is, _show me_.
> 
> Either relate an actual play anecdote that illustrates the point, or at least sketch a conjectural example that engages with the system.
> 
> I'll focus just on BW:
> 
> If a PC's Belief is at stake (as in the OP), and the GM "says 'yes'" rather than framing a check and calling for a roll of the dice, _the player can tell_. Which is to say, the player can tell that the GM is departing from the principles that are stated, in the game's rulebooks, to govern the game.
> 
> If a GM calls for a check when nothing relevant to a PC's Belief is at stake, then again _the player can tell_.
> 
> If a GM calls for a re-check when "Let it Ride" should be in force, then again _the player can tell_.
> 
> If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the _the player can tell_. For starters, the player will know that s/he doesn't feel any tension related to his/her conception of his/her PC (as expressed via those Beliefs).​
> In other words, there's no way - in Burning Wheel - for the GM to nudge or manipulate the fiction in his/her preferred direction, away from the concerns the players have expressed via their Beliefs, without this being flagrantly obvious to the players.
> 
> Could you do this in 5e? Sure, in the sense that you could (i) graft on a Belief mechanic, and (ii) have the GM frame scenes in accordance with BW principles. But some issues will come to light fairly quickly: the asymmetry of player resource suites with respect to rest periods, for instance; a degree of lack of a robust non-combat resolution system to interface with "Let it Ride"; some maths issues, which tend to allow guaranteed success at low DCs (which means that "say 'yes' or roll the dice" won't work on those occasions) and can make it hard to muster the resources to allow the player's choices to swamp the d20 at high DCs; the fact that unless you change the XP system from the published ones (XP for combat, or "milestones"), you won't have any robust correlation between playing the game and PC advancement; and probably other stuff I'm not thinking of.
> 
> Which is to say - if I wanted to use 5e to run a player-driven game I wouldn't necessarily be looking to BW as my model. Classic B/X or AD&D, with some sort of attempt to integrate the rest mechanics into the dungeon exploration time cycle, would (I think) be a more profitable route.
> 
> (I don't have enough DungeonWorld experience to know how well you could try and emulate that with 5e, but besides [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s points - or maybe taking the one about different resolution systems and making it more precise - there is the fact that DW has mechanics that are almost guaranteed to produce a cycle of success and failure, driving the dynamics of the game. And there are very definite rules about what happens on a success, and what happens on a failure. I think it would be non-trivial to introduce that into 5e - eg for a start some of the most dramatic actions in 5e, like casting spells, can succeed automatically.)




Oh, come now, you really can't imagine it?  Take your example of the imprisoning of you player.  You said that the consequence for the failed check was that the player couldn't escape on their own.  Fair enough, but you picked that consequence.  You could have easily allowed for the player to escape, but by doing so it would now directly harm something else they cared about.  Say they had a belief about a fellow rogue, and in their attempt to escape, they placed that rogue in danger of their life.  That's a manipulation you could pull by choosing the consequence according to something you want to have happen.  

For further examples, if none of the player beliefs involved demons, but you really like demons and want demons to be a part of the game, you can then have consequences for failures rolled by the players in regard to their beliefs involve demons.  Like when your player investigated the tower for the mace, you chose finding cursed arrows, but you could have had a demon appear, instead.  Bam, you're now influencing the direction of the game with your preferred narratives.  Sure, the players still get their licks in, as they have to engage their beliefs for a roll to occur, but you can frame the outcomes in terms of demons or demon related things.  Soon enough, you'll have players proposing replacement beliefs in terms of demons.  And now you have the game you wanted.

Can you force the exact outcome you want?  No, not with BW.  But you can most certainly shape the game strongly according to your desires as DM.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I can't follow this.
> 
> Here is one question: _Is the existence of X in fictional place Y consistent with the established fiction with respect to Y?_




And it's essentially the same question for both.

Greyhawk gave 2 moons in the fiction, but didn't say that there weren't more.

Lanefan gave 4 options in the fiction, but didn't say that there weren't more.

You gave a third moon as consistent, since Greyhawk didn't say that there weren't more.

I gave a player choice as another option that was consistent, since Lanefan didn't say that there weren't more.

It's the same.



> Here is a different question: _Does the GMing approach that @*Lanefan* described allow the players to introduce content that the GM hasn't already signalled in some fashion?_




That doesn't have anything to do with whether something is a sandbox or not.  You can have a pure sandbox without the players being able to dictate to the DM that there are barbarians in the country next to the one that the PCs are in, creating those barbarians.  The DM can create 100% of the world and just let the players decide where the PCs go, what their goals are, and how they go about achieving those goals.  That's a sandbox.

To answer the question, though, yes they can.  Let's say that Lanefan didn't signal that there were barbarians in the world, but he knows that there are since he created the world.  The PCs decide that they are curious about whether there are any wild men around any more, so they determine where likely places are and research those areas.  Lanefan lets them know that there are wild men called barbarians in the northern wastes.  They inform him that they are going to go take over the tribes.

The players have now given their own direction to the game content, creating that path and content.  It may not be the pure creation of people, items and places that your playstyle allows, but it is still player created content.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> To me, this is a key question. And it's not a rhetorical question.
> 
> To those who assert that GM force can play the same role in (say) DungeonWorld or MHRP or Burning Wheel as it can in (say) 2nd ed AD&D, my response is, _show me_.
> 
> Either relate an actual play anecdote that illustrates the point, or at least sketch a conjectural example that engages with the system.
> 
> I'll focus just on BW:
> 
> If a PC's Belief is at stake (as in the OP), and the GM "says 'yes'" rather than framing a check and calling for a roll of the dice, _the player can tell_. Which is to say, the player can tell that the GM is departing from the principles that are stated, in the game's rulebooks, to govern the game.
> 
> If a GM calls for a check when nothing relevant to a PC's Belief is at stake, then again _the player can tell_.
> 
> If a GM calls for a re-check when "Let it Ride" should be in force, then again _the player can tell_.
> 
> If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the _the player can tell_. For starters, the player will know that s/he doesn't feel any tension related to his/her conception of his/her PC (as expressed via those Beliefs).​
> In other words, there's no way - in Burning Wheel - for the GM to nudge or manipulate the fiction in his/her preferred direction, away from the concerns the players have expressed via their Beliefs, without this being flagrantly obvious to the players.
> 
> Could you do this in 5e? Sure, in the sense that you could (i) graft on a Belief mechanic, and (ii) have the GM frame scenes in accordance with BW principles. But some issues will come to light fairly quickly: the asymmetry of player resource suites with respect to rest periods, for instance; a degree of lack of a robust non-combat resolution system to interface with "Let it Ride"; some maths issues, which tend to allow guaranteed success at low DCs (which means that "say 'yes' or roll the dice" won't work on those occasions) and can make it hard to muster the resources to allow the player's choices to swamp the d20 at high DCs; the fact that unless you change the XP system from the published ones (XP for combat, or "milestones"), you won't have any robust correlation between playing the game and PC advancement; and probably other stuff I'm not thinking of.
> 
> Which is to say - if I wanted to use 5e to run a player-driven game I wouldn't necessarily be looking to BW as my model. Classic B/X or AD&D, with some sort of attempt to integrate the rest mechanics into the dungeon exploration time cycle, would (I think) be a more profitable route.
> 
> (I don't have enough DungeonWorld experience to know how well you could try and emulate that with 5e, but besides [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s points - or maybe taking the one about different resolution systems and making it more precise - there is the fact that DW has mechanics that are almost guaranteed to produce a cycle of success and failure, driving the dynamics of the game. And there are very definite rules about what happens on a success, and what happens on a failure. I think it would be non-trivial to introduce that into 5e - eg for a start some of the most dramatic actions in 5e, like casting spells, can succeed automatically.)




Another huge one for you in BW would be:

* If the GM frames the player into a scene or resolves the fiction post-resolution in a way that violates a PC _*Instinct*_, the player can tell (and either they or another player is supposed to let the GM know).

Beyond the fundamental Agenda and GMing principles that would have to be entirely remapped in order to morph 5e into DW, the sheer systemization of the change would be overwhelming (starting with the two you mention):

1)      The system maths would need to be rejiggered to ensure that roughly 2/3 of all outcomes are Success with a Cost/Worse Outcome/Hard Bargain/Ugly Choice.  Then you would need very precise instruction, principles, and constraints on resolution of those costs/worse outcomes/hard bargains/ugly choices.  This, of course is the fundamental lifeblood of the DW experience.

2)      Spellcasting would require the same “Move” resolution as everything else in the system.

3)      Non-spellcasters would need to have their non-combat capabilities increased considerably and spellcasters would need to have their suite of spells and spells available contracted considerably.

4)      Initiative, turn-based combat, action economy would have to be gutted.

5)      System interactions would have to be stripped down dramatically or encounter budgeting would have to actually reliably work (even though there is no such thing in DW, its lack of complexity and lack of 2nd/3rd order interactions ensures that the GM can trivially intuit the threat level of whatever obstacles/adversaries are thrown at PCs).

6)      There would need to be several different abstract resources put in place that are integrated directly into the player agency/move cost dynamic (eg Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Rations, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, etc etc).

7)      The nature of equipment/damage/tags (weapon, armor, range, injuries through debilities) would have to be integrated and the old model thrown out entirely.

This may not even handle half of the problems.  You know what, just forget it.  As I get deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, its impossible enough to be utterly not a worth the effort.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> Another huge one for you in BW would be:
> 
> * If the GM frames the player into a scene or resolves the fiction post-resolution in a way that violates a PC _*Instinct*_, the player can tell (and either they or another player is supposed to let the GM know).
> 
> Beyond the fundamental Agenda and GMing principles that would have to be entirely remapped in order to morph 5e into DW, the sheer systemization of the change would be overwhelming (starting with the two you mention):
> 
> 1)      The system maths would need to be rejiggered to ensure that roughly 2/3 of all outcomes are Success with a Cost/Worse Outcome/Hard Bargain/Ugly Choice.  Then you would need very precise instruction, principles, and constraints on resolution of those costs/worse outcomes/hard bargains/ugly choices.  This, of course is the fundamental lifeblood of the DW experience.
> 
> 2)      Spellcasting would require the same “Move” resolution as everything else in the system.
> 
> 3)      Non-spellcasters would need to have their non-combat capabilities increased considerably and spellcasters would need to have their suite of spells and spells available contracted considerably.
> 
> 4)      Initiative, turn-based combat, action economy would have to be gutted.
> 
> 5)      System interactions would have to be stripped down dramatically or encounter budgeting would have to actually reliably work (even though there is no such thing in DW, its lack of complexity and lack of 2nd/3rd order interactions ensures that the GM can trivially intuit the threat level of whatever obstacles/adversaries are thrown at PCs).
> 
> 6)      There would need to be several different abstract resources put in place that are integrated directly into the player agency/move cost dynamic (eg Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Rations, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, etc etc).
> 
> 7)      The nature of equipment/damage/tags (weapon, armor, range, injuries through debilities) would have to be integrated and the old model thrown out entirely.
> 
> This may not even handle half of the problems.  You know what, just forget it.  As I get deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, its impossible enough to be utterly not a worth the effort.




Yes, I suppose it's a lot of work to change 5e into a completely different ruleset _in it's entirety_.  However, porting over some concepts and principles into 5e isn't that hard.  You're stuck on the fact that the outcomes don't 100% match, but is that entirely necessary to use the concepts of player agency BW or DW are based on into a 5e framework?  Yes, it would be messy if you compare outcomes, but lowering stakes to minor impacts to reflect the abundance of rolls and swinginess of 5e would be one coping mechanism.  Then, it's not single rolls that affect the story,  but a sequence of them that more gradually bend the game.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> GM advice is a real thing, just like their can be advice to help with other activities that require skill and judgement to do well.




Absolutely. I was more commenting on the fact that this discussion has (d)evolved into a mirror of many other discussions in similar threads with the same participants. Many of whom seem to be focused on presenting their opinion as the "right" way to do things. And some that seem to be in the exact same language as posts elsewhere, but that's probably just me seeing the similarities. Obviously, there are approaches that some people feel strongly about, and that's cool.

For example, there are certain people who feel very strongly that Illusionism is wrong, regardless of whether they know it's going on or not. Most of those that feel so strongly that they won't play with a DM that use it insist that they can tell when a DM _is_ using it.

The same argument pops up in a thread about whether DM should fudge dice rolls or not. I also see pieces of the canon thread creeping in. 

And the advice is helpful only to those DMs that are willing to acknowledge that the group in front of them might have strong feelings about a particularly play style or tool in the DM's toolbox. If not, they are going to run into problems.

I for one don't have a problem with illusionism or occasional DM fudging. If the group is expecting the DM to be the primary author of an overarching epic story with the PCs as the centerpiece, and that character death is a very bad thing, then these are tools that the DM is going to have to be comfortable pulling out periodically.

On the other hand, you might find yourself playing with somebody who states when they sit down at the table for the first time that they will not play with a DM that uses these tools. Among your options as a DM are to not use those tools in that group, to tell the player that you sometimes use those tools and let them decide whether they want to give it a try, or say you won't and use them anyway. 

The first option is usually the one I choose, but it becomes problematic when you have a group with players at the two extremes - one abhors any sort of DM interference (fudging, illusionism) into "player agency" and the other will have a cow if their PC dies. 

So what sort of DM do you (the collective "you") want to be? I'm willing to consider using whatever approach the players as a group decide. There may still be an outlier that disagrees, and then it's up to the table (and often the DM) to decide if one veto rules the table, or if majority rules. On the other hand, I'm refining my home-brew rules, and while they are open for some discussion, the core purpose behind them will remain, even if the specifics vary a bit. In other words, there are a number of non-negotiable things in my campaigns now, and probably more than most campaigns.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Manbearcat said:


> Another huge one for you in BW would be:
> 
> * If the GM frames the player into a scene or resolves the fiction post-resolution in a way that violates a PC _*Instinct*_, the player can tell (and either they or another player is supposed to let the GM know).
> 
> Beyond the fundamental Agenda and GMing principles that would have to be entirely remapped in order to morph 5e into DW, the sheer systemization of the change would be overwhelming (starting with the two you mention):
> 
> 1)      The system maths would need to be rejiggered to ensure that roughly 2/3 of all outcomes are Success with a Cost/Worse Outcome/Hard Bargain/Ugly Choice.  Then you would need very precise instruction, principles, and constraints on resolution of those costs/worse outcomes/hard bargains/ugly choices.  This, of course is the fundamental lifeblood of the DW experience.
> 
> 2)      Spellcasting would require the same “Move” resolution as everything else in the system.
> 
> 3)      Non-spellcasters would need to have their non-combat capabilities increased considerably and spellcasters would need to have their suite of spells and spells available contracted considerably.
> 
> 4)      Initiative, turn-based combat, action economy would have to be gutted.
> 
> 5)      System interactions would have to be stripped down dramatically or encounter budgeting would have to actually reliably work (even though there is no such thing in DW, its lack of complexity and lack of 2nd/3rd order interactions ensures that the GM can trivially intuit the threat level of whatever obstacles/adversaries are thrown at PCs).
> 
> 6)      There would need to be several different abstract resources put in place that are integrated directly into the player agency/move cost dynamic (eg Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Rations, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, etc etc).
> 
> 7)      The nature of equipment/damage/tags (weapon, armor, range, injuries through debilities) would have to be integrated and the old model thrown out entirely.
> 
> This may not even handle half of the problems. You know what, just forget it. As I get deeper and deeper down this rabbit hole, its impossible enough to be utterly not a worth the effort.




I think that there's a difference between trying to match the mechanics of a game, and match the feel of a game. D&D, particularly 5e, is extremely easy to modify if you want to. However, to make it work well with 5e, it's best to leverage the mechanics of 5e, perhaps with some tweaks. 

It's not all that different than things like Dragonlance that has seen official releases with two different game systems. Yet they both feel like Dragonlance. Of course there have been multiple Middle Earth/Lord of the Rings adaptations to RPGs too. I don't think playing _The Lord of the Rings_ RPG will feel like MERP, yet both feel like LotR. 

On the other hand, BW/DW has different goals as a game. While I wouldn't consider D&D as written a simulation game, it has its roots in the simulation approach of war games. BW/DW seems to be more focused on a shared fiction game experience. While both have a focus on the fiction, part of the point of BW/DW seems to be how you get to the fiction and interact with it. That the gaming experience is as important as the fiction itself. I'm sure not everybody plays it that way, but that's the sense I get.

I don't know BW/DW well enough to be able to give a precise example. In a thread at least a year ago, somebody asked me to explain how I would play out a scene that they described in Dungeon World. If I recall, I didn't even have to really tweak any rules to do it.

Now that was to describe a scene, and the control over that scene would have shifted a bit, with the players having less overall control of things that are outside of their character's control, so it's not exactly the same. I think you or [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] might have been part of that thread. 

So I think that pulling concepts out of BW/DW is very doable. Some just require a different perspective on running the game, others would require some mechanical changes. But it's probably a bit more difficult to duplicate entirely, and I agree, I'm not sure you'd want to.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> Can you try explain how you think this might come about in a Dungeon World game (despite the fact that it is a transparent violation of the game's play Agenda, a few GMing principles, and would actually be more difficult to do than just letting things unfold naturally)?  I think I may have an idea of what you have in mind.




I think that it would be separate of the basic mechanical means of action resolution. So in 5E you may have the DM "steering" things by using his ability to establish DCs that are unknown to the players, or by simply saying that they failed or what have you. Such a method could be used to force the game in a certain direction. 

For DW, not being familiar with the game first hand, it seems to me that the GM can determine story elements on the fly. The chasm from your play example...deciding what the complications are when a 7-9 roll is made is entirely within the GM's purview, correct? So the GM could just introduce elements he wanted in the game. So instead of your "Alienesque" situation in the crevasse with the goblins getting picked off by the monster....couldn't the GM introduce an entirely different scenario? Say, drow that have recently performed a raid on the surface world and have taken some kind of important NPC as hostage. 

Is that not feasible in DW?




Manbearcat said:


> Do I think running 5e without deploying any Illuiosionism at all could yield precisely the sequence of the Dungeon World excerpt upthread?  Yes, I do, but it would have a considerably more difficult time doing it reliably because (i) the fundamental system maths disparity, (ii) the very different resolution mechanics/resource models/play procedures, and (iii) the deep disparity of System Agency and GMing Agency between the two systems.
> 
> So with that said, let us go back to a - c above and then consider the following components of 5e's GMing ethos:
> 
> ** ...as a referee, the DM interprets the rules and decides when to abide by them and when to change them.
> 
> * <the DM> creates and runs adventures that drive the story.
> 
> * Inventing, writing, storytelling, improvising, acting, refereeing...Focus on the aspects you enjoy and downplay the rest.
> 
> * ...the rules aren't in charge. You're the DM, and you are in charge of the game. *
> 
> There is a lot more than that including the profound role that the GM plays in determining outcomes merely in the course of mediation procedures.  On the continuum of GM Agency, 5e is on the extreme of one side.  As GM Agency becomes more prolific, System Agency becomes less so.  The game outright gives the GM a mandate to ignore/change/downplay/subordinate the rules.  Also consider the expectation that the GMs created/run adventures drives the story.  That has a lot to say about (c) vs (b) when compared to Dungeon World.  Also consider the fact that the games encounter building tools are absolutely broken (and I said they would turn out that way during the playtest because of fundamental design decisions).  When the apex priority of play is to "create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama", all of this stuff combined puts a lot of pressure on the GM (while enabling them considerably) to deploy Force/Illusionism techniques (which you see advocated for in some of the early WotC modules) such that the yield of play is indeed that "tension and memorable drama" with the gross becoming "epic stories."
> 
> So with all of this in mind, I'm left wondering why GM Force/Illusionism is something to be protested in 5e?  The text certainly doesn't decry it as taboo.  In fact, it at least tacitly embraces it due to all of the above (and I'd say tacitly is a massive understatement).




I don't think GM Force or illusionism or any of the other methods listed above must be protested. As I said earlier, I am advocating an approach to the game that would allow for any method to be used, depending on the circumstances. 

However, I do enjoy allowing my players to have a lot of agency and leeway in determining how the story of the game takes shape....and those methods you listed above can at times get in the way of that. 



Manbearcat said:


> Again, all of that being said, I still stand by my position that you can absolutely run 5e without any Force or Illusionism.  When I run it, I use my friend's hexcrawl/setting/maps, pick up where he left off the week before, deploy the resolution mechanics in orthodox process sim fashion (with the 10 Ability Score laymen as the model) and basically just eyeball the Encounter Budget with a keen eye toward numerical superiority, spellcasting, and team action economy (my profound experience with these games is more robust than their, predictably, wobbly encounter design).  I use Success with Complications (DMG 242) except use failure by 3 or less rather than 2.
> 
> Still, while my experience and my house-ruled use of Success with Complications certainly helps along yielding "tension and memorable drama" in most moments of play, it doesn't remotely produce it as organically (and with less cognitive workload and attendant stress) and inexorably as Dungeon World (and I certainly don't get to "play to find out" in the way that I do with DW).  It seems to me that 5e's answer to that is GM Force/Illusionism to bridge those gaps.




I would think that creating "tension and drama" isn't really dependent on the mechanics, though, right? Isn't it more a question of the situation that has come up, and then the success or failure of the PCs in that given situation? 

But as for your first point in this quote, I think you approach the game far more scientifically than I do....I don't use any of the encounter budget or encounter design or XP mechanics at all. I really don't find them all that useful, and I think they exist more for newer players who don't have lots of experience with this aspect of teh game. Longtime DMs, I feel, won't get much out of those mechanics at all, and are better simply designing encounters based on their judgment. 




Manbearcat said:


> I'm going to sblock the entirety of the "Sled into the Glacial Crevasse" scene for your reference.  This may give you further insight into things and may help our conversation along so I'll put the work in:




Thanks for sharing that, it kind of helps see how things play out in the system. I have to ask, mostly out of curiosity....is this a play by post game? The back and forth is very verbose and has an element of prose that I wouldn't expect at a table. 



Manbearcat said:


> Agreed.  Generating a full hexcrawl/setting map with a metaplot vs "make a map with blanks" + "play to find out" + "generate a few Fronts that challenges the player's goals" is definitely not a different species.  The devil is in the details of prep, system, and play (both procedures and outcome).




I just think that any dungeon or hexcrawl can be boiled down to some kind of flow chart. I think storylines can also be designed that way. In that sense, they are the same. Kind of an "if A, then B or C" and then "If B, then D or E or F"....that kind of thing. Hard to describe without a visual. 




pemerton said:


> To me, this is a key question. And it's not a rhetorical question.
> 
> To those who assert that GM force can play the same role in (say) DungeonWorld or MHRP or Burning Wheel as it can in (say) 2nd ed AD&D, my response is, _show me_.
> 
> Either relate an actual play anecdote that illustrates the point, or at least sketch a conjectural example that engages with the system.
> 
> I'll focus just on BW:If a PC's Belief is at stake (as in the OP), and the GM "says 'yes'" rather than framing a check and calling for a roll of the dice, _the player can tell_. Which is to say, the player can tell that the GM is departing from the principles that are stated, in the game's rulebooks, to govern the game.
> 
> If a GM calls for a check when nothing relevant to a PC's Belief is at stake, then again _the player can tell_.
> 
> If a GM calls for a re-check when "Let it Ride" should be in force, then again _the player can tell_.
> 
> If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the _the player can tell_. For starters, the player will know that s/he doesn't feel any tension related to his/her conception of his/her PC (as expressed via those Beliefs).​
> In other words, there's no way - in Burning Wheel - for the GM to nudge or manipulate the fiction in his/her preferred direction, away from the concerns the players have expressed via their Beliefs, without this being flagrantly obvious to the players.




What does "Framing" entail? What about where the GM must determine the consequences of failure? You don't think that a GM could nudge things in the way that he would like in these ways?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> According to what principles? For what reasons? Until we answer those questions, how can we know whether the game is GM- or player-driven?



For what reasons?  So there's a world for the PCs to play in, for one thing...a living breathing world that has more to it than just what the PCs might happen to interact with.  This is important in that it gives the PCs a sense of there being a bigger world "out there" beyond just what's right in front of them.  Depth and immersion.



> But in a player-driven game as I understand it, _that's all there is_. There is a sequence of events, in which the PC(s) are at the centre.
> 
> And it's not just a case of one thing leading to another. I think that to describe it that way is to miss the point.
> 
> There is no _inevitability_ to my (i) narrating that the magistrate decides they are to be imprisoned indefinitely, and (ii) connecting this, in the fiction, to the PC's past (mostly unhappy) dealings with the leader of his sorcerous cabal.
> 
> That is a _choice_ - a _judgement call_, to use the language of the OP. Other choices were, in principle, available, but I didn't make them _because those other choices would have taken the game away from its focus on the matters that the player has put into play via his choices in playing the game_.



Where I don't analyze it to nearly this level.  The magistrate - maybe by random die roll, maybe because the PCs lipped him off, maybe just because they were blatantly guilty - threw 'em in jail.  Now it's up to the PCs to either get out or not (but if you're running this A-4 style it'll take some serious DM manipulation to help them escape).



> The analogue, in your example of a player having his PC go to the mercenaries' guild and the militia HQ, might be something like this:
> 
> The player has written into his PC backstory, "I will be avenged upon the lizardmen for their destruction of my farm."
> 
> The PC goes to the mercenaries' guild, and learns (via the GM's narration) that _the lizardmen are readying an attack on Dumont tower - if you sign up now to join the defenders, you'll be handsomely paid_.
> 
> The PC goes to the HQ, and learns (via the GM's narration) that _the orcs are attacking the farms, and we need every able body we can get to help in defence._
> 
> In putting these two scenarios on the table, the GM forces the player to make a choice: _do I seek vengeance upon the lizardmen?_ or do I postpone, even abandon, my quest for vengeance in order to help other defend their farms against a different threat?​
> That would be the GM putting _the player_ at the centre of things. And thereby creating the space for the game to be player-driven in the sense I've tried to get at.



First off, not everything has to be tied to the PCs' backgrounds.  Second off, what if those things have already been done?  Third off, what if they've been done by someone else? 



> Rather than the GM putting his/her desires for the content of the fiction, and the trajectory of things, at the centre.



In my example the only DM desire is that the party keep adventuring; and if that's already too much DM input for you we might as well call it quits - we're comparing apples and bicycles.



> Which is why simply noting that the GM manages the backstory doesn't tell us who is driving the game. Because it depends crucially on the reasons for narrating one thing rather than another, and the way that that narrated stuff then speaks to the players one way rather than another.



The DM is, one would think, always going to narrate with the backstory in mind even if it's not obvious at the time.  That said, she's also going to, one would think, narrate to what's happening in the moment.



> If everything the PCs care about has been resolved, then the campaign is over.



That's a very narrow view.  If everything from the PCs' backgrounds has been resolved the campaign is still very much alive, because finally they can stop thinking only about themselves* and start looking at the greater world.  There's goodly deeds need doing.  There's wealth and riches and fame to be had.  There's the King's representative knocking on the door of these now-famous adventurers calling them to defense of the realm.

* - because that's what all of this is - if everything is tied to or framed around the PCs' backgrounds you're almost forcing a PC-selfish type of play: it's all about their own issues and problems, and righting their own wrongs.  Sure some bigger things might happen as a side effect - getting vengeance on the lizardmen might lead the party to learning the scalies are the vanguard of an invasion which they end up thwarting - but it's unintentional on the PCs' part.



> See, this is is pretty much the opposite of the answer I just gave. The player has to stop playing the PC - ie as far as that PC is concerned, it's "campaign over" - if the "logical" play of the PC takes that character away from the GM's hooks. Whereas my answer, above, is that the campaign is over _when the players, via their PCs, no longer have any "hooks" to offer the GM_



Two-way street.  When the players run out of hooks it's on the DM to set some; and when the DM runs out it's on the players.

Also, individual characters come and go all the time; but the party(ies) remain(s).  This is why I rarely if ever like to pin a story or adventure to a particular character (e.g. the guy who swore vengeance on the lizardmen has persuaded the party to help him out) as it's inevitably that character who then dies at the first opportunity - leaving the rest of the party asking why the eff they're doing what they're doing.



> The PCs in the game mentioned in the OP spent 18 months in the ruined tower, trying to eke out enough of a living to buy food from the locals (mechanically, this involves the game's Resources sub-system) while also training and, in one case, healing from a near-mortal wound.
> 
> But during that time the PCs (and their players) weren't at a loss for things to do. They made a choice to postpone their pursuit of the thing they cared about so they could spend that time that way.



That's hardly what I'd consider as relaxing R&R downtime for the PCs; still, good on 'em for taking the time off.  (our parties rarely if ever take much non-enforced time off even when there's nothing pressing; they instead look for an adventure or something worth doing and get right back at it, if for no other reason than to get themselves out of town before they do something stupid/destructive/highly-illegal and get themselves banished)

Lan-"shuddering to think what rolling 18 months worth of wandering monster checks must have been like"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The other is about the permissible and expected moves at [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s table, given that the GM is adopting a certain approach to running the game. Roughly speaking, it belongs to the domain of anthropology (or some discipline in that neighbourhood).



Er...I'm really not quite sure how to take this.

Anthropology???

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Your example of a cult ending the world behind the scenes is using a bad example to dismiss an idea -- having a game end without any player engagement in the reasons is just bad GMing, in any system or method.



Maybe.

But maybe not; if the "world ending" merely represents a dramatic (and very unexpected) setting shift from, say, something almost steampunk like Eberron or high fantasy like 3e FR to something grim and gritty like Nentir Vale or some other post-medieval-apocalypse points-of-light affair; in other words, presented as a really really big challenge for the PCs to deal with rather than "world ends, everyone dies".

Lan-"if any of my players are reading this, yes this is giving me ideas"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> Thanks for sharing that, it kind of helps see how things play out in the system. I have to ask, mostly out of curiosity....is this a play by post game? The back and forth is very verbose and has an element of prose that I wouldn't expect at a table.



I was kinda wondering about that as well only play-by-post never occurred to me. 



> I just think that any dungeon or hexcrawl can be boiled down to some kind of flow chart. I think storylines can also be designed that way. In that sense, they are the same. Kind of an "if A, then B or C" and then "If B, then D or E or F"....that kind of thing. Hard to describe without a visual.



That's how my storyboard goes, where A-B-C etc. each represent an adventure, a mission, or some other discrete major element.  The story lines (or adventure paths, if you like) merge, split, interweave, and eventually arrive at two or three endpoints of which I hope all see play but am fairly sure already some won't.

Lan-"assuming, of course, they ever finish the adventure they're in.  Dark Tower is BIG!"-efan


----------



## Manbearcat

[MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , real quick as I don't have time to post.  I'll get to all the responses either well late this evening or tomorrow.

Multimedia.  S.O. (we live together) and one of my oldest friends (2 members of my normal gaming group which includes games of 4e, Strike! as Star Wars, Cortex+, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Dogs in the Vineyard, Mouse Guard, and a 13th Age game that I am unfortunately GMing...the 5e game I GM isn't with any of them...Torchbearer, B/X, AD&D1e games I GM are with another group).  You're talking a lot of 3 way text chat, phone texts, some Skype for quick 20-30 minute sessions, voice to voice phone calls on drives home from work, voice messages, emails, and PBP as well.  The whole of it was transcribed into full PBP format to retain continuity and keep all parties abreast of things.


----------



## chaochou

Ovinomancer said:


> A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring.




For who?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , real quick as I don't have time to post.  I'll get to all the responses either well late this evening or tomorrow.
> 
> Multimedia.  S.O. (we live together) and one of my oldest friends (2 members of my normal gaming group which includes games of 4e, Strike! as Star Wars, Cortex+, Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Dogs in the Vineyard, Mouse Guard, and a 13th Age game that I am unfortunately GMing...the 5e game I GM isn't with any of them...Torchbearer, B/X, AD&D1e games I GM are with another group).  You're talking a lot of 3 way text chat, phone texts, some Skype for quick 20-30 minute sessions, voice to voice phone calls on drives home from work, voice messages, emails, and PBP as well.  The whole of it was transcribed into full PBP format to retain continuity and keep all parties abreast of things.




Gotcha. That's pretty crazy. Very cool that you guys have found a way to play like that. I don't think most groups could handle that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

chaochou said:


> For who?



If you have a counterpoint, take a crack.  Is rather not waste time guessing where you're going.


----------



## Campbell

I am somewhat vexed. I have something to say that I fear may be somewhat counterproductive if I do not say it in the right way. Still, I feel like it needs saying.

Let's get something out of the way. Techniques like fronts, GM moves, PC-NPC-PC triangles, relationship mapping, and scene framing are absolutely useful tools that have wide applications to a variety of ways to approach roleplaying games. Also even if you do not buy into them in the same way I do the principles listed in games like Apocalypse World can be fruitful to at least consider. This is something that I want to encourage. If there is interest I would be more than happy to discuss this stuff.  I have experience applying these techniques in a host of games, including some fairly mainstream games.

Here's where I get a little contentious. I do this with the best of intentions.

The notion that we can be flexible in our application of technique and decision making process, but yet consistently achieve similar results to the principled and dedicated application of these same techniques in the hands of a skilled practitioner of the approach the techniques were developed to support is something I have trouble with. The mental framework and principles that support a particular sort of play are not the sort of thing you can slip in and out of like a comfortable pair of shoes. The clarion call of your other play priorities, techniques, and natural way of doing things will always be present in the background. Even within the confines of a particular discipline you will often be called upon to prioritize one principle over another from time to time. Knowing what to do when is a skill that is honed from continued application and very much subject to the vagaries of the moment, the other players, and the fiction in play at that moment.

I am not saying these techniques have no use outside of the confines of their particular approach. Far from it! We all develop an approach or set of approaches to running a given game that is uniquely suited to our particular interests, those of our fellow players, and the tools provided by the game we are playing. As our skills are honed this changes over time. We are faced with new challenges and adapt to changing circumstances. I just feel that an integrated, deliberate approach is best.

What I am trying to get at here is any particular way to play a roleplaying game comes with its own unique set of tradeoffs. I also feel that the way we think about things has a tremendous impact on the play experience and culture of play at the table even if we don't like talk about it.


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> I would think that creating "tension and drama" isn't really dependent on the mechanics, though, right? Isn't it more a question of the situation that has come up, and then the success or failure of the PCs in that given situation?




I think tension and drama *as experienced by the players* can absolutely be heightened by the game. The mechanisms are part of this, but so are things like GM techniques, and the culture of play. When we are following the fiction together, players are playing their characters with integrity, and the GM is playing the world with integrity and there is no release valve from the tension of the moment mechanics can be crafted that directly reflect that. The fiction is absolutely critical. No set of mechanisms can save a game from uninteresting fiction or players who are not concerned with it. The game can add another layer to it though.


----------



## chaochou

Ovinomancer said:


> If you have a counterpoint, take a crack.  Is rather not waste time guessing where you're going.




It's a very simple question. You said "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring."

You must therefore be asserting it is boring for somebody.

For a player who isn't looking at it? Who is it boring for?


----------



## Nagol

chaochou said:


> It's a very simple question. You said "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring."
> 
> You must therefore be asserting it is boring for somebody.
> 
> For a player who isn't looking at it? Who is it boring for?




*Lurker mode off*

My players have told it me it's boring for them if sections of  the world are static when they aren't engaged with them.  Different players have expressed it differently over the years, but that is the gist.

*Lurker mode engaged*


----------



## Ovinomancer

chaochou said:


> It's a very simple question. You said "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring."
> 
> You must therefore be asserting it is boring for somebody.
> 
> For a player who isn't looking at it? Who is it boring for?




I'm uninterested in a socratic approach to your point.  If you have a point, please make it.


----------



## Xetheral

Manbearcat said:


> 1)      The system maths would need to be rejiggered to ensure that roughly 2/3 of all outcomes are Success with a Cost/Worse Outcome/Hard Bargain/Ugly Choice.  Then you would need very precise instruction, principles, and constraints on resolution of those costs/worse outcomes/hard bargains/ugly choices.  This, of course is the fundamental lifeblood of the DW experience




Are you saying that in DW, the success chance for all important checks is roughly identical? Does DW not attempt to account for the difficulty of the PC's chosen action? How can the players have agency in DW if their choices don't influence the odds of success? Or am I completely misunderstanding what you meant?


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## Nagol

Xetheral said:


> Are you saying that in DW, the success chance for all important checks is roughly identical? Does DW not attempt to account for the difficulty of the PC's chosen action? How can the players have agency in DW if their choices don't influence the odds of success? Or am I completely misunderstanding what you meant?




Pretty much the same, yes.

There are three possible results to any type of attempt (only players make attempts):


10+, the player gets a full success.
7-9, it's a partial success; they don't get everything they wanted or they'll get what they want, but have to sacriﬁce something else.
6- they've failed

Here a small sample from a how-to-play introduction to the game system:



> GM: The orc swings his club down at you. What do you do?
> PC: I knock it aside with my war hammer and smash his skull!
> GM: Sounds like we're doing some Hack & Slash, roll for it." PC:"I got an 8, that's a partial success, yeah?
> GM: Yeah, you knock the ﬁrst blow aside, but he's relentless. You're both smashing each other and it's a full-on bloody brawl. We both roll damage for this.




A DM controls how difficult a situation is by controlling the environment the players need to respond to and the number of player attempts required to complete an action such as this exchange:



> GM:The kobold tumbles toward you, swinging a chain over his head.
> PC:I'm gonna lunge at him with my sword.
> GM:Sounds like a Hack & Slash, go ahead and roll for it.




versus



> GM: The kobold tumbles toward you, swinging a chain over his head. He's like a whirling dervish, ﬂitting around the battleﬁeld with this rusty makeshift ﬂail.
> PC: I'm gonna lunge at him with my sword."
> GM: He's leaping back and forth like crazy, and that chain is whizzing around like a blur, you're gonna have to Defy Danger to get close enough to even hit him. If you succeed, then you can roll for a Hack & Slash.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> this discussion has (d)evolved into a mirror of many other discussions in similar threads with the same participants.



One of the interesting things about this thread, for me, has been the distinctions that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has been drawing between "scene framing" approaches and "MCing/principled GMing" approaches.

To me, at least, that's new - I don't recall seeing it in any of the other threads you referred to.

Another interesting thing has been the discussion - especially between  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and me - over the difference between a "static" situation, which reacts to player action declarations for their PCs, and a "GM puts the world into motion" situation. Some posters (eg  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], I thinik also  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) seem to classify these both as sandboxes and see the salient difference only being whether the world is "boring" or "interesting because living/breathing".

Whereas I feel my discussion with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has brought out quite a different point of contrast, namely, the extent to which one tends to support a style of player-driven RPGing, whereas the other tends to put the GM into the driver's seat.

I recognise that others may not be interested in these matters, but - as the one who started the thread! - I regard them as worthwhile outcomes.



Ilbranteloth said:


> one abhors any sort of DM interference (fudging, illusionism) into "player agency" and the other will have a cow if their PC dies.



I'm not sure I get this: what is the connection betwee "illusionism" and players not wanting their PCs to die?


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Your example of a cult ending the world behind the scenes is using a bad example to dismiss an idea -- having a game end without any player engagement in the reasons is just bad GMing, in any system or method. But having the players have to deal with complications for things they knew about and ignored isn't -- ie, if they learn about the cult and decide to go knit sweaters, having the town they knit in taken over by summoned demons isn't a failed sandbox. The concept of Fronts, above, largely mirrors the ideas I have for a living sandbox. A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring.



I didn't say that anything is bad GMing, nor did I say that anything is a "failed sandbox".

I did say, and I reiterate in this post: a game in which the action is driven by GM behind-the-scenes manipulation of the fiction is not a player-driven one of the sort that I prefer. I think, in fact, that it self-evidenty is GM-driven.

Whether this is good or bad GMing depends, as  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] said, upon what a particular table is looking for in their RPGing. How it compares to "Fronts" in the PbtA sense I'll let  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] or  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] respond to - though my sense, resulting from play moreso than reading, is that there is a big difference between (i) a game in which the causation behind events is murky to the players, and a major goal of play is trying to unravel the GM's "metaplot" (I'm thinking of 2nd ed AD&D play experiences) and (ii) a game in which the rationale for what is happening in the shared fiction is clear (ie the GM is bringing pressure to bear upon the players via interposing obstacles to the PCs' pursuit of their goals) and the major goal as a player is not to _work out what is going on_ but rather _to choose which value to realise in circumstances where some sacrifices will have to be made, or costs borne (I'm thinking of DW play experiences).

As to the claim about things being boring: I've run the Keep part of KotB multiple times: it's not boring. There are NPCs with interesting motivations (a cultist priest; a rivalry between two authority figures in the keep) and these provide a source of dynamism. The apparent implication that static until it reacts to the PCs as played by their players must entail static per se seems to me to be another indication of thiniking of the game primarily in terms of how the GM might drive it, rather than how the players might do so.

(There is also an interesting contrast here with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s post upthread about illusionism: Lanefan seemed to express the view that actual, real world stuff that the GM does but the plaeyrs don't know about isn't a thing of any signficance; and in your post, you seem to suggest that imaginary stuff that happens in the GM's  conception of the fiction but is not part of the play at the table nevertheless is significant to the players.)



Ovinomancer said:



			Take your example of the imprisoning of you player. You said that the consequence for the failed check was that the player couldn't escape on their own. Fair enough, but you picked that consequence. You could have easily allowed for the player to escape, but by doing so it would now directly harm something else they cared about. Say they had a belief about a fellow rogue, and in their attempt to escape, they placed that rogue in danger of their life. That's a manipulation you could pull by choosing the consequence according to something you want to have happen.
		
Click to expand...


Yes, if the player had different Beliefs for his PC, then the range of sensible failure narrations would be different. I'm not sure what is meant to follow from that.




			if none of the player beliefs involved demons, but you really like demons and want demons to be a part of the game, you can then have consequences for failures rolled by the players in regard to their beliefs involve demons. Like when your player investigated the tower for the mace, you chose finding cursed arrows, but you could have had a demon appear, instead. Bam, you're now influencing the direction of the game with your preferred narratives.
		
Click to expand...


As I said in the post you quoted, "If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the the player can tell." So where do you think the illusion is? What you describe is just naked disregard of the game's governing principles.

More generally, are you really trying to argue that a game can't be designed or played in a way that makes a difference to the amenability of illusionism on the part of the GM? What about dice-rolling procedures? - Gygax's DMG takes for granted that the GM will roll dice secretly from the players; the MHRP rulebook states "There are no secrets in the Bullpen!" and hence all dice are rolled in front of everyone.

Or what about DW player-side moves, which state expressly what the player is entitled to on a success, and what the GM is entitlded to do on a failure?

Or contrast the following cases: in BW, a player declares that his/her sorcerer casts a spell, the difficutly is set, the casting is resolved. Certain failure results can lead to the spell fizzling. In AD&D, on the other hand, a spell can fizzle if cast into an anti-magic zone, which the GM is allowed to keep secret until the player declares the casting, and even then the GM is not obliged to explain why the spell fizzled - the player is expected to work it out.

These are all differences of procedure that create different sorts of scope for various GM approaches.



hawkeyefan said:



			What does "Framing" entail? What about where the GM must determine the consequences of failure? You don't think that a GM could nudge things in the way that he would like in these ways?
		
Click to expand...


On "framing", I had a lengthy post not too far upthread (here).

On consequences, as I replied to  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], if the narrated consequences don't speak to the Beliefs of the PCs (which are authored by their players) that will be evident. The plaeyrs will no that the GM is not running the game as advertised. There's no illusion.



hawkeyefan said:



			chart. I think storylines can also be designed that way. In that sense, they are the same. Kind of an "if A, then B or C" and then "If B, then D or E or F"....that kind of thing.
		
Click to expand...


But a map isn't a flowchart, is it? Even a recipe isn't a flowchart, in the sense that you might change the sequence of steps (eg often I don't turn the oven on at the start like the recipe says, because it doesn't take that long to heat up and I want to conserve power).

Whereas an "event-based" flowchart isn't a map. It's a temporal sequence of events - a "plot", if you like.

Appendix B of LotR is something like a story; an atlas isn't._


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Greyhawk gave 2 moons in the fiction, but didn't say that there weren't more.
> 
> Lanefan gave 4 options in the fiction, but didn't say that there weren't more.



But the question of whether  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] will give more options isn't a question about interpreting some bit of fiction (ie it's not a question of literary criticism). It's a question of what Lanefan is prepared to do at his table (ie it is, broadly, a question of anthropology). Lanefan already told us a couple of things about his table - if you leave the party, or become a magsitrate, then the PC is retired. For all you know, any PC who sets out to become King of the Northern Barbarians (assuming such things even exist in Lanefan's world) likewise has to be retired.

The fact that you can speculate about what Lanefan may or may not do at his table is of little relevance to establishing what _actually_ happens and is permitted at his table.



Lanefan said:


> Anthropology???



The study of human cultural practies and associated social dynamics.


----------



## Corpsetaker

chaochou said:


> It's a very simple question. You said "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring."
> 
> You must therefore be asserting it is boring for somebody.
> 
> For a player who isn't looking at it? Who is it boring for?




Here is my take on this.

I personally, as a player and DM, love living breathing worlds that continue to function even if we as characters don't engage with it. I don't really like games where nothing happens in the world unless it's by the direct actions of the players. I like games where we are adventurers and not necessarily world saving heroes.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> One of the interesting things about this thread, for me, has been the distinctions that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has been drawing between "scene framing" approaches and "MCing/principled GMing" approaches.
> 
> To me, at least, that's new - I don't recall seeing it in any of the other threads you referred to.
> 
> Another interesting thing has been the discussion - especially between  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and me - over the difference between a "static" situation, which reacts to player action declarations for their PCs, and a "GM puts the world into motion" situation. Some posters (eg  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], I thinik also  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) seem to classify these both as sandboxes and see the salient difference only being whether the world is "boring" or "interesting because living/breathing".
> 
> Whereas I feel my discussion with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has brought out quite a different point of contrast, namely, the extent to which one tends to support a style of player-driven RPGing, whereas the other tends to put the GM into the driver's seat.
> 
> I recognise that others may not be interested in these matters, but - as the one who started the thread! - I regard them as worthwhile outcomes.
> 
> I'm not sure I get this: what is the connection betwee "illusionism" and players not wanting their PCs to die?




A world in motion doesn't make it GM driven.  An example of this kind of mechanic is the Fronts mentioned previously - defined threats that have agendas and advance those agendas over time or due to player action.  So long as this information is available to players (available doesn't always mean apparent, though) then it still can fully meet the concepts of player driven.  The players choose to engage the front or not, but the knowledge is always there that choosing to do either is engaging a facet of the game and up to the players.

You once again seem to assume a worst case example for the other side to compare/contrast against.  This seems odd, given that the posters you support in this thread are presenting mechanics that do essentially the same thing (Fronts).  I can agree that a DM can abuse this and have a story going on that the players can't engage or alter, but that doesn't mean that the concept requires or even implies this outcome.  Having movement in the sandbox that isn't entirely dependent on the players doesn't mean that the game is now DM-centric as opposed to player-centric.  

To go to an actual sandbox reference, just because you stopped building your sand castle in this corner to go play with the shovel and funnel in the other corner doesn't mean that the sand castle's going to be exactly as you left it if you come back -- other kids might play with it.  If you're told, up front, there are other kids in the sandbox, and you see them playing with things, doesn't restrict your ability to drive your own story in the sandbox, as a player.  Especially if the other kids are there for you to play with if you want.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=6776548]Corpsetaker[/MENTION], [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]

I think [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s question is fairlyi straightforward - who is bored by a world that is not changing when it is not part of play?

Corpsetaker says "I don't really like games where nothing happens in the world unless it's by the direct actions of the players." But this seems to be quite a different point. For instance, if I was running the KotB, the (secretly evil) priest might approach the PCs, saying "So-and-so suggested that you were interested in advice about the nature of undeath". That is "something happening in the world other than by the direct actions of the PCs" (namely, one NPC spoke to another). But it's not offscreen - it's part of the ingame situation into which the GM is framing the PCs.

Whereas Ovinomancer said "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring" - and chaochou's question is, Who is getting bored? On the (apparently reasonable) assumption that the players aren't going to be entertained by something they're not looking at (eg the GM's secret notes about changes in the gameworld) then presumably they're not going to be bored by that either (eg by the fact that the GM _doesn't_ have secret notes about changes in the gameworld).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> "shuddering to think what rolling 18 months worth of wandering monster checks must have been like"



I assume that this is a joke, because it's in your signature sign-off.

But just for clarity - none of the campaigns I'm currently running involves wandering monster checks.


----------



## Nagol

pemerton said:


> @_*Corpsetaker*_, @_*Ovinomancer*_
> 
> I think @_*chaochou*_'s question is fairlyi straightforward - who is bored by a world that is not changing when it is not part of play?
> 
> Corpsetaker says "I don't really like games where nothing happens in the world unless it's by the direct actions of the players." But this seems to be quite a different point. For instance, if I was running the KotB, the (secretly evil) priest might approach the PCs, saying "So-and-so suggested that you were interested in advice about the nature of undeath". That is "something happening in the world other than by the direct actions of the PCs" (namely, one NPC spoke to another). But it's not offscreen - it's part of the ingame situation into which the GM is framing the PCs.
> 
> Whereas Ovinomancer said "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring" - and chaochou's question is, Who is getting bored? On the (apparently reasonable) assumption that the players aren't going to be entertained by something they're not looking at (eg the GM's secret notes about changes in the gameworld) then presumably they're not going to be bored by that either (eg by the fact that the GM _doesn't_ have secret notes about changes in the gameworld).




But they are.  What typically happens is the players note something, decide to pursue something else then they notice the first situation again.  If it is still unchanged, they are underwhelmed.  If the situation has evolved plausibly based on the underlying situation (whether or not the players know of the underlying situation) it has a much better chance to catch their attention and/or derive a response from them.


----------



## pemerton

Nagol said:


> What typically happens is the players note something, decide to pursue something else then they notice the first situation again.  If it is still unchanged, they are underwhelmed.



But that is completely orthogonal to "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it"! The change doesn't need to be narrated until the player looks at it again - as in your phrase _the players notice the first situation again_.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> To go to an actual sandbox reference, just because you stopped building your sand castle in this corner to go play with the shovel and funnel in the other corner doesn't mean that the sand castle's going to be exactly as you left it if you come back -- other kids might play with it.  If you're told, up front, there are other kids in the sandbox, and you see them playing with things, doesn't restrict your ability to drive your own story in the sandbox, as a player.  Especially if the other kids are there for you to play with if you want.



In applying this metaphor to RPGing, who are "the other kids"?

If they're other players in a shared world, then what we have is something like the sort of interpersonal and interparty competitive play that seems to have been part of how Gygax ran the game (as best I understand it). I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has elements of this too.

But if the "other kids" are purely imaginary beings whose actions and outcomes are being narrated by the GM, then we're clearly (self-evidently, I would say) talking about a GM-driven approach to establishing the content of the shared fiction.




Ovinomancer said:


> a DM can abuse this and have a story going on that the players can't engage or alter



Unless there is a RPG table where the players are actually forbidden from making action declarations for their PCs, or where the GM _never_ allows the action resolution mechanics to actually run their course, this can never literally be the case. So it's not the basis on which I'm characterising a game as player-driven or GM-driven.



Ovinomancer said:


> A world in motion doesn't make it GM driven.



But the one that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] describes seems to be. He's not talking about running DW-style fronts.



Ovinomancer said:


> You once again seem to assume a worst case example for the other side to compare/contrast against.  This seems odd, given that the posters you support in this thread are presenting mechanics that do essentially the same thing (Fronts).  I can agree that a DM can abuse this and have a story going on that the players can't engage or alter, but that doesn't mean that the concept requires or even implies this outcome.  Having movement in the sandbox that isn't entirely dependent on the players doesn't mean that the game is now DM-centric as opposed to player-centric.



I've not used the notions of "DM-centric" or "Player-centric", and I'm not sure what you mean by that. I've talked about who is the driver of the content of the shared fiction.

I also don't know what you have in mind by "worst case". [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has talked about how he runs a game. I assume he's being basically sincere. I'm talking about how I run a game, and what my preferences are in that respect. I'm being sincere.

It seems pretty clear to me that, by my standards and my preferences, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s game is GM-driven: that the key elements of the shared fiction are generated by the GM, based on the GM's conception of the "unfolding" gameworld.

The fact that the players get to choose whether their PC seek out the orcs or the lizardment doesn't really change that.

If you think I'm mistaken about Lanefan's game, by all means explain to me what I've misunderstood.


----------



## Nagol

pemerton said:


> But that is completely orthogonal to "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it"! The change doesn't need to be narrated until the player looks at it again - as in your phrase _the players notice the first situation again_.





Not if the change is brought to their attention.  Change in circumstance is one of the things players need to be told about since the default assumption pretty much has to be "everything is the same as last narration".  So if the PCs move to/stay in an environment where the change should be noticeable, the DM is obligated to bring the change to their attention.  Which means the DM is obligated to track those situations when out of sight of the players OR to introduce changes specifically as he feels the players would appreciate.  Although both can be sandboxing, the first strategy tends to produce more long-term consistency and appreciation in my experience.


----------



## Campbell

I keep seeing posts that assume a GM or other players will be actively working against the interests of the game they are all playing. I do not think any game or set of techniques can protect against that. If we are not really interested in the game we are playing the game cannot save us. A game can only provide unity of interest between the players if we all fundamentally buy into its premise. There is no easy way out of this. All we can do when there is conflict of player interests is to hash it out, work through possible compromises,  and decide if this is the game we want to be playing with this exact set of people. In order to get any sort of functional play we need to be able to talk about this stuff. A game can help us by making it obvious when there is a conflict of player interests and can encourage certain behaviors, but that is all I feel it can reliably do.

This does not just apply to roleplaying games. It applies to any game really. If I am playing chess to win against someone who is teasing out possible strategies to use in other games there is a conflict of interest that needs to be addressed. If we are playing in a social poker game and a player is playing cut throat there is a conflict of player interests that should be addressed.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I didn't say that anything is bad GMing, nor did I say that anything is a "failed sandbox".



No, I did.  You said it's not a sandbox at all because it didn't fit your very narrow definition.  I added the idea of a 'failed sandbox' as one that attempts to be a sandbox, but fails because it doesn't meet your definition entirely.

To which I'd like to say that Free Kreigspiel is a model of a sandbox.  It's not THE model of a sandbox.




> I did say, and I reiterate in this post: a game in which the action is driven by GM behind-the-scenes manipulation of the fiction is not a player-driven one of the sort that I prefer. I think, in fact, that it self-evidenty is GM-driven.
> 
> Whether this is good or bad GMing depends, as  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] said, upon what a particular table is looking for in their RPGing. How it compares to "Fronts" in the PbtA sense I'll let  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] or  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] respond to - though my sense, resulting from play moreso than reading, is that there is a big difference between (i) a game in which the causation behind events is murky to the players, and a major goal of play is trying to unravel the GM's "metaplot" (I'm thinking of 2nd ed AD&D play experiences) and (ii) a game in which the rationale for what is happening in the shared fiction is clear (ie the GM is bringing pressure to bear upon the players via interposing obstacles to the PCs' pursuit of their goals) and the major goal as a player is not to _work out what is going on_ but rather _to choose which value to realise in circumstances where some sacrifices will have to be made, or costs borne (I'm thinking of DW play experiences).
> 
> As to the claim about things being boring: I've run the Keep part of KotB multiple times: it's not boring. There are NPCs with interesting motivations (a cultist priest; a rivalry between two authority figures in the keep) and these provide a source of dynamism. The apparent implication that static until it reacts to the PCs as played by their players must entail static per se seems to me to be another indication of thiniking of the game primarily in terms of how the GM might drive it, rather than how the players might do so.
> 
> (There is also an interesting contrast here with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s post upthread about illusionism: Lanefan seemed to express the view that actual, real world stuff that the GM does but the plaeyrs don't know about isn't a thing of any signficance; and in your post, you seem to suggest that imaginary stuff that happens in the GM's  conception of the fiction but is not part of the play at the table nevertheless is significant to the players.)
> 
> Yes, if the player had different Beliefs for his PC, then the range of sensible failure narrations would be different. I'm not sure what is meant to follow from that.
> 
> As I said in the post you quoted, "If a GM frames a player into a situation that manifestly fails to speak to a PC's Beliefs, the the player can tell." So where do you think the illusion is? What you describe is just naked disregard of the game's governing principles.
> 
> More generally, are you really trying to argue that a game can't be designed or played in a way that makes a difference to the amenability of illusionism on the part of the GM? What about dice-rolling procedures? - Gygax's DMG takes for granted that the GM will roll dice secretly from the players; the MHRP rulebook states "There are no secrets in the Bullpen!" and hence all dice are rolled in front of everyone.
> 
> Or what about DW player-side moves, which state expressly what the player is entitled to on a success, and what the GM is entitlded to do on a failure?
> 
> Or contrast the following cases: in BW, a player declares that his/her sorcerer casts a spell, the difficutly is set, the casting is resolved. Certain failure results can lead to the spell fizzling. In AD&D, on the other hand, a spell can fizzle if cast into an anti-magic zone, which the GM is allowed to keep secret until the player declares the casting, and even then the GM is not obliged to explain why the spell fizzled - the player is expected to work it out.
> 
> These are all differences of procedure that create different sorts of scope for various GM approaches.
> 
> On "framing", I had a lengthy post not too far upthread (here).
> 
> On consequences, as I replied to  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], if the narrated consequences don't speak to the Beliefs of the PCs (which are authored by their players) that will be evident. The plaeyrs will no that the GM is not running the game as advertised. There's no illusion.
> 
> But a map isn't a flowchart, is it? Even a recipe isn't a flowchart, in the sense that you might change the sequence of steps (eg often I don't turn the oven on at the start like the recipe says, because it doesn't take that long to heat up and I want to conserve power).
> 
> Whereas an "event-based" flowchart isn't a map. It's a temporal sequence of events - a "plot", if you like.
> 
> Appendix B of LotR is something like a story; an atlas isn't._



_

The question was 'show me how the GM can drive the game'.  I provided an example on how exactly the GM can drive the game according to their desires.  You respond that 'if the GM doesn't engage the beliefs, it's obvious' but all of my examples do engage the beliefs.  The belief that you'll return to your ruined tower and find the mace you were looking on is engaged on a failure if I say 'no, and a demon appears'.  It's also engaged on a partial success if I say 'yes, you find it, but a demon appears."  My agenda here is to drive the game toward engagement with the theme and plot I want, which is demons.  But framing situations so that they're amenable to failure circumstances that drive towards my point, I can easily engage player beliefs and still drive the game.  I just choose failure events or choices biased to my underlying agenda.  You seem to refuse to acknowledge this is possible, mostly, I think, because it doesn't occur to you to do so.  That's a positive thing, but you're mistaking your playstyle as something that's emergent from the ruleset when this isn't necessarily correct.  It's encouraged, yes, but not required.

I think a major point of contention here is the false binary that keeps getting kicked around by everyone that games are either DM driven or Player driven.  It's always both, it's just a matter of degree.  There is no magic formulation that sets the precise ratio for any game.  A game can have some DM direction and vastly more player direction, or vice versa, but the presence of DM direction doesn't mean the game is now DM driven.  If that's the case, your game is DM driven, and you've demonstated this by adding fiction that you chose in the event of failed checks by your players.  Since this is clearly counterindicated (it's clear you value player desires over your own as DM), then the premise fails.  Similarly, having events that occur off camera that then impact the players, or having events that pivot on 'secret' information doesn't make a game DM driven, it just tilts a little more in that direction.  These components, by and of themselves, do not rise to the level of automatic definition.  They can, for sure, if used extensively and with other DM force options, but it's not sufficient._


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=6776548]Corpsetaker[/MENTION], [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]
> 
> I think  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s question is fairlyi straightforward - who is bored by a world that is not changing when it is not part of play?
> 
> Corpsetaker says "I don't really like games where nothing happens in the world unless it's by the direct actions of the players." But this seems to be quite a different point. For instance, if I was running the KotB, the (secretly evil) priest might approach the PCs, saying "So-and-so suggested that you were interested in advice about the nature of undeath". That is "something happening in the world other than by the direct actions of the PCs" (namely, one NPC spoke to another). But it's not offscreen - it's part of the ingame situation into which the GM is framing the PCs.
> 
> Whereas Ovinomancer said "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it is boring" - and chaochou's question is, Who is getting bored? On the (apparently reasonable) assumption that the players aren't going to be entertained by something they're not looking at (eg the GM's secret notes about changes in the gameworld) then presumably they're not going to be bored by that either (eg by the fact that the GM _doesn't_ have secret notes about changes in the gameworld).




Sure, but you have to guess that's their point.  I'd rather not guess.  I do not think that [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] is really interested in who I think may be bored, but rather in contesting the point.  We can skip the question and answer then, and just get to the contesting argument.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> In applying this metaphor to RPGing, who are "the other kids"?
> 
> If they're other players in a shared world, then what we have is something like the sort of interpersonal and interparty competitive play that seems to have been part of how Gygax ran the game (as best I understand it). I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has elements of this too.
> 
> But if the "other kids" are purely imaginary beings whose actions and outcomes are being narrated by the GM, then we're clearly (self-evidently, I would say) talking about a GM-driven approach to establishing the content of the shared fiction.



If the DM doesn't get to play in the sandbox, too, what's the point?  Having the DM adjudicate how the world moves absent player involvement doesn't flip a switch from 'Player driven' to 'DM driven.'  Otherwise you're now calling games that involve things like Fronts DM driven.  Given you've XP'd those responses that have described this mechanic, I don't think you're doing this.

Instead, what I'm getting is that you think what's being discussed is the DM fiating whatever they want without regard to player goals.  That's not it, that's just another example of taking the worst case and using it as the general one.




> Unless there is a RPG table where the players are actually forbidden from making action declarations for their PCs, or where the GM _never_ allows the action resolution mechanics to actually run their course, this can never literally be the case. So it's not the basis on which I'm characterising a game as player-driven or GM-driven.



You just postulated a cult that destroyed the world because the players didn't engage it, didn't you?  I thought that was the example being used.  I called it a bad example, because it's an example of poor DM skills, to have a campagin ending event occur entirely offscreen.



> But the one that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] describes seems to be. He's not talking about running DW-style fronts.



Sure, but he may be doing something extremely similar.  I am, and I hadn't heard of Fronts until this thread.  But I sure have things that use something very similar to the clocks, with players being able to manipulate by interacting with the organization.  The idea of Fronts was immediately familiar to me, because I was already doing that in my games.  A bit less structured, maybe, but clear to my players.


> I've not used the notions of "DM-centric" or "Player-centric", and I'm not sure what you mean by that. I've talked about who is the driver of the content of the shared fiction.



Yes, I coined those terms for the same thing because I didn't like the implied binary of 'only DM' or 'only Player' from DM driven to Player driven.  The '-centric' tems do the same work but imply who the primary, but not only, driver of content may be.  In a DM-centric game, for example, the primary producer of fiction is the DM.  But the players can also introduce fiction, if to a lesser amount.  I think it's fair to say my D&D games are DM-centric.


> I also don't know what you have in mind by "worst case". [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has talked about how he runs a game. I assume he's being basically sincere. I'm talking about how I run a game, and what my preferences are in that respect. I'm being sincere.



I'm not implying any specialize definition with that.  I mean it literally.  You tend to present examples that feature highly negative traits or results, ie, worst case.  You then argue using this very negative example as the stand in for how a particular method works.  I'm pointing out that such worst cases aren't the norm, and using them is detrimental to discussion.


> It seems pretty clear to me that, by my standards and my preferences, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s game is GM-driven: that the key elements of the shared fiction are generated by the GM, based on the GM's conception of the "unfolding" gameworld.
> 
> The fact that the players get to choose whether their PC seek out the orcs or the lizardment doesn't really change that.
> 
> If you think I'm mistaken about Lanefan's game, by all means explain to me what I've misunderstood.




Yes, I think you're focusing on one part and ignoring the rest.  The initial conditions presented have been DM authored, but the ensuing fiction is driven by the players -- which part do they engage?  How?  What do they do then?  All of this is up to the players.  This is different from your game, where part of the setup is deciding player beliefs and the themes of the game, which is cooperative between all parties (ie, players can certainly decide their own beliefs, but the DM has to sign off on them as something they want to run or no game).  The only difference, as presented, is the setup.  Lanefan takes on the overhead and prep to set the world up, and lets the players loose to find out what happens.  You share the load up front, and then proceed in the same manner.  How the game actually runs could be very similar.

Now, I get that you prefer the cooperative theme development afforded by BW, and that's great, but don't mistake who sets the background for DM/Player driven in actual play.


----------



## Corpsetaker

99% of the time I use the same world in my games. If one groups actions reflect on that world in certain areas, then another group coming through may see the impact of those actions. 

My world keeps on spinning and changing whether the PC's are in it or not.


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> No, I did.  You said it's not a sandbox at all because it didn't fit your very narrow definition.  I added the idea of a 'failed sandbox' as one that attempts to be a sandbox, but fails because it doesn't meet your definition entirely.
> 
> To which I'd like to say that Free Kreigspiel is a model of a sandbox.  It's not THE model of a sandbox.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The question was 'show me how the GM can drive the game'.  I provided an example on how exactly the GM can drive the game according to their desires.  You respond that 'if the GM doesn't engage the beliefs, it's obvious' but all of my examples do engage the beliefs.  The belief that you'll return to your ruined tower and find the mace you were looking on is engaged on a failure if I say 'no, and a demon appears'.  It's also engaged on a partial success if I say 'yes, you find it, but a demon appears."  My agenda here is to drive the game toward engagement with the theme and plot I want, which is demons.  But framing situations so that they're amenable to failure circumstances that drive towards my point, I can easily engage player beliefs and still drive the game.  I just choose failure events or choices biased to my underlying agenda.  You seem to refuse to acknowledge this is possible, mostly, I think, because it doesn't occur to you to do so.  That's a positive thing, but you're mistaking your playstyle as something that's emergent from the ruleset when this isn't necessarily correct.  It's encouraged, yes, but not required.
> 
> I think a major point of contention here is the false binary that keeps getting kicked around by everyone that games are either DM driven or Player driven.  It's always both, it's just a matter of degree.  There is no magic formulation that sets the precise ratio for any game.  A game can have some DM direction and vastly more player direction, or vice versa, but the presence of DM direction doesn't mean the game is now DM driven.  If that's the case, your game is DM driven, and you've demonstrated this by adding fiction that you chose in the event of failed checks by your players.  Since this is clearly contraindicated (it's clear you value player desires over your own as DM), then the premise fails.  Similarly, having events that occur off camera that then impact the players, or having events that pivot on 'secret' information doesn't make a game DM driven, it just tilts a little more in that direction.  These components, by and of themselves, do not rise to the level of automatic definition.  They can, for sure, if used extensively and with other DM force options, but it's not sufficient.




Here's my slight contention with your example: In Burning Wheel all our interests are focused on contesting the veracity of player character beliefs at all times and following the fiction where it leads. When the GM presents the consequences for a failed roll they should do so with an eye towards player character beliefs in order to set up future conflicts. When you include consequences that have nothing to do with player character beliefs it my sincerely held belief that you are GMing the game in bad faith. The player would be justified in raising the issue. If you can relate the consequence back to a player character belief and it follows from the established fiction, and is susceptible to impact from player decisions then awesome! Balance is restored to the force. Obviously, the GM has a say in the content of the fiction, and their contributions should be valued for what they bring to the game. I do not think they really should be valued anymore than any other player, particularly when they generally get far more opportunities to contribute, but that's like my personal cross to bear.

I do think a little too much attention is being paid to power dynamics here. At least that is not what I am ultimately interested in. What I really want is unity of player interests while maintaining a level of conflict of interest in game to propel things forward. If we are all ultimately interested in the same things and actively working towards those interests then there should be no meaningful source of contention. My own interests tend towards games where no one in particular is driving the game. Everyone gets to say stuff and contribute, but no one really gets to control stuff. We all act in the interests of the game, and get to experience it together. My interests in a lack of a preplanned narrative are just as much for the sake of the GM's experience of play as it is for the other players' experience.


----------



## chaochou

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm uninterested in a socratic approach to your point.  If you have a point, please make it.




You've asserted something 'is boring'.

I've asked, quite sensibly, 'for who?'

How is that so, so difficult for you to answer?

I'm amused by your avoidance, but it's totally damning of your original claim in its own way.


----------



## Manbearcat

Xetheral said:


> Are you saying that in DW, the success chance for all important checks is roughly identical? Does DW not attempt to account for the difficulty of the PC's chosen action? How can the players have agency in DW if their choices don't influence the odds of success? Or am I completely misunderstanding what you meant?




What I meant was that in the course of a session or a campaign, the aggregate spread of Move outcomes will create a neat bell curve with 7-9 being the most prolific result.  7-9 is the lifeblood of the game because that is how play snowballs.  It keeps things in conflict with interesting, dynamic things occurring and corresponding decisions by the players to be made.  Imagine if whatever D&D you're used to playing had an exciting Complications Deck that changed the situation dynamically on the heavy bulk of successful rolls you made.  You draw a card and something interesting happens where a new branch on a decision tree emerges, you have to deal with a new problem, decide on a trade-off, pay a cost for a benefit etc.  That is the deal.

And I don't want to get into subjective vs objective DCs, but yes, like 4e the system's target numbers don't move.  6- and you fail and mark xp.  7-9 (as above).  10+ and you get what you want.  

Finally, the players have a staggering amount of agency in the game.  Just to start with your question, yes a player's choices significantly affect both the trajectory of play and their odds of success on any given move:

1)  PC build choices from Class/Race, Ability Score allocation, which AS to improve when you level, Moves selected (and oftentimes the nature of those moves), Alignment, Bonds.  

2)  The GM and the players build the map and setting together both before play and during.  This is both informal and formal (there are lots of moves that trigger players having the ability to introduce setting elements).

3)  The players, of course, choose the content that they want the game to be about and the GM obliges them.

4)  The players make an enormous amount of strategic resource decisions that significantly affect the course of play.  Each major resource has Uses (typically n/5 avaialble); Rations, Coin, Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Preparation, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, among them.

5)  The players have a ton of tactical resource decisions to make at the Move level (that often interface with 4 above) to improve their chances;  Spending Hold, Preparation, Adventuring Gear, Ammo, Bag of Books, Companion/Cohort resources (such as Armor and Sentry), and other specifics at the class level.

6)  The players choose how they strategically deal with situations and, of course, make Moves at the tactical level which engage their PC build resources that affect the potential outcome of any given roll.

7)  The fundamental resolution mechanics coupled with the play Agenda and GMing principles creates a very broad and diverse decision tree for players to engage with (at the Move level) that significantly affect the overall trajectory of play, the strategic trajectory of play, and the RIGHT NOW of the fiction.

8)  The ethos and relationship system (your relationship with other players and other NPCs including managing your Companions/Cohorts - managing Loyalty and paying Costs) of play is significantly integrated into the entirety of play (its not bolted on) and creates long-term and short term feedbacks.

Anyway, that is enough of a digression.  Hopefully that, along with what  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] posted, helps.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, I suppose it's a lot of work to change 5e into a completely different ruleset _in it's entirety_.  However, porting over some concepts and principles into 5e isn't that hard.  You're stuck on the fact that the outcomes don't 100% match, but is that entirely necessary to use the concepts of player agency BW or DW are based on into a 5e framework?  Yes, it would be messy if you compare outcomes, but lowering stakes to minor impacts to reflect the abundance of rolls and swinginess of 5e would be one coping mechanism.  Then, it's not single rolls that affect the story,  but a sequence of them that more gradually bend the game.




Well, I think one part of this is particular to me (and folks who share my inclinations).  I only have so much time to invest in play and I have specific things I'm looking for.  Given those two things, I'm looking to optimize my time investment toward whatever specific experience I'm seeking.  

Even though 5e has some bolted on stuff that can kinda/sorta drift toward a DW or BWesque experience (such as Ideals, Bonds, Flaws, Traits + the Inspiriation mechanics + the Social Interaction conflict resolution mechanics), the totality of the experience very much supports a loosey-goosey process sim meets high quality hexcrawl while you manage the Adventuring Day.  Its actually closest to something like Torchbearer if we're looking at indie games (the B/X inspired version of BW).  However, Torchbearer is profoundly focused on that style of play and much more compelling in a myriad of ways (and delivers so triumphantly).  So really, I'd rather just play Torchbearer.  

And it doesn't really do B/X (codified Exploration/Rest Turn procedures meets tightly integrated Wandering Monster Clock + Reaction and Morale), but it would take the least amount of work to drift it toward B/X.  But B/X does B/X so frigging well, I'd rather just run B/X.

So, given that, what does 5e aspire to?  An AD&D2e Hexcrawl meets Adventuring Day management (with some indie stuff bolted on...* * which can easily be removed and have the system be unimpacted*) IMO.  If you're an AD&D2e fan and you came to that system looking for something, 5e does that thing many times over better.  It is fundamentally built toward that paradigm/premise.  So that is what I use it for (better put, that is what the GM I sub in for now and again uses it for and I, out of courtesy/game integrity/general agreement, follow suit).

* This is pretty central.  If you took the propensity toward the 7-9 result (amongst many, many other facets) out of Dungeon World (say just made it 1/3 rather than 2/3), the game experience would fundamentally change.  If you changed the Exploration Rest/Turn integrated with the Wandering Monster clock dynamic in B/X (say, in the same way as above with DW), the game experience would fundamentally change.  

If you can outright remove something (not just change it) and the game experience/play paradigm doesn't fundamentally change, then it isn't integral to the fundamental game experience/play paradigm.


----------



## Nagol

Manbearcat said:


> <snip>
> 
> Finally, the players have a staggering amount of agency in the game.  Just to start with your question, yes a player's choices significantly affect both the trajectory of play and their odds of success on any given move:
> 
> 1)  PC build choices from Class/Race, Ability Score allocation, which AS to improve when you level, Moves selected (and oftentimes the nature of those moves), Alignment, Bonds.
> 
> 2)  The GM and the players build the map and setting together both before play and during.  This is both informal and formal (there are lots of moves that trigger players having the ability to introduce setting elements).
> 
> 3)  The players, of course, choose the content that they want the game to be about and the GM obliges them.
> 
> 4)  The players make an enormous amount of strategic resource decisions that significantly affect the course of play.  Each major resource has Uses (typically n/5 avaialble); Rations, Coin, Ammo, Adventuring Gear, Preparation, Bag of Books, Salves/Bandages, among them.
> 
> 5)  The players have a ton of tactical resource decisions to make at the Move level (that often interface with 4 above) to improve their chances;  Spending Hold, Preparation, Adventuring Gear, Ammo, Bag of Books, Companion/Cohort resources (such as Armor and Sentry), and other specifics at the class level.
> 
> 6)  The players choose how they strategically deal with situations and, of course, make Moves at the tactical level which engage their PC build resources that affect the potential outcome of any given roll.
> 
> 7)  The fundamental resolution mechanics coupled with the play Agenda and GMing principles creates a very broad and diverse decision tree for players to engage with (at the Move level) that significantly affect the overall trajectory of play, the strategic trajectory of play, and the RIGHT NOW of the fiction.
> 
> 8)  The ethos and relationship system (your relationship with other players and other NPCs including managing your Companions/Cohorts - managing Loyalty and paying Costs) of play is significantly integrated into the entirety of play (its not bolted on) and creates long-term and short term feedbacks.
> 
> Anyway, that is enough of a digression.  Hopefully that, along with what  @_*Nagol*_ posted, helps.




Only to a point.  The DM remains in control of the narrative and especially the choice of choosing a soft move or hard move result can easily undercut meaningful consequence to choice if he wants and/or isn't careful.  ( For those without the terminology background, a soft move is effectively starting a situation -- it's the opening narration to which a player responds.  A hard move is closing narration; it dictates the result.  Since the DM can decide to turn a failure or partial success into a soft move and provide a new situation for the PC to react against as opposed to applying consequence, the DM can softball a situation as he feels appropriate).


----------



## Manbearcat

Ilbranteloth said:


> I think that there's a difference between trying to match the mechanics of a game, and match the feel of a game. D&D, particularly 5e, is extremely easy to modify if you want to. However, to make it work well with 5e, it's best to leverage the mechanics of 5e, perhaps with some tweaks.
> 
> It's not all that different than things like Dragonlance that has seen official releases with two different game systems. Yet they both feel like Dragonlance. Of course there have been multiple Middle Earth/Lord of the Rings adaptations to RPGs too. I don't think playing _The Lord of the Rings_ RPG will feel like MERP, yet both feel like LotR.
> 
> On the other hand, BW/DW has different goals as a game. While I wouldn't consider D&D as written a simulation game, it has its roots in the simulation approach of war games. BW/DW seems to be more focused on a shared fiction game experience. While both have a focus on the fiction, part of the point of BW/DW seems to be how you get to the fiction and interact with it. That the gaming experience is as important as the fiction itself. I'm sure not everybody plays it that way, but that's the sense I get.
> 
> I don't know BW/DW well enough to be able to give a precise example. In a thread at least a year ago, somebody asked me to explain how I would play out a scene that they described in Dungeon World. If I recall, I didn't even have to really tweak any rules to do it.
> 
> Now that was to describe a scene, and the control over that scene would have shifted a bit, with the players having less overall control of things that are outside of their character's control, so it's not exactly the same. I think you or [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] might have been part of that thread.
> 
> So I think that pulling concepts out of BW/DW is very doable. Some just require a different perspective on running the game, others would require some mechanical changes. But it's probably a bit more difficult to duplicate entirely, and I agree, I'm not sure you'd want to.




See my post directly above to  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] as it addresses a lot of this.  

I'll comment a bit more though because it was a conversation with me that you're referring to on mapping a Dungeon World play excerpt to 5e (which is, interestingly enough, the primary premise of my engagement with this thread...along with mapping it to B/X).  You're referring to the "sled and the glacial crevasse hazard" scene that I splocked in response to  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] 's request for further context above.

The problem with mapping that scene (and a host of others including the one that I'm engaging with in this thread) has to do with all of the stuff that I mentioned in the post to Ovinomancer.  That stuff happens organically and reliably/consistently as an inevitable outgrowth of all that stuff I mentioned.  5e does not have an analogue for that stuff.  It doesn't possess an analogue for most of that stuff (and what it kind of has an analogue for isn't integrated holistically into the system like it is in DW).  

If you just go with the most basic fundamental part (2/3 of all Move outcomes resulting in success with costs/complications/hard bargains/ugly choices), 5e doesn't have it as its core resolution mechanic feature.  Even if you play with the Success with Complication module in the the DMG (which I do and I spread it out to 3 numbers rather than 2), (a) the maths don't remotely line up and (b) there is no analogue to the formalized complication handling procedures in DW.  

The breakdown of total agency, and the nature of each (System Agency, GM Agency, and Player Agency), between the two systems are *profoundly *different.

So net:

1)  Just by applying the play procedures, the odds of that spiraling/snowballing situation turning up (which turns up constantly in DW, pretty much every scene) as a result of mere organic play isn't going to happen in 5e at anything nearing the same level of frequency.  This is where GM Force/Illusionism comes in to increase that frequency to a more (table/GM-specific) palatable frequency.

2)  GM mental overhead is extraordinarily different when running such a scenario in both systems.  

3)  Player decision trees, interaction with the basic resolution mechanics/resource paradigms, and their own possible moves are extremely different in both systems.

Sum total, due to the severe divergence in respective System Agency/GM Agency/Player Agency (type/kind and % of total agency), 5e just can't churn out something like that with anything nearing that sort of frequency while that is a pillar (perhaps THE pillar of Dungeon World's play paradigm) of DW, while simultaneously the feel and "work" put in for both player and GM is very, very different.


----------



## Manbearcat

Nagol said:


> Only to a point.  The DM remains in control of the narrative and especially the choice of choosing a soft move or hard move result can easily undercut meaningful consequence to choice if he wants and/or isn't careful.  ( For those without the terminology background, a soft move is effectively starting a situation -- it's the opening narration to which a player responds.  A hard move is closing narration; it dictates the result.  Since the DM can decide to turn a failure or partial success into a soft move and provide a new situation for the PC to react against as opposed to applying consequence, the DM can softball a situation as he feels appropriate).




This is actually what I thought  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] may have had in mind when I was asking him about this upthread.

The thing about this though is 2-part:

a)  Were this to happen in play, it would be a clear violation of one of the primary Principles of DW GMing; _Make a move that follows (the fiction)_.  It is also a violation of _Think dangerous_ and the game's Agenda of_ Fill the character's lives with adventure_ because removal of the consequences of play is where adventure goes to die.

Following from (a) above...

b)  The resolution mechanics and play procedures are all transparent and/or player-facing.  Take the following scenario:

* I deploy a "Use a Location Move" and introduce an avalanche into the fiction as a part of a complication.  Now the players have imminent peril that they have to deal with.

* A player doesn't have the means (teleport, polymorph and fly out of the impact zone, magical shields, unearthly strength to hold back the boulder-ey deluge) to outright deal with the danger, so they have to Defy Danger Move to avoid it.  They roll a 6- and Mark xp.

* Well, if I don't deal damage and deploy a _Forceful _ tag here (to uproot the PC/sweep themdown the face), it would be pretty blatant.  Unless there is some other very obvious fictional circumstance that I could follow (sometimes there is), I'm making that move above.  If I don't, the players will know that I've violated not only the social contract of play, but the game's Agenda and the GMing Principles.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Another interesting thing has been the discussion - especially between  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and me - over the difference between a "static" situation, which reacts to player action declarations for their PCs, and a "GM puts the world into motion" situation. Some posters (eg  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], I thinik also  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) seem to classify these both as sandboxes and see the salient difference only being whether the world is "boring" or "interesting because living/breathing".



For my part I don't necessarily view static worlds as boring.  I've seen boring static and living breathing worlds, and fun static and living breathing worlds.  I prefer a world that lives and breathes, because it's more realistic for the world to keep on trucking while out of sight of the PCs.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> But the question of whether  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] will give more options isn't a question about interpreting some bit of fiction (ie it's not a question of literary criticism). It's a question of what Lanefan is prepared to do at his table (ie it is, broadly, a question of anthropology). Lanefan already told us a couple of things about his table - if you leave the party, or become a magsitrate, then the PC is retired. For all you know, any PC who sets out to become King of the Northern Barbarians (assuming such things even exist in Lanefan's world) likewise has to be retired.




I haven't seen anything so far to indicate that the players can't choose to go their own way with their own ideas on what to do.  He's just established that the world has already been created, so much of the information for the players to build off of has been determined already.  I'm also not sure what retirement has to do with this. Presumably the players know that if the PC becomes King of the Northern Barbarians his PC will have to retire and is okay with it.  I've pursued goals in games past where achieving those goals would remove my PC from the game, or at least as a PC.


----------



## Nagol

Manbearcat said:


> This is actually what I thought  @_*hawkeyefan*_ may have had in mind when I was asking him about this upthread.
> 
> The thing about this though is 2-part:
> 
> a)  Were this to happen in play, it would be a clear violation of one of the primary Principles of DW GMing; _Make a move that follows (the fiction)_.  It is also a violation of _Think dangerous_ and the game's Agenda of_ Fill the character's lives with adventure_ because removal of the consequences of play is where adventure goes to die.
> 
> Following from (a) above...
> 
> b)  The resolution mechanics and play procedures are all transparent and/or player-facing.  Take the following scenario:
> 
> * I deploy a "Use a Location Move" and introduce an avalanche into the fiction as a part of a complication.  Now the players have imminent peril that they have to deal with.
> 
> * A player doesn't have the means (teleport, polymorph and fly out of the impact zone, magical shields, unearthly strength to hold back the boulder-ey deluge) to outright deal with the danger, so they have to Defy Danger Move to avoid it.  They roll a 6- and Mark xp.
> 
> * Well, if I don't deal damage and deploy a _Forceful _ tag here (to uproot the PC/sweep themdown the face), it would be pretty blatant.  Unless there is some other very obvious fictional circumstance that I could follow (sometimes there is), I'm making that move above.  If I don't, the players will know that I've violated not only the social contract of play, but the game's Agenda and the GMing Principles.




Damage may be a direct hard move consequence, but it by no means the only genre appropriate one.  The victim manages to stay near the surface, but loses a backpack or weapon of choice (Use Up Resources), he gets buried taking no immediate damage, but needs to dig to the surface to save himself (Put in a Spot),  or they are swept along with the snow and separated from the group and need to handle one or more upcoming obstacles to avoid damage (Separate Them, Put in a Spot, maybe Backtrack).

*edit*
I'd probably present this as a 10+ Avoid all dangers, 7-9: Player choose one consequence from (a) take damage, (b) get separated, or (c) use up resources.  6-: player choose two consequences from the same list, myself.
*/edit*


Here's an example given in the same play tutorial that illustrates a softball:


> GM: Okay, you're running from the guards through this dark, ﬁlthy alleyway. Sounds like Defy Danger, so go ahead and roll it.
> PC: Oh no! I rolled a six, that's a failure.
> GM: "It sure is. You're trying to lose them in the maze of alleys, but it's too dark in there; you trip over a pile of trash behind this tavern. Glass bottles shatter and you land with a loud thud, facedown in rotting garbage.  The guards hear this and totally pinpoint your location, they're rounding the corner now, just a few paces away. What do you do?


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that it would be separate of the basic mechanical means of action resolution. So in 5E you may have the DM "steering" things by using his ability to establish DCs that are unknown to the players, or by simply saying that they failed or what have you. Such a method could be used to force the game in a certain direction.
> 
> For DW, not being familiar with the game first hand, it seems to me that the GM can determine story elements on the fly. The chasm from your play example...deciding what the complications are when a 7-9 roll is made is entirely within the GM's purview, correct? So the GM could just introduce elements he wanted in the game. So instead of your "Alienesque" situation in the crevasse with the goblins getting picked off by the monster....couldn't the GM introduce an entirely different scenario? Say, drow that have recently performed a raid on the surface world and have taken some kind of important NPC as hostage.
> 
> Is that not feasible in DW?




The nature and breadth of "GM purview" in 4e (a part of GM Agency) is different than in the D&D you're used to.  See some of my posts above to folks for more insight into this.  DW, taken holistically, puts a lot of constraints (good constraints - they ensure System Agency, maximize Player Agency, alleviate both macro cognitive workload and micro mental overhead for the GM, and work to both facilitate integrity of the fiction and genre coherency) on content introduction.

Furthermore, _Ask questions and use the answers_ is a VERY fundamental part of GMing in DW.  This happens not only at the outset of the game, but all throughout play.  Just a quick for instance of why this game was about "aliens" is in the player of Saerie's character giving me (a) how she wanted her formative conflict (which take place in the past - we play this out) that hooks her into the fiction to open and (b) a fundamental setting element that ties into her backstory:



> 2) Scene opener for past conflict:
> 
> The slimy, ethereal trail of an aberrant creature, no doubt from the Far Realm, leads down into the deep dark. If I spare a single moment, the ghostly remnant of the creature will fade beyond my means to track. A child's scream. The growls and yips of a feral pack of dogs.
> 
> 3) My statement about the world and my backstory:
> 
> In the ancient times, our seers unlocked a mystery. That unlocked mystery revealed to them several signs from which they were able to predict the collapse of the tangible barrier between the Prime World and that of the Far Realm. I believe I've seen some of these signs come to fruition. I fear very soon that the unfathomable monstrosities of that deranged world will crossover and undo the great civilizations of this world and even move on to the Feywild.




We play this out.  She fleshes out her Alignment/Bonds/relationships/place in the world using the results and this propels us into the current fiction.

The creation and nature of Earthmaw is an example of "in-play" _Ask questions and use the answers_ when the player of Otthor achieved a 10+ on a Spout Lore move (supplemented by the expenditure of a Bag of Books - secured from the records of the ruined settlement of World's End Bluff).

So then, sum told, "going rogue" and introducing whatever-the-hell fiction I want to in DW is "not a thing".



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think GM Force or illusionism or any of the other methods listed above must be protested. As I said earlier, I am advocating an approach to the game that would allow for any method to be used, depending on the circumstances.
> 
> However, I do enjoy allowing my players to have a lot of agency and leeway in determining how the story of the game takes shape....and those methods you listed above can at times get in the way of that.




Gotcha.  Certainly no dispute here.



hawkeyefan said:


> I would think that creating "tension and drama" isn't really dependent on the mechanics, though, right? Isn't it more a question of the situation that has come up, and then the success or failure of the PCs in that given situation?
> 
> But as for your first point in this quote, I think you approach the game far more scientifically than I do....I don't use any of the encounter budget or encounter design or XP mechanics at all. I really don't find them all that useful, and I think they exist more for newer players who don't have lots of experience with this aspect of teh game. Longtime DMs, I feel, won't get much out of those mechanics at all, and are better simply designing encounters based on their judgment.




See here is where you will find dispute with me.  "Tension and drama", all of frequency, potency, inherent dynamism, and breadth of prospects) and can absolutely by systemitized.  When I say systemitized I mean both in the machinery (System Agency), in the GMing techniques to be deployed and principled to be followed (GM Agency), and in the players ability to either introduce content/conflict or in their ability to respond to it (Player Agency).  

Just consider what I've brought up in this thread over and over:

1)  Dungeon World's lifeblood of 2/3 of aggregate move results being that of the spiraling/snowballing "Success with..." variety.  Just moving that down from 2/3 of the results to 1/3 results will significantly affect the systemitized "tension and drama" of the play experience.

2)  Consider B/X's lifeblood of Exloration/Rest Turns meets Wandering Monster Clock and Reactions/Morale.  Change the maths on those (so adventurous/dangerous stuff happens much less often) and constrain the potential prospects for outcomes (the dynamism) and you will significantly affect the systemitized "tension and drama" of the play experience.



hawkeyefan said:


> I just think that any dungeon or hexcrawl can be boiled down to some kind of flow chart. I think storylines can also be designed that way. In that sense, they are the same. Kind of an "if A, then B or C" and then "If B, then D or E or F"....that kind of thing. Hard to describe without a visual.




I understand what you mean here.  The problem is the whole "contact with the players" part.  The more Player Agency and System Agency a game has, the more difficult it is to be able to create a preemptive flow chart or story tree (even with wildly deviating branches).  Furthermore, if you don't have to do it...I mean, if things just flat out work with you having to put that effort in (and you get to "play to find out what happens" as a bonus), why would you put the time in to try to do so?


----------



## Xetheral

Manbearcat said:


> It keeps things in conflict with interesting, dynamic things occurring and corresponding decisions by the players to be made.  Imagine if whatever D&D you're used to playing had an exciting Complications Deck that changed the situation dynamically on the heavy bulk of successful rolls you made.  You draw a card and something interesting happens where a new branch on a decision tree emerges, you have to deal with a new problem, decide on a trade-off, pay a cost for a benefit etc.  That is the deal.




As a threshold matter, I'd prefer the complicataion be chosen by the DM rather than by drawing a card. I trust an experienced DM to more reliably produce enjoyable complications suited to the group (and their current mood) than a random choice being picked from a list drawn up in advance. For the same reasons, I rarely use random treasure generation, and also don't use wandering monsters (the closest I come is an ability check to bypass a known threat in an area).

But I also wouldn't want such complications to emerge on the heavy bulk of rolls. Instead I would want the frequency of such complications (as a percentage of die rolls) to closely reflect the choices made by the players. If they find a strategy to achieve their objectives that plays to their strengths (either on the character sheet or in-game resources and advantages), I would expect complications arising from check results to occur less frequently, on average, than for a party running greater risks, either through choice or desperation.

Also, I don't understand how this...



Manbearcat said:


> And I don't want to get into subjective vs objective DCs, but yes, like 4e the system's target numbers don't move.  6- and you fail and mark xp.  7-9 (as above).  10+ and you get what you want.




...and this...



Manbearcat said:


> If you just go with the most basic fundamental part (2/3 of all Move outcomes resulting in success with costs/complications/hard bargains/ugly choices)




...are compatabile with the bolded parts of this...



Manbearcat said:


> Finally, the players have a staggering amount of agency in the game.  Just to start with your question, yes *a player's choices significantly affect *both the trajectory of play and *their odds of success on any given move:*




...and this...



Manbearcat said:


> 6)  The players choose how they strategically deal with situations and, of course, make Moves at the tactical level which engage their PC build resources that *affect the potential outcome of any given roll.*




If the target number to roll on the die/dice is always the same, how can the player's choices or the abilities on the character's sheet affect the probability of success? 

The first two quotes suggest that no matter what the player's plan is, the odds of complications are fixed. The second two quotes suggest the odds of complications are not fixed. I'm sure I'm missing some mechanical element that makes those non-contradictory, but I don't know what it might be.

You mentioned the 2/3 was an average, but to be sufficient to resolve the apparent contradiction would require either that 1) making choices or using an ability to decrease the odds of complications on one roll necessarily increases the odds for complications on future rolls, or that 2) the frequency with which a player can change the odds is so limited as to not heavily affect the average. Both options would imply that the players only have tactical agency, not strategic agency, since in either case they lack the ability to affect the long-run average.

My apologies for the plethora of questions. I thought I'd inferred the gist of DW from the earlier discussion, but apparently I was wrong, so now I'm trying to clear up my confusion in arrears.


----------



## Nagol

Xetheral said:


> As a threshold matter, I'd prefer the complicataion be chosen by the DM rather than by drawing a card. I trust an experienced DM to more reliably produce enjoyable complications suited to the group (and their current mood) than a random choice being picked from a list drawn up in advance. For the same reasons, I rarely use random treasure generation, and also don't use wandering monsters (the closest I come is an ability check to bypass a known threat in an area).
> 
> But I also wouldn't want such complications to emerge on the heavy bulk of rolls. Instead I would want the frequency of such complications (as a percentage of die rolls) to closely reflect the choices made by the players. If they find a strategy to achieve their objectives that plays to their strengths (either on the character sheet or in-game resources and advantages), I would expect complications arising from check results to occur less frequently, on average, than for a party running greater risks, either through choice or desperation.
> 
> Also, I don't understand how this...
> 
> 
> 
> ...and this...
> 
> 
> 
> ...are compatabile with the bolded parts of this...
> 
> 
> 
> ...and this...
> 
> 
> 
> If the target number to roll on the die/dice is always the same, how can the player's choices or the abilities on the character's sheet affect the probability of success?
> 
> The first two quotes suggest that no matter what the player's plan is, the odds of complications are fixed. The second two quotes suggest the odds of complications are not fixed. I'm sure I'm missing some mechanical element that makes those non-contradictory, but I don't know what it might be.
> 
> You mentioned the 2/3 was an average, but to be sufficient to resolve the apparent contradiction would require either that 1) making choices or using an ability to decrease the odds of complications on one roll necessarily increases the odds for complications on future rolls, or that 2) the frequency with which a player can change the odds is so limited as to not heavily affect the average. Both options would imply that the players only have tactical agency, not strategic agency, since in either case they lack the ability to affect the long-run average.
> 
> My apologies for the plethora of questions. I thought I'd inferred the gist of DW from the earlier discussion, but apparently I was wrong, so now I'm trying to clear up my confusion in arrears.




Generally, to make an attempt, you roll 2d6 + modifier (stat or other; typically -3 to +3).  The modifier used depends on what you're trying to do. Each defined move has a set die roll.  Staying within your strengths will tend to better your odds for success.  So to achieve a 7-9 result will typically require rolling a 6-8, 5-7, or 4-6 total, depending on modifier, on 2d6 which gives high probabilities of it occurring.


----------



## Xetheral

Nagol said:


> Typically, to make an attempt, you roll 2d6 + modifier (stat or other; typically -3 to +3).  The modifier used depends on what you're trying to do. Each defined move has a set die roll.  Staying within your strengths will tend to better your odds for success.  So to achieve a 7-9 result will typically require rolling a 6-8, 5-7, or 4-6 total, depending on modifier, on 2d6 which gives high probabilities of it occurring.




Ahh! That explains it. So 10+ avoiding a complication is (effectively) a DC for the check, rather than a target number for the roll. So players _can_ influence the long-run complication average higher or lower than 2/3, depending on their choices. That makes much more sense. Thank you.


----------



## Manbearcat

[MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] , yup, those hard moves you mention are definitely "Make a move that follows (the fiction)" (and I have used them when the fiction warranted).  You can still give players a hard choice on a 6- when you deploy Use Their Resources.  It just needs to change the situation more punitively than that on a 7-9, because the player is getting none of what they want (rather than some).  The fiction could be something like "you can leap to this tiny landing and hold on by your fingertips (thus you're still very much in danger...especially if there are enemies or further environmental hazards about), but you can't hold onto your magic sword at the same time!"  So the player can either eat damage/Forceful tag (thus being in a bad spot spatially now...perhaps partially buried and swept down and lower on HPs) or they can lose their magic sword and "be in a spot."

 [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] , I'm posted out and have to exit stage left.  I'll try to read your response and get to it tomorrow (most likely).


----------



## Manbearcat

Xetheral said:


> Ahh! That explains it. So 10+ avoiding a complication is (effectively) a DC for the check, rather than a target number for the roll. So players _can_ influence the long-run complication average higher or lower than 2/3, depending on their choices. That makes much more sense. Thank you.




Real quick here.  I tried to convey that 2/3 was the aggregate number of 7-9 outcomes in the course of play (all players making all moves) due to the bell curve nature of the resolution mechanics.  However, every individual move will yield considerable player agency toward avoiding that 7-9 result (either with a 10+ or a 6-), its just that the significant majority of sum total move outcomes (all participants together in the course of a session/campaign) will fall into that 7-9 outcome.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Whether this is good or bad GMing depends, as  @_*Ilbranteloth*_ said, upon what a particular table is looking for in their RPGing. How it compares to "Fronts" in the PbtA sense I'll let  @_*Manbearcat*_ or  @_*Campbell*_ respond to - though my sense, resulting from play moreso than reading, is that there is a big difference between (i) a game in which the causation behind events is murky to the players, and a major goal of play is trying to unravel the GM's "metaplot" (I'm thinking of 2nd ed AD&D play experiences) and (ii) a game in which the rationale for what is happening in the shared fiction is clear (ie the GM is bringing pressure to bear upon the players via interposing obstacles to the PCs' pursuit of their goals) and the major goal as a player is not to _work out what is going on_ but rather _to choose which value to realise in circumstances where some sacrifices will have to be made, or costs borne (I'm thinking of DW play experiences)._



_

Mostly just going to quote here (I've more than used up my original word allowance for the day):



Manbearcat said:



			GMs in Dungeon World don't prepare metaplot.  They make a map with blanks and prepare 1 or 2, what is called *Fronts*.  These are a collection of threats, and ill omens that are there to provide obstacles and dangers to the PCs.  They fill their lives with danger and interpose themselves between the PCs and their goals.  You make the very low resolution map (again...lots of blanks to be filled out during play) and the Fronts after character creation.

Everything else is generated during play through the basic play procedures and following the games Agenda and GMing principles.  

So at the start of play we had a few adventuring sites/locales including the eerily quiet settlement (World's End Bluff) in the highlands that the PCs were going to.

As far as *Fronts *go, I had Apocalypse Cult (impulse; to bring about the end of the world) and Otherworldly Aboleths (impulse; to change everything and pave the way for The Mother).
		
Click to expand...





Manbearcat said:



			Furthermore, Ask questions and use the answers is a VERY fundamental part of GMing in DW.  This happens not only at the outset of the game, but all throughout play.  Just a quick for instance of why this game was about "aliens" is in the player of Saerie's character giving me (a) how she wanted her formative conflict (which take place in the past - we play this out) that hooks her into the fiction to open and (b) a fundamental setting element that ties into her backstory:




			2) Scene opener for past conflict:

The slimy, ethereal trail of an aberrant creature, no doubt from the Far Realm, leads down into the deep dark. If I spare a single moment, the ghostly remnant of the creature will fade beyond my means to track. A child's scream. The growls and yips of a feral pack of dogs.

3) My statement about the world and my backstory:

In the ancient times, our seers unlocked a mystery. That unlocked mystery revealed to them several signs from which they were able to predict the collapse of the tangible barrier between the Prime World and that of the Far Realm. I believe I've seen some of these signs come to fruition. I fear very soon that the unfathomable monstrosities of that deranged world will crossover and undo the great civilizations of this world and even move on to the Feywild.
		
Click to expand...



We play this out.  She fleshes out her Alignment/Bonds/relationships/place in the world using the results and this propels us into the current fiction.

The creation and nature of Earthmaw is an example of "in-play" Ask questions and use the answers when the player of Otthor achieved a 10+ on a Spout Lore move (supplemented by the expenditure of a Bag of Books - secured from the records of the ruined settlement of World's End Bluff).

So then, sum told, "going rogue" and introducing whatever-the-hell fiction I want to in DW is "not a thing".
		
Click to expand...



I hope its clear from the above how the two *Fronts *and their Impulses came about (and future *Fronts *and content introduction) as a product of basic Dungeon World set-up and "Ask questions and use their answers."  And I hope the implication of a "player-driven" play premise is clear._


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> On "framing", I had a lengthy post not too far upthread (here).




Sure....my point is that framing entails the GM making decisions that can steer the game. Your example of the PC who can shapechange into a falcon being imprisoned....you can frame the situation with there being a window or a small port in the door for the falcon to fly through thereby allowing the PC to escape, or you can frame it so that the door is one continuous piece, meaning the the PC will remain imprisoned and must figure out another means of escape. 




pemerton said:


> But a map isn't a flowchart, is it? Even a recipe isn't a flowchart, in the sense that you might change the sequence of steps (eg often I don't turn the oven on at the start like the recipe says, because it doesn't take that long to heat up and I want to conserve power).
> 
> Whereas an "event-based" flowchart isn't a map. It's a temporal sequence of events - a "plot", if you like.




I didn't say a map was a flowchart....I said they had similarities, and that both an RPG map and an RPG story can be designed with this idea in mind. I'll ignore the bit about it not being a recipe either since I didn't mention recipe. 

If you take an RPG map at it's most basic, it is a series of sites connected by lines, yes? 



Manbearcat said:


> The nature and breadth of "GM purview" in 4e (a part of GM Agency) is different than in the D&D you're used to.  See some of my posts above to folks for more insight into this.  DW, taken holistically, puts a lot of constraints (good constraints - they ensure System Agency, maximize Player Agency, alleviate both macro cognitive workload and micro mental overhead for the GM, and work to both facilitate integrity of the fiction and genre coherency) on content introduction.
> 
> Furthermore, _Ask questions and use the answers_ is a VERY fundamental part of GMing in DW.  This happens not only at the outset of the game, but all throughout play.  Just a quick for instance of why this game was about "aliens" is in the player of Saerie's character giving me (a) how she wanted her formative conflict (which take place in the past - we play this out) that hooks her into the fiction to open and (b) a fundamental setting element that ties into her backstory:




Okay, understood. But then doesn't this mean that the players and the GM are basically determining the story elements ahead of time? Wouldn't this then be a mix of GM Force and Player Force? 

And if so, is it that different from my 5E game where my players had as much input into what we played as I did before we began? I've gone to them for a good amount of the content I've used. I would still likely put that content somewhere in the 2/3 GM and 1/3 player ratio, or thereabouts. 

How are the two approaches so different in the "play to find out" sense? 




Manbearcat said:


> See here is where you will find dispute with me.  "Tension and drama", all of frequency, potency, inherent dynamism, and breadth of prospects) and can absolutely by systemitized.  When I say systemitized I mean both in the machinery (System Agency), in the GMing techniques to be deployed and principled to be followed (GM Agency), and in the players ability to either introduce content/conflict or in their ability to respond to it (Player Agency).




I don't disagree with this. I think that drama is more a result of the fiction and player buy-in to it and with other narrative elements not unique to RPGs....but I will say that system mechanics can be designed to reinforce those elements. And from your descriptions, I would agree with you that DW and similar games seem to be mechanically designed with player agency in mind. 



Manbearcat said:


> I understand what you mean here.  The problem is the whole "contact with the players" part.  The more Player Agency and System Agency a game has, the more difficult it is to be able to create a preemptive flow chart or story tree (even with wildly deviating branches).  Furthermore, if you don't have to do it...I mean, if things just flat out work with you having to put that effort in (and you get to "play to find out what happens" as a bonus), why would you put the time in to try to do so?




Well, I tend not to think it takes as much effort as all that. And I also find it fun. But generally, based on the players I DM for and the campaign we are running, I tend to have a good idea of what they'll do....which way they may take things. They actually don't tend to move very far afield from the story I have in mind. They are invested in it and actively add to it all the time. They veer a bit, and I like that....but they always go back to the main story elements at some point. 

So it really isn't that hard to have a decision point, and then kind of loosely come up with the possible choices they would make, and then consider what the outcomes would be. I then jot down some of these outcomes, and then see what they do. If it's something I haven't planned on, then I come up with things on the fly....but that little bit of prep that I did in jotting down ideas is usually enough of a foundation to be able to facilitate a totally unexpected choice or tactic. 

This is why I look at my approach as a blend of GM driven and player driven. I see elements of both.


----------



## Campbell

This blog post by John Harper does an excellent job instructing on how to use regular and hard moves appropriately. Key bits are quoted below. All credit goes to John Harper for really understanding this stuff, maybe even better than Vincent Baker. I am posting this because there's been some contention, but also because I think there's some good general GM wisdom in there.



			
				Regular Moves said:
			
		

> *When you make a regular MC move,* all three:
> 1. It follows logically from the fiction.
> 2. It gives the player an opportunity to react.
> 3. It sets you up for a future harder move.
> 
> This means, say what happens but *stop before the effect*, then ask "What do you do?"
> _
> - He swings the chainsaw right at your head. What do you do?
> - You sneak into the garage but there's Plover right there, about to notice you any second now. What do you do?
> - She stares at you coldly. 'Leave me alone,' she says. What do you do?_






			
				 Hard Moves said:
			
		

> *When you make a hard MC move*, both:
> 1. It follows logically from the fiction.
> 2. It's irrevocable.
> 
> This means, say what happens, *including the effect*, then ask "What do you do?"
> 
> _- The chainsaw bites into your face, spraying chunks of bloody flesh all over the room. 3-harm and make the harm move!
> - Plover sees you and starts yelling like mad. Intruder!
> - 'Don't come back here again.' She slams the door in your face and you hear the locks click home._




The way this works in practice is that you never just select any old move, or even any old move that could work in the fiction. You really should be trying to follow the fiction as much as possible, not like writing it. Also when it comes time to make a hard move look to your regular or soft moves. Moves should snowball. You just made a threat with your regular move, deliver on it with your hard move. Hard moves should usually come from a fairly obvious place because you are telegraphing them with your soft moves.

Another thing to keep in mind is that how hard of a move you make has nothing to do with severity of the consequences. Hard moves are irrevocable, but not always severe. That comes from the fiction.


----------



## Nagol

Campbell said:


> This blog post by John Harper does an excellent job instructing on how to use regular and hard moves appropriately. Key bits are quoted below. All credit goes to John Harper for really understanding this stuff, maybe even better than Vincent Baker. I am posting this because there's been some contention, but also because I think there's some good general GM wisdom in there.




My observation is the hard moves (your second list) can pretty much be inserted directly to replace the first list without changing the fidelity of the fiction.


He swings the chainsaw right at your head. The chainsaw bites into your face, spraying chunks of bloody flesh all over the room. 3-harm and make the harm move!
You sneak into the garage but there's Plover right there and he starts yelling like mad. Intruder!
She stares at you coldly. 'Leave me alone. Don't come back here again' she says. She slams the door in your face and you hear the locks click home.


The primary purpose of the split as originally presented seems to be to give the player a chance to mitigate a failure/partial success.  There are times where going to a soft move is narrative appropriate such as 

Player: I sneak out of the vent and move to cover until I get my bearings.  D'oh! a 5!
GM: As you come out of the duct you see you're in the library. Seated almost directly under you is an old man.  He says "Can I help you with something?"  What do you do?​
But there is no seeming expectation that the tactic isn't used to softball a situation and present the player with ways to recover.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> One of the interesting things about this thread, for me, has been the distinctions that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has been drawing between "scene framing" approaches and "MCing/principled GMing" approaches.
> 
> To me, at least, that's new - I don't recall seeing it in any of the other threads you referred to.
> 
> Another interesting thing has been the discussion - especially between  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and me - over the difference between a "static" situation, which reacts to player action declarations for their PCs, and a "GM puts the world into motion" situation. Some posters (eg  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], I thinik also  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]) seem to classify these both as sandboxes and see the salient difference only being whether the world is "boring" or "interesting because living/breathing".
> 
> Whereas I feel my discussion with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has brought out quite a different point of contrast, namely, the extent to which one tends to support a style of player-driven RPGing, whereas the other tends to put the GM into the driver's seat.
> 
> I recognise that others may not be interested in these matters, but - as the one who started the thread! - I regard them as worthwhile outcomes.
> 
> I'm not sure I get this: what is the connection betwee "illusionism" and players not wanting their PCs to die?




I hadn't finished reading all the posts yet (still haven't). I was just saying that I was getting a very real sense of Deja Vu with a lot of what I had read. A poor attempt at a joke. I'm sure there is some good stuff yet to read!

To answer your second question: In some campaigns I've run, there are certain players who get very upset if their character dies. In some cases, the only real way around that is to fudge die rolls, for example. It's not directly related to Illusionism. I was just pointing out that there are a number of things (like Illusionism and fudging) that some people consider cheating, and for other situations controversial techniques like either of these are almost required.

Personally, I don't have a problem with any of them per se. If the table would prefer that the DM ensure that things stay on track, or that players don't die, or anything else that requires the DM to take more control of the consequences of the game, I can work with that. And I think I can do it in a way that doesn't ruin the illusion and immersion for them.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> My interests in a lack of a preplanned narrative are just as much for the sake of the GM's experience of play as it is for the other players' experience.



100% this. As a RPGer I'm overwhelmingly a GM. I don't want to run a GM-driven game.


----------



## pemerton

Nagol said:


> if the PCs move to/stay in an environment where the change should be noticeable, the DM is obligated to bring the change to their attention. Which means the DM is obligated to track those situations when out of sight of the players OR to introduce changes specifically as he feels the players would appreciate. Although both can be sandboxing, the first strategy tends to produce more long-term consistency and appreciation in my experience.



In that case our experiences differ. I've never found (as a player or GM) that "tracking situations out of sight of the players" produces a better game than the GM narrating the unfolding situation in a way that responds to the dynamics and concerns of the actual play at the table.

I posted an example some way upthread in a reply to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] (for me, it's post 298, but may not be the same for you), of the PCs in my main 4e game returning to the underdark after various excursions on the Abyss. I narrated the changes they noticed: roiling chaos due to the death of Torog; the duergar a somewhat destroyed society (as on of the PCs had, far earlier, predicted - because the same thing had happened to his devil-worshipping people, the tieflings) who were easily led by the PCs (somewhat against the PCs' better judgement) to through their lot in with the renegade archdevil Levistus; the drow mad and purposeless following the death of Lolth, but ready to be led back to the surface of the world (as had been the aspiration of one of the PCs since he was introduced into the game at 3rd level).

A very different example arose out of the 18-month break period in the OP game, that I mentioned to Lanefan not too far upthread: the PCs spent 18 months in a ruined tower in the Abor-Alz, training, in one case healing, and in a couple of other cases eking out a living by selling cheap magical charms and doing minor mending works for the local hillfolk. In this time, their only real contact with the outside world was via a caravn of elven traders (whom they met as a result of the player of the elven princess succeeding at a Circles check) - and among the news from the elves was that the Gynarch of Hardby had become engaged to marry the leader of another PC's sorcerous cabal. Needless to say, the PCs have a generally poor relationship with that individual, and their last interaction with him had been killing his familiar when it was spying on them in the Bright Desert.

In both cases these are changes in the situation which establish the "living, breathing" world, without being the result of behind-the-scenes tracking.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I haven't seen anything so far to indicate that the players can't choose to go their own way with their own ideas on what to do.



Perhaps you missed this post:



Lanefan said:


> If a character's next logical in-character move is to do something that takes it out of the party, then out it goes.  I've role-played myself out of many a party in the past.
> 
> If a single PC decides to pack it in and become a local magistrate, or take over the local mercenaries' guild, that's just fine - the PC retires from adventuring (and the player either already has a replacement or rolls one up, assuming she is staying in the game) and at some point we'll update it to see how its magisterial or mercenary career might be going.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> If the DM doesn't get to play in the sandbox, too, what's the point?



This question seems like it's meant to be rhetorical, but I don't quite follow. Isn't _the GM plays in the sandbox_, under the assumption that the GM authors the shared fiction that constitutes the "sandbox", equivalent to _the GM writes a novel_ or _the GM engages in solitaire rolling of dice_?

I'd always assumed that the main point of creating a world for RPGing is to engage the players (via their PCs) to find out what they do. As a GM, I don't "play in my world". I play a game with the other players, which has (as one of its goals, and one of its consequences) the creation of a shared fiction. The gameworld is a means to that end.



Ovinomancer said:


> my examples do engage the beliefs.  The belief that you'll return to your ruined tower and find the mace you were looking on is engaged on a failure if I say 'no, and a demon appears'.



If no player has a belief about demons, _how does that engage a Belief_?



Ovinomancer said:


> Having the DM adjudicate how the world moves absent player involvement doesn't flip a switch from 'Player driven' to 'DM driven.'  Otherwise you're now calling games that involve things like Fronts DM driven.



You keep talking about "Fronts". Do you play PbtA games? What is your experience with Fronts?

I've played a bit of DW. My experience is that "Fronts" are nothing like the player declaring his/her PC goes to the militia HQ to be told (by the GM, playing a NPC) what possible stuff the PC might do to have some action in the game.



Ovinomancer said:


> having events that occur off camera that then impact the players, or having events that pivot on 'secret' information doesn't make a game DM driven, it just tilts a little more in that direction.  These components, by and of themselves, do not rise to the level of automatic definition.





Ovinomancer said:


> The only difference, as presented, is the setup. Lanefan takes on the overhead and prep to set the world up, and lets the players loose to find out what happens. You share the load up front, and then proceed in the same manner. How the game actually runs could be very similar.



From my point of view, questions about whether or not I want to play a game that is run in a certain way are not primarily questions about _words_. Or about logic, or concepts, or similar things.

They're questions about actual experiences at a table of RPGers; about actual processes for introducing content into the shared fiction, and the results of those processes. When we look at those things, as articulated by various posters in this thread, we can see that the differences are not limited to set-up.

 [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has told me several things about his game: (i) there are periods where the PCs (and thereby the players) are at a "loose end", ie have no inherent motivations that keep the game moving; (ii) that one important way (maybe the principal way?) of reactivating the game in those periods is for the players (via their PCs visiting the militia HQ or whatever) to learn, from the GM, what story elements and events are available for them to engage with (eg orcs raiding the farmsteads); (iii) that those plot elements are authored by the GM, who is - among other things - doing behind-the-scenes management of backstory, to ensure a "living, breathing" world; (iv) that in various circumstances where the players establish and pursue goals for their PCs that don't fit with those GM-authored story elements, the PC has to leave the party and become a NPC; (v) that the players might succeed at a check, yet find the result overall inimical to what they wanted (eg they succeed in helping the baron, but it turns out the baron is evil).

A further thing has not, I think, been expressly stated, but is strongly implied by what Lanefan has posted: namely, (vi) that in narrating the consequences of failure, the GM's focus is on the internal logic of the gameworld (which will include backstory that is secret to the players), not on the goals, aspirations etc of the PCs (and thereby of the players).

Those are not abstract logical propositions: they're rather concrete things that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has posted, in this thread, about his game (or implied, in the case of (vi)). Those are the things that lead me to label it "GM-driven".

There are other aspects of Lanefan's game that have come out in this (and other) threads, like the multiple competing parties, and the player-vs-player elements, that don't seem to be GM-driven. If [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] were to elaborate on how those sorts of things interact with (i) to (vi) above, I would read those posts with interest.

Given that Lanefan's game runs with 9-year campaigns for (I believe) multiple interacting parties, I'm guessing that those players enjoy it. I think that Lanefan enjoys it too - he posts with candour, with enthusiasm, and with witty signature sign-offs.

I try to post with the same degree of candour and enthusiasm about my play, and what I enjoy about it. And in a series of posts over the last 100 or so posts in this thread, I've tried to give some very concrete examples of the techniques that I use. I think it's obvious how they're different from Lanefan's, and produce a different experience at the table from (i) to (vi) above. Whether or not that experience is less fun, as fun, or more fun, barely even makes sense to ask!, given that we're talking about two different groups of RPGers separated by 1000s of km of Pacific Ocean.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> Maxperson said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I haven't seen anything so far to indicate that the players can't choose to go their own way with their own ideas on what to do.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps you missed this post:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If a character's next logical in-character move is to do something that takes it out of the party, then out it goes. I've role-played myself out of many a party in the past.
> 
> If a single PC decides to pack it in and become a local magistrate, or take over the local mercenaries' guild, that's just fine - the PC retires from adventuring (and the player either already has a replacement or rolls one up, assuming she is staying in the game) and at some point we'll update it to see how its magisterial or mercenary career might be going.
> 
> Click to expand...
Click to expand...



???
Are you trying to say that Lanefan's post somehow contradicts Maxperson's statement? Because it looks to me that Lanefan isn't saying players can't choose to go their own way with their own ideas - rather, that they can even if it means taking themselves out of gameplay.


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## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> there are certain players who get very upset if their character dies. In some cases, the only real way around that is to fudge die rolls, for example.



If players don't want their PCs to die, then why are they running a system that runs a risk of producing that outcome? It just seems a bit weird - as if the GM fudging is an ad hoc compensation for inadequate mechanics.

In D&D this ought to be trivial - just treat PC "death" (however your particular iteration of D&D defines that) as unconsciousness for some indeterminate moment of time - then the PC regains consciousness being nursed by his/her friends, hanging upside down in an ice cave, or whatever else makes sense in the fiction.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> Are you trying to say that Lanefan's post somehow contradicts Maxperson's statement?



Yes.



billd91 said:


> Because it looks to me that Lanefan isn't saying players can't choose to go their own way with their own ideas - rather, that they can even if it means taking themselves out of gameplay.



Being free to write yourself out of the game isn't a way of being free to drive the game in your preferred direction. It's a clear limit on that!


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> If you take an RPG map at it's most basic, it is a series of sites connected by lines, yes?



Yes, but then so is a drawing of a carousel or of a Ferris wheel.

When we move from visual similarity to actual representational function, the lines on the map don't represent trajectories or processes. The lines on a flowchart do. One can overlay lines with arrows on a map to depict the path one took; and make notes at various points on a map to record events that occurred at those places (and the same place might have multiple notes, if multiple noteworthy events occurred there over some period of time). A flowchart, serving a different representational function, isn't apt to have that sort of additional representation overlayed on it in the same way.

There are certain ways of designing and GMing a dungeon that tend to push the map _into_ being a flowchart. I seem to remember threads about this in the context of The Sunless Citadel, and contrasts being drawn with Jaquays-style maps. But even with a dungeon that is essentially a list of rooms that (given the design) can't but be encountered in sequence, there is still the option to retreat and try again. (I've seen plenty of published dungeon scenarios where this will break the module, in the sense that the GM now just has to make stuff up to keep the game going - but that's a further point.)



hawkeyefan said:


> framing entails the GM making decisions that can steer the game. Your example of the PC who can shapechange into a falcon being imprisoned....you can frame the situation with there being a window or a small port in the door for the falcon to fly through thereby allowing the PC to escape, or you can frame it so that the door is one continuous piece, meaning the the PC will remain imprisoned and must figure out another means of escape.



I've already commented on the prison scenario upthread - the framing of the door as unable to be passed through in falcon form responds directly to (i) the player having failed a series of checks in relation to carrying the bodies through the city (failure results in a meeting with the watch) and trying to persuade the watch to help with this rather than treat it as a cause for suspicion (failure results in imprisonment), and (ii) the PC being able to cast Falconskin, such that a prison with holes a falcon might pass through wouldn't be a prison at all for that character.

But here is another thing - an email received from the same player after the first session of that particular campaign, in which the PCs had their first encounter with the leader of the sorcerous cabal - which went badly because one of them (the mage PC) was carrying a cursed feather he'd bought in the Hardby marketplace - and subseqently broke into his tower and stole a spellbook from him:

pretty cool how the world gets shaped by the character’s beliefs and instincts and the dice rolls! Just thinking through Jobe’s B’s and I’s and rolls … The feather existed because of its trait and hence X sold it. It was cursed because the aura reading failed. Jabal existed because we sought out a member of the cabal (affiliation). Athog gave us trouble because that circles test failed. Jabal lived in a tower because of an instinct about casting falcon skin if falling. I didn’t understand how those things worked until we did the session. If we had turned up with different characters, then I think the world would have been quite different too.​
Using the same sort of language: _the door lacked falcon-sized exits because the PC can cast falconskin_. If the player had turned up with a different character; or if the player's had succeeded at rather than failed various checks; then the "world" (ie the shared fiction) would have been quite different.

That's a pretty clear explication of what I am trying to get at as a "player-driven" game. The fact that - as GM - I chose the dwelling place as a tower rather than (say) a house atop a cliff, with windows overlooking the ocean, is (from my point of view) a secondary consideration: the fact that there are multiple ways of narrating a world that is shaped by the choices the players have made doesn't change the fact that it is the players' choices that are driving the narration.


----------



## Maxperson

billd91 said:


> ???
> Are you trying to say that Lanefan's post somehow contradicts Maxperson's statement? Because it looks to me that Lanefan isn't saying players can't choose to go their own way with their own ideas - rather, that they can even if it means taking themselves out of gameplay.



 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].  Billd91 is exactly right.  The players are still capable of making those choices if they want.  He's not stopping them.  All he's saying is that he'd do the reasonable thing if one player took actions to remove himself from the group.  Were I to set up my PC as the shopkeeper in a town when the rest of the group is going out adventuring, I'd expect my PC to be removed.  The DM isn't obligated to create and run two separate games.  One for me, and one for everyone else.

Nothing I have seen indicates that the players cannot make their own choices and pursue their own goals.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Yes.
> 
> Being free to write yourself out of the game isn't a way of being free to drive the game in your preferred direction. It's a clear limit on that!




The entire game is fraught with limits.  You can't be three different races.  You can't be 12 different classes at first level.  You can't use 6 swords.  You can't cast spells as a pure fighter.  Saying the DM won't run two separate games just because YOU want to go off your own way is a perfectly acceptable limitation.  

As for it being a limit, it really isn't.  I've roleplayed my PCs out of games multiple times over the years.  I knew what would happen and I did it anyway since it was what my PC would do in that situation.


----------



## Campbell

When it comes to writing yourself out of the game this is an area where having unity of interest is critical. In Blades in the Dark our interests are settled on the crew and its effort to make an impact on the Underworld of Duskvol, rather than any particular character. Individual characters get to pursue their own outside interests during down time or free play over crew interests, and this might lead to conflict. This can also be consequential. While my character, Candros Slane, used his downtime actions and Coin to pursue his missing wife last session he was not clearing Heat, pursuing alliances, or gathering assets  However, we all come together for our scores where we mostly work as a team. I mean the fiction and various xp triggers mean we often will approach situations with different methods in mind and have different approaches to risk taking. That's part of the fun though. In game conflict despite overwhelming unity of purpose.

There are always going to be bounds on the fiction we are exploring. Many Powered By The Apocalypse games have ways to move your character away from the locus of play, and getting there can be part of the point. Consider this advancement from Masks:



			
				Masks said:
			
		

> When you become a paragon of the city, it means you’re no longer a “young” hero—you’re a peer of the biggest heroes in the city, and you aren’t a Masks character anymore. The GM should treat your character as one of the biggest heroes in the city, but play them as an NPC.




When we are playing Masks our interest is on how these young heroes mature into full fledged members of the superhero community, how they come to see themselves, and how they come together as a team. Once a character basically grows up we do not play them any longer because they are not part of the fiction we all agreed to be interested in when we signed on to play Masks. The mechanisms, principles, and agenda of play are no longer suited to following their fiction. We let them go.

I feel the same can be said for a D&D game. We are interested in adventurers who boldly go into the dark corners of the world, kill or trick monsters, and take their stuff. If we are not really interested in those things we are probably playing the wrong game. All the mechanisms, procedures, and content are tuned to that. 

That's not saying I do not see the value in games where we are not so wedded to the group concept. Quite the opposite. Part of what draws me to games like Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, Burning Wheel, the way we used to play Vampire, and Sorcerer is that we just get to follow these characters around. Players get to decide who their characters allies and enemies are, including each other. One of my best experiences with Apocalypse World revolved around two different factions of player characters vying for political control of their hardhold. I got to sit back a good deal of the time and just enjoy seeing that play out, occasionally spicing things up when my fronts demanded attention. It was filled with the sort of shifting, temporary alliances seen on shows like Deadwood.


----------



## Gardens & Goblins

Campbell said:


> When it comes to writing yourself out of the game this is an area where having unity of interest is critical.




I really enjoyed watching one of our player's trying to kill off their own character (_during a frantic aerial battle far far above the clouds_) while the relatively new DM of the session did their best to, 'help' the player. The DM wasn't the 'play it true' type and their nudging became increasingly obvious. The character wasn't trying to jump to their doom but they did insist upon choosing to continue upping the odds in the hope of eventual dramatic failure. The DM became increasingly desperate. The player ever more frustrated. I should have probably stepped in and said something but...

_Hilarious!!!_

All because they didn't talk it over before the session. A good lesson learnt tho for everyone at the table.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> Yes.
> 
> Being free to write yourself out of the game isn't a way of being free to drive the game in your preferred direction. It's a clear limit on that!




Because I am nothing if not adamant I am going to take this post as an oppurtunity to say that I do not want players driving the game. Ideally, the game does hard work of the driving. In my preferred forms of gameplay players strictly advocate for their characters and do not try to seize control of anything. This is why I do not enjoy Fate. Fate is a game that is tuned to distribute control over narrative outcomes using an economy that is not overly concerned about the fiction, only our influence upon it. Compels are pretty much systemized bits of control over "the story". We do things like plan arcs for our characters, rather than let things flow naturally from the fiction. This sort of detached approach to character and the fiction makes it almost impossible for me to enjoy play in the moment. We are playing for the fiction - not in it. I do not like it when GMs do this. I also do not like it when players do this in roughly the same measure.

I mean I totally get the distinction you are trying to make it here. I just would not make that exact same distinction. I am not really sure if this is a meaningful difference of opinion between us or more a matter of framing. I think even when intent is a thing in play we should be careful to focus on character intent over player intent if that makes any sense.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> The entire game is fraught with limits.



OK, so now you're agreeing with me that in [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s games there are important limits on the shared fiction that are being driven by the GM.



Campbell said:


> There are always going to be bounds on the fiction we are exploring.



Sure. But if they're established unilaterally by the GM, that makes it a GM-driven game, doesn't it?

Eg there is nothing inherent to D&D, or other generic fantasy RPGing, that precludes a PC becoming a magistrate (a paladin level title is "justiciar"; fighters becomes lords and barons; etc). Or becoming leader of the mercenaries' guild. Etc.

This is why I think that examples of looking for Porsche sports cars in Waterdeep don't really help us understand the dynamics of contribution to authorship of the shared fiction. Everyone agreeing to play D&D, or AW, or MHRP, or whatever, is making a _collective_ choice about genre. (Of course marginal questions may remain and need to be settled during play - does our D&D have swashbucklers as well as mediaeval knights? Or even non-marginal question - does our D&D include androids and space ships? But I don't think the existence of these questions defeats the general claim. Nor do I think there is any universal presumption that the GM gets to settle them unilaterally.)

The GM deciding that the options on offer are orcs, lizardmen, mercenaries or the dak tower, though - so that pursuing other goals is tantamount to retiring the character - is something different. It's not a collective choice of genre. It's a unilateral stipulation of shared fiction. That may be a good thing or a bad thing, but it's pretty clear what the thing is.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But the question of whether  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] will give more options isn't a question about interpreting some bit of fiction (ie it's not a question of literary criticism). It's a question of what Lanefan is prepared to do at his table (ie it is, broadly, a question of anthropology). Lanefan already told us a couple of things about his table - if you leave the party, or become a magsitrate, then the PC is retired. For all you know, any PC who sets out to become King of the Northern Barbarians (assuming such things even exist in Lanefan's world) likewise has to be retired.



Unless said wanna-be King convinces the party to go along with him and help him defeat his rivals for the throne.

In fact, I've something close to this very situation going on in my game right now.  A while ago a PC really lucked out on a (variant) Deck of Many Things, pulling both a Keep and a major title (Duke) to go with it.  Long story about his duchy and all the headaches he's having to go through to get it rebooted (it hasn't existed since a very long time ago); relevant here is that he's twice now had the party help clear the area out...when he wasn't even there! (he's a Dwarf, his duchy is Dwarven, and he was down south sorting out the bureaucracy while the party bashed some heads for him back at home-to-be)

That said, he's pretty much retired from active adventuring until he gets this all sorted out...or until he has something that needs doing that's beyond his own abilities and can convince a party to help out.



> The fact that you can speculate about what Lanefan may or may not do at his table is of little relevance to establishing what _actually_ happens and is permitted at his table.



Which, in all fairness, neither of you fully know.

Please note, however, that even in the example provided there was a shout-out to other options: the party could choose to ignore all the hooks provided and instead go elsewhere (I think I put it as something like "move on to the next town" or similar).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I assume that this is a joke, because it's in your signature sign-off.



Only partly.



> But just for clarity - none of the campaigns I'm currently running involves wandering monster checks.



So what if any mechanic did you use to determine if, when, how, and by what the party was interrupted or threatened during their 18-month quasi-rest in a ruined tower?

I mean come on, it's a ruined tower - if nothing else there had to be at least one or two adventuring parties wander through during that time, looking for the loots and some heads to bust! 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But that is completely orthogonal to "A world that doesn't change unless a player looks at it"! The change doesn't need to be narrated until the player looks at it again - as in your phrase _the players notice the first situation again_.



But it has still changed notwithstanding, whether it ever gets looked at again or not.  And that's the key thing...the DM needs to know what those changes are so as to be able to easily and smoothly respond when and if a PC does look at it again.

Also, careful on semantics here: some might be interpreting "doesn't change unless a PC looks at it" to mean "can only change _while_ a PC is looking at it"; a big difference.

Lan-"peek-a-boo"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I think even when intent is a thing in play we should be careful to focus on character intent over player intent if that makes any sense.



Intent is a very complex thing.

In the famous example from Davidson, I (i) move by finger, (ii) flick the lightswitch, (iii) illuminate the room, (iv) startle the burglar.

(i), (ii), (iii) and (iv) are the same action, under different descriptions. Under some descriptions (eg (ii), (iii)) I intend the action. I may not even advert to the action under (i) - it's "instinctual". And I did not intend (iv) - it's inadvertent.

Linguistic intention is also complex: I say to you, "Don't be late for the tram", intending to caution you not to be late for the train. Also intending to utter "Don't be later for the train", but producing the malapropism (by way of "a slip of the tongue", we might say) instead - which I also, in some sense, intended (as in: whatever a "slip of the tongue" might be, it wasn't an _involuntary_ action). If your interest in what I've said is in my capacity as an adviser, you will disregard my malapropism (assuming that you recognise it) and hasten to the train; if your interest in what I've said includes disobedience or ridiculing me (eg you're my teen-aged child), then you will take me at my word and feign confusion, or cheerfully miss the train, or whatever.

In law, this is the problem of "scrivener's error" or "drafting errors". There are different theories of what a court is doing when it corrects such errors (some hold that this is fidelity to what was said, because they identify what was said with some but not other intentions; others think this is a _change_ to what was said in order to conform with some other intention that was not literally communicated by the words).

A player making an action declaration intends all sorts of things (differentiated by different descriptions), and the action also probably falls under unintended and/or unthought of descriptions too. There is the intention to play the game; the intention to depict the PC in a certain way (eg as brave); the intention to establish a certain fictional fact about the PC (eg the PC is charging the baddies); the intention to establish various intentions for the PC; etc. If the PC is 1st level and the baddies have 3 HD each, then _charging to certain death_ may also be a true description of the action, but not necessarily one under which it was intended!

Some of these elements of action declaration are perhaps best treated as "scrivener's errors": the GM clarifies with the player that the player thought the baddies were kobolds when in fact they're bugbears (maybe the player was away from the table when the full description of the scene was given). Takebacks are bad for momentum, of course, but sometimes anything else would be unfair.

Sometimes there is at least one of the players' intentions that corresponds to a mental state in the PC - the player _intends his/her PC to be brave_; the PC _intends to be brave_. But not always. If the player says, "I think that my cleric friend, who is devoted to healing the oppressed, might visit this jail - I make a Circles check!" there is no _intention_ at all on the part of the PC. The PC's mental state, rather, is one of _hope_. But the player has many intentions - to have the cleric visit the prison; to engender an opportunity for his PC to escape from prison; to score a Circles check and therefore improve the PC's Circles rating; etc. The player's intention _that the cleric visit the prison_ is an intention that has the content of the shared fiction as its object. The player's intention _that an opportunity for escape be engendered_ isn't quite this, but - at least in BW play - is the most important for narrating failure. Because it states an achievement or a goal _for the PC_. Even though the PC does not, him-/herself, have any intention that corresponds to that. (Just a hope.)

If the check fails, I see my job as GM being both to dash the PC's hope, and to respond in a way that takes the player's intention vis-a-vis PC goal/achievement seriously - ie to present a failure consequence that shows that I _noticed_ that the player had that intention, and I cared about it, but now the game rules require me to introduce some additional material into the shared fiction as a result of which the player's intention is not going to come to fruition, at least as things presently stand. That's how we make PCs (and thereby players) _fight_ for what they believe.



Campbell said:


> I do not want players driving the game. Ideally, the game does hard work of the driving. In my preferred forms of gameplay players strictly advocate for their characters and do not try to seize control of anything.



For the reasons I've just given, I'm not sure I can embrace this distinction. Sometimes _advocating for your character_ means _forming an intention that something good happen to your character_, even though that it is _not_ something that your character him-/herself could intend (eg because it depends on the choices of an NPC, as in my example; as in some examples of acquiring goods; as in some examples of searching, where the PC can hope but not intend to find something whose presence in the location is not under his/her control).

Those are the intentions that, in these circumstances, drive the game. Because if the action that is declared as a result of that intention - eg the Circle check, the Scavenging check - succeeds, the content of the fiction changes in the way the player wanted (thereby delivering what the PC hoped for). If the check fails, then the intention _still_ drives the game, because the GM, in narrating failure, is obliged to _honour_ the player's intention even in the denial of its realisation.

This is why, in framing a check in BW, sometimes we spend some time working out _exactly what it is_ that the player intends the check to achieve, if successful. The idea that the player would say "I look for an inn" but the GM wouldn't know why is completely foreign to this style of play.


----------



## Lanefan

...mentioned me 4 times in the same post...I guess that's a call to action...


pemerton said:


> In applying this metaphor to RPGing, who are "the other kids"?
> 
> If they're other players in a shared world, then what we have is something like the sort of interpersonal and interparty competitive play that seems to have been part of how Gygax ran the game (as best I understand it). I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has elements of this too.



Or would like to; difficult to run multiple parties (which is what I prefer) when one only has one night a week for DMing.



> But if the "other kids" are purely imaginary beings whose actions and outcomes are being narrated by the GM, then we're clearly (self-evidently, I would say) talking about a GM-driven approach to establishing the content of the shared fiction.



In your world, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], are there no other adventuring parties out there?  I don't mean ones that actually get played, I mean off-screen ones that might take on an adventure the played party ignores with consequences of such adventuring (if relevant) made apparent later to the PCs; and-or ones that might literally or figuratively compete with the PCs for the same resources e.g. two parties are after the same McGuffin at the same time. (in your example, what if the dark naga had several charmed operatives all out seeking blood, each unknown to the others, with all the reward going to whoever got back with some first?)



> But the one that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] describes seems to be. He's not talking about running DW-style fronts.



Fronts to me are weather phenomena; in which context I know much, much more about them than in this one. 



> I've not used the notions of "DM-centric" or "Player-centric", and I'm not sure what you mean by that. I've talked about who is the driver of the content of the shared fiction.



OK, so I will.  From all I can tell, both your system and style are very player-centric...far more so than I'd prefer even if I was a player.  And you're not alone - player-centricism (now there's a new word for ya!) has been more and more of a thing in many RPGs as time has gone on.



> The fact that the players get to choose whether their PC seek out the orcs or the lizardment doesn't really change that.



And here lies my disconnect.  The DM can't put them there as potential adventures; the players can't put them there as potential adventures (true if the DM is <rightfully> given purview over the content of the game world), and my problem is I can't think of anyone else who can.



> If you think I'm mistaken about Lanefan's game, by all means explain to me what I've misunderstood.



The only way I could do that would be to haul you to Victoria and sit you down here for a few sessions. 

Lan-"if someone could tell me how to get occluded fronts into Dungeon World I might understand it better"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Billd91 is exactly right.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Nothing I have seen indicates that the players cannot make their own choices and pursue their own goals.



There seems to be some sort of extreme disconnect here. I want to try and close the gap.

For my part, I am talking about the capacity of the players to contribute to outcomes in the shared fiction: the stuff that is taking place at the table.

This has (I think, at least in general), two components: action declaration for the player's PC; and resolution of those declared actions.

You two seem to be focusing on the action declaration: nothing stops the player declaring "I set off to the north to take over the barbarian tribes there."

I am focusing on the resolution. If the GM's response to that action declaration is "OK, your PC is now an NPC and all that northern barbarian stuff is going to take place off-screen" then the player did not get to shape the shared fiction in any meaningful way. There was no shared fiction to which the player contributed by the play of his/her PC, in which the PC endeavoured to become king of the northern barbarians. From the player's point of view, it was a game-ending move. (The fact that s/he might rejoin the game with a [-]new hand[/-] - sorry, new PC - doesn't matter for present purposes.)


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Here's my slight contention with your example: In Burning Wheel all our interests are focused on contesting the veracity of player character beliefs at all times and following the fiction where it leads. When the GM presents the consequences for a failed roll they should do so with an eye towards player character beliefs in order to set up future conflicts. When you include consequences that have nothing to do with player character beliefs it my sincerely held belief that you are GMing the game in bad faith. The player would be justified in raising the issue.



If this is in fact how BW is supposed to be run it's small wonder I won't go near it: it bakes in the attitude that the PCs are special snowflakes and that everything in the game world revolves around them and them alone.

The PCs in any world are but a very few of a much larger dynamic population, some of whom are and always will be bigger fish than the PCs are...just like we here in this discussion are but a very few of a much larger ENWorld community, some of whom are much bigger fish than we are.

Lan-"the best thing about special snowflakes is that they melt just the same as all the other snowflakes when spring comes"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> b)  The resolution mechanics and play procedures are all transparent and/or player-facing.  Take the following scenario:
> 
> * I deploy a "Use a Location Move" and introduce an avalanche into the fiction as a part of a complication.  Now the players have imminent peril that they have to deal with.



Question: in the run of play does your GM narration of this sound like this:

"I'm deploying a Use a Location Move here - you hear a rumble above as a sudden avalanche sweeps down the mountain toward you!"

or this:

"As you approach the cavern you hear a rumble above as a sudden avalanche sweeps down the mountain toward you!"

In other words, do the players know the actual "moves" you're using or do they just hear the results?

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Which, in all fairness, neither of you fully know.



Agreed. I'm trying to be as fair and honest as I can in response to what you're posting.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> the DM needs to know what those changes are so as to be able to easily and smoothly respond when and if a PC does look at it again.



I don't agree with _need_ here.

I posted an example upthread - the Underdark one. I didn't work out those changes in advance, or by managing stuff "behind the screen". When the players returned to the Underdark, I narrated the changes that seemed to make sense given (i) what had already been established about the duergar, drow, etc, and (ii) what had happened in the game in the meantime.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Being free to write yourself out of the game isn't a way of being free to drive the game in your preferred direction. It's a clear limit on that!



So what's the alternative?  If a player wants to try to set her PC up as the local magistrate does that imply the whole party is by default expected to join in, whether they want to or not and whether or not there's more pressing things seeking their swordly attention?  I sure hope not.

Lan-"you can do what you like, Ms. Magistrate-to-be; the rest of us are going out to raid that Orc village we found last trip - see ya when we get back!"-efan


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Question: in the run of play does your GM narration of this sound like this:
> 
> "I'm deploying a Use a Location Move here - you hear a rumble above as a sudden avalanche sweeps down the mountain toward you!"
> 
> or this:
> 
> "As you approach the cavern you hear a rumble above as a sudden avalanche sweeps down the mountain toward you!"
> 
> In other words, do the players know the actual "moves" you're using or do they just hear the results?
> 
> Lanefan





It's like the second. We want player interest to be focused on what's happening right now in the fiction, not the vagaries of GM technique. That's the space they play in. Our principles here are:

*Make your move, but misdirect
Make your move, but never speak its name*

The post I made upthread, covering the technique behind the use of soft and hard moves, goes into more detail.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> The DM can't put them there as potential adventures; the players can't put them there as potential adventures (true if the DM is <rightfully> given purview over the content of the game world), and my problem is I can't think of anyone else who can.



The GM can put them there _in response to a signal sent by the players_. As in my example of the player whose PC's goal is to seek vengeance upon the lizardfolk for destroying his family's farm; and who finds - via the fiction that the GM narrates (eg word from the militia HQ and mercenaries' guild) - that the PC must choose between _defending the farms against the orcs_ or _leading a raid on the lizardmen with the other defenders of the tower_.



Lanefan said:


> what if any mechanic did you use to determine if, when, how, and by what the party was interrupted or threatened during their 18-month quasi-rest in a ruined tower?
> 
> I mean come on, it's a ruined tower - if nothing else there had to be at least one or two adventuring parties wander through during that time, looking for the loots and some heads to bust!
> 
> Lanefan





Lanefan said:


> In your world, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], are there no other adventuring parties out there?  I don't mean ones that actually get played, I mean off-screen ones that might take on an adventure the played party ignores with consequences of such adventuring (if relevant) made apparent later to the PCs; and-or ones that might literally or figuratively compete with the PCs for the same resources e.g. two parties are after the same McGuffin at the same time. (in your example, what if the dark naga had several charmed operatives all out seeking blood, each unknown to the others, with all the reward going to whoever got back with some first?)



I think I posted about this upthread. The mechanic that determines this is narration of consequences for failure; and also potentially as an element of framing.

For instance, when the players failed an orienteering check to navigate out of the Bright Desert to the ruined tower (which is in the Abor-Alz), I narrated, as a consequence of their failure, that when they arrived at the first pool at the hill's edge (where a stream collects in the rocks, before running down into the desert sands) they found it had been fouled. Investigation revealed it had been fouled by an elf. This directly addressed the Belief of the elf PC (who was leading the party out of the desert) that he would _Always keep the Elven ways_.

The PCs chased this spiteful elf, and there were various other events involving him, mostly as an element of _framing_ (eg when the PCs arrived at the tower, someone had recently filled the well with rubble - the elf, of course!; and after the PCs failed to find the mace in the ruined tower, the player of the mage PC said "Of course, the mace is going to be in the hands of that elf" - which it was).

It's deliberate on the part of the GM, to maintain the pressure on the players (via their PCs) and hence force them to make hard choices in order to try have their PCs achieve their goals.



Lanefan said:


> If this is in fact how BW is supposed to be run it's small wonder I won't go near it: it bakes in the attitude that the PCs are special snowflakes and that everything in the game world revolves around them and them alone.
> 
> The PCs in any world are but a very few of a much larger dynamic population, some of whom are and always will be bigger fish than the PCs are



I wouldn't agree with this - I would say that, again, it involves a category error. The game bakes in the attitude that the _players_ are important - they are here, with the GM, to play a game - and _the shared fiction that is the focus of that gaming_ revolves around the doings of their PCs.

That does not preclude their being "bigger fish" - examples that have already come up in this thread include the balrog-possessed brother, the dark naga, the tower-owning leader of the sorcerous cabal, the Gynarch of Hardby, and (I think he's been mentioned) the abbot Bernard the Holy who is in Hardby to officiate at the Gynarch's wedding to the cabal leader. There are other "bigger fish", too, whom I haven't mentioned yet (eg the Evlish sea captain Eltan, who tried to return the Princess to her mother the Queen of Celene after rescuing her and her friends in the Woolly Bay; and Wassal, the leader of the Bright Desert tribesman who took some of the PCs captive before sending them out into the desert so as to be rid of their curse).

But those bigger fish figure in the events of the campaign as part of a context centred on the doings and the aspirations of the PCs; much like in most other forms of serial fiction.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> They're questions about actual experiences at a table of RPGers; about actual processes for introducing content into the shared fiction, and the results of those processes. When we look at those things, as articulated by various posters in this thread, we can see that the differences are not limited to set-up.
> 
> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has told me several things about his game: (i) there are periods where the PCs (and thereby the players) are at a "loose end", ie have no inherent motivations that keep the game moving;



Happens now and then, almost always when there's no overarching backstory for them to be or get involved with.


> (ii) that one important way (maybe the principal way?) of reactivating the game in those periods is for the players (via their PCs visiting the militia HQ or whatever) to learn, from the GM, what story elements and events are available for them to engage with (eg orcs raiding the farmsteads);



What else would they logically do?


> (iii) that those plot elements are authored by the GM, who is - among other things - doing behind-the-scenes management of backstory, to ensure a "living, breathing" world;



DM has control over game-world content, right?  If yes, then of course the various adventuring possibilities (whether actual plot elements or just random head-bashing) are going to come from the DM.


> (iv) that in various circumstances where the players establish and pursue goals for their PCs that don't fit with those GM-authored story elements, the PC has to leave the party and become a NPC;



Not quite.  If the players establish and pursue goals for the PCs *as a party* then that's what I DM.  But if an individual character sets up a goal that doesn't for whatever reason involve the rest of the party, I'm going to DM what remains of the main party and we'll sort out the individual some other time.  Also, a retired PC remains a PC as long as its player is still in the game.


> (v) that the players might succeed at a check, yet find the result overall inimical to what they wanted (eg they succeed in helping the baron, but it turns out the baron is evil).



And this one is something I won't change: success on a small scale does not automatically mean success on a large scale.



> A further thing has not, I think, been expressly stated, but is strongly implied by what Lanefan has posted: namely, (vi) that in narrating the consequences of failure, the GM's focus is on the internal logic of the gameworld (which will include backstory that is secret to the players), not on the goals, aspirations etc of the PCs (and thereby of the players).



Question: you often make a big deal out of "narrating the consequences of failure", as if it's any different than any other narration I do.  And again it's dependent on scale.  If they fail (or succeed) at something minor e.g. opening a locked door the narration will reflect that.  If they fail (or succeed) at something on a larger scale e.g. they kill the Emperor of a neighbouring realm the narration will reflect that.  However, the thing to keep in mind is that success is not always success (see the evil Baron example) and failure is not always failure (Baron example only this time they failed to get him on the throne).



> There are other aspects of Lanefan's game that have come out in this (and other) threads, like the multiple competing parties, and the player-vs-player elements, that don't seem to be GM-driven. If [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] were to elaborate on how those sorts of things interact with (i) to (vi) above, I would read those posts with interest.



The interaction you speak of is minimal at best.  Usually (but not always) if there's to be party infighting it grinds the actual adventuring to a halt (sometimes giving BBEGs a bit longer to pursue their dastardly plans); and the multiple parties aren't necessarily competing, though the actions of one can certainly influence the surroundings of another.



> Given that Lanefan's game runs with 9-year campaigns for (I believe) multiple interacting parties, I'm guessing that those players enjoy it. I think that Lanefan enjoys it too - he posts with candour, with enthusiasm, and with witty signature sign-offs.



Thanks for that. 

Lan-"if I didn't enjoy it I wouldn't do it"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If a player wants to try to set her PC up as the local magistrate does that imply the whole party is by default expected to join in, whether they want to or not and whether or not there's more pressing things seeking their swordly attention?



Well, in the sort of game I run it's my job to frame the PCs into situations where the various aspirations of the PCs intersect.

This is why the consequence of a failed check to find the mace in the ruined tower is the discovery of cursed arrows apparently made by the brother before he was possessed: this relates (A) to the goals of the mage to (i) find his mace (he didn't) and (ii) redeem his brother (maybe he's irredeemable); (b) to the goal of the wizard/assassin to get revenge on her former master, who - it has turned out - was the brother while balrog-possessed (if the brother was evil all along, then the mage PC might have to help her take down his brother rather than try and redeem him); (C) to the intention of the elven ronin to always keep the elven ways (how can he be true to the elven ways if he doesn't pursue justice against the one who crafted the arrow that slew his master?).

That single consequence interweaves the threads of three PCs.

The only time I ever had a PC seeking a magistracy was 20-odd years ago in a RM game. RM doesn't have formal mechanics for signalling PC aspriations; that's done informally.

The game (at that point of its development) was about politics, both literal and among the magi. One of the PCs was working for Vecna (in this campaign an immortal Suel wizard whom the PCs woke from a long sleep, not a lich or a god). Vecna saw the Great Kingdom as a potential successor to the Suel Imperium; as part of that he was cooperating in the conquest of Rel Astra, which was the hometown of two of the PCs (both magi). The Vecna-serving PC secured the cooperation of the other PC by ensuring that, in return for helping with the conquest, he would be given a magistracy (and also a house: he had lost his house, as well as all his social dignity and hence prospects of becoming a magistrate through normal means, after he couldn't pay his rent because he had spent all his money on magic-enhancing drugs).

This was another case of me managing the backstory and framing in such a way as to interweave the aspirations of the various PCs via framing and narration of consequences.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The GM deciding that the options on offer are orcs, lizardmen, mercenaries or the dak tower, though - so that pursuing other goals is tantamount to retiring the character



Sigh...third time at least I've had to point this out:

Different goals as a party are fine and will be DMed*.  Different goals as an individual PC that the rest of the party don't won't or can't follow get you retired.

* - unless it involves things like game-world economic structures, buy-low-sell-high, compound interest, and corporate greed; in which case someone else can DM it because I won't. 

Lan- greed, for lack of a better word, is still greed"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Different goals as a party are fine and will be DMed



But - unless I've misunderstood - (1) depend upon the PCs gaining information about their possibility in the course of play (eg talking to NPCs), and therefore (2) depend upon the GM deciding what is part of the fiction, what the various NPCs whom the PCs are in contact with know and might communicate, etc.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> OK, so now you're agreeing with me that in [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s games there are important limits on the shared fiction that are being driven by the GM.




No.  Driven by the DM and players both.  I have yet to play with a player who is so self-centered that he expects me to run an entire second game just for him.  The social contract has determined that this is a group game, not a 4 solo games run simultaneously.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> There seems to be some sort of extreme disconnect here. I want to try and close the gap.
> 
> For my part, I am talking about the capacity of the players to contribute to outcomes in the shared fiction: the stuff that is taking place at the table.
> 
> This has (I think, at least in general), two components: action declaration for the player's PC; and resolution of those declared actions.
> 
> You two seem to be focusing on the action declaration: nothing stops the player declaring "I set off to the north to take over the barbarian tribes there."
> 
> I am focusing on the resolution. If the GM's response to that action declaration is "OK, your PC is now an NPC and all that northern barbarian stuff is going to take place off-screen" then the player did not get to shape the shared fiction in any meaningful way. There was no shared fiction to which the player contributed by the play of his/her PC, in which the PC endeavoured to become king of the northern barbarians. From the player's point of view, it was a game-ending move. (The fact that s/he might rejoin the game with a [-]new hand[/-] - sorry, new PC - doesn't matter for present purposes.)




What makes you think that "OK, your PC is now an NPC and all that northern barbarian stuff is going to take place off-screen" is what I am talking about?  What I am talking about involves the entire group going through many adventures and roleplaying opportunities where they shape things into that end goal.  Once the goal is achieved the newly minted King will become an NPC and the rest of the group will move on.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I have yet to play with a player who is so self-centered that he expects me to run an entire second game just for him.



Who said anything about a "second game"? Why is becoming a magistrate or a mercenary leader at odds with playing the first game? (It's not as if this is foreign territory for D&D - qv Lord fighters tc.)


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> But - unless I've misunderstood - (1) depend upon the PCs gaining information about their possibility in the course of play (eg talking to NPCs), and therefore (2) depend upon the GM deciding what is part of the fiction, what the various NPCs whom the PCs are in contact with know and might communicate, etc.




Number 2 is where you are going wrong.  The DM doesn't make all of those decisions.  The players can tell the DM that they are going to find a sage that knows about wild men in order to find out where those barbarians live, as well as what their beliefs and social structure consist of.  They may or may not be able to find such a sage in the place they are at, but they would be able to go find one somewhere and get things going.  The DM is not sitting behind the screen going, "I don't want any of them to becoming barbarian kings, so no NPC will know what they need.".  The adventure to become barbarian kings is collaborative in that manner.  They players have created the idea to go see the NPC that must exist somewhere, and the DM creates the path to get there.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Who said anything about a "second game"? Why is becoming a magistrate or a mercenary leader at odds with playing the first game? (It's not as if this is foreign territory for D&D - qv Lord fighters tc.)




Because while player A runs the city as a magistrate, players B-D are going out into the world to continue adventuring.  It would require the DM to run a separate game for player A who is now stuck in the city being a magistrate.  That or run a separate game where player A is a wandering magistrate going from city to city, while players B-D go into the wilds and other countries adventuring.  Players B-D didn't sign up to be a magistrate and aren't staying in 1 city forever, or just wander from city to city.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> That's a pretty clear explication of what I am trying to get at as a "player-driven" game. The fact that - as GM - I chose the dwelling place as a tower rather than (say) a house atop a cliff, with windows overlooking the ocean, is (from my point of view) a secondary consideration: the fact that there are multiple ways of narrating a world that is shaped by the choices the players have made doesn't change the fact that it is the players' choices that are driving the narration.




Sure. But just because player choice and consequence there of is your primary reason for framing things the way you do does not make the process free of GM Force. You can certainly come up with options that meet the primary need but that also steer the story in a way you prefer.

Honestly, the descriptions you guys are sharing of the systems you are citing don't really sound like my cup of tea at all. I actually enjoy the role of the DM in 5E, as flawed a system as it may be. I don't think that the role as described requires that the game be a railroad, nor do I think that the Powered by the Apocalypse system and other similar game systems are entirely free from GM fiat. I can agree that the mechanics attempt to minimize such concerns...however, I don't really agree that the concern should be that strong at all. 

I can imagine a game where the GM uses techniques to force his vision of the game upon the group. Where player choice is undermined or subverted by the GM's whim. If I had suffered through a game like that...or if as GM I found the job daunting or to be too much work...then I could see the appeal of such a system. 

But in my experience, those are not areas of concern that need to be addressed.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> But - unless I've misunderstood - (1) depend upon the PCs gaining information about their possibility in the course of play (eg talking to NPCs), and therefore (2) depend upon the GM deciding what is part of the fiction, what the various NPCs whom the PCs are in contact with know and might communicate, etc.




Or there's a bit of stuff sprinkled about by the DM and others suggested by the players. The games don't have to be one or the other.


----------



## Manbearcat

@_*Nagol*_ ,  @_*hawkeyefan*_ ,  @_*Campbell*_ (and of course anyone else who has any interest in discussing this angle of the conversation), I'm attaching a couple of hard move examples (not including the two upthread) for discussion/analysis of the phenomenon that Nagol has presented above (GM Force as soft-balling hard moves into soft moves).  The conversation could be either:

"Manbearcat, you soft-balled this hard move and in doing so may have used GM Force for a System Agency and/or Player Agency subordinating outcome that you wanted."

or

"While this isn't a case of a soft-ball, this is what a soft-ball would have looked like in this scenario."



1)  Here is a good start.  The sun is setting.  A blizzard is on the horizon and the Ranger PC follows tracks right into it.  She is seeking out a deaf, PTSD dog who is the only survivor of a ruined settlement.  It was trapped in the settlement's main hall where the survivors appear to have barred the door to protect them from what was outside.  The PCs found no settlers in the main hall.  They did, however, find a giant, disgusting aberration and the terrified dog (which fled into the wintery landscape).  Now, the Ranger can talk to animals.  So the PCs want her to find this dog (while the other PC is scouring the main hall horror-house for records) and tease out its account.



> Saerie
> 
> I thank Otthor for the help in getting Rawr settled in and for the quiver-replenishing bundle of arrows. Before he leaves with his ominous last words regarding the fire, I relay my agreement with the plan. I will do everything I can to find the dog and bring her back with me.
> 
> I move to the last known spot where I saw the dog; the crest of the hill which overlooks the drop into the settlement. Somewhere beyond the now-open gates is where the the old canine currently lies. Depending on how terrified she was, which may be very, she would be either quite near or quite far. The snow is thick enough here that finding the spot where I last lost sight of her is a triviality. But to track the old girl down may be another thing entirely. The wind is already steadily picking up in the exposed tundra up here. I wrap my scarf over my face and pull my hood up over my head.
> 
> Hunt and Track (Wis)
> 
> 5, 3 + 2 = 10
> 
> I follow the creature’s trail until there’s a significant change in its direction or mode of travel. I also determine what caused the trail to end.






> GM
> 
> The wind dries your eyes to the point of pain. Your training ensures that you easily pick up the odd lope of the dog, its gait clearly weary, hobbled by age and its recent torment. It must know the territory well as it appears to have made a go for a line of snowdrifts that it could dig into and hide behind as the gusts pick up speed.
> 
> When you spot her, she has dug into the side of the drift facing away from the wind. Laboring over the effort, her tongue is out as she is in full pant. She doesn't notice your presence and as you watch her, you can see the fear in her eyes and the hunger betrayed by her gaunt form.






> Saerie
> 
> I slowly get into her line of sight so as not to startle her. When she sees me, I'll carefully pull out some dried meat from my pack. I'll get down on all fours, assume a non-threatening posture, and entreat her to a free meal, given in good faith.
> 
> Parley (Cha)
> 
> My leverage is food for the starving dog.
> 
> 5, 1 - 1 = 5.
> 
> 1 xp






> GM
> 
> *His ears perk up. The dog looks interested in your offering. However, if he is deaf he doesn't need ears to perceive the thundering herd of reindeer bearing down on you. Like you, the dog can feel it in the ground. Your mind is ushered back to the Winter Wolf's words regarding a maddened realm near the two great bodies of water in the highlands where "...herds of reindeer would stampede, tearing each other, and themselves, to pieces." Whether they're simply running from the fury of the storm that is hot on their tails or deranged creatures intent on your harm is impossible to say at this distance (far, 10 creatures).
> 
> The scared dog abruptly bounds out of his carved hole and rushes to your position where he might see the obscured threat. When the canine sees what is on the way, it tucks its tail between its legs and runs in a circle behind you, looking to you with uncertain eyes.
> 
> The reindeer are closing fast.*






2)  Later in Earthmaw, the parley takes place with the Hobgoblin King in his chambers with his lieutenant and a retinue of guards (which would become mind-puppets of the now-advanced Aboleths).  The Parley move yielded a 7-9 (the leverage being that the King was no longer in control of his kingdom...the 7-9 yielding that he would buy-in, but the PCs would have to prove this NOW).  This triggered an attack from several Aboleths from the fissures/vents of the chamber.  

Rawr is the Ranger's bear companion.  The sheepdog is the dog mentioned above (now a cohort).



> Saerie
> 
> Rawr and I have the aboleth. When I'm down on my knee drawing my bow, I slap the sheepdog on the rump and point to Otthor and his plight. The old boy gets the picture immediately and, with his usual hitch in his giddy-up, he takes off to defend his new companion.
> 
> As Rawr wades into melee with the aboleth that Otthor just tore from the ceiling, I see him cringe and shake his head momentarily. But I've seen him stick his snout dead into a bee-hive and eat dozens of stings for his trouble. This creature's sickening aura will do little to my stout friend.
> 
> An arrow flies from my bow.
> 
> Volley (Dex)
> 6, 1 + 2 (- 1 for peace-bond) = 8.
> 
> I'll choose to put myself in danger as described by the GM as my complication.
> 
> d8 (6) damage + 3 for Rawr. 9 - 1 = 8 damage to the aboleth.







> GM
> 
> Your arrow flies true as Rawr's jaws clinch on black rubbery flesh. The creature reacts violently to the terrible maiming, it's alien, vertically stacked red eyes almost making expressions that are familiar to you. Tentacles fly wide, shoving against Rawr, trying to extract him. Two more jolt toward you, threatening to slam into you and take you from your feet!






> Saerie
> 
> I rush right toward the stone table, slapping the tentacles hard with my bow as they approach me. I attempt to leap upon it, then tight-rope sprint its length in an effort to outrun the creature's reach!
> 
> Defy Danger (Str)
> 2, 2 + 0 = 4
> 
> Marked 1 xp.






> *GM
> 
> You reach the table but as you leap upon it, the two tentacles grasp your legs, upending you so you smash hard onto your back, cracking your skull on the stone. The creature begins to draw your prone form toward it, making all kinds of noise as your body and kicking legs knock over the drinks and soup bowls from your meal.
> 
> Roll 1d8 + 2 damage vs yourself [Forceful tag].*






3)  Now here is a good one for this as it is definitely area for discussion/analysis on the topic at hand.  Note, the time for using a soft move in a hard move place is (according to the DW GMing section: "When you have a chance to make a hard move you can opt for a soft one instead if it better fits the situation."  Spout Lore and Discern Realities are going to often be these case here.  This is because (a) the stakes aren't explicitly as high as other moves and (b) "Make a move that follows from the fiction" is typically going to be "Reveal an unwelcome truth" or "Show signs of an approaching threat).  Sometimes a hard move does make sense (such as when time is utterly essential or if you're reading an ancient mystical text or you're in a heated parley where a false read or poor/misconstruable social cues could make things go bad).  

So then (oh, for reference, "Lucky" is the name of the dog they found in the beginning of their adventures.  He unfortunately perished to a great fall while the group was navigating a similar ridge to that below.  However, Saerie ventured into the Spirit Realm with the help of some mystics and communed with his animal spirit.  She can now summon his spirit form into the material world (a move she took upon leveling)):



> Saerie
> 
> With the hounds and huntsman traversing the trail the cuts through the middle of the snowy courtyard, I’m going to have to find an alternative route to climb the face. I can’t afford to trudge through the knee-dip or hip-deep snow. That would give me away to my enemies. I need to spot the best and most isolated location to climb the face and I need to also find the most inconspicuous route to get there with shallow snow.
> 
> Discern Realities (Wis)
> 6, 3 + 2 = 11
> 
> 3 questions and + 3 forward when acting upon them.
> 
> •    What should I be on the lookout for?
> •    What here is useful or valuable to me?
> •    What here is not what it appears to be?






> GM
> 
> 1)    The ridge that encircles the courtyard of this place leads to the slope on the left and the right. As you’d expect, the snow sheds from this ridge and gathers at the base on both sides. Therefore, the top of the ridge is little more than toe-deep.
> 
> 2)    The left ridge is icy, steep and directly below it is a 60 ft drop into a valley covered with razor-sharp rocks. Here you risk grave injury if things go wrong. It flows organically up onto the slope and spills out a bit above the altitude of the position you’re looking for over the central cave. You would then need to make a small climb down to the position where you could trigger the avalanche and have Far range to the other 2 caves. The right ridge is a much more hospitable. It takes a gentle jog around the courtyard but empties out smack dab near the sentinels on the right. Even with invisibility, if things go wrong in your climb, you could potentially be detected. What’s more, that face requires a difficult and dangerous 2 stage climb; a near vertical ascent above the position you want to be and then a tough descent down and around to the avalanche-trigger spot.
> 
> 3)    The hewn path of the winding central trail is flanked by hugely high, seemingly precarious snowbanks. 15 feet in some areas. They would bury people on the trail alive if they were triggered to collapse. Sure enough, you see the ends of large ropes protruding from the snowbanks where they terminate and the trail gives entrance to the base of the mountain. It is doubtful that those ropes serve an engineering purpose such as reinforcement of the snowbanks…






> Saerie
> 
> I think to myself ‘those guys assaulting the left cavern will have to transit the central trail…it looks steep enough to give them some cover, but if I don’t take out the middle group they’ll be sitting ducks…”
> 
> I ponder a very short moment, knowing that the hounds will be here soon, then I decisively clamber on top of the ridge leading to the left. This is too eerily familiar. I know he cannot be hurt by such a fall but I don’t even want to put him in this situation. I pat Lucky on his head and whisper “…stay with Otthor my friend. The way I go is too dangerous. I will see you soon.”
> 
> I risk the narrow, icy, climbing ridge and the deadly fall into the rocky valley below. I move slowly, one-foot in front of the other on the narrow ridge, center of gravity low, as sure-footedly as I can.
> 
> Defy Danger (Dex)
> 5, 3 + 3 (+ 1 from DR) = 12






> GM
> 
> Your nimble feet, perfect balance and well-practiced technique serves you well. You’re exposed entirely up there with wind whipping your invisible cloak this way and that. However, the cold and the wind mean nothing to you. Nary a foot slips and nary a rock shifts under your light feet. Once you reach the face itself, your climb sideways is a pretty simple one, shimmying to your right hand over hand, hugging the mountain. The footing is sound until you get over top of the position you need to climb down to. The descent is always more difficult and dangerous than the way up…






> Saerie
> 
> I take a deep, steadying breath and watch my frozen exhale dissipate. My adrenaline is pumping. Hand climbing on deadly faces has always exhilarated me, this one probably more than any other given the gravity of the stakes. If I lose a handhold...if a fissure bearing the weight of my foot fails me...
> 
> I think back to my most precarious climbs in the Feywild. The eternal summer of my homeland won't help me with the slippery ice, but lack of sound footing is something all climbers must deal with whether its loose scree, the slippery spray of a nearby waterfall, or a crumbling face. I consult the accumulated wisdom of my hard-earned experience for the answer to the slippery footing on my descent.
> 
> Spout Lore (Int)
> 3, 1 + 1 = 5
> 
> Mark 1 xp






> *GM
> 
> As you invisibly cling to the sheer, icy wall, your clenched hands growing ever more weary as your mind ponders the best way down, you hear a faint noise from the slope above you and to your right. The degree of slope is much more muted there, allowing you to see further up onto the mountain. Intermittent growling, hissing, and playful chirping noises lead your eyes to a pair of world-exploring snow leopard cubs. They're batting each other, bounding and rolling toward the weak ice/snow-pack above you. If they get there...
> 
> ...well, things will be bad for you...things will be bad for them. But, on the bright side, things will surely be bad for the group of sentinels directly below you as well!
> 
> So there you are, locked in a belly-to-belly embrace with the mountain, trying to slowly shimmy downwards. The drop to the landing below you is probably 40 feet (d10 damage no armor). That narrow stone landing separates the two avalanche zones and runs horizontally along the mountainside like a belt for a great fat man. It is surely to be as slick as the ridge you crossed and the fall would either require (1) some way to avoid this situation altogether or (2) Defy Danger with sure death @ 6- or d10 damage (No Armor) @ 7-9...with either of those triggering an avalanche upon you (and the bad guys).*


----------



## Nagol

Manbearcat said:


> <snipped to avoid secondary mention triggering> and of course anyone else who has any interest in discussing this angle of the conversation),




Don't get me wrong.  I like Dungeon World a lot.  It's one of the systems I'll run when I want a more cinematic / scene framed games.  It is just not as immune to DM force as you often present and that force can be at least as difficult to pick up on as Illusionism is in more outcome-based games like D&D.  The power of the DM to pick the resultant moves that fit the narrative is central to the game and can be easily used by the DM to garner a particular play experience.  This is beneficial when the DM is using it to maintain a genre convention.  It is more problematic when the DM wants to take a game in a particular direction.


Your first example (copied below because the board doesn't do quotes in quotes) appears to be a great example of GM force moving resolution / scene framing towards a specific goal.

Saerie is attempting to win over the dog and outright fails.  Which should presumably take the dog out of the scene as an ally/friend.  A hard move of Harm is probably unwarranted considering the fiction, though not completely out of character for the animal type.  A more typical move would be for the animal to snap at the person, grab the food, and hightail it leaving the two-leg to flounder in the snow.  Instead, the move chosen a soft one: the introduction of a previously disclosed (but unconnected to the current scene) environmental hazard that is approaching, but does not require instant reaction (the herd is still far).  So the failure -- which would be immutable as a hard move result -- is negated.  The DM keeps the dog in play as a potential friend/ally and even signals the animal is still approachable through the description of body language and positioning.  Sort of "You failed, but the universe is worse than you so try again".

One might begin to think the DM wants the dog befriended/rescued.  




> Saerie
> 
> I slowly get into her line of sight so as not to startle her. When she sees me, I'll carefully pull out some dried meat from my pack. I'll get down on all fours, assume a non-threatening posture, and entreat her to a free meal, given in good faith.
> 
> Parley (Cha)
> 
> My leverage is food for the starving dog.
> 
> 5, 1 - 1 = 5.
> 
> 1 xp
> 
> GM
> 
> His ears perk up. The dog looks interested in your offering. However, if he is deaf he doesn't need ears to perceive the thundering herd of reindeer bearing down on you. Like you, the dog can feel it in the ground. Your mind is ushered back to the Winter Wolf's words regarding a maddened realm near the two great bodies of water in the highlands where "...herds of reindeer would stampede, tearing each other, and themselves, to pieces." Whether they're simply running from the fury of the storm that is hot on their tails or deranged creatures intent on your harm is impossible to say at this distance (far, 10 creatures).
> 
> The scared dog abruptly bounds out of his carved hole and rushes to your position where he might see the obscured threat. When the canine sees what is on the way, it tucks its tail between its legs and runs in a circle behind you, looking to you with uncertain eyes.
> 
> The reindeer are closing fast.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> It's like the second. We want player interest to be focused on what's happening right now in the fiction, not the vagaries of GM technique. That's the space they play in. Our principles here are:
> 
> *Make your move, but misdirect
> Make your move, but never speak its name*
> 
> The post I made upthread, covering the technique behind the use of soft and hard moves, goes into more detail.



That's cool.  I was worried that the DM had to announce her moves as they were made, which really would butcher the immersion/fiction flow.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But - unless I've misunderstood - (1) depend upon the PCs gaining information about their possibility in the course of play (eg talking to NPCs), and therefore (2) depend upon the GM deciding what is part of the fiction, what the various NPCs whom the PCs are in contact with know and might communicate, etc.



If the party have done their diligence and found 4 or 5 different possibilities for adventure and then decide as a party to ignore them all and instead go north to take over the barbarian tribes then - unless I in fact do want to railroad them for some reason - I'm DMing an attempted takeover of the barbarian tribes.  And this might be all complete speculation on the players'/PCs' part - "Hey, lets go see if there's any barbarian tribes we can take over - we can make 'em into our own private army!" - without any actual knowledge of whether such tribes exist or if they do what they might have going for them.

But if just one character wants to do this while the rest would rather go and see what's up with Dumont tower then one of several things must happen:

1. Party goes to Dumont, single PC leaves party and goes north (and retires from ongoing play either temporarily or permanently, meanwhile I run Dumont); or
2. A deal is struck: you help us with Dumont and we'll help you with the tribes (in whichever order, I run both); or
3. The one PC manages to talk the party out of doing Dumont at all and convinces them to go north (thus I run just the tribes adventure); or
4. The party splits - some go to Dumont, some go north (I run one first [probably Dumont as it's closer*] while the other gets put on hold, then I run the other)

* - for game-world timing reasons I'd always want to run the closer one first; it's entirely possible the Dumont group finish their adventure (which is a mere 25 miles away) before the northern group even get to the barbarians who are hundreds of miles away.  I'd meta-explain this to the players - never yet had any trouble getting buy-in on something like this - as there's always a chance, however tiny, that something done at Dumont may somehow affect those going north.

Lan-"and yes, barbarians are a race not a class"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Maxperson said:


> No.  Driven by the DM and players both.  I have yet to play with a player who is so self-centered that he expects me to run an entire second game just for him.  The social contract has determined that this is a group game, not a 4 solo games run simultaneously.



For the real-world players it's a group game.

For the PCs it's whatever they decide in-character that it's gonna be.  If a PC retires it's entirely reasonable the party might look for a replacement...and whoever just retired their PC is now short a character to play...seems like a logical fit to me. (and if the player wants to play something quite different than what was just retired that's fine too; the party might need to recruit an NPC to fill the gap left by the retiree while also taking in whatever new PC the player rolls up).

In other words, the fact that the real-world players are here as a group every Sunday night has no bearing on whether their game-world characters always have to remain as a group; and while it certainly helps if a majority of them stay together there's no expectation whatsoever that they all have to.  As [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] says, it's not only possible to role-play yourself out of a party, it's sometimes desireable in order to maintain the fiction of your character doing what it would logically do in order to fulfill its own goals.

An example: I play a long-running character from a Roman-equivalent society.  Her personal goal* has always been to eventually get onto the Senate after her adventuring career is done and then at some point after that make a play for Empress.  Do I-as-player expect all the other players/PCs to help me with this?  Of course not; and though one or two have indicated they will I've no right to expect the rest to give a flying fig.  If it ever gets to the point of her leaving the party and doing this I'd retire her from adventuring and at some point the DM and I could sort her out over an out-of-session beer in the pub.  Meanwhile I'd play a different character in the ongoing party.

* - a goal that's getting further and further away the more she adventures, for a host of reasons not least of which is that she's gone from looking like a purebred Roman to looking like a member of an enemy culture (still human) thanks to side effects from a reincarnation...

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Maxperson said:


> What makes you think that "OK, your PC is now an NPC and all that northern barbarian stuff is going to take place off-screen" is what I am talking about?  What I am talking about involves the entire group going through many adventures and roleplaying opportunities where they shape things into that end goal.  Once the goal is achieved the newly minted King will become an NPC and the rest of the group will move on.



For clarity: the northern barbarian stuff taking place out-of-session is in fact what I'm talking about; I'm assuming it to be something a particular PC wants to do that has little or no connection with any of the previous adventuring they've done as a group.  Kind of like my Senate example from my last post before this one.

But the PC remains a PC, and if the player someday wants to know how it goes* we can roll some dice together in the pub and figure it out.

* - or if the main game needs to know e.g. the ongoing party is in the neighbourhood a few years later and wants to stop by and visit their old comrade.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Who said anything about a "second game"? Why is becoming a magistrate or a mercenary leader at odds with playing the first game? (It's not as if this is foreign territory for D&D - qv Lord fighters tc.)



No, but it's sure foreign territory for staying in the adventuring party, believe me.

My namesake character hit name-level quite some time ago and is (at long bloody last!!!) finally starting to dig in and set up his stronghold.  Even a cursory glance at what's involved tells me he'll be retiring from adventuring (other than "clearing the hex" his keep will be in) quite likely for the rest of his life...unless clearing the hex turns out to be more than he and his wife (also a long-running adventurer) can handle, at which point they'd probably approach some old comrades and ask for a hand; this would turn into a full adventure most likely.  Otherwise, adventures of all sorts will just have to go on without him. 

Lan-"yeah, that's me in the not-yet-built castle"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Maxperson said:


> Because while player A runs the city as a magistrate, players B-D are going out into the world to continue adventuring.  It would require the DM to run a separate game for player A who is now stuck in the city being a magistrate.  That or run a separate game where player A is a wandering magistrate going from city to city, while players B-D go into the wilds and other countries adventuring.  Players B-D didn't sign up to be a magistrate and aren't staying in 1 city forever, or just wander from city to city.



GAAAHHH!!!

You use "player" interchangeably to mean both player and character above...*they are different things*!!!

CHARACTER A runs the city as a magistrate.  CHARACTERS B-D keep on adventuring.  PLAYER A needs to roll up a replacement character if she wants to be involved in what characters (and players) B-D are doing.

Lan-"yes this is a pet peeve of mine - can you tell?"-efan


----------



## Jacob Marley

Lanefan said:


> But if just one character wants to do this while the rest would rather go and see what's up with Dumont tower then one of several things must happen:
> 
> 1. Party goes to Dumont, single PC leaves party and goes north (and retires from ongoing play either temporarily or permanently, meanwhile I run Dumont)[.]




With the prevalence of technology, I find it very easy to run multiple threads simultaneously. My players keep their character sheets on their iPhones or iPads. Text messaging and email work nicely for communication, and dice rolling apps help resolve challenges. We still run a four-hour session every other week, but modern technology has enhanced our ability to engage D&D in the interim. Now, players only retire their character when said character has completed its goal(s).


----------



## Maxperson

Lanefan said:


> For clarity: the northern barbarian stuff taking place out-of-session is in fact what I'm talking about; I'm assuming it to be something a particular PC wants to do that has little or no connection with any of the previous adventuring they've done as a group.  Kind of like my Senate example from my last post before this one.
> 
> But the PC remains a PC, and if the player someday wants to know how it goes* we can roll some dice together in the pub and figure it out.
> 
> * - or if the main game needs to know e.g. the ongoing party is in the neighbourhood a few years later and wants to stop by and visit their old comrade.
> 
> Lanefan




Sure, if the PC wants to go by himself to become king, that's how I would do it as well.  What if the entire party had wanted to go along with the idea to set Cormam up as the barbarian king?  Would you still have done it that way, or would you have just adjusted the direction of the campaign towards the north?


----------



## Lanefan

Nagol said:


> Your first example ~
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lanefan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> >pokes head up, says 'hi', retreats into snow<
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ~ (copied below because the board doesn't do quotes in quotes)
Click to expand...


 [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION], actually it does, but you have to hard-type the quote tags (including the "=xxx" where xxx is the person you're quoting) then cut-and-paste the text you want to include between them.  That's what I did here - everything between the two '~' marks I hard-typed - just to prove it can be done.

So, to quote myself in the middle of quoting you I hard-type 







			
				whoever* <paste or retype text here you want to quote> */QUOTE said:
			
		

> and note the * needs to be replaced in each case by the appropriate bracket.  In this particular case 'whoever' would be replaced by 'Lanefan' if I was the one being quoted.
> 
> Hope this helps!
> 
> Lan-"we now return you to our regularly-scheduled programming"-efan


----------



## lowkey13

*Deleted by user*


----------



## Lanefan

Jacob Marley said:


> With the prevalence of technology, I find it very easy to run multiple threads simultaneously. My players keep their character sheets on their iPhones or iPads.



Ours are on paper, and stay with the DM between sessions. 







> Text messaging and email work nicely for communication, and dice rolling apps help resolve challenges. We still run a four-hour session every other week, but modern technology has enhanced our ability to engage D&D in the interim. Now, players only retire their character when said character has completed its goal(s).



For something like this, where one PC takes off to go after what might be a long-term goal, a night in the pub sounds fine.

If a PC gets cut off from the party in mid-adventure, however, and we need to know what it's doing right now then yes: email works sort-of fine. (I say sort-of as I just recently had a situation where a party of ten characters got split into ten parties of one character each, all in the same dungeon; and sorting all that out by email pretty much swore me off of ever running a game by email again) 

Lan-"pubs work better"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Maxperson said:


> Sure, if the PC wants to go by himself to become king, that's how I would do it as well.  What if the entire party had wanted to go along with the idea to set Cormam up as the barbarian king?  Would you still have done it that way, or would you have just adjusted the direction of the campaign towards the north?



If the whole party wants to go with Cormam then I DM the party going with Cormam.


----------



## Jacob Marley

Lanefan said:


> Lan-"pubs work better"-efan




Except for the $100.00 dinner/drinks tab!


----------



## Manbearcat

Nagol said:


> Don't get me wrong.  I like Dungeon World a lot.  It's one of the systems I'll run when I want a more cinematic / scene framed games.  It is just not as immune to DM force as you often present and that force can be at least as difficult to pick up on as Illusionism is in more outcome-based games like D&D.  The power of the DM to pick the resultant moves that fit the narrative is central to the game and can be easily used by the DM to garner a particular play experience.  This is beneficial when the DM is using it to maintain a genre convention.  It is more problematic when the DM wants to take a game in a particular direction.
> 
> 
> Your first example (copied below because the board doesn't do quotes in quotes) appears to be a great example of GM force moving resolution / scene framing towards a specific goal.
> 
> Saerie is attempting to win over the dog and outright fails.  Which should presumably take the dog out of the scene as an ally/friend.  A hard move of Harm is probably unwarranted considering the fiction, though not completely out of character for the animal type.  A more typical move would be for the animal to snap at the person, grab the food, and hightail it leaving the two-leg to flounder in the snow.  Instead, the move chosen a soft one: the introduction of a previously disclosed (but unconnected to the current scene) environmental hazard that is approaching, but does not require instant reaction (the herd is still far).  So the failure -- which would be immutable as a hard move result -- is negated.  The DM keeps the dog in play as a potential friend/ally and even signals the animal is still approachable through the description of body language and positioning.  Sort of "You failed, but the universe is worse than you so try again".
> 
> One might begin to think the DM wants the dog befriended/rescued.




Good.  This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to talk about.

So here are my thoughts on the above situation.  First, the 

*Fiction*:

1)  Starving, old, deaf sheepdog that has been living in a state of trapped terror for who knows how long.

2)  What would a creature like this want?  Food, companionship, safety.  

3)  The Ranger knows animal posture/behavior, entreats the dog with an appropriate show of lack of aggression/sincerity, offers food.

4)  That is very powerful leverage in this situation.  

*Mechanics*:

1)  Unlike Fate, Cortex+, 4e, DW (and most PbtA conflict resolution) doesn't have formal closure to every scene trope (save for where clocks and things like HP are involved).  So here we're just left to follow the game's Agenda and Principles rather than closing out a scene.  A few moves will pin you down tightly on a 6- (this thing happens).  Most, Parley included, leave it open for the players (through their action/inaction), the fiction, and GM fidelity to Agenda/Principles will tell us when we're done.  It certainly isn't a system that mandates for binary responses to moves; a or b are the only permissible outcomes for success failure. In fact, it expects the opposite.

2)  This dog would yield no danger whatsoever to the Ranger (Starving Old Dog @ 1 HP, 0 Armor, w[2d4-1] damage.  Instinct; to cower in fear or run from danger).  If she wanted to kill it, it would be a trivial thing to do so.

3)  So having it be aggressive toward her (a) doesn't make a lot of sense to me and (b) doesn't yield any action/adventure/danger.

*All together now*:

So then, given all of the above together, how do I resolve this situation?  Further chase is boring.  And she is on top of it, she could track it down again no problem.  That doesn't change the situation enough.  I look at that sort of resolution in the same way that I look at people who fail to dynamically change the situation in a 4e Skill Challenge and then blame the system for the uninspiring play results ("the king looks uninterested in your in your historical account of his family's oath to take in the refugees of war").

What does Saerie want?  She wants to functionally communicate with the dog.  What (a) most threatens what she wants, (b) follows from the fiction, and (c) ensures that the game/her life is filled with action/adventure/danger?

To me, the answer is something that will take the dog out completely.  I put maddened animals and mutates on the table as an ominous portent earlier in the game.  So, how about a herd of stampeding reindeer?  Maybe they're mad.  Maybe they're running from the coming storm.  Maybe something even worse is chasing them?  I don't know.  However, what I do know and what Saerie's player knows (and obviously Saerie within the fiction) is that a stampede (10) of monstrous reindeer are an absolute deadly threat to a level 3 Dungeon World character.  If she has to engage them by herself on the open tundra...it is very, very likely curtains for the PC.  And (Far) as a range band isn't significant for a reindeer (you're talking up to 50 MPH in our world).  So while they're not "whites of your eyes" range (Near), they are what would be the fictional equivalent of "right on top of you in short order."

She could most likely get out of this pinch on her own, but the dog is a liability here.  So I'm basically just proposing the question of "what is this worth to you?  How much are you willing to put up for this?"  This is the sort of advance/escalation that I would do in Dogs in the Vineyard and I think it applies best (all things considered) here.

So while this is effectively "Show signs of an approaching threat", it is the most amped up version of "approaching threat" as you can legitimately get away with (I did the same with a Rhemorraz later but I foreshadowed it aplenty before).  It is a lethal threat to not just the asset she is trying to secure, but also to the PC herself.

QUICK EDIT - If the player would have used aggression as leverage (eg "I advanced threateningly and corner the dog, hoping it will go belly up and submit), I would have definitely attacked.  Attacking would have removed the prospects of gaining the dog as an asset (as it would have effectively been suicide).

The context of Leverage/approach, the greater fiction (including the creature's Instinct) surrounding things, and how best to achieve action/adventure/danger (not just to the PC but toward thwarting its intent), means a great deal for the follow-up move that should be made on a 6- Parley move result.


----------



## Corwin

Sometime back, in our OoTA campaign, while in Gauntlgrym it became clear we would need to head back down into the Underdark. More specifically, we'd likely have to eventually go to Menzoberranzan. Well, my exiled drow PC had absolutely zero interest in going anywhere back down there. So instead he decided to strike out on his own, with Glabbagool as his trusty sidekick. 

A goliath EK coincidentally joined the group not long after. 

IC, the group occasionally ponders how Zak & Glabba might be fairing out in the world and what they're up to.


----------



## Maxperson

Lanefan said:


> GAAAHHH!!!
> 
> You use "player" interchangeably to mean both player and character above...*they are different things*!!!
> 
> CHARACTER A runs the city as a magistrate.  CHARACTERS B-D keep on adventuring.  PLAYER A needs to roll up a replacement character if she wants to be involved in what characters (and players) B-D are doing.
> 
> Lan-"yes this is a pet peeve of mine - can you tell?"-efan




LOL  My bad


----------



## Maxperson

Lanefan said:


> If the whole party wants to go with Cormam then I DM the party going with Cormam.



That's what I figured.


----------



## Lanefan

Jacob Marley said:


> Except for the $100.00 dinner/drinks tab!



Way cheaper if one eats at home first...


----------



## Xetheral

pemerton said:


> Using the same sort of language: _the door lacked falcon-sized exits because the PC can cast falconskin_. If the player had turned up with a different character; or if the player's had succeeded at rather than failed various checks; then the "world" (ie the shared fiction) would have been quite different.
> 
> That's a pretty clear explication of what I am trying to get at as a "player-driven" game. The fact that - as GM - I chose the dwelling place as a tower rather than (say) a house atop a cliff, with windows overlooking the ocean, is (from my point of view) a secondary consideration: the fact that there are multiple ways of narrating a world that is shaped by the choices the players have made doesn't change the fact that it is the players' choices that are driving the narration.




Out of curiousity, did the fact that the player had the ability to cast falconskin increase the odds of success on their check(s) to escape? Because if not, it sounds like the player's ability--which should be excellent for escaping prisons--was instead rendered entirely useless in that circumstance.

When the GM negates player build choices (selecting the ability to cast falconskin) and/or PC actions (wanting to cast falconskin to escape) to achieve a particular result (inability to escape the prison), I consider that the very essence of railroading. 

In your game, it wasn't GM fiat that led you to want to keep the PCs in prison--instead it was the rule that required you to thwart the PCs' intention to escape due to the failed roll. But--required to by the system or not--you still made the prison falcon-proof *explicitly* to negate the PC's ability. If I were the player, I would _absolutely_ feel railroaded in that situation.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that "thwarting player intent" is railroading when it's dictated by the dice _just as much_ as when it's dictated by the GM's plans for the story.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> The DM doesn't make all of those decisions.  The players can tell the DM that they are going to find a sage that knows about wild men in order to find out where those barbarians live, as well as what their beliefs and social structure consist of.  They may or may not be able to find such a sage in the place they are at, but they would be able to go find one somewhere and get things going.



But, as best I can tell, at   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s table the GM makes all those decisions - is there a sage? are there northern barbarians? does the former know anything of the latter? etc.

This is all part of the GM's behind-the-scenes worldbuilding.

Which means that the player action declaration "We look for a sage to try and learn about such-and-such" is, in effect, a request from the players to the GM for the GM to dispense some of that backstory. It's not a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction.



billd91 said:


> Or there's a bit of stuff sprinkled about by the DM and others suggested by the players.



I'm only going by  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s posts. They haven't mentioned this. They've consistently reiterated that the GM authors the campaign backstory.

Just as one instance:



Lanefan said:


> If the party have done their diligence and found 4 or 5 different possibilities for adventure and then decide as a party to ignore them all and instead go north to take over the barbarian tribes then - unless I in fact do want to railroad them for some reason - I'm DMing an attempted takeover of the barbarian tribes. And *this might be all complete speculation on the players'/PCs' part* - "Hey, lets go see if there's any barbarian tribes we can take over - we can make 'em into our own private army!" - without any actual knowledge of whether such tribes exist or if they do what they might have going for them.



I've bolded the bit that makes it clear that the GM is the author of the gameworld, while the players learn what it is that the GM has authored.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> But, as best I can tell, at [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s table the GM makes all those decisions - is there a sage? are there northern barbarians? does the former know anything of the latter? etc.
> 
> This is all part of the GM's behind-the-scenes worldbuilding.




No all of it.  It's not possible for a DM to detail out every last NPC in the world.  There will be sages and others that are not detailed, but which the PCs could decide to go look for.



> Which means that the player action declaration "We look for a sage to try and learn about such-and-such" is, in effect, a request from the players to the GM for the GM to dispense some of that backstory.




Or to come up with the sage that is pretty much guaranteed to exist.  It's exceedingly unlikely that there wouldn't be many people in the world who are highly knowledgeable.  They will go look for one, even if the DM didn't think to pre-author it.



> It's not a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction.



In your opinion.  In my opinion it is.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> In your opinion.



Who else's opinion are you expecting me to put forward?


----------



## pemerton

Xetheral said:


> Out of curiousity, did the fact that the player had the ability to cast falconskin increase the odds of success on their check(s) to escape?



No, because there was no setting of "a chance to escape". The PC is put into prison. The door is not one a falcon can fly (or squeeze) through. So the PC instead waits to see if his cleric friend, whom he thinks is the sort of person who would go into the prisons trying to help the suffering, turns up: mechanically, the player declares a Circles test (with a bonus, because the existence of this friend has already been established in a prior episode of play).

The check fails, so instead the only person to turn up is the magistrate, who decides to let the prisoners rot there indefinitely (the ingame logic of this I spelled out upthread; the resolution logic is that the player has made his roll to see if people turning up will help his PC escape, and has failed, and so now either (i) some other means will be required (he worked on the assassin who was also in the cell), or (ii) he can wait and see what I do as GM (but my player tends not to like waiting to see what I will do as GM, because he tends to suspect - rightly, most of the time - that it won't be good for his PC!).



Xetheral said:


> it sounds like the player's ability--which should be excellent for escaping prisons--was instead rendered entirely useless in that circumstance.



I'm not sure why being able to turn into a falcon is excellent for escaping prisons per se - it depends a bit on the prisons' construciton, doesn't it (eg Gandalf atop Orthanc vs being thrown into a dungeon)?



Xetheral said:


> When the GM negates player build choices (selecting the ability to cast falconskin) and/or PC actions (wanting to cast falconskin to escape) to achieve a particular result (inability to escape the prison), I consider that the very essence of railroading.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> "thwarting player intent" is railroading when it's dictated by the dice just as much as when it's dictated by the GM's plans for the story.



No action was negated. Nor was any build choice. The player didn't declare "I change into a falcon and escape!" - he asked "Does the prison have bars I can squeeze through?" and I answered "No." It's a moment of framing, not of action resolution - and the framing is the direct consequence of a series of failed checks (to get through the city; to persuade the guards to help with the bodies rather than treat them as cause for suspicion).

If the player had declared, in the encounter with the guards, "I change into a falcon and fly away!" this would almost certainly have succeeded. But he didn't do that, in part because he didn't want to lose track of the bodies he was carrying . . .

If a fighter's hit points have been reduced to zero by application of the action resolution mechanics, it's not railroading to deny the player of that character the opportunity to declare attacks. Mutatis mutandis in this case.



Xetheral said:


> you still made the prison falcon-proof *explicitly* to negate the PC's ability. If I were the player, I would _absolutely_ feel railroaded in that situation.



It seems to me there are three options.

(1) Prisons that are narrated always have bars, small gaps, etc such that shapechanging PCs can escape them (ie can never be held in prison).

(2) Prisons that are narrated never have bars, small gaps, etc.

(3) Prisons that are narrated sometimes have bars, small gaps, etc; and sometimes not. Given that my setting is a trad fantasy one where timber is more prevalent than worked metal, (3) seems the most logical.

Then, within 3, there is the question - how do we decide which prisons are which? We might roll % dice. BW has a mechanic for that (called the "die of fate") but it is not a major part of the system, because it only comes into play when other considerations that would inform framing and resolution are exhausted.

Another way to decide would be via action declaration and resolution: the player could have tried to roll an Architecture or similar check to discover the gap his falcon-form can fly through. But he chose not to - presumably because he suspected he wouldn't succeed at that.

Given that a DoF was not appropriate, and that the player didn't declare any action relevant to the construction of the prison, my framing stands. It's a consequence of failure; hence, you didn't get what you wanted (ie you're not getting where you wanted to get with your bodies); hence you can't just fly out in falcon form and negate the failure. You're going to actually have to deal with the failure. (Which he did: he created an illusion of himself and the other prisoner; turned the two of them invisible; and then the assassin tried to pick the lock, taking the time to make the attempt with care. Unfortunately that check failed, and so - per the rules of the game - I am entited to impose a major time-based complication (due to the taking of the bonus for a careful attempt). That was the cliffhanger on which we finished our short session last Sunday.)


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But, as best I can tell, at   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s table the GM makes all those decisions - is there a sage? are there northern barbarians? does the former know anything of the latter? etc.
> 
> This is all part of the GM's behind-the-scenes worldbuilding.
> 
> Which means that the player action declaration "We look for a sage to try and learn about such-and-such" is, in effect, a request from the players to the GM for the GM to dispense some of that backstory. It's not a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction.



I completely fail to understand how else it can work, unless the players are in fact co-authoring (or completely authoring) the game world and its content and thus not only doing the DM's job but doing themselves a great disservice: what's the fun of exploration when you already know what's there.

And note that I as DM am not playing in order to explore my own world: I already know what's there, or certainly should.  Instead I'm providing a game world for the players (via their characters) to explore and learn about.



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> If the party have done their diligence and found 4 or 5 different possibilities for adventure and then decide as a party to ignore them all and instead go north to take over the barbarian tribes then - unless I in fact do want to railroad them for some reason - I'm DMing an attempted takeover of the barbarian tribes. And *this might be all complete speculation on the players'/PCs' part* - "Hey, lets go see if there's any barbarian tribes we can take over - we can make 'em into our own private army!" - without any actual knowledge of whether such tribes exist or if they do what they might have going for them.




I've bolded the bit that makes it clear that the GM is the author of the gameworld, while the players learn what it is that the GM has authored.[/QUOTE]Again, how else can it possibly work?

You want the players to be able to drive the fiction...which in this case is exactly they're doing by their left-turn north to seek barbarian tribes to take over.  If I'm the DM I have to respond to this.  I can either narrate whatever they learn about the barbarians and then DM their journey north; or I can narrate they fail to learn anything and DM whatever they do next which might include a journey north anyway; or I can railroad them somehow into staying in the south.

Look at it another way.  When the idea of going to the barbarians suddenly emerges from nowhere - and that's the case here; this idea of going after the barbarians comes right out of the blue - 4 possible results can occur:

1. The barbarians exist, and the DM has known this all along
2. The barbarians exist, but the DM just now decided that on the fly
3. The barbarians do not exist, and the DM has known this all along
4. The barbarians do not exist, but the DM just now decided that on the fly

Or, to clarify, are you disagreeing that designing the game world and its content is the DM's responsibility?  If yes, then how in your eyes does the game world get designed?  (I can't imagine trying to run a game in a setting that hasn't got at least some pre-design to it even if it's only a town, a dungeon or other adventure, occupants of both, and some geographical features around and between the town and dungeon)  Who decides where the cities are?  Where the dragons are?  Where the next dungeon is after this one, and what it consists of?  Who rules the realm, if anyone, and what the ruling or political structure is?

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (and anyone else who uses a PC-goals oriented system), a question or two; with an assist from a fellow DM here (we got talking about all this earlier tonight):

If I understand it right, in your game before play starts each player comes up with some goals for her character, and once play starts the DM is somewhat bound to have those goals and their resolution be the central theme of what gets played - am I right so far?

So, first: do the players (out of character) always know what everyone else's goals are even if in-character they are for some reason hidden?

Second: what "scale" are these goals expected to be on?  Swearing vengeance on the lizardmen who overran your family farm sounds all very noble but by 3rd level it could be done and dried (not much of a campaign there), so are the goals expected to be longer-term sorts of thing?

Third: what if two (or more) characters' goals directly conflict?  Let's say as an over-the-top example that this time out your players really want to dig into political/rulership stuff for some reason.  Both Jacasta (fighter) and Moliere (rogue) have as their main character goal "to overthrow the ruling council of Thrace and replace it with myself as supreme high ruler with no equal".  I can see them maybe sort of working together to chuck out the council but what then?  Neither will accept an equal so they can't co-rule and still achieve their goals...so do they get to plot (or even throw down) against each other at that point?

Throw another log on the fire: in the same party let's say (cleric) Fieriatta's main goal is to become respected enough to be worthy of taking her mother's place on the Thraci council - she completely supports the council structure etc. as is - meanwhile (wizard) Calliandre's goal is to remove the council completely and turn Thrace into - in effect - a communist free state without any recognized rulership or heirarchy at all.

In my system I can - if I like - choose to run with this, or just use some of it, or most likely just ignore it all and hope it goes away.  But in your system, if what you've posted holds true, you're in theory stuck with trying to DM it as you're forced by the system to hew close to their stated goals...

Lan-"most of the time my main character goal is just to survive long enough to worry about any other goals"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> (Which he did: he created an illusion of himself and the other prisoner; turned the two of them invisible; and then the assassin tried to pick the lock, taking the time to make the attempt with care. Unfortunately that check failed, and so - per the rules of the game - I am entited to impose a major time-based complication (due to the taking of the bonus for a careful attempt). That was the cliffhanger on which we finished our short session last Sunday.)



Side note: pretty useless prison guards if they a) didn't spell-tie the prisoners' fingers to prevent casting and-or b) foolishly let them keep their spell components and thieves' tools with them in the cell.

Lanefan


----------



## Nagol

I'm always somewhat hesitant to dig into armchair analysis of such play examples, especially for improv-based games, because the analysts are able to pick at nits while missing out on the emotional table-state and known player qualities and not suffering the time and performance pressures.  But here we go.



Manbearcat said:


> Good.  This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to talk about.
> 
> So here are my thoughts on the above situation.  First, the
> 
> *Fiction*:
> 
> 1)  Starving, old, deaf sheepdog that has been living in a state of trapped terror for who knows how long.
> 
> 2)  What would a creature like this want?  Food, companionship, safety.
> 
> 3)  The Ranger knows animal posture/behavior, entreats the dog with an appropriate show of lack of aggression/sincerity, offers food.
> 
> 4)  That is very powerful leverage in this situation.




Absolutely! and the best way to mechanically address this leverage would be through a bonus to the roll!  Oh wait, that's the wrong type of rule mechanics for this game.  Although not forbidden, such probability adjustments are discouraged.  Follow the story where the dice go and if the situation is trivial, don't bother with a roll is closer to its credo.

So based on your description I would expect no roll would be necessary to appropriately persuade the dog to take the food.  If a roll is called for, then obviously there are other factors at play which will be revealed on a 9-. Like the fact the dog isn't a dog, isn't in the condition presented, isn't alone, will attack regardless, or perhaps the dog will flee to its death rather than deal with a human.



> *Mechanics*:
> 
> 1)  Unlike Fate, Cortex+, 4e, DW (and most PbtA conflict resolution) doesn't have formal closure to every scene trope (save for where clocks and things like HP are involved).  So here we're just left to follow the game's Agenda and Principles rather than closing out a scene.  A few moves will pin you down tightly on a 6- (this thing happens).  Most, Parley included, leave it open for the players (through their action/inaction), the fiction, and GM fidelity to Agenda/Principles will tell us when we're done.  It certainly isn't a system that mandates for binary responses to moves; a or b are the only permissible outcomes for success failure. In fact, it expects the opposite.




And this is my primary complaint with the system.  It places undue reliance on the GM to adhere to the game's principles and provides few checks the players can use to detect or correct for variance.  A GM can trivally insert soft moves and moves coloured with his own expectations to guide players around by the nose with similar effect to an outcome-based game like D&D's DM using illusionism and fudging.  This is made worse in some ways because there is no secondary check method (such as rolling in the open) that can be used to constrain the behaviour.  Quite often, the GM would need to drift the situation quite far to get off genre and thus become detectable.



> 2)  This dog would yield no danger whatsoever to the Ranger (Starving Old Dog @ 1 HP, 0 Armor, w[2d4-1] damage.  Instinct; to cower in fear or run from danger).  If she wanted to kill it, it would be a trivial thing to do so.
> 
> 3)  So having it be aggressive toward her (a) doesn't make a lot of sense to me and (b) doesn't yield any action/adventure/danger.
> 
> *All together now*:
> 
> So then, given all of the above together, how do I resolve this situation?  Further chase is boring.  And she is on top of it, she could track it down again no problem.  That doesn't change the situation enough.  I look at that sort of resolution in the same way that I look at people who fail to dynamically change the situation in a 4e Skill Challenge and then blame the system for the uninspiring play results ("the king looks uninterested in your in your historical account of his family's oath to take in the refugees of war").
> 
> What does Saerie want?  She wants to functionally communicate with the dog.  What (a) most threatens what she wants, (b) follows from the fiction, and (c) ensures that the game/her life is filled with action/adventure/danger?
> 
> To me, the answer is something that will take the dog out completely.  I put maddened animals and mutates on the table as an ominous portent earlier in the game.  So, how about a herd of stampeding reindeer?  Maybe they're mad.  Maybe they're running from the coming storm.  Maybe something even worse is chasing them?  I don't know.  However, what I do know and what Saerie's player knows (and obviously Saerie within the fiction) is that a stampede (10) of monstrous reindeer are an absolute deadly threat to a level 3 Dungeon World character.  If she has to engage them by herself on the open tundra...it is very, very likely curtains for the PC.  And (Far) as a range band isn't significant for a reindeer (you're talking up to 50 MPH in our world).  So while they're not "whites of your eyes" range (Near), they are what would be the fictional equivalent of "right on top of you in short order."




50 mph for a couple hundred meters, tops.  Typical running speed is half that and typical herd travel speed is half that again.  I'd expect the tag to shift from far to near or at worst close next round which makes them a threat but not an immediate one.



> She could most likely get out of this pinch on her own, but the dog is a liability here.  So I'm basically just proposing the question of "what is this worth to you?  How much are you willing to put up for this?"  This is the sort of advance/escalation that I would do in Dogs in the Vineyard and I think it applies best (all things considered) here.




I think it'd apply here if the player had rolled a 7-9 total not a 6-.  Partial success being of course, you have gained the dog's trust and it is open to you; how do you plan on saving its (and your own) life?
I feel a 6- should remain a failure.  "The dog backpadels from you baring its teeth; the beast has obviously had bad interactions with humans in the past.  Gaining its trust is going to take much longer if it is at all possible. <Cue herd of reindeer> what do you do?"



> So while this is effectively "Show signs of an approaching threat", it is the most amped up version of "approaching threat" as you can legitimately get away with (I did the same with a Rhemorraz later but I foreshadowed it aplenty before).  It is a lethal threat to not just the asset she is trying to secure, but also to the PC herself.
> 
> QUICK EDIT - If the player would have used aggression as leverage (eg "I advanced threateningly and corner the dog, hoping it will go belly up and submit), I would have definitely attacked.  Attacking would have removed the prospects of gaining the dog as an asset (as it would have effectively been suicide).
> 
> The context of Leverage/approach, the greater fiction (including the creature's Instinct) surrounding things, and how best to achieve action/adventure/danger (not just to the PC but toward thwarting its intent), means a great deal for the follow-up move that should be made on a 6- Parley move result.




There is very limited material differences between presented result and a theoretical 7-9 result assuming the same threat introduction move was made and the player got the primary goal: the dog became accessible.  The failure was short-circuited.  It coupld be because the first thing that came to mind and the GM needs to keep the momentum going.  It could be the GM is an animal-lover and would prefer a good outcome.  It could be because the GM knows the player is an animal-lover and would take a bad outcome more poorly than is desirable.  It could also be the GM has future plans for the dog (and the alien egg growing inside it bwah haha) and doesn't want to see that opportunity lost.  Why doesn't matter much.  The failure was short-circuited.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pretty useless prison guards if they a) didn't spell-tie the prisoners' fingers to prevent casting and-or b) foolishly let them keep their spell components and thieves' tools with them in the cell.



The system isn't one that uses spell components (which are also optional in many versions of D&D). There was no tying of hands - instead they locked the prisoners in a windowless cell.

The assassin has never had lockpicking tools. The check to open the prison lock suffered the system penalty for no tools (a double-obstacle penalty, taking it from Ob 2 to Ob 4). I can't remember exactly what she was actually using for the attempt - maybe a buckle or pin from her armour (which hadn't been taken from either prisoner).


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> just because player choice and consequence there of is your primary reason for framing things the way you do does not make the process free of GM Force. You can certainly come up with options that meet the primary need but that also steer the story in a way you prefer.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> nor do I think that the Powered by the Apocalypse system and other similar game systems are entirely free from GM fiat



Well, this seems to go back to the OP: what is the difference between GM judgement calls and railroading?

Choosing the tower rather than the cliff-top house is a judgement call. I was going for a Tower of the Elephant feel. That's definitely colour, chosen by me as GM. Is it _force_?



hawkeyefan said:


> the descriptions you guys are sharing of the systems you are citing don't really sound like my cup of tea at all. I actually enjoy the role of the DM in 5E, as flawed a system as it may be. I don't think that the role as described requires that the game be a railroad, nor do I think that the Powered by the Apocalypse system and other similar game systems are entirely free from GM fiat. I can agree that the mechanics attempt to minimize such concerns...however, I don't really agree that the concern should be that strong at all.
> 
> I can imagine a game where the GM uses techniques to force his vision of the game upon the group. Where player choice is undermined or subverted by the GM's whim. If I had suffered through a game like that...or if as GM I found the job daunting or to be too much work...then I could see the appeal of such a system.
> 
> But in my experience, those are not areas of concern that need to be addressed.



Different people have different preferences - that's the nature of the world. But I think it's a mistake to see others' preferences through a frame of response to pathology, or to bad experiences.

I developed my GMing preferences running AD&D - in particular, Oriental Adventures (in which PCs have rich backgrounds, hooks and thematic orientation that can drive the framing of the game) and an all-thief game (the same features of thieves that make them hard to integrate into a standard dungeon game make them well-suited to a player-driven, scene-framed game).

I didn't get interested in 4e or BW because I had problems in my game that I wanted to fix. I got interested in them because they seemed to offer new tools for developing what I was already doing. And I wasn't doing that because I was "daunted' or found GMing "too much work". I was doing it because it led to what was, for me, a better RPGing experience.

So I don't see "GM force or whim" as a "concern that needs to be addressed" either. To borrow the PbtA slogan, I'm interested in approaches that let me "play to find out". [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has said, about half-a-dozen posts up, "I as DM am not playing in order to explore my own world: I already know what's there, or certainly should." Well, I don't share that normative judgement, and I am playing to learn what is in the shared fiction, just as much as the players.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Who else's opinion are you expecting me to put forward?



I'm just saying that it's nowhere near a fact that it's not substantive.  You stated it as if it's a fact.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If I understand it right, in your game before play starts each player comes up with some goals for her character, and once play starts the DM is somewhat bound to have those goals and their resolution be the central theme of what gets played - am I right so far?
> 
> So, first: do the players (out of character) always know what everyone else's goals are even if in-character they are for some reason hidden?
> 
> Second: what "scale" are these goals expected to be on?  Swearing vengeance on the lizardmen who overran your family farm sounds all very noble but by 3rd level it could be done and dried (not much of a campaign there), so are the goals expected to be longer-term sorts of thing?
> 
> Third: what if two (or more) characters' goals directly conflict?



In BW, each PC has 3 Beliefs. These are authored by the player for the PC. The expectation is that these are public at the table. A player can rewrite a Belief at any time, but (i) the GM is allowed to enforce a delay in this if s/he thinks that the player is trying to avoid a hard decision, and (ii) there is an expectation that the changes in Beliefs will reflect and express something about the fiction, and how the character is responding to that.

The GM is meant to frame the PCs into situations that put their Beliefs to the test. The players will follow their Beliefs, or maybe break them (especially if the GM puts them into conflict, which s/he is expected to do).

The GM also authors Beliefs for important NPCs (eg the dark naga has beliefs). These play a role in playing the NPC a little bit like alignment in traditional D&D (DMG, p 23: "The overall behavior of the [NPC] character (or creature) is delineated by alignment").

In my main 4e game, I told the players that each PC (i) had to have a reason to be ready to fight goblins (because I wanted to run Night's Dark Terror), and (ii) had to have one loyalty. For some of the PCs, (i) and (ii) were the same things; for others not. These motivational elements of the PCs have driven the game. They've also evolved, as the characters and the fiction develop.

The interaction of PC beliefs and goals, and their evolution, can lead to conflict. I've given the example, upthread, of the assassin/wizard and the mage in my BW game: the former wanted to be avenged on her former master (the mage's brother); the mage wanted to redeem him. In the 4e game, one of the PCs (the paladin of the Raven Queen) will do whatever will promote his god's interests; some of the other PCs, though, do not want the Raven Queen to become ruler of the cosmos.

It's my job as GM to frame the PCs into situations that generate pressure and interweave these conflicts. The players have a degree of responsibility, too, to try and manage these differences and conflicts, within reason. But ultimately if conflict breaks out, then it has to be resolved (BW is better for this than 4e - the latter doesn't have good mechanics for resolving conflict between PCs. But it does allow PCs to push the fiction in differen directions, eg in a skill challenge, and this is a part of my main 4e game).



Lanefan said:


> I completely fail to understand how else it can work
> 
> <snip>
> 
> When the idea of going to the barbarians suddenly emerges from nowhere - and that's the case here; this idea of going after the barbarians comes right out of the blue - 4 possible results can occur:
> 
> 1. The barbarians exist, and the DM has known this all along
> 2. The barbarians exist, but the DM just now decided that on the fly
> 3. The barbarians do not exist, and the DM has known this all along
> 4. The barbarians do not exist, but the DM just now decided that on the fly
> 
> Or, to clarify, are you disagreeing that designing the game world and its content is the DM's responsibility?  If yes, then how in your eyes does the game world get designed?



A preliminary comment - I wouldn't expect the idea of going to the barbarians to suddenly emerge from nowhere.

But what other possibility exists? Here's one: the player just declares "I head north, to meet the barbarians."

That particular action declaration has never occurred in one of my games (that I can remember), but in my BW game one of the players - when his PC was in a difficult situation in the Bright Desert - declared "Everyone knows that Suel tribesmen are thick as fleas on a dog in these parts" and then rolled a Circles check. (It failed - hence the PCs ended up, briefly, in the custody of Wassal.)

Here's another: the player conjectures, "There are barbarians in the north, aren't there?" and then makes a Northern Wastes Lore (or whatever skill is appropriate) check. If it succeeds, the conjecture is true. If it fails, the GM gets to narrate a consequence for failure as usual - there are no barbarians, perhaps; or there are barbarians, but they are democrats who kill all those among them who display pretensions to kingship. (I just made that up, in about twice the time it took to type it.)

I'm sure there are other ways too.



Lanefan said:


> I can't imagine trying to run a game in a setting that hasn't got at least some pre-design to it even if it's only a town, a dungeon or other adventure, occupants of both, and some geographical features around and between the town and dungeon)  Who decides where the cities are?  Where the dragons are?  Where the next dungeon is after this one, and what it consists of?  Who rules the realm, if anyone, and what the ruling or political structure is?



Well, I'm running a game set in Hardby, and I don't have a map, or anything but the info in the GH booklets (pp 23, 25, 41 of the Boxed Set Guide to the WoG):

[T]he heir [of the Landgraf of the Selintan] was wed to the daughter of the Gynarch (Despotrix) of Hardby, a sorceress of no small repute. Their descendants ruled a growing domain . . . In 498 it [Greyhawk] was declared a free and independent city, ruling a territory from Hardby . . . to the Nyr Dyv . . . These holdings have been lost over the intervening decades . . . The Despotrix of Hardby now pays tribute to Greyhawk to avoid being absorbed into the growing city state once again . . . Portions of the [Wild Coast] have been under the control of . . . the Gynarch of Hardby . . . at various times.​
Here are some locations in Hardby that have been part of our game:

*The tower of Jabal of the Cabal*: narrated as described upthread, as part of playing out the consequences of a failed Circles check when the mage PC tried to make contact with the leader of his sorcerous cabal.

*A cheap inn near the docks*: narrated as a place the PCs were able to find to sleep when they had been banished from the city by Jabal and so couldn't sleep inside the wallas. The need to make a check to see how well they could sleep despite the noise and fleas was established following a poor Resources check (which established it as a cheap dive).

*The catacombs*: established as part of the narration that followed from a mummy attack on Jabal's tower (the mummy was looking for the feather that the mage PC was carrying, which had been stolen from its pyramid tomb in the Bright Desert). The player of the mage succeeded at some checks to find a useful inscription on the wrappings of the mummy, and read it; these established that the mummy had been taken from the Bright Desert and reinterred in the Hardby catacombs. The player then succeeded at a Circles check to meet a gossipy noble who was able to help him escape the city without being seen (ie via the catacombs). Since then there have been Catacombs-wise checks, some successful and some not. Catacomb-dwelling cultists have been fought and then befriended. At one point when I needed a map for the cultists' hideout, I used a section from the Caves of Chaos.​
A similar approach has worked for things like the pool of the (friendly) Naga the PCs found in the Bright Desert; the waterhole at the edge of the Abor-Alz, where the foothills meet the Bright Desert; and probably other stuff I'm forgetting.

The ruined tower, on the other hand, was established by the player of that PC, as part of establishing PC backstory before the game started. (Including a cool picture, of a ruined tower in arid hills in India.)


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I'm just saying that it's nowhere near a fact that it's not substantive.  You stated it as if it's a fact.



I said "It's not a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction."

Dictionary.com offers the following salient definitions of _substantive_:

7. of considerable amount of quantity;
8. possessing substance; having practical importance, value or effect.​
What is _considerable_ would seem to be a matter of judgement: I expressed mine.

What amounts to _practical importance, value or effect_ likewise would seem to be a matter of judgement: again, I expressed mine.

Are you saying that it's objectionable for people to make posts that use evaluative adjectives?


----------



## Xetheral

pemerton said:


> ...he can wait and see what I do as GM (but my player tends not to like waiting to see what I will do as GM, because he tends to suspect - rightly, most of the time - that it won't be good for his PC!).




That implies a much more adversarial relationship between GM and player than I prefer.



pemerton said:


> I'm not sure why being able to turn into a falcon is excellent for escaping prisons per se - it depends a bit on the prisons' construciton, doesn't it (eg Gandalf atop Orthanc vs being thrown into a dungeon)?




I'd consider dungeons and open-air tower-tops as "prisons" only in a metaphorical or conceptual sense. I was using the term more literally to refer to the type of building, stereotypically characterized by barred windows. That being said, yes, the utility of shapeshifting will depend on the specific construction. But if I haven't already introduced a falcon-proof prison, then I'm not likely to create a falcon-proof prison without a good IC reason (like the city in question being at war with (or fearing) druids or vampires or otherwise commonly needing to contain shapeshifters).



pemerton said:


> No action was negated. Nor was any build choice. The player didn't declare "I change into a falcon and escape!" - he asked "Does the prison have bars I can squeeze through?" and I answered "No." It's a moment of framing, not of action resolution - and the framing is the direct consequence of a series of failed checks (to get through the city; to persuade the guards to help with the bodies rather than treat them as cause for suspicion).




The distinction between action resolution and framing doesn't matter to me as a player (nor do I find the distinction particularly meaningful as a GM)--when the GM places an obstacle (e.g. the falcon-proof prison) with the intent of thwarting the use of one of my PC's abilities, I consider that railroading.* In application, I don't see your choice to make the prison escape proof as practically different than a similar decision by a GM who wants to run a "captured by guards!" adventure. Sure, the genesis was completely different, but the consequence is the same: the shapechanging PC ended up in a shapechange-proof prison simply to thwart the ability the shapechange.

*Caveat: if an obstacle is designed to thwart a spotlight-hogging PC's abilities in order to give an underrepresented player's PC a chance to shine, I consider that perfectly acceptable, even if it may still qualify as railroading. Care should still be taken to make sure it doesn't appear to be deliberately thwarting the spotlight-hogging PC (or, if hiding it is impossible, the reasons explained privately OOC).



pemerton said:


> If the player had declared, in the encounter with the guards, "I change into a falcon and fly away!" this would almost certainly have succeeded. But he didn't do that, in part because he didn't want to lose track of the bodies he was carrying . . .




So, when it became aparent that the attempt to talk past the guards had failed, and that the PC was going to lose the bodies anyway, was there any IC reason the PC couldn't change into a falcon and fly away at that point? I understand it would violate your stricture of "no retries", but it seems to me that application of that stricture can cause railroading as a consequence. Consider:

Once the PCs failed their checks to talk their way past the guards, you determined that the consequence would be to haul them off to prison. You may feel justified in doing so by the mechanics of the system, but, from this moment going forward, you're thwarting the PC's ability to avoid capture in order to impose a specific outcome: imprisonment. That seems to fit the definition of railroading that I understand you to be using. The only difference is that the outcome the PCs are being railroaded towards was the result of the combination of a failed check and the "no retries" rule, as opposed to having been chosen for story purposes. The consequences to the players after the failed check are identical: either way the character ends up in prison despite having an ability to avoid it.

If your definition of railroading is nuanced enough to distinguish between examples with identical consequences, that would suggest to me that it is _overly_-nuanced, to the point that it would appear defined specifically to exclude your playstyle. (Or, alternatively, that it is defined in a way that produces distinctions only _relevant_ to your play style.)

More generally, I'm struggling to see how framing the game world (e.g. the falcon-proof prison) or resolving PC actions (e.g. preventing a subsequent shapeshift after social interaction failed) _to thwart player intent as a result of a failed check_ (as opposed to simply narrating the failure itself) is ever practically distinguishable from framing the game world or resolving PC actions _to thwart player intent to send the story in a particular direction_.



pemerton said:


> If a fighter's hit points have been reduced to zero by application of the action resolution mechanics, it's not railroading to deny the player of that character the opportunity to declare attacks. Mutatis mutandis in this case.




I agree. But not because the mechanics say so, but because, IC, the character is not conscious. (As evidence, note the 3e controversy that being dead _didn't_ mechanically prevent actions. It still wasn't railroading to decree that a dead character couldn't act.)



pemerton said:


> It seems to me there are three options.
> 
> (1) Prisons that are narrated always have bars, small gaps, etc such that shapechanging PCs can escape them (ie can never be held in prison).
> 
> (2) Prisons that are narrated never have bars, small gaps, etc.
> 
> (3) Prisons that are narrated sometimes have bars, small gaps, etc; and sometimes not. Given that my setting is a trad fantasy one where timber is more prevalent than worked metal, (3) seems the most logical.
> 
> Then, within 3, there is the question - how do we decide which prisons are which?




As above, I'd decide by relying on the established elements of the game world to decide whether the designers had a reason to either purposefully or incidentally (e.g. a dungeon instead of a prison) design a shapeshifter-proof prison. If yes, I'd strongly telegraph these reasons. If not, the prison simply won't be shapeshifter-proof.


----------



## Campbell

Burning Wheel Beliefs are not exactly character goals. There are statements about how they view the world to be tested through play. A good belief will also state how a character seeks to confirm their belief. Conflicting beliefs are not something to be avoided. They are to be embraced. They set up play for the sort of conflicts we want to see. That includes internal character conflicts, conflicts between player characters, and conflicts with the greater world. It is not unusual to see Burning Wheel characters acting in opposition to one another. Sometimes we even encourage this by instructing players to write at least one belief about another player character.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I said "It's not a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction."
> 
> Dictionary.com offers the following salient definitions of _substantive_:
> 
> 7. of considerable amount of quantity;
> 8. possessing substance; having practical importance, value or effect.​
> What is _considerable_ would seem to be a matter of judgement: I expressed mine.
> 
> What amounts to _practical importance, value or effect_ likewise would seem to be a matter of judgement: again, I expressed mine.
> 
> Are you saying that it's objectionable for people to make posts that use evaluative adjectives?




You expressed it as a fact, though.  "It's not a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction.".  That's an absolute statement.  Had you said it like, "To me, it's not a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction." or "I don't think it's a substantive input from the players into the shared fiction.".  Those would be opinions.  You presented yours as a fact.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Burning Wheel Beliefs are not exactly character goals.



They can be. Eg Character Burner (for BW revised), p 32; and BW rev, p 56:

I shall rule this city from the Black Wizard's Tower as Master Assassin.

I will one day restore my wife's life.​
But they don't have to be. One of the Beliefs of the wizard/assassin in our game (who was a PC, but has moved to NPC status) is _Don't get in my way_. (Another of hers _is _a goal: _I will find and flay my former master, and send his soul to . . ._.

A Belief that is not a goal tends to be hard to close off, and hence hard to earn a Persona point for resolving. The Adventure Burner describes them as "Fate mines", because you play off them in the game and earn a Fate Point. The snake-handler shamanistic PC in my game has the Belief "Sorcery is the venom of the fangless" - when he does magical stuff to advance his interests, protect himself, etc, then he gets a Fate point.

In my experience, it can take a bit of time to settle on a good set of Beliefs that make a character work, both in itself and in interaction with the other PCs.

A player should expect the ingame situation to bring his/her PC's beliefs into conflict. That's part of the point of play. Players should also expect a degree of conflict between PCs - I wouldn't necesssarily say that's part of the point of play, but it's an obvious way to increase the pressure on the PCs (and thereby the players).

The third Belief of the wizard/assassin is that _Companions are like tools - useful, but not always reliable_. That's pretty much guaranteed to produce moments of tension or conflict with other PCs.

One mechanical feature of BW, that differentiates it from (say) 4e, is that it has very robust mechanics for resolving PC vs PC conflict (whether physical, magical or social). Which means these conflicts can be incorporated into the play of the game, rather than causing it to grind to a halt.

For instance, when the black arrows were discovered, and the apparent truth about the brother's evil thereby revealed, the wizard/assassin (with help from the elven ronin) persuaded the mage that he had to give up the attempt to redeem his brother, and instead help her to find and kill him (she promised, in return, to help wreak vengeance on the balrog). Mechanically, this was handled as a Duel of Wits between the two PCs (with the ronin providing helping dice to the wizard/assassin).


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> You expressed it as a fact, though.



I'm asserting a valuation, that I believe to be the case. If you dispute my valuation, then go ahead. Explain your reasons. Tell us what your conception is of the players having substantive input into the shared fiction.

I don't understand what you think the point is of pointing out (repeatedly) that my valuations are _mine_. I would have thought that's self-evident. (And as a matter of English usage, it is quite permissible to say "X is not a substantive instance of Y" without adding the qualifier "for me" or "in my view".)


----------



## pemerton

Xetheral said:


> That implies a much more adversarial relationship between GM and player than I prefer.



I like Luke Crane's description of the role of the GM (BW revised, p 268), which includes, as elements of the GM's job:

To challenge and engage the players . . . [and] to meaningfully inject resonant ramifications into play.​
The next page of the book describes "the sacred and most holy role of the players", including:

to offer hooks to their GM and the other players in the forms of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits . . . [and] to drive the story forward . . . to push and risk their characters, so they grow and change in unforeseen ways.​
As a GM, it's not my job to _look after_ the PCs. That's the players' job! If the player wants his PC to turn into a falcon and escape, nothing is stopping him - but a falcon can't carry bodies! If he wants to keep ahold of his bodies, he'll have to go with the watch to the prison. (Which is what happened.)



Xetheral said:


> if an obstacle is designed to thwart a spotlight-hogging PC's abilities in order to give an underrepresented player's PC a chance to shine, I consider that perfectly acceptable
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Care should still be taken to make sure it doesn't appear to be deliberately thwarting the spotlight-hogging PC (or, if hiding it is impossible, the reasons explained privately OOC).



I would regard that sort of thing as primarily something for the players to sort out among themselves. It's certainly not something I would do _secretly_. If there is a table issue - of one player commiting some sort of faux pas, like hogging spotlight (and surely this is a _player_ thing, not a PC thing - the "spotlight" is a property of the real world, not an in-fiction matter), then I don't see that as something the GM is meant to resolve via secret manipulation of the gameworld.



Xetheral said:


> I'd consider dungeons and open-air tower-tops as "prisons" only in a metaphorical or conceptual sense. I was using the term more literally to refer to the type of building, stereotypically characterized by barred windows. That being said, yes, the utility of shapeshifting will depend on the specific construction. But if I haven't already introduced a falcon-proof prison, then I'm not likely to create a falcon-proof prison without a good IC reason (like the city in question being at war with (or fearing) druids or vampires or otherwise commonly needing to contain shapeshifters).



Well, as I posted once or twice upthread, it's a pretty trad fantasy setting - which means, among other things, that timber is far more readily available than worked metal. So I would say that a solid timber dungeon-esque door is more verisimilitudinous than a modern steel-bar-style cell block.



Xetheral said:


> I don't see your choice to make the prison escape proof as practically different than a similar decision by a GM who wants to run a "captured by guards!" adventure. Sure, the genesis was completely different, but the consequence is the same: the shapechanging PC ended up in a shapechange-proof prison simply to thwart the ability the shapechange.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Once the PCs failed their checks to talk their way past the guards, you determined that the consequence would be to haul them off to prison. You may feel justified in doing so by the mechanics of the system, but, from this moment going forward, you're thwarting the PC's ability to avoid capture in order to impose a specific outcome: imprisonment. That seems to fit the definition of railroading that I understand you to be using. The only difference is that the outcome the PCs are being railroaded towards was the result of the combination of a failed check and the "no retries" rule, as opposed to having been chosen for story purposes.



To the extent that I follow this - and I'm not sure I do - I don't agree.

The PC was fleeing across the city carrying two bodies (one headless), accompanied by another PC carrying two vessels of blood (one also with the head in it). I called for a check - Beliefs were at stake. The player failed the Hauling check: in the fiction, the burden of the bodies slows him down, and the PCs come across the night watch.

More checks are made and failed. The watch aren't persuaded to help them; they think they're suspicious. When one of them says "One of these bodies is decapitated", the snake-handler PC replies "It's OK, I've got the head" - picking up a Fate point in the process.

An attempt to call on spirits to distract the guards so the PCs can escape also failed. And the players chose not to escalate to violence. Hence they get thrown into prison.

Imposing consequences for failure isn't railroading as per the OP - it is not _the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative_. There was certainly no preconception: half-an-hour before, when the action of the game was still focused on the decapitation and the events in the room of the tower, who knew that running across the streets with bodies was even going to happen?

If I understand you correctly ("the genesis was completely different, but the consequence is the same") you are saying that there is no relevant difference between narrating some element into the fiction as part of framing, and narrating it as a consequence of a failed check. I don't think I've ever seen this asserted before.

I also don't understand why you describe the prison as "escape proof". The imprisoned characters nearly escaped (but for a failed lockpick check - sometimes the dice run cold) - that is not a marker of an "escape proof" prison.

That the prison can't simply be squeezed out of in falcon form makes it a genuine challenge/obstacle - and that's because being in prison is a consequence of a failed check.



Xetheral said:


> the character ends up in prison despite having an ability to avoid it.



The character didn't try to fly away. Or to fight. I know why he didn't try to fight - the player wasn't sure he could win against half-a-dozen opponents. My conjecture as to why he didn't try and fly away is that he didn't want to lose the bodies.



Xetheral said:


> when it became aparent that the attempt to talk past the guards had failed, and that the PC was going to lose the bodies anyway, was there any IC reason the PC couldn't change into a falcon and fly away at that point?



It wasn't canvassed - as I said, I'm guessing that the player didn't want his PC to lose the bodies.

And I don't know why you say "the PC was going to lose the bodies anyway". The wizard/assassin (one of the bodies) was thrown into prison with him, and has regained consciousness, reached an agreement about summoning the brother's dead spirit, and came close to getting the two of them out of prison. What has happened to the other body (ie the decapitated brother) isn't known yet, but there's no reason to think that body is lost.



Xetheral said:


> I'm struggling to see how framing the game world (e.g. the falcon-proof prison) or resolving PC actions (e.g. preventing a subsequent shapeshift after social interaction failed) _to thwart player intent as a result of a failed check_ (as opposed to simply narrating the failure itself) is ever practically distinguishable from framing the game world or resolving PC actions _to thwart player intent to send the story in a particular direction_.



I'm not sure what you mean by "simply narrating the failure itself". The failure _is_ the failure of intent.

From BW revised p 34:

When the dice are rolled and not enough successes are generated to meet the obstacle, the character has failed at this task. What does this mean? First and most directly, _the stated task goal and intent do not come to pass_. However, in failure intent is more important than task goal.​
The PCs were trying to cross the city with the bodies and blood, without being obstructed or apprehended. This failed - the PCs were stopped. The PCs tried to persuade the watch that they should help with the bodies - this failed, and the watch's suspicions were increased, not reduced. The shaman tried to summon a spirit of wind and lightning to push the guards away and distract them so the PCs could escape  - this failed, and he was himself struck by lightning. The PCs chose not to fight, and allowed themselves to be taken into custody.

I'm not the one who sent events in this direction. The players kept failing their rolls. (Some were hard checks, but that can happen when you're trying to carry decapitated and unconscious bodies through a city.) And they didn't want to stake their PCs' lives by fighting the guards. So they get caught and imprisoned.

If that's railroading, you _seem_ to be saying that it's railroading whenever the players don't get what they want for their PCs.



Xetheral said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If a fighter's hit points have been reduced to zero by application of the action resolution mechanics, it's not railroading to deny the player of that character the opportunity to declare attacks. Mutatis mutandis in this case.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I agree. But not because the mechanics say so, but because, IC, the character is not conscious.
Click to expand...


I don't see the force of your distinction, for two reasons. First, the inability of an unconscious character to act is also something determined by the mechanics. Eg maybe the character has self-healing abilities that can operate when s/he falls unconscious (various Rolemaster and 4e PCs have such abilities).

Second, the only way that you know the character is unconscious is because there is a mechanical state (0 hp) that tells you as much. I've never heard anyone suggest that it's railroading simply to apply hit point deductions to a PC hp total because NPCs or monsters are rolling hits and damage against the player's PC.



Xetheral said:


> If your definition of railroading is nuanced enough to distinguish between examples with identical consequences, that would suggest to me that it is _overly_-nuanced



It seems to me that _any_ account of railroading has to be looking at something other than consequences. Consequences are simply events in the fiction. Railroading is about the _method whereby the fiction is established_. When players fail checks, bad things happen to their PCs. Speaking in general terms, it's the GM's job to establish those bad things. In my preferred approach, those bad things themselves speak to the evinced concerns of the player and PC - eg in this case, the PC ends up in prison with the assassin/wizard with whom he hopes to strike some sort of post-decapitation deal (because she is the only person whom he thinks he is going to be able to persuade to summon the dead spirit; he can't do it himself, as he's not a summoner).

If the player had succeeded at the social check, such that the PC persuaded the watch that nothing suspicious is going on, and I nevertheless had narrated them as taking the bodies, or locking up the PCs, or in some other way had dishnoured the player's successful check, well that _would_ be railroading (among other things).


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I'm asserting a valuation, that I believe to be the case. If you dispute my valuation, then go ahead. Explain your reasons. Tell us what your conception is of the players having substantive input into the shared fiction.
> 
> I don't understand what you think the point is of pointing out (repeatedly) that my valuations are _mine_. I would have thought that's self-evident. (And as a matter of English usage, it is quite permissible to say "X is not a substantive instance of Y" without adding the qualifier "for me" or "in my view".)




There's no point.  I'm not going to persuade you, and you ignored the substantive portions of that post in order to argue the portion that wasn't substantive at all.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The system isn't one that uses spell components (which are also optional in many versions of D&D).



By "many" you mean just 4e and 5e?  0-1-2-3e's certainly had them and thouugh they may have been optional in 3e I think it was an opt-out situation: components were default unless the DM opted not to use them.



> The assassin has never had lockpicking tools. The check to open the prison lock suffered the system penalty for no tools (a double-obstacle penalty, taking it from Ob 2 to Ob 4). I can't remember exactly what she was actually using for the attempt - maybe a buckle or pin from her armour (which hadn't been taken from either prisoner).



Didn't take their armour?  Were they just wearing light armour e.g. leather, in which case I can sort-of see this, or were they in heavier armour under which they could hide any number of things?

I get it about the tough check, though.

Lanefan


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> By "many" you mean just 4e and 5e?  0-1-2-3e's certainly had them and thouugh they may have been optional in 3e I think it was an opt-out situation: components were default unless the DM opted not to use them.



 3e hand-waved most material components with the 'spell component pouch,' and you could take feats to reduce the need for components, too.  
4e either didn't have them, or they were mandatory, depending on how you chose to look at it.  4e had implements, and not using an implement was like fighting unarmed, but no consumable components for actual spell casting; OTOH, rituals virtually always requires components, that had a gp cost, too.  

pemerton started with B/X, I think, for all I know B/X, BECMI, and/or RC could have made components optional in some way.

FWIW, back in the day, I introduced some variant magic items that could reduce the need for many components, in part because I got tired of players not tracking material components, and in part because I wasn't happy with how restricted casting could be & wanted more 'action' compatible PC casting rules.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In BW, each PC has 3 Beliefs....



Thanks for the explaination.


> A preliminary comment - I wouldn't expect the idea of going to the barbarians to suddenly emerge from nowhere.
> 
> But what other possibility exists? Here's one: the player just declares "I head north, to meet the barbarians."
> 
> That particular action declaration has never occurred in one of my games (that I can remember), but in my BW game one of the players - when his PC was in a difficult situation in the Bright Desert - declared "Everyone knows that Suel tribesmen are thick as fleas on a dog in these parts" and then rolled a Circles check. (It failed - hence the PCs ended up, briefly, in the custody of Wassal.)
> 
> Here's another: the player conjectures, "There are barbarians in the north, aren't there?" and then makes a Northern Wastes Lore (or whatever skill is appropriate) check. If it succeeds, the conjecture is true. If it fails, the GM gets to narrate a consequence for failure as usual - there are no barbarians, perhaps; or there are barbarians, but they are democrats who kill all those among them who display pretensions to kingship. (I just made that up, in about twice the time it took to type it.)



Thus the player's declaration forces a roll, the results of which determine and lock in (or lock out) game world content?

So, shared worldbuilding as well as shared story-building.  Got it.

And then I see this:



> Well, I'm running a game set in Hardby, and I don't have a map, or anything but the info in the GH booklets (pp 23, 25, 41 of the Boxed Set Guide to the WoG):



You're running in a pre-fab setting!  Neither you nor your players need to worry o'ermuch about game-world content because much of it has already been done for you.  As in...



> [T]he heir [of the Landgraf of the Selintan] was wed to the daughter of the Gynarch (Despotrix) of Hardby, a sorceress of no small repute. Their descendants ruled a growing domain . . . In 498 it [Greyhawk] was declared a free and independent city, ruling a territory from Hardby . . . to the Nyr Dyv . . . These holdings have been lost over the intervening decades . . . The Despotrix of Hardby now pays tribute to Greyhawk to avoid being absorbed into the growing city state once again . . . Portions of the [Wild Coast] have been under the control of . . . the Gynarch of Hardby . . . at various times.​



So here you've got a basic history of the town and region already built for you; and the specific locations (Cabal tower, catacombs, etc.) you listed were also pre-fab (though obviously you and-or your players tweaked them to suit your particular fiction).

What this tells me is that much of our recent conversation regarding game-world content has been comparing apples and oranges:  

You're using a pre-built setting, so all the heavy lifting of the world and setting construction-history-backstory has already been done by someone else who is not involved in your game; your ongoing fiction simply changes and-or alters and-or affects *what's already there*.  And the players, through possible prior knowledge of the Greyhawk setting, may already know what's out there and why - which removes some of the exploration side.

I'm using a setting I built from scratch just for this campaign.  This by default means I needed to determine (and thus know) the "what's already there" ahead of time so that it COULD be changed or altered or affected by what the PCs do once play began.  Nobody else fully knows this setting; the players through their characters get to explore it and learn about it as they go, while I occasionally act as gazetteer as well as referee.  I don't have a Hardby or a Suel Waste or the sorceress Gynarch or booklets worth of pre-written history and backstory to fall back on; whatever and whoever's out there is my own creation, meaning the history and backstory are also my own.  And if this alone makes my game "DM-driven" then so be it, and by extension the same must then be said of the game of any other DM who has built his-her own setting.

Lan-"building one's own setting really forces most of the prep work to happen before play even starts"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Xetheral said:


> Once the PCs failed their checks to talk their way past the guards, you determined that the consequence would be to haul them off to prison. You may feel justified in doing so by the mechanics of the system, but, from this moment going forward, you're thwarting the PC's ability to avoid capture in order to impose a specific outcome: imprisonment. That seems to fit the definition of railroading that I understand you to be using. The only difference is that the outcome the PCs are being railroaded towards was the result of the combination of a failed check and the "no retries" rule, as opposed to having been chosen for story purposes. The consequences to the players after the failed check are identical: either way the character ends up in prison despite having an ability to avoid it.
> 
> More generally, I'm struggling to see how framing the game world (e.g. the falcon-proof prison) or resolving PC actions (e.g. preventing a subsequent shapeshift after social interaction failed) _to thwart player intent as a result of a failed check_ (as opposed to simply narrating the failure itself) is ever practically distinguishable from framing the game world or resolving PC actions _to thwart player intent to send the story in a particular direction_.



Either way, I'm struggling to see how any of this is a Bad Thing.

Whether by railroad or by dice-roll chance or by "framing" - it just doesn't matter.  What matters, on the micro-scale of a few minor events like this, is whether the end result moved play along in a way that was interesting, consistent, and believable for all involved*.  It seems that in this case it did, so beyond that who really cares?

For me the significant questions only really arise at the macro level - worldbuilding, overall story determination/advancement, ongoing player and-or DM agency, and so forth.

* and if there was some humour or whimsy included, so much the better! 

Lan-"go directly to jail.  Do not pass Go.  Do not collect $200."-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> 3e hand-waved most material components with the 'spell component pouch,' ...



I actually do likewise in my game unless there's a cost involved e.g. the 100+ g.p. pearls for Identify are tracked meticulously.

Which reminds me - two of 'em had their component pouches whacked by a fireball last session, I still need to go through and see what components they can salvage (the players left it in my hands to sort out as the session was ending then anyway).

Lan-"DM homework"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> By "many" you mean just 4e and 5e?



B/X doesn't have spell components. Spell components are an optional rule in 2nd ed AD&D. They are de facto optional in 3E or 5e (via component pouches, foci). 4e doesn't have spell components. Chainmail/OD&D doesn't have spell components. The only addition to treat material components as fully canonical is 1st ed AD&D.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> BWere they just wearing light armour e.g. leather



Yes.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> If players don't want their PCs to die, then why are they running a system that runs a risk of producing that outcome? It just seems a bit weird - as if the GM fudging is an ad hoc compensation for inadequate mechanics.
> 
> In D&D this ought to be trivial - just treat PC "death" (however your particular iteration of D&D defines that) as unconsciousness for some indeterminate moment of time - then the PC regains consciousness being nursed by his/her friends, hanging upside down in an ice cave, or whatever else makes sense in the fiction.




That's one approach. But it really depends on the goal of the players and the game. It's often the more epic storylines (say Lord of the Rings style, or the original Dragonlance campaign) where the players want to sort of follow the original storyline to a large degree. Not my cup of tea, but I can certainly run the game if that's what they are looking for. I prefer more of the living sandbox approach, but I'm just one person at the table. 

Is it D&D? Is it an RPG? I'd say yes. 

Certainly near death scenes can fit that type of storyline too. But whether it's fudging the dice at the time, or deciding ahead of time that they won't outright die and have prepared alternatives, the end result is the same.

Really, all I'm saying is that after 30+ years of DMing I've met all sorts of players. Especially since a lot of them have been new to the game. Not everybody "gets" the idea of an RPG the same way as others. And for some, it's just not the type of game they've decided to continue playing. D&D is remarkably resilient to a lot of playing styles, and I've seen quite a few. Enough to know that any style I like, or any given style of play, or even a specific rule, is ultimately one of personal preference, either by an individual or a group. 

As a DM, I try to not only keep an open mind, but often find that things or approaches I don't think of on my own might work with with other groups.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> It seems to me there are three options.
> 
> (1) Prisons that are narrated always have bars, small gaps, etc such that shapechanging PCs can escape them (ie can never be held in prison).
> 
> (2) Prisons that are narrated never have bars, small gaps, etc.
> 
> (3) Prisons that are narrated sometimes have bars, small gaps, etc; and sometimes not. Given that my setting is a trad fantasy one where timber is more prevalent than worked metal, (3) seems the most logical.
> 
> Then, within 3, there is the question - how do we decide which prisons are which? We might roll % dice. BW has a mechanic for that (called the "die of fate") but it is not a major part of the system, because it only comes into play when other considerations that would inform framing and resolution are exhausted.
> 
> Another way to decide would be via action declaration and resolution: the player could have tried to roll an Architecture or similar check to discover the gap his falcon-form can fly through. But he chose not to - presumably because he suspected he wouldn't succeed at that.
> 
> Given that a DoF was not appropriate, and that the player didn't declare any action relevant to the construction of the prison, my framing stands. It's a consequence of failure; hence, you didn't get what you wanted (ie you're not getting where you wanted to get with your bodies); hence you can't just fly out in falcon form and negate the failure. You're going to actually have to deal with the failure. (Which he did: he created an illusion of himself and the other prisoner; turned the two of them invisible; and then the assassin tried to pick the lock, taking the time to make the attempt with care. Unfortunately that check failed, and so - per the rules of the game - I am entited to impose a major time-based complication (due to the taking of the bonus for a careful attempt). That was the cliffhanger on which we finished our short session last Sunday.)




Not that it matters in the specific discussion, but there's a fourth option (among, as I'm sure, others):

In my campaign it's explicitly stated that in a world where things like magic and shapeshifting exist, that something like the simply prospect of imprisoning somebody is different than in our world. Suspected spell casters, or possibly everyone, is bound and gagged, often in a position that makes it difficult to overcome (such as chaining them in a spread eagle position on a wall). In addition, it's also noted that a reason for the druid's unwillingness to wear metal armor is that wearing metal can interfere with their druidic abilities, including shapeshifting. Metal manacles are enough to prevent this.

Not all locations will take all such precautions against all prisoners. But the fact that the world addresses imprisonment differently in a mundane way, not to mention potential magical precautions, means that they aren't always going to have an easy chance of escaping by spell or shape changing. 

Overall, I'm more concerned with developing an internal consistency within the world, so the players have a framework to understand it a bit better. On the other hand, most jails are designed to hold "most" people, and particularly the types of people that are regularly imprisoned in that town, city, etc. So they may not have sufficient protections against higher level spell casters, every type of spell caster, or every special ability.

Defenses against flying creatures and spells is another thing that many have to be prepared for, as another example. Town armories typically have a supply of silver arrows on hand in the event of a lycanthrope attack is another.

Regardless, and important factor is to frame things and set expectations so the players have a good base of understanding to make decisions. Even if something wasn't explicitly described before hand, if you're good at setting expectations and establishing trust with the players, then when there is a new situation that is a bit of a surprise, it's not viewed as a punitive attempt to shut down a character's special ability.


----------



## Emerikol

It's interesting reading through these posts.  I admit I skipped a over a few pages.  I don't drop by often enough.  I won't even say the discussion is worthless because it helps for people to hear the pros and cons of all styles so they can find the one that suits them.  That has value.   I do though dislike it when an argument goes beyond what you like to the feeling you are describing a superior way.  I really don't think this is a matter of better or worse.  Obviously all forms can be played poorly or well.  It's more of an apples and oranges thing.  We've just discovered that roleplaying is a lot broader subject than perhaps it was in the beginning.

For me, I don't want to create the world as a player.  I want to explore what the DM has created and attempt to immerse myself in the idea that I am actually in a world that is independent of me.  One where I can prosper or fail by my actions just like real life but definitely not one where I can change the underlying nature of things.  I see dungeons as skill challenges for the group.  Preparing the right equipment, performing the right steps when inside, and using the right strategies to defeat enemies.  I want it to be possible to play poorly and die unintentionally.  I was trying to live but I died because I failed to play as well as I should have or even by a twist of fate.  

Maybe being part of the original roleplaying generation in the 70's (perhaps just a smidge after that) I just came to love that style of play so I never felt the need to seek another.  I do think the ideas put out here are interesting and often things I never conceived of for a game.  It's great the game can expand.  I think at the root of the edition wars was this dichotomy of playstyle.  We bent the game to our own tastes.  It's why some people thought 3e such a departure from all that came before while others felt 4e was the great departure.  It goes back to how we played 1e & 2e in the first place.  

I wish these game design ideas though would become more formally understood and the language more fully developed.  I wish game designers would actually target audiences directly instead of straddling different philosophies.  It might make us all a lot more satisfied.  I know D&D will never do that.  They'll always attempt to reach a broad audience.  It's why I decided to abandon D&D.  But anyone can design a game.  So I'm hopeful.  Right now the trend is in the other direction with games like dungeon world etc...

I think the whole battle leading up to 5e took the fight out of me.  It was tiring and ultimately fruitless.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> it really depends on the goal of the players and the game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> whether it's fudging the dice at the time, or deciding ahead of time that they won't outright die and have prepared alternatives, the end result is the same.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Not everybody "gets" the idea of an RPG the same way as others.



I'm not sure whether you think that using mechanics that provide for PC death, but then fudging those mechanical outcomes, is an instace of "getting", or "not getting", the idea of an RPG.

I still think it's a bit weird - if PCs aren't meant to die, then why use mechanics that provide for this possibility?


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> I'm more concerned with developing an internal consistency within the world, so the players have a framework to understand it a bit better.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> and important factor is to frame things and set expectations so the players have a good base of understanding to make decisions. Even if something wasn't explicitly described before hand, if you're good at setting expectations and establishing trust with the players, then when there is a new situation that is a bit of a surprise, it's not viewed as a punitive attempt to shut down a character's special ability.



Another way to help ensure internal consistency of the gameworld, that the players understand, is for the players to participate in shaping it (eg authoring PC backstories; declaring actions that then underpin the GM's narration of consequences; etc).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> So here you've got a basic history of the town and region already built for you; and the specific locations (Cabal tower, catacombs, etc.) you listed were also pre-fab



I quoted the entirety of the "pre-fab" setting.

It doesn't say anything about cabals, towers, catacombs etc.

I've explained where the tower came from: I narrated it because I wanted a high place (the mage PC had the Instinct "if I fall, cast Falconskin"), and I liked the Tower of the Elephant feel.

I've explained where the catacombs came from.

The cabal was an Affiliation established by the player for the PC at character creation.

As I posted in the long-running "lore" threads, the GH boxed set gives a map, a general geography, and a sketch of a swords-and-sorcery suitable history.



Lanefan said:


> all the heavy lifting of the world and setting construction-history-backstory has already been done by someone else



Let me requote the _totality_ of the lore on Hardby:

[T]he heir [of the Landgraf of the Selintan] was wed to the daughter of the Gynarch (Despotrix) of Hardby, a sorceress of no small repute. Their descendants ruled a growing domain . . . In 498 it [Greyhawk] was declared a free and independent city, ruling a territory from Hardby . . . to the Nyr Dyv . . . These holdings have been lost over the intervening decades . . . The Despotrix of Hardby now pays tribute to Greyhawk to avoid being absorbed into the growing city state once again . . . Portions of the [Wild Coast] have been under the control of . . . the Gynarch of Hardby . . . at various times.​
That establishes that Hardby is ruled by a magic-using Gynarch/Despotrix, and has an uneasy and unstable political relationship with the City of Greyhawk and with parts of the Wild Coast.

It's some basic colour. Not more.


----------



## Campbell

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure whether you think that using mechanics that provide for PC death, but then fudging those mechanical outcomes, is an instance of "getting", or "not getting", the idea of an RPG.
> 
> I still think it's a bit weird - if PCs aren't meant to die, then why use mechanics that provide for this possibility?




It might be true that there are adverse fictional outcomes a given player does not want to accept while at the same time removing those outcomes as mechanical possibilities might not be what that player is looking for. I think there is a sort of player who wants to feel like they are playing to find out what happens while at the same time desiring that "the story comes out right" and play matches an expected narrative structure. They want to feel the tension of the moment while not actually taking any sort of real risk that things might not turn out as they expect them to. They need a release valve, but a mechanized release valve requires acknowledging that they are not really willing to accept the results of following the fiction, playing their characters with integrity, and accepting the results of the game system. Instead the rely on social cues to get what they want from the GM and other players without saying it out loud because that would mean acknowledging it.

It's not just character death where we see this behavior in motion. That just happens to be the most visceral example. You also see this behavior in all sorts of examples where players have trouble accepting the consequences of their decisions or failed rolls, particularly in social situations. Alternatively there might be situations where they expect their characters to fail and will also apply social pressure to get the results they want to occur. Character concept seems to be the clarion call of this player type. _My character would never be fooled by such a simple ruse._


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> It might be true that there are adverse fictional outcomes a given player does not want to accept while at the same time removing those outcomes as mechanical possibilities might not be what that player is looking for. I think there is a sort of player who wants to feel like they are playing to find out what happens while at the same time desiring that "the story comes out right" and play matches an expected narrative structure. They want to feel the tension of the moment while not actually taking any sort of real risk that things might not turn out as they expect them to. They need a release valve, but a mechanized release valve requires acknowledging that they are not really willing to accept the results of following the fiction, playing their characters with integrity, and accepting the results of the game system. Instead the rely on social cues to get what they want from the GM and other players without saying it out loud because that would mean acknowledging it.
> 
> It's not just character death where we see this behavior in motion. That just happens to be the most visceral example. You also see this behavior in all sorts of examples where players have trouble accepting the consequences of their decisions or failed rolls, particularly in social situations. Alternatively there might be situations where they expect their characters to fail and will also apply social pressure to get the results they want to occur. Character concept seems to be the clarion call of this player type. _My character would never be fooled by such a simple ruse._



This is an interesting thought.

So "character concept" becomes divorced from the idea of mechanics that give effect to character concept.

This sort of player would presumably not like 4e. Nor BW or MHRP, I suspect.


----------



## Manbearcat

Nagol said:


> I'm always somewhat hesitant to dig into armchair analysis of such play examples, especially for improv-based games, because the analysts are able to pick at nits while missing out on the emotional table-state and known player qualities and not suffering the time and performance pressures.  But here we go.




You're fine.  Doesn't bother me unless I'm fairly certain the involved party isn't sincere.  I know you're sincere, so pick away.  Besides, I invited it and I think this is good (and topical) conversation.



Nagol said:


> Absolutely! and the best way to mechanically address this leverage would be through a bonus to the roll!  Oh wait, that's the wrong type of rule mechanics for this game.  Although not forbidden, such probability adjustments are discouraged.  Follow the story where the dice go and if the situation is trivial, don't bother with a roll is closer to its credo.
> 
> So based on your description I would expect no roll would be necessary to appropriately persuade the dog to take the food.  If a roll is called for, then obviously there are other factors at play which will be revealed on a 9-. Like the fact the dog isn't a dog, isn't in the condition presented, isn't alone, will attack regardless, or perhaps the dog will flee to its death rather than deal with a human.




My thoughts here:

1)  As you mentioned, the relevance of the Leverage _can _be an input to action resolution (take +1 or take -1).  However, as you also mentioned, it is discouraged as being a mere input to action resolution.  Therefore, we're left with it being an impact on the output of action resolution.  

In this case, that output would be "what happens" on a 7-9 or a 6-.  So, for consideration I've got (a) the holistic approach of DW's Agendas/Principles, (b) the overarching fictional positioning to account for, and (c) the specific fictional positioning of the leverage in question.  On (c), my sense of it as an output for action resolution is to serve to  mitigate failure prospects specific to that Parley move.  That is, like _Instincts _in Burning Wheel, this Leverage (along with all of (a) and (b) above) contracts my prospects for for framing the fiction post-move resolution.  

Now that doesn't mean that I can't make things suck post-resolution.  It just means that I feel constrained such that I shouldn't make things suck post-resolution in a specific way (the dog going full aggro/hostile).  I aslo think part of what may be happening here is maybe you're showing a certain predisposition toward tight coupling of causal logic in action resolution that I don't share (our conversations have gone in this direction in the past).  In this case:

Parley = Task input to action resolution (this has primacy...not context, not intent, and/or not genre logic)
Fortune = Failure
Thefore...
Output must = Consequence of failure should mean adverse NPC attitude toward PC (possibly manifesting hostility, but either way, closing off social prospects). 

In my case, I take the position that the the components in parentheses should have primacy here.  There can still be conflict in Dungeon World even if the dog is predisposed toward wanting companionship, security, food.  It can just be less apt to do so given the overarching context and its present circumstances.  Therefore, the danger in Parley doesn't have to be hostility of the NPC.  It could be any number of dangers; in this case the wilds, the weather, and the gathering dusk that the creature fled to.  Dungeon World is predicated upon this kind of stuff snowballing into orthogonal content generation/danger introduction.

So "say yes" wouldn't need (and I say shouldn't) apply here.  I don't think the situation was trivial at all.  The situation was definitely fraught with peril and there was danger to be had with no guarantee of gaining the asset (despite the predisposition and the canny Leverage the PC deployed).

Finally, Blades in the Dark has introduced further formalizing of GM adjudication that you may like (I think its helpful).  Each situation's fictional positioning is declared as "controlled", "risky", or "desperate".  The complications/costs/results of action resolution become more punitive as you move from the left to the right.  For instance, "controlled" would be when you're on your turf and holding most (but not all) of the cards.  My opinion going into that play moment would definitely have been that the situation was either controlled or somewhere between controlled teetering on risky.  

2)  As I re-examine this moment of play, the only real prospect of removing the asset from the fiction (because I don't believe hostility would apply and running headlong into the reindeer herd would be absurd) would be a predation from below.  The Ranger (and high Wis Ranger at that) shouldn't have a hard move introduced where an avian or land-based creature (specifically on an open glacial expanse that isn't under fulldark) swoops/sneaks in right on top of the PC and takes the dog.  That would be akin to violating an _Instinct_ in BW.  So the only option for outright removing the asset would have been a subterranean predation.  Problem is, I wasn't even aware of the Remorhaz at that point (I introduced evidence of the creaturet the next afternoon I believe).  So it didn't even occur to me.  

If I had thought of a Remorhaz attack (the ground beneath begins to subtly rumble, geysers explode in steam all around, etc) and it consumed the dog as it exploded from the earth (then potentially threatening the PC), I'm assuming you would have found this more palatable (not from a process-sim perspective, but from a "locked the asset out" perspective)?  I may have done that if I would have thought of it.  Sometimes you're limited by the best bit of dangerous fiction your brain can offer you in the moment (even though I still think the route I went was best all things considered).



Nagol said:


> And this is my primary complaint with the system.  It places undue reliance on the GM to adhere to the game's principles and provides few checks the players can use to detect or correct for variance.  A GM can trivally insert soft moves and moves coloured with his own expectations to guide players around by the nose with similar effect to an outcome-based game like D&D's DM using illusionism and fudging.  This is made worse in some ways because there is no secondary check method (such as rolling in the open) that can be used to constrain the behaviour.  Quite often, the GM would need to drift the situation quite far to get off genre and thus become detectable.




I think holistically the system is considerably more coherent, transparent (the machinery of action and resolution should be apparent for players), and wholly easier to "play to find out" than you give it credit for here.  Trying to apply force seems to be much more arduous and flat difficult than just playing straight.  

That being said, Blades in the Dark has introduced "Clocks" in a different way than the Threat Clocks of Apocalypse World.  These serve as a physical, player-facing countdown to failure/escalation as a conflict is introduced.  When the clock ticks, things get more and more pear-shaped until all the segments are filled or the scene has been resolved positively for the players.  



Nagol said:


> 50 mph for a couple hundred meters, tops.  Typical running speed is half that and typical herd travel speed is half that again.  I'd expect the tag to shift from far to near or at worst close next round which makes them a threat but not an immediate one.




Well, on this we get into the abstraction of the Near and Far tags.  Near is "can see the whites of your eyes" and Far is "shouting distance".  To firm up the fictional positioning when its required for players to make informed action declarations, I typically default to 10-15 meters for Near and beyond that out to 100 meters for Far.  Real world hunters typically stalk and kill between 30 and 40 meters.  Proficient archers can hit targets with compound bows at about 50 to 60 meters.  60 meters is well inside the limits of being able to understand someone shouting.  All told then, I think 100 meters would apply and is more than fair, IMO, for fantasy genre hunters.  

Our fastest speed in the 100 is about 28 MPH.  You're talking inside 10 seconds.  Move that up to a 50 MPH sprint and you're effectively talking in your face in short order.  The prospects of escaping by foot-speed seem rather grim.  You're almost assured of being trampled by those 10 reindeers that can move about double your speed.  If a player would have declared that they were going to attempt to outrun them, I would have declared "allright, but (a) you can't get a 10+ and (b) you take -1 (this would definitely be a situation that would apply)."

So, I suppose here my sense of "immediate" may be slightly different than your own.  My sense is that you're Defying Danger right now if you don't have some other method of eggress (more on that below).



Nagol said:


> I think it'd apply here if the player had rolled a 7-9 total not a 6-.  Partial success being of course, you have gained the dog's trust and it is open to you; how do you plan on saving its (and your own) life?
> I feel a 6- should remain a failure.  "The dog backpadels from you baring its teeth; the beast has obviously had bad interactions with humans in the past.  Gaining its trust is going to take much longer if it is at all possible. <Cue herd of reindeer> what do you do?"
> 
> There is very limited material differences between presented result and a theoretical 7-9 result assuming the same threat introduction move was made and the player got the primary goal: the dog became accessible.  The failure was short-circuited.  It coupld be because the first thing that came to mind and the GM needs to keep the momentum going.  It could be the GM is an animal-lover and would prefer a good outcome.  It could be because the GM knows the player is an animal-lover and would take a bad outcome more poorly than is desirable.  It could also be the GM has future plans for the dog (and the alien egg growing inside it bwah haha) and doesn't want to see that opportunity lost.  Why doesn't matter much.  The failure was short-circuited.




If she would have gotten a 7-9, my response would have likely have been:

"Alright, you give the dog some food (mark off 1 Ration).  It scarfs it down and looks at you for more.  Sating its appetite and earning its trust will definitely require more than a single Ration."  

So you're looking at a situation where the player gives up a 2nd Ration.  Most D&D groups don't know what its like to be "Ration-stressed."  Dungeon World games exist in that state perpetually so this isn't a small resource expenditure.  Further still, this group was inevitably going to be Ration-stressed beyond normal (limited areas to resupply and in a wasteland bereft of foraging and hunting opportunities.  So every extra Ration spent is costly.  Exacerbating things further still is taking on the extra mouth of the dog.  Further still, the Ration-stressed situation would be exacerbated the next day as the group took on several more mouths to feed!  Coin (which they were also desperately short on, so they would then become "Coin-stressed") and Resupplying (in Earthmaw) would become a desparate thing.

Finally, the ultimate cost of the whole ordeal was:

1)  3 Ammo

After a quick look around at her options, Saerie determined that the reindeer were probably maddened and indeed making a bee-line for her.  Further, the snow-drift was likely her only real chance to escape.  She grabbed the dog, dove into the partial burrow and collapsed the roof on she and the dog.  She rolled a 9 on her Defy Danger.  Consequently, in the doing, the frantic dog squirmed and kicked and upended her quiver.  Out spilled nearly all her arrows (only 1 Ammo left..so now "Ammo-stressed"...for a primary archer Ranger).  She could snag them and face the danger of the herd or sacrifice them and stay put.  She chose to sacrifice them.

Now this could have easily snowballed very badly if Saerie would have failed her Discern Realities or Defy Danger effort.  So the danger/threat level of this situation was not only not insignificant, it was positively deadly.

2)  2 Rations

She had to pay the equivalent of the 7-9 Rations for the dog anyway.

In the doing, she gained an old, deaf dog as a Cohort/Hireling which she would have to regularly pay its Cost to keep up its Loyalty.  The dog could help her on Hunt and Track (take +1 but you can only get a max 7-9) or grant her a +1 to Defy Danger (with 7-9 max result) where the fictional positioning warrants it...but it would put the dog in peril.  

I don't believe she may have used the first feature once and the second perhaps twice.

Further, she would get some minor intel (mostly independent confirmation on what they found in journals/records in the village or what they had surmised/deduced) on what transpired in World's End Bluff.

She would form a bond with the old dog though, so when he died it was a big deal (hence her Spirit Realm journey to commune with his spirit).



So I guess what I'm getting at with the above is:

* I don't think "say yes" was the right approach here despite the situation being the equivalent of "Controlled" fictional positioning in Blades in the Dark.

* I think Leverage as an output (constraining or opening outcomes contingent upon Leverage deployed) to action resolution rather than an input (eg take +1 or -1) is the way to go.

* The move certainly felt much more of a Hard Move to me than it seems it was to you.

* The ceiling cost (high likelihood of death or at least considerable HP damage or Debility) of the move made was even higher than the cost that was ultimately paid (which was significant from a resource perspective).

* I think a Dungeon World that uses Blades in the Dark's Clocks as conflict resolution would likely be much more palatable to you as a gaming engine (or hell, just use all of BitD's machinery rather than DW).


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Another way to help ensure internal consistency of the gameworld, that the players understand, is for the players to participate in shaping it (eg authoring PC backstories; declaring actions that then underpin the GM's narration of consequences; etc).



Just as likely to impair the internal consistency, though...too many cooks, and all that.



> I quoted the entirety of the "pre-fab" setting.
> 
> It doesn't say anything about cabals, towers, catacombs etc.



The bit you quoted didn't, but you then went on to say what locations within Hardby you'd used, implying they were pre-written things you'd simply reskinned or reflavoured to suit your group's own game/story.



> As I posted in the long-running "lore" threads, the GH boxed set gives a map, a general geography, and a sketch of a swords-and-sorcery suitable history.



Which is already far, far more than someone designing their setting from scratch has.



> Let me requote the totality of the lore on Hardby:
> 
> [T]he heir [of the Landgraf of the Selintan] was wed to the daughter of the Gynarch (Despotrix) of Hardby, a sorceress of no small repute. Their descendants ruled a growing domain . . . In 498 it [Greyhawk] was declared a free and independent city, ruling a territory from Hardby . . . to the Nyr Dyv . . . These holdings have been lost over the intervening decades . . . The Despotrix of Hardby now pays tribute to Greyhawk to avoid being absorbed into the growing city state once again . . . Portions of the [Wild Coast] have been under the control of . . . the Gynarch of Hardby . . . at various times.
> 
> That establishes that Hardby is ruled by a magic-using Gynarch/Despotrix, and has an uneasy and unstable political relationship with the City of Greyhawk and with parts of the Wild Coast.
> 
> It's some basic colour. Not more.



I'm assuming the totality of the lore has more detail to it, given all the ". . ." included.  You'll also have a map showing where the town is and what's around it.  Again, that's what I'd have to come up with myself - which then gets me accused of having a DM-driven game.

I think you need to cut those of us who design our own settings a little slack.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - I've given you the entirety of the lore on Hardby. The elisions are comments about other things (you'll see that the lore is spread over 3 pages, none of which has "Hardby" as a heading - the info is in the sections on Greyhawk City and on the Wild Coast.

As I think I already posted twice:

The tower was introduced in the first session, because one of the players had an Instinct "If I fall, cast Falconskin". I therefore wanted a high place. I'd also been recently re-reading Tower of the Elephant.

The owner of the tower - the head of the cabal - was introduced into the fiction by the mage player, attempting a Circles check in the first session.

The cathedral was introduced into the fiction in response to the player making contact with a friendly cleric (via a Circles check).

The catacombs were introduced in play, via the interaction between narration of the mummy (whom the mage PC was investigating) and the PCs attempt to flee the city by making contact with a friendly noble.

The GH boxed set gives us a map, some names for locations on the map, and some basic background (eg the ancient Suel) which support swords-and-sorcery tropes.​
The fictional backdrop can be created in play. it doesn't need to be pre-authored.

This is related to techniques of resolution: eg when characters are racing one another through the city, we don't plot out paths on a city map (there is no city map). We make opposed checks; when the PCs are trying to make their way through the catacombs, there is no map we look at, and no "getting lost" roll - rather, we make a Catacombs-wise roll (the last of these that was made failed; hence the two PCs got lost in the catacombs while the assassin, whom they had drugged, regained consciousness and was able to beat them to the tower).

  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] talked upthread about world creation in Dungeonworld. It is not identical to what I've described - eg [-]BW[/-]DW has the concept of "Fronts" and doesn't (I don't think) have the concept of "Circles checks". But it similarly works with a low degree of detail at the start, filled out via play.

And in this Cortex Fantasy game, which has run now for two sessions, the starting setting was _vikings_. That's it. All the details were established in play. It wasn't lacking in colour.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure whether you think that using mechanics that provide for PC death, but then fudging those mechanical outcomes, is an instace of "getting", or "not getting", the idea of an RPG.
> 
> I still think it's a bit weird - if PCs aren't meant to die, then why use mechanics that provide for this possibility?




Why? The same reason that video games let you pick up right where you died, as if you didn't? I didn't say that _I_ get it, but it's not an uncommon situation to run into people that expect that they can just keep going. The death saves and ever increasing access to resurrection magic has a similar effect.

So the question is, what's worse/different:

The players meet a tough battle, and one of them dies. The cleric casts a healing spell, and they jump up as if nothing has happened and get back to the fight.

The players meet a tough battle, and one of them dies. The cleric casts revivify and the character jumps up and joins the fight as if nothing has happened.

The players meet a tough battle, and the DM fudges the die, so the player is knocked down to 1 hp. The cleric heals the player, and he rejoins the fight as if nothing has happened.

Personally, I don't like any of them, so the rules are different in my primary home campaign. Whether I use them for other groups depends on the group. 

Really, the way the game is currently set up, the PCs aren't only "not (necessarily) meant to die" but it's expected that should they decide so, there is always an option to recover from death. This is even built into Adventurer's League.

On the flip side are people who are adamant that only the dice, with no interference, should decide the fate of their PCs and the actions they choose to take. If they die, so be it. And they roll another character. Between those two extremes is almost everybody else.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Another way to help ensure internal consistency of the gameworld, that the players understand, is for the players to participate in shaping it (eg authoring PC backstories; declaring actions that then underpin the GM's narration of consequences; etc).




Depends on the players, and what sort of consistency you're trying to maintain. Even "professionals" often have difficulty maintaining the consistency of a world, witness the Forgotten Realms. 

Multiple authors gives a different feel and a different type of consistency, not to mention a different gameplay experience. I think most people agree that the players should have a lot of input into the backstories of their PCs, although the degree of latitude varies from table-to-table. Beyond that there's a wide range of what individual players and DMs prefer, and are capable of doing. After that, most default to what D&D really provides as their framework - you have control over your character, and the actions they take. The DM will handle everything else. 

And before anybody jumps on "capable of doing," it _is_ a thing. Just like some people are not suited to be a DM, some aren't capable of world design, etc. I had a friend who tried playing with us and just could not wrap his brain around even being a character in an imaginary world. No matter what the situation, the scenario, description or clarification, he was totally incapable of playing the game as a character. And he admits it. You're being attacked by goblins, what do you do? He had no idea - well, you're a wizard, and have these spells you can cast, what do you want to cast? I don't know. The only thing he came up with was to cut off the hand of a troll they killed so he could slap people with it.

It's just not the way his brain works. I'm not sure I've ever really seen anything like it, but he's amazing at something like MtG or League of Legends.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - I've given you the entirety of the lore on Hardby. The elisions are comments about other things (you'll see that the lore is spread over 3 pages, none of which has "Hardby" as a heading - the info is in the sections on Greyhawk City and on the Wild Coast.
> 
> As I think I already posted twice:
> 
> The tower was introduced in the first session, because one of the players had an Instinct "If I fall, cast Falconskin". I therefore wanted a high place. I'd also been recently re-reading Tower of the Elephant.
> 
> The owner of the tower - the head of the cabal - was introduced into the fiction by the mage player, attempting a Circles check in the first session.
> 
> The cathedral was introduced into the fiction in response to the player making contact with a friendly cleric (via a Circles check).
> 
> The catacombs were introduced in play, via the interaction between narration of the mummy (whom the mage PC was investigating) and the PCs attempt to flee the city by making contact with a friendly noble.
> 
> The GH boxed set gives us a map, some names for locations on the map, and some basic background (eg the ancient Suel) which support swords-and-sorcery tropes.​
> The fictional backdrop can be created in play. it doesn't need to be pre-authored.
> 
> This is related to techniques of resolution: eg when characters are racing one another through the city, we don't plot out paths on a city map (there is no city map). We make opposed checks; when the PCs are trying to make their way through the catacombs, there is no map we look at, and no "getting lost" roll - rather, we make a Catacombs-wise roll (the last of these that was made failed; hence the two PCs got lost in the catacombs while the assassin, whom they had drugged, regained consciousness and was able to beat them to the tower).
> 
> [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] talked upthread about world creation in Dungeonworld. It is not identical to what I've described - eg BW has the concept of "Fronts" and doesn't (I don't think) have the concept of "Circles checks". But it similarly works with a low degree of detail at the start, filled out via play.
> 
> And in this Cortex Fantasy game, which has run now for two sessions, the starting setting was _vikings_. That's it. All the details were established in play. It wasn't lacking in colour.




Dungeon World being a PBtA inspired mash-up of BW (more like Mouse Guard in tone though) + B/X + 4e, there is a lot of DNA overlap.  So the equivalent stuff (GMing procedures, Beliefs/Instincts, Circles et al) in Dungeon World to add things in play would be:

1)  the GM principles of "ask questions and use the answers" and "draw a map, leave blanks"
2)  GM *Fronts *with _Impulses _that oppose what the players have signaled their PCs care about
3)  the play Agenda of "play to find out".  

4)  These couple with the PC-side stuff of Basic Moves of Spout Lore, Carouse, and Recruit coupled with Class playbook specific moves like:



> *Wealth and Taste*
> When you make a show of flashing around your most valuable possession, choose someone present. They will do anything they can to obtain your item or one like it.






> *Connections*
> When you put out word to the criminal underbelly about something you want or need, roll+CHA.
> 
> ✴ On a 10+, someone has it, just for you.
> 
> ✴ On a 7–9, you’ll have to settle for something close or it comes with strings attached, your call.






> *Heirloom*
> When you consult the spirits that reside within your signature weapon, they will give you an insight relating to the current situation, and might ask you some questions in return, roll+CHA.
> 
> ✴ On a 10+, the GM will give you good detail.
> 
> ✴ On a 7-9, the GM will give you an impression.






> *Through Death’s Eyes*
> When you go into battle, roll+WIS.
> 
> ✴ On a 10+, name someone who will live and someone who will die.
> 
> ✴ On a 7-9, name someone who will live or someone who will die. Name NPCs, not player characters. The GM will make your vision come true, if it’s even remotely possible.
> 
> ✴ On a 6- you see your own death and consequently take -1 ongoing throughout the battle.






> *Weather Weaver*
> When you are under open skies when the sun rises the GM will ask you what the weather will be that day. Tell them whatever you like, it comes to pass.






> *My Love For You Is Like a Truck*
> When you perform a feat of strength, name someone present whom you have impressed and take +1 forward to parley with them.






> *Old Enemies *
> When you meet an enemy you've met before (your call), tell the GM of your last encounter with them. The GM will tell you how they've changed since then. When you come across a marked grave, tell the GM who they were and how you knew them.






> *A Lover In Every Port*
> When you enter a town that you’ve been to before (your call), roll +CHA. On a 10+, there’s an old flame of yours who is willing to assist you somehow. On a 7-9, they’re willing to help you, for a price. On a miss, your romantic misadventures make life more complicated for the party.




Etc, etc.  Hopefully that helps  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] (and whomever else is following your conversation) with the gist of how this stuff comes to pass/emerges in play for games like BW or DW and why these games would be considered (comparatively) player-driven.


----------



## Campbell

Ilbranteloth said:


> Depends on the players, and what sort of consistency you're trying to maintain. Even "professionals" often have difficulty maintaining the consistency of a world, witness the Forgotten Realms.
> 
> Multiple authors gives a different feel and a different type of consistency, not to mention a different gameplay experience. I think most people agree that the players should have a lot of input into the backstories of their PCs, although the degree of latitude varies from table-to-table. Beyond that there's a wide range of what individual players and DMs prefer, and are capable of doing. After that, most default to what D&D really provides as their framework - you have control over your character, and the actions they take. The DM will handle everything else.
> 
> And before anybody jumps on "capable of doing," it _is_ a thing. Just like some people are not suited to be a DM, some aren't capable of world design, etc. I had a friend who tried playing with us and just could not wrap his brain around even being a character in an imaginary world. No matter what the situation, the scenario, description or clarification, he was totally incapable of playing the game as a character. And he admits it. You're being attacked by goblins, what do you do? He had no idea - well, you're a wizard, and have these spells you can cast, what do you want to cast? I don't know. The only thing he came up with was to cut off the hand of a troll they killed so he could slap people with it.
> 
> It's just not the way his brain works. I'm not sure I've ever really seen anything like it, but he's amazing at something like MtG or League of Legends.




When it comes to consistency there are few things my group tends to do that I believe helps to maintain it.

*We constrain detail to what we need to create a space for play.* Unlike those Forgotten Realms authors our interests are not in creating an entire fictional world, complete with intricate details, lengthy histories, and the like. We are only really concerned with the things that concern our characters. We are not publishing lengthy treatises. If it does not enrich player decision making or help position characters into fiction we do not detail it. The intent is to create a rich space for play while leaving room to expand things further as needed. Often play will focus on a fairly limited geographic area that players come to really know and love. This has other implications on play, but one thing it helps achieve is an alignment of player and character interests. It also helps characters feel like they were not fully sprung up in their current state. This active knowledge base means I can depend on my players as a resource and a check when I go off the reservation.

*We elide what does not interest us, and dive deep into what does.* We do not have to know everything about the world, a city, or even a given player character. There is so much richness and diversity to a single life it would be impossible to meaningfully cover it all in play. We must choose where to focus our attention. In my case I tend not to focus overly much on exacting physical descriptions, distances, and hard measures of time. I describe things the same way I tend to see the world - in broad strokes with a focus on what stands out and with a focus on people. I do not really do maps well. I do build elaborate relationship maps players can add to and reference during play.  That's generally where my interests lay. Other players are generally free to work with me to elaborate on areas they wish to explore. I use their passion as a resource.

*We rely on players to be Subject Matter Experts.* Instead of depending on one person to keep all the details in their head, we divide up the labor. This is generally done on the basis of the characters they are playing. We assume you are playing a given type of character because you are interested in the fiction that goes along with it. I expect the player of a mage to care more about the way magic works than I might. I want to reward that investment. I also want to provide players with the opportunity to establish deep ties to their characters and really care about their lives so things like relationships, their allies, and even those they regard as enemies are up for grabs. This is another powerful chance to align player and character interests. You will see that a lot from me. I want to encourage the feeling of really being grounded in the setting and being an expert in the things you should be an expert in.

*We are exploring characters. We are not really exploring setting.* For us, the setting is a means to an end - not an end unto itself. Our primary interest is these characters and their web of connections to the fiction. Being flexible in our approach to setting development means we can maintain our focus on being consistent with the events of play, not conforming play to fit within the bounds of prepared material that often can feel contrived because it does not come from real people interacting with other real people. The social dynamic of play can result in fiction that feels more authentic and less designed. We focus on the fiction as experienced.

*We are not afraid of do overs and talking things out.*If we play something out and it does not feel authentic to our sense of the fiction or these characters we are not afraid to speak up. We also do not feel like we need to get it right the first time. If we miss some critical detail we can rewind and replay it or work together to clarify the situation. This ability to call each other out on our crap is a critical component of our play. *Our core assumption is that you do not really own your characters and no one really owns the fictional world.* We trust the GM to play the world with integrity and we trust the other players to play their characters with integrity. We trust everyone to be curious explorers of the fiction. Constructive criticism along the way is not only valued, but expected.



			
				There Are Limits said:
			
		

> I am a strong proponent of an active dedicated GM role. I do not think we really need GMs or roleplaying games to have a compelling roleplaying experience, but I believe there are definite upsides, particularly if you are also interested in having compelling gameplay like I am. In my preferred approach the GM plays the fictional world with integrity so that the other players can focus on playing their characters with integrity and really driving for the things their characters value. I do not believe GMs should shirk from this responsibility. I just believe they should use the other players as active resources when appropriate, seek to align character and player interests, and depend on them as a check. It's all about valuing the other players as creative equals.
> 
> However, there is a danger of too much influence from the other players. As a GM, they depend on you to provide a space to play in and meaningful adversity to test their characters against. Try not to tempt them to utilize the opportunities you provide as a release valve from the tension of the moment. This guided collaboration should be about creating a space to play in, not a creative writing exercise. Know their limits, and accept them throwing it back at you. MC. Bring it. The principle is *sometimes disclaim decision making*, not *always disclaim decision making* or *usually disclaim decision making*.


----------



## pemerton

Manbearcat said:


> Dungeon World being a PBtA inspired mash-up of BW (more like Mouse Guard in tone though) + B/X + 4e, there is a lot of DNA overlap.  So the equivalent stuff (GMing procedures, Beliefs/Instincts, Circles et al) in Dungeon World to add things in play would be <snip details>



Thanks for the detail: I'm not across all the classes in DW (I know that Thru Death's Eyes is a fighter move; I assume that Connections is a rogue/thief move; the others I'm not sure about, but I'm guessing they are also class moves), and this plugs some gaps in my knowledge/exposition!

EDIT: I looked some of them up: Weather Weaver is Druidic; Heirloom is a fighter move; Wealth and Taste is a thief move. I didn't find the others.

(For anyone else following a long: a class "move" in DW is similar to a feat or other ability gained on reaching a new level in WotC-style D&D.)


----------



## Campbell

My posts in this thread may sometimes lean to the critical end of analysis, but I do not believe that the ways I enjoy playing roleplaying games are right for everyone. They are simply approaches I enjoy talking about. I discussed GM as MC the most because I feel it is not always well understood in the mainstream audience of the hobby. I would like to see more people try playing more different games with more different people because I think it's helpful to find out what's out there, really understand it, and experience this stuff for yourself to find out what's the most fun for you.

When playing these games I ascribe to a certain set of assumptions that color my viewpoints. This originally comes from Deeper in the Game.



			
				The Fun Now Manifesto said:
			
		

> Not everyone likes the same thing.
> Play with people you like.
> Play with rules you like.
> Everyone is a player.
> Talking is good.
> Trust, not fear or power.
> It's a game, not a marriage.
> Fun stuff at least every 10 minutes.
> Address Problems. Don't Endure Them.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Depends on the players, and what sort of consistency you're trying to maintain. Even "professionals" often have difficulty maintaining the consistency of a world, witness the Forgotten Realms.



Well, when I talk about a gameworld I'm talking primarily about the confines of a particular shared fiction. The game I was discussing with    [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is not the first game I've run using GH as a setting, but I wouldn't expect stuff in this game to conform to details of what happened or was established in the prior games.

That said, I don't think the demands are as great as (say) editing the FR, or the Marvel Universe. No single GM is going to run campaigns that touch on even a fraction of the detail published for FR (most of which is not the outcome of RPG play but of story writing). So maintaining the consistency of a setting over years of play with multiple groups - should one want to do that - is not on a par with managing the FR.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Multiple authors gives a different feel and a different type of consistency, not to mention a different gameplay experience. I think most people agree that the players should have a lot of input into the backstories of their PCs, although the degree of latitude varies from table-to-table. Beyond that there's a wide range of what individual players and DMs prefer, and are capable of doing. After that, most default to what D&D really provides as their framework - you have control over your character, and the actions they take. The DM will handle everything else.



Your claim about "defaults" is probably true as an empirical matter. But my post was not about what is common; it was about what is possible.

In the game mentioned in the OP, at one point there was a confrontation (something of a foreshadowing of the decapitation in the tower bedroom) in the Hardby cathedral. The mage PC defeated the wizard/assassin, and took from her an artefact called Thelon's Orb, and hid it in the cathedral altar.

Now I hadn't said anything about an altar. The player declared the action, and in the process made it true in the shared fiction that the cathedral contains an altar (and an altar in or under which a large-ish crystal can be hidden). Is that a threat to consistency?

I don't think so. So much of what we do in fantasy RPGing rests on well-recognised tropes (including, eg, that cathedrals have high ceilings, altars, etc) that the player declaring that action _reinforces_ the consistency and colour of the shared fiction.

Likewise when - after that confrontation - the mage PC needed to find somewhere to rest and train for a few weeks. The player simply declared that his PC finds a cheap inn in the dive-y part of town. That doesn't threaten consistency - it reaffirms an existing shared picture of Hardby as a generic, all-purpose fantasy city (with catacombs, wizard towers, a cathedral, docks, etc). This is how Gygax first created the city and world of Greyhawk, after all; or what REH was doing with his "Hyborian Age".

And if, by this sort of thing, the player actually puts something at stake, then as GM I have procedures to fall back on: instead of simply "saying 'yes'", I call for an appropriate check. This came up when the PCs drugged the wizard assassin and then set off, through the catacombs, to the mage's tower. I clarified that there was not something I was missing in the fiction that would make it easy for the PCs to navigate easily through the catacombs to find a way into the tower; the players clarified for me that there was not. So - given that something most definitely was at stake (their ability to get to the tower before the wizard/assassin woke up) - I called for a Catacombs-wise check. Which failed. And so the wizard/assassin woke up as they wandered, lost, through the catacombs; and then, came across them as she made her own way to the tower, taunting them through an opening into the catacombs and sewers from the street; and then the race was on. (The PCs lost - hence the decapitation mentioned in the OP.)

I just don't see that, or how, this sort of role for the players is at odds with consistency.

EDIT: I read   [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post not far upthread and some of it is relevant to this reply. So here's a length addition to the post:



Campbell said:


> When it comes to consistency there are few things my group tends to do that I believe helps to maintain it.
> 
> *We constrain detail to what we need to create a space for play.* Unlike those Forgotten Realms authors our interests are not in creating an entire fictional world, complete with intricate details, lengthy histories, and the like. We are only really concerned with the things that concern our characters. We are not publishing lengthy treatises. If it does not enrich player decision making or help position characters into fiction we do not detail it.



This is true for my games.

In our main 4e game, all the Prime Material Plane action has taken place on the map on the inside cover of Night's Dark Terror - something like a 100 mile x 200 mile area.

The details of the cosmology have been drawn from an interaction between published sources and play. The fact that the Raven Queen aspires to be the sole god of the cosmos is an example of something established through play, the culmination of that being my narration of her Mausoleum, which was something that I (as GM) authored in the course of play:



pemerton said:


> The Mausoleum had three areas: an entrance room, with a large statue and modest altar; a set of stairs with slightly elevated ramps on either side leading down to the principal room - very large (about 90' x 50') with a huge statue and two pools of water, corrupted by the Abyss; and then a smaller set of stairs leading down to the burial room, with a large altar and five statues and 4 side rooms (the sarcophagus room, the room with canopic jars, the grave goods room and the treasure room).
> 
> The PCs started in the entrance <snippage> They studied the murals and reliefs in the entrance chamber, which showed the Raven Queen's victories during her life, becoming the most powerful ruler in the world (crushing her enemies, being adulated by her subjects, etc - I told the players to think of Egyptian tomb paintings, Mesopotamian reliefs, and similar).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The mural in the principal room - also a magical hazard if they got too close, which they made sure not to - depicted the mortal queen's magical achievements - including defeating a glabrezu on the Feywild, and travelling to the land of the dead (at that time, a land of black poplars ruled by Nerull).
> 
> The paladin looked in the cleansed pool to see what he could see, and saw episodes from the past depicting the Raven Queen's accretion of domains (fate from Lolth, in return for helping Corellon against her; winter from Khala, in return for sending her into death at the behest of the other gods); and then also the future, of a perfect world reborn following the destruction of the Dusk War, with her as ruler.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> they went down the last set of stairs to the burial room.
> 
> This room had a statue in each of four corners - the Raven Queen mortal, ruling death, ruling fate and ruling winter. The fifth statute faced a large altar, and showed her in her future state, as universal ruler. The murals and reliefs here showed the future (continuing the theme of the rooms: the entry room showed her mortal life; the principal room her magical life, including her passage into death; this room her future as a god). I made up some salient images, based on important events of the campaign: an image of the Wolf-Spider; an image of the a great staff or rod with six dividing lines on it (ie the completed Rod of 7 Parts, which is to be the trigger for the Dusk War); an image of an earthmote eclipsing the sun (the players don't know what this one is yet, though in principle they should, so I'll leave it unexplained for now); an image of a bridge with an armoured knight on it, or perhaps astride it - this was not clear given the "flat-ness" of the perspective, and the presence of horns on the knight was also hard to discern (the players immediately recognised this as the paladin taking charge of The Bridge That Can Be Traversed But Once); and an image of the tarrasque wreaking havoc.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Closer inspection showed that where it was possible the queen's name had once been written on the walls, this had been erased. The invoker/wizard decided to test whether this could be undone, by using a Make Whole ritual: he made a DC 52 Arcana check, and was able to do so (though losing a third of his (less than max) hp in the process, from forcing through the wards of the Mausoleum). Which resulted in him learning the name of the Raven Queen. And becoming more concerned than ever that it is vulnerable to others learning it to.
> 
> Asking the guardians confirmed that they also know her name, though will not speak it, as that would be an insult to the dead.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The player of the sorcerer had been very keen on the possibility of a magical chariot among the grave goods, and so I decided that there was a gilt-and-bronze Chariot of Sustarre (fly speed 8, 1x/enc cl burst 3 fire attack). They persuaded the guardians to let them borrow it



The map I had drawn in advance. The details of the murals and statutes, the vision in the pool, the details about the names on the wall - all that, and hence what it implies about the Raven Queen, was authored by me in the course of play, building on what had been established already in the campaign, and extrapolating it in such a way as to maintain and build the pressure on the players to make hard choices for their PCs (ie about their attitude towards the Raven Queen's rise-and-rise-and-rise).



Campbell said:


> *We elide what does not interest us, and dive deep into what does.* We do not have to know everything about the world, a city, or even a given player character. There is so much richness and diversity to a single life it would be impossible to meaningfully cover it all in play.



Yep, this.



Campbell said:


> *We rely on players to be Subject Matter Experts.*
> 
> <snip>
> 
> We assume you are playing a given type of character because you are interested in the fiction that goes along with it. I expect the player of a mage to care more about the way magic works than I might.



The details of dwarven society in our 4e game were authored by the player of the dwarf PC, as part of his backstory. The existence of a drow secret society of Corellon worshippers, hoping to free the drow from Lolth's rule so that they can return to the surface world and undo the sundering of the elves, was established by the player of the drow PC, initially in backstory and then developed over the course of the campaign.

The player of the invoker/wizard will often explain ingame phenomena that have become salient in the course of play by reference to his conception of how magic, the cosmology etc work. Sometimes this is just colour, and so just stands as he narrates it, adding to the collective experience of the game. Sometimes it is more than just colour. On those occasions, it may lay the groundwork for some permissible action declaration. Sometimes I just "say 'yes'" to this. If it needs to be massaged a bit to fit with something already established, I might work with the player to do this. If it looks like it is the player trying to narrate his PC into a free lunch, I might require a check to see if things _really_ work as the PC thinks (although, since reaching epic tier, most of those checks are auto-successes for this PC!).

In my previous long-running campaign, the player of the lead samurai established details around his family and their loyalties; the player of the animal spirit exiled to earth helped contribute details about the animal courts of heaven; etc.

Of all the ways of approaching worldbuilding that   [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] mentions, this one comes closest to what I would regard as common sense.



Campbell said:


> *We are exploring characters. We are not really exploring setting.* For us, the setting is a means to an end - not an end unto itself.



I would agree that the setting is a means to an end, but in our games sometimes that end is exploring the characters, but not always. In our main 4e game, it is about the reconciliation (if that is possible) of structure and "life"/"impulse"/"chaos". In this context we have a PC remaking the Rod of Seven Parts; a couple of Raven Queen (ie fate/death) cultists; an elemental-type sorcerer who wants to reconcile the primordials with the endurance of the created world as something distinct from the order of heaven; and an eternal defender who is also god of imprisonment, who wants to preserve the world from primordials trying to unleash the Dusk War but in doing so doesn't just want to hand it over to the rule of the Raven Queen.

These characters don't have a lot of personal depth independently of these bigger picture commitments (outside of the standard quirks of colour etc that come with most RPGing); but the setting is a vehicle for exploring/resolving this question. It would be disastrous if it had the answer already written into it! (Eg via GM-authored metaplot.)

This is the second "epic" cosmological game I've run - the previous, OA one turned on the relationship between human affairs - insignificant as they might seem from the divine point of view - and the laws, including the dubious compromises they contain, established by heaven to govern the world. Being an OA game, various and sometimes competing notions of "karma", "enlightenment" etc played a role in framing these issues. The PCs defied heaven, forming alliances with a dead and an exiled god, and ended up succeeding in saving humanity where heaven - due to its compromises - had failed.

This game was run using Rolemaster. It had more depth of personality to the PCs than the 4e one; but RM in many ways it a bit less robust at the moment of crunch. The PCs ultimate victory turned more heavily than (say) 4e does on the players making a strong case as to what their PCs could achieve given fictional positioning, with the role of mechanics not then being irrelevant, but a bit more secondary. While I still think RM is a system that is often unfairly maligned, and has a lot of good things about it, this campaign persuaded me that I wouldn't want to run it again for the sort of RPGing I'm interested in. It puts a lot of "free kriegsspiel"-type pressure on the GM, moreso than the systems I'm now using.

In this game, too, the idea of baking the outcome into the GM narration of setting - so changing the game from the form it took, to a type of puzzle- or mystery-focused game - would have been utterly disastrous.

So these are examples which (I think) show how setting can be a means to an end even when that end is as much about what is possible within the setting, and the meaning of events in the setting, rather than about the characters.



Campbell said:


> *We are not afraid of do overs and talking things out.*If we play something out and it does not feel authentic to our sense of the fiction or these characters we are not afraid to speak up. We also do not feel like we need to get it right the first time. If we miss some critical detail we can rewind and replay it or work together to clarify the situation.



Interesting. This is not a big part of our approach - or, at least, maybe we approach it in a different way. This is the sort of thing that we would tend to work out in the course of framing and establishing the content of an action declaration (establishing authenticity; clarifying the situation).

Elaborating on that: framing and action declaration are definitely not 1st person narration moments at our table. The discussion moves very flexibly between first person, second person (GM addressing player/PC as "you"), third person but character focused (eg "Jobe is trying to . . . "; "How does that relate to Jobe's Belief that . . . ?"; etc), and god's-eye-view third person.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In the game mentioned in the OP, at one point there was a confrontation (something of a foreshadowing of the decapitation in the tower bedroom) in the Hardby cathedral. The mage PC defeated the wizard/assassin, and took from her an artefact called Thelon's Orb, and hid it in the cathedral altar.
> 
> Now I hadn't said anything about an altar.



Did this confrontation occur in the main area of the cathedral, where the altar would logically be?  If yes, then why wouldn't the altar have been shown on the map?  Or do you not use a grid/board/minis for combat?



> Likewise when - after that confrontation - the mage PC needed to find somewhere to rest and train for a few weeks. The player simply declared that his PC finds a cheap inn in the dive-y part of town. That doesn't threaten consistency - it reaffirms an existing shared picture of Hardby as a generic, all-purpose fantasy city (with catacombs, wizard towers, a cathedral, docks, etc).



Something as basic as this would almost always be fine with me as well, if it made sense based on what I already knew about the city.  But if someone declared they were going to visit the palace in the same city I might very well turn around and ask "what palace?" as I already know this particular city isn't the ruling centre for anything and doesn't have a palace.



> And if, by this sort of thing, the player actually puts something at stake, then as GM I have procedures to fall back on: instead of simply "saying 'yes'", I call for an appropriate check. This came up when the PCs drugged the wizard assassin and then set off, through the catacombs, to the mage's tower. I clarified that there was not something I was missing in the fiction that would make it easy for the PCs to navigate easily through the catacombs to find a way into the tower; the players clarified for me that there was not. So - given that something most definitely was at stake (their ability to get to the tower before the wizard/assassin woke up) - I called for a Catacombs-wise check. Which failed. And so the wizard/assassin woke up as they wandered, lost, through the catacombs; and then, came across them as she made her own way to the tower, taunting them through an opening into the catacombs and sewers from the street; and then the race was on. (The PCs lost - hence the decapitation mentioned in the OP.)
> 
> I just don't see that, or how, this sort of role for the players is at odds with consistency.



Depends if someone wants to get into more detail than just check rolls.  Say instead of just rolling a check to get through the catacombs they wanted to know their exact route (i.e. make a rough line map as they went, requiring a route description from you-as-DM so a player could physically draw out the map) so they could quickly retrace their steps later if they needed to beat a hasty retreat...or, in this case, so they could use the map to help figure out where they were going wrong.

I'm fussy about detail in things like this, where it matters (as it obviously did here).  Were I DMing this I'd probably have spun that one catacombs-wise check out into half an hour of detailed play regarding where they were going (including asking at each intersection which way they were going), probably resulting in a map of much of the catacombs if they were really lost.  Result - whether or not I had those catacombs mapped out before they're mapped now for later reference should a party ever find their way down there again.  Were I a player I'd be the one wanting to draw the map.

Where it doesn't matter as much (say, finding one's way around the streets of town when there's no pressure or risk) I'm nowhere near as fussy.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Well, when I talk about a gameworld I'm talking primarily about the confines of a particular shared fiction. The game I was discussing with    [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is not the first game I've run using GH as a setting, but I wouldn't expect stuff in this game to conform to details of what happened or was established in the prior games.



When I talk about a game-world I'm talking about the whole thing, including what lies beyond the bits the PCs have actually encountered as those bits are potentially just waiting their turn to become relevant...or not, as the case may be.

Each time you've used Greyhawk as a setting, regardless of whether the "stuff in this game ... conform to details of what happened or was established in the prior games" it's still conforming to the background Greyhawk canon as a whole (more or less, let's not open that can o' worms again), meaning any player familiar with Greyhawk will have some vague ideas of what to expect.  This sets a whole series of baseline assumptions that whatever comes next can build on...and conveniently gets you off the "DM-driven" hook in this aspect as all you did was select that setting; the rest of the baseline info, maps, etc. is already out there if anyone cares to dig for it.

My current game-world is Akrayna.  Ever heard of it?  I doubt it - in fact if you have I'd be both surprised and rather impressed, as it's something I made up for this campaign.  My players had never heard of it either, before the campaign started, meaning they didn't have any baseline at all.  They had to learn about it from the maps I'd drawn, the info I'd posted, and things discovered later during the run of play.  Is this DM-driven?  By your definitions I'll guess it is.  Is it bad, or poor, or providing any sort of negative experience?  I don't think so in the least.

Therefore, DM-driven does not always equal bad.

Lan-"if a giant falls in the forest and there's no PCs there to see it, does anyone get xp?"-efan


----------



## darkbard

Whew! After a week of furious reading, I'm finally caught up in this thread.
 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I wonder if you might address how the Rod of Seven Parts, its relation to the Dawn/Dusk Wars, the role of Miska the Wolf-Spider, etc. came about in your game. Was finding/collecting the rod (a three tier-spanning artifact) a desideratum of the player from the time of character creation? Were details added by you as bits of color (drawing from canon material and shaped by player declaration) or introduced by player action? Etc.

I think your answers to these questions might help further elucidate the distinction you've drawn about a player-driven game--even when it comes to introducing an element (like this iconic artifact) to the game that could, in other hands, bias a group towards GM-driven story.


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> Whew! After a week of furious reading, I'm finally caught up in this thread.
> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], I wonder if you might address how the Rod of Seven Parts, its relation to the Dawn/Dusk Wars, the role of Miska the Wolf-Spider, etc. came about in your game. Was finding/collecting the rod (a three tier-spanning artifact) a desideratum of the player from the time of character creation? Were details added by you as bits of color (drawing from canon material and shaped by player declaration) or introduced by player action? Etc.
> 
> I think your answers to these questions might help further elucidate the distinction you've drawn about a player-driven game--even when it comes to introducing an element (like this iconic artifact) to the game that could, in other hands, bias a group towards GM-driven story.



On including iconic elements (Vecna, the Rod, etc): these work because they're tropes. (Not as generic as altars in cathedrals, but well-established in D&D gaming.)

So when the PCs first found the Sword of Kas, for instance, the player of the invoker/wizard had already been talking a bit about his character's strange relationship to Vecna as well Ioun. When I mentioned that the sword seemed hostile to him (I can't remember if it did damage when he touched it, or something like that) he worked out straight away it was the Sword of Kas. So this was a way of me affirming his conception of his PC, as well as helping to foreground the various layers of conflict (different commitments, hence different ultimate goals) among the PCs - eg the paladin wielded the Sword for a while, then the PCs gave it back to Kas, and then the paladin took it back from Kas about 15 levels later when the PCs killed him.

The Rod came into the game because the invoker/wizard (back when he was a 2nd level human wizard, before being reborn as a deva invoker/wizard) had died. I asked the player if he wanted to keep the PC or change characters - he wanted to keep the PC, and expressed this in terms of the PC's story not being over. So we talked about it a bit more, and he thought that the Raven Queen and Erathis might have a mission they needed to send him back to complete - finding a Nerathi artefact in the ruins near where the PC had died.

Originally this Sceptre of Law had some fairly undefined functions that the player would call upon - pointing the way to other Nerathi roads and ruins, for instance. But then I got the idea that it could be the Rod of Seven Parts, and the player bought into this as a development of his conception of his PC and his PC's quest.

For a while he used a Tome as his main implement, and had the Rod as a backup. But then, after he was reborn as an invoker, his Tome was largely stripped of magical power (in mechanical terms, I think this was running down the value of magic items so as to meet the notional cost of rituals to which he was no longer entitled for free as a class feature) and he fully embraced the Rod as his main source of magical power. Which it has been since. (He has access to the Crystal of the Ebon Flame, which from memory is a +6 implement, but because at first he had Misak trapped in it, and more recently Ygorl, he doesn't use that one on a day-to day basis.)

What will be interesting to see is whether - if/when he gets the 7th part from Miska - the rest of the party let him rejoin it to complete the Rod. Because this is prophesied to herald the coming of the Dusk War.

So I would see the Rod as a collaboration between me and the player: a mix of player-originated quest, a wish-list approach to items (which is how I approach "rewards" in 4e), and GM framing to help connect these things to the bigger picture of that PC and the rest of the PCs in the context of the default cosmology.

Miska the Wolf-Spider is another example: the PCs build and play PCs who, in various ways and for various reasons, are hostile to the primordials (or, at least, the more destructive ones); I introduce Miska as one personification of the thing they are hostile to.

What is important to me is that the backstory, the flavour, etc is shared at the table. Not to say that there can never be surprises (either as framing or consequence), but the players know the cosmological backstories (in the fiction, the invoker/wizard remembers them, as he was there in the early period of his 1000 lifetimes) and draw upon them to help express their PCs and frame the significance of their choices.

It's not "secret GM backstory" of the form I dislike.

I hope that is a bit of an answer to your question.

(Also, you didn't ask but: one tricky thing about running a Dark Sun game will be working out to use the setting. It's not as trope-errific as default 4e, but my players aren't going to be interested in reading pages and pages of backstory, and that's not the most exciting way to make it part of the game in any event. To date I've been relying on painting with a pretty bright palette: templars, psychic hounds, secret societies, etc - maybe I'll just stick to these fairly clear sword & sorcery/sword & planet tropes, and just ignore the more intricate elements of the setting that don't necessarily seem to add a great deal.)


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION], [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]

Another thought/comment: I suspect my group might make heavier use of _setting_, at least sometimes, then Campbell's group. I think it can often be lower stakes than _character_, because external (eg cosmological-type questions) rather than internal ("Who am I?" can be quite demanding because revealing, even when the character is a fiction). Which suits the generally laid-back approach my group takes to RPGing.

Even in our BW game, external setting elements (the Dark Naga, the mage PC's concerns about the balrog and the coming apocalypse, etc) seem to figure as much as "internal" character matters.

I think Ron Edwards is onto something when he says that _setting_ can be prominent in a player-driven game: but I think that, if this is to work, it has to be "public" in a certain way, and so owned by everyone at the table. Not just the GM's thing.

Going back to the Rod, just to give a simple example: when the chaos sorcerer had opened a portal from the base of the hills to the top (where a hobgoblin army was massing), and the invoker/wizard wanted to use the Rod to refocus the portal to the nearest Nerathi path to the top of the hills, was he able to do so? Absolutely (with an appropriate check as part of the skill challenge). The description of the Rod of 7 Parts doesn't talk about this anywhere; it doesn't link it's function as a Sceptre of Law to any particular mundane, political manifestation of the law.

But that's my player's understanding of the Rod - it speaks to human concerns for law and social organisation - the Empire of Nerath - as much as to cosmological conceptions of divine law vs elemental/primordial chaos. And so it's 100% part of the gameworld.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> DM-driven does not always equal bad.



Sure. That's not in dispute!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Each time you've used Greyhawk as a setting, regardless of whether the "stuff in this game ... conform to details of what happened or was established in the prior games" it's still conforming to the background Greyhawk canon as a whole (more or less, let's not open that can o' worms again), meaning any player familiar with Greyhawk will have some vague ideas of what to expect.  This sets a whole series of baseline assumptions that whatever comes next can build on...and conveniently gets you off the "DM-driven" hook in this aspect as all you did was select that setting



Well, as per those other thread - I'm using GH for some maps and a S&S baseline (the ancient, magical [-]Acheron[/-] Suel empire; the knights of [-]Poitain[/-] Furyondy, etc).

The centre of the map is especially good, because it has knights, desert, Hardby (which we're using like the cities of Zamora), Greyhawk City, the Wild Coast and therefore mercenaries _and_ pirates, etc, all in handy geographic proxmity.

The map is a device for giving colour and a bit of clarification to geography. Too date, at least, it hasn't acted as any sort of constraing on action declaration, because movement/exploration rules are abstract, not concrete as in (say) AD&D.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Did this confrontation occur in the main area of the cathedral, where the altar would logically be?  If yes, then why wouldn't the altar have been shown on the map?  Or do you not use a grid/board/minis for combat?



Not in BW. It's basically TotM (in melee, distances are Outside Striking Distance, Lunging, Optimal and On the Inside; in missile skirmishing, ranger are Outside Range, Extreme, Optimal, and Too Close to Shoot; relative weapon length/range is one component of positioning checks).

One time, when the fighting was on the deck of a ship, we used a sketch map just to keep track of who was where, relative to masts, hatches etc.

As I think I mentioned upthread, one time when two PCs were doing slightly funky stuff in the death cultists' lair in the catacombs, I used a part of the Caves of Chaos map to give them a quick and rough sense of the geography, to help clarify some of the action declarations and therefore to help a bit establishing the fictional details of their resolution.



Lanefan said:


> if someone declared they were going to visit the palace in the same city I might very well turn around and ask "what palace?" as I already know this particular city isn't the ruling centre for anything and doesn't have a palace.



Well, if (as GM) I think it's doubtful, that would be the time for (say) a City-wise check.



Lanefan said:


> Say instead of just rolling a check to get through the catacombs they wanted to know their exact route (i.e. make a rough line map as they went, requiring a route description from you-as-DM so a player could physically draw out the map) so they could quickly retrace their steps later if they needed to beat a hasty retreat...or, in this case, so they could use the map to help figure out where they were going wrong.



Well, that's not really the rationale in the context of our game.

We're not really interested in _how_ they went wrong. We're interested in the consequences of going wrong (ie that the wizard/assassin comes out of her drug-induced stupor).

If they needed to beat a hasty retreat that would be opposed Speed checks, perhaps with a disadvantage to the PCs because we've already established that they don't know their way through the catacombs. But there's no need for a map.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Thanks for the detail: I'm not across all the classes in DW (I know that Thru Death's Eyes is a fighter move; I assume that Connections is a rogue/thief move; the others I'm not sure about, but I'm guessing they are also class moves), and this plugs some gaps in my knowledge/exposition!
> 
> EDIT: I looked some of them up: Weather Weaver is Druidic; Heirloom is a fighter move; Wealth and Taste is a thief move. I didn't find the others.
> 
> (For anyone else following a long: a class "move" in DW is similar to a feat or other ability gained on reaching a new level in WotC-style D&D.)




*My Love for You is Like a Truck* is Barbarian (the DW Barbarian is probably the best incarnation of a D&D offering that would live up to the tropes of Conan in play).

*Old Enemies* and *A Lover in Every Port* is Dashing Hero playbook.  Classic Zoro, Dread Pirate Roberts/Man In Black/Errol Flynn tropes.  Its easily my favorite Dungeon World playbook.  I did a two-off Sword and Sorcery/Swashbuckling mash-up with it and the Barbarian and it was glorious.



So question for everyone (especially  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ).  When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers."   For instance:

GM:  "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that.  He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state.  They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere.  While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt.  He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet.  He's making a bee-line for your table."

"Who is this guy?  Do you know him?"


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## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> So question for everyone (especially  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ).  When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers."   For instance:
> 
> GM:  "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that.  He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state.  They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere.  While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt.  He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet.  He's making a bee-line for your table."
> 
> "Who is this guy?  Do you know him?"




I'll sometimes do that, or something very similar. I do it when we are either on a bit of a tangent to the main story, especially one spurred by the players in some way, or when I want to add some unknown or random element in order to change things up. 

I find the first useful for allowing players to add their PC's goals and interests in a bit more if I haven't been incorporating them. So now and then they'll use such an opportunity to add an NPC or some story hook they want to explore. So I let them decide who it is (or what or where, etc.) and then we see how their choice influences things. I've had some really key elements of my campaign come about like this. 

More often, though, I found them not using such an opportunity to further their own character's interest but instead someone else's, or just a story element that they thought would be cool to add. I really like that a lot, and that's the main reason I use it. They add something that I wasn't expecting...a person, place, organization, whatever...and I have to figure out how to incorporate it into the ongoing story.

My campaign uses a lot of classic D&D lore from all kinds of sources, as well as material from a homebrew world and the history of several campaigns we've played over the years. I've found that sometimes it's the random unplanned ideas that spring up which really become memorable. And I also think that I'm at my most creative when I'm given some seemingly unrelated story elements and I have to somehow bring them together. 

Just the other night at our last session, I was describing a vision being relayed to the PCs through illusory images. This vision was very expository in that it relayed a lot of (dreaded!) secret history of the campaign. But as I relayed it to them, I left two elements entirely up to the players and asked them questions to provide the missing elements. They saw a powerful being in the image, and he was holding something in his hand....what is it? 

I also provided a glimpse of someone watching the events of the vision...who is it? 

The players decided both elements, so now I have some new canon to play with.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> So question for everyone.  When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers."   For instance:
> 
> GM:  "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that.  He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state.  They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere.  While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt.  He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet.  He's making a bee-line for your table."



Seems cool to here.  But I would not ask this:



> "Who is this guy?  Do you know him?"



Instead I'd more simply ask "What do you do?"  

Chances are I wouldn't have time to ask anything, however, as on saying "he's making a beeline for your table" I'd probably - depending on situation context, of course - get several quick and unprompted responses as to how the PCs are reacting.

That said, it's ironclad guaranteed I'd be approaching it from a different angle than you.  

In your case you're asking the players to give you the reasons why this guy is here, who he is, etc., where in my case I either already know who he is and why he's here or I'm making it up on the fly (and if I'm doing it right the players shouldn't be able to tell the difference).  

This is a basic example of the game world coming to the PCs and forcing them into reactive mode, as opposed to the PCs proactively doing something (e.g. long before this guy appears they try to instigate a fight in the bar) and forcing me-as-DM into reactive mode.

And in any case, in the original example what happens next will evolve from the PCs' initial reactions; as I in turn react to what they do, coloured by whatever backstory (if any) has brought this guy here.  Then they'll react to my reaction, lather rinse repeat until the scene is resolved in whatever manner comes about.

Lan-"I'm beginning to think D&D is a game of reaction most of the time and proaction much less of the time"-efan


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Manbearcat said:


> *My Love for You is Like a Truck* is Barbarian (the DW Barbarian is probably the best incarnation of a D&D offering that would live up to the tropes of Conan in play).
> 
> *Old Enemies* and *A Lover in Every Port* is Dashing Hero playbook.  Classic Zoro, Dread Pirate Roberts/Man In Black/Errol Flynn tropes.  Its easily my favorite Dungeon World playbook.  I did a two-off Sword and Sorcery/Swashbuckling mash-up with it and the Barbarian and it was glorious.
> 
> 
> 
> So question for everyone (especially  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ).  When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers."   For instance:
> 
> GM:  "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that.  He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state.  They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere.  While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt.  He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet.  He's making a bee-line for your table."
> 
> "Who is this guy?  Do you know him?"




Not often. At least not the "Who is this guy?" approach. I tie things into backgrounds, or into things that the players may have said (and often don't remember), things like that all the time. My goal is to have them grounded in the campaign as much as possible, particularly the mundane aspects of life.

A lot of that has to do with the players themselves, most of them are looking for me to provide answers to questions like that. If a group is more receptive to having a greater amount of world-building from the player side, I'm open to experimenting. But it doesn't happen frequently. 

I'm always asking them to feed me more information about their background and character's likes, dislikes, etc. I give them quite a bit of leeway on their background, along with input and guidance. This includes a willingness to consider out-of-class abilities, magic items, better equipment, etc., even at 1st level.

For example, my daughter loves dinosaurs and wanted a pet deinonychus. She also wanted a character similar to Arilyn Moonblade, among other non-D&D sources. So she's an elven druid of Selune, but started off in Evereska with her parents. Due to the attack by the phaerimm and some other (later found out to be distant family) concerns, her mother pushed her through a portal with her moonblade (with seven runes). She found herself alone in the jungles of Chult, unable to even touch the bare moonblade without taking damage. She met a druid who cared for her and trained her, until they were able to find a portal (about 10 years later) that returned her to the North (in Icewind Dale) where the campaign was starting. So she doesn't have a pet deinonychus, but she can change into one. 

This was all for the start of the campaign, largely written by her, with my input into how it could tie together. So among the things she was immediately concerned with was to find out if her mother (and family) was alive, and to learn about this sword, and hopefully learn to wield it. Until then she couldn't even use it in battle. Things expanded as the campaign progressed, and then the character switched over to another campaign (same Forgotten Realms and time, just different players). She was also constantly concerned about keeping the sword, and herself, secret because she was concerned that there were others looking for her or the sword (and as time went on there was some evidence of that). She has a great imagination, so a lot of the twists came from her, even if she didn't always remember that she said them.

So I'm quite willing to give a lot of leeway, and go well beyond what would be considered overpowered for 1st level, or even higher level characters. The moonblade has a history of being used in her family to battle fiends and undead, and many of the abilities were related to that aspect. But until she was able to actually attune (and be accepted) by the sword, she used it in other creative ways. My (and her) favorite was when she "accidentally" dropped from carrying it on her back, so that a sorceress they were fighting would pick it up, taking damage in the process, and giving an opening for the others in her party to take advantage of.

Something closer to your question was when a new antagonist entered the campaign, the brother of the character's ex-wife (he had specifically added "divorced" to his character during creation). So he helped provide much of the backstory of the ex-brother, which I expanded upon. I will note that most of the time I expand on their stories quite extensively, way beyond what they probably think would be approved for the campaign. So I guess it occurred something along the lines of, "you recognize the man, as you know him quite well as your ex-brother in-law. Why is there bad blood between the two of you?"

The reason I wanted him to take the lead there, is that it gives me a more personal thing to work with - if I knew why he (the player) would think that there is bad blood there let me exploit it better in the future. I then tweak it from there.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> This is a basic example of the game world coming to the PCs and forcing them into reactive mode, as opposed to the PCs proactively doing something (e.g. long before this guy appears they try to instigate a fight in the bar) and forcing me-as-DM into reactive mode.




We'd need to know a lot more about the situation other than the contrived little bit of text I wrote above to determine (a) who is initiating the action versus who is reacting to it (maybe a player used a PC ability to call in a favor and this is the guy...but maybe he comes with some kind of cost or complication; eg it was a 7-9 move roll in Dungeon World, a failure by 1-2 in 5e, or an intra-Skill Challenge success in 4e that changes the situation but introduces a new obstacle/complication to the ultimate goal), (b) if its a bit of both for both sides, and (c) what it all means for play (the actual dynamics of the play conversation and the trajectory of the fiction).



Ilbranteloth said:


> So I guess it occurred something along the lines of, "you recognize the man, as you know him quite well as your ex-brother in-law. Why is there bad blood between the two of you?"




This is what I'm talking about.  This is good stuff.

Is there any reason why you don't do this more often (or much more often)? 

 [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , thoughts on Ilbranteloth's play excerpt above?


----------



## Xetheral

Manbearcat said:


> So question for everyone (especially   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] ,  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] ).  When you're running your D&D games (5e or whatever), do you guys "ask questions and use the answers."   For instance:
> 
> GM:  "An anxious looking fellow enters the tavern while looking this way and that.  He runs headlong into a barmaid's tray due to his state.  They both hit the deck and drinks spill everywhere.  While he's sitting his head is still scanning left and right as he absent-mindedly mats the liquid into his soiled shirt.  He locks eyes with you and breaks into a crawl which leads him unsteadily to his feet.  He's making a bee-line for your table."
> 
> "Who is this guy?  Do you know him?"




The descriptive paragraph goes beyond what I'd do all at once: instead I'd spread it out a little to give the players time to interrupt or ask questions. I'd also probably intersperse information about other patrons to make the establishment seem more fluid, rather than forcing the focus on the newcomer.

But no, I'd never ask my players to tell me who the newcomer was. Honestly, it never would have even occurred to me to do so until reading this thread--that question is completely outside anything I've ever encountered in an RPG. Learning that there is much greater diversity in GMing styles that I ever knew about is part of what makes this thread so interesting.

That said, I think the giant gulf between the preferred styles of many of the posters is making communication difficult. When two games are so radically qualitatively-different, I'm not sure it's meaningful to try to measure them on the same axis. For example, I don't think it means much to say that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s or [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s style is more "player-driven" than the other, because I'm not sure that there is a definition of "player-driven" that makes sense in both contexts simultaneously. Their games are just too different.

Returning to the concept of "ask questions and use the answers", I think the very premise isn't compatible with my GMing style's emphasis on immersion and verisimilitude. And as a player, I don't see how I could maintain my IC focus when I'm confronted with an OOC request from the GM to add an element to the game world. I consider myself pretty good at switching back and forth quickly (I have to do it all the time as a GM), but what you're describing sounds extremely jarring--especially the part where after adding the element OOC, I'd need to immediately interact with the element I'd just created, this time from my character's perspective and while trying to forget about the OOC motives underlying my choice of what to add.

Are your players simply _phenomenal_ at flipping back and forth from thinking as their characters to thinking as themselves? Or, alternatively, do your players add the requested elements in-character (i.e. the character, rather than the player, is choosing how the character knows the newcomer)? Or maybe roleplaying at your table means something different than it does at mine, in a way that makes the transition easier?


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION]

I think we should be careful about confusing our methods with our aims. A given set of techniques might bring about that sense of being there in the moment for a given player while not being well suited for another player. That is not necessarily evidence of radically different aims, just of different approaches. I find answering these sort of questions if addressed to my character rather than me often helps me connect to the fiction and gets me primed for the actual play of the game. I mean this sort of exchange where we are teasing out the details of the fiction whether written down beforehand or not is not something I view as playing the game. We can't play in the fiction until we know what it is.

Another example of where different approaches might serve different players with the same aims is how abstract we describe things and whether we have rules for things like Willpower, Influence, Strings, or Beliefs. Exacting physical descriptions laid out in concrete measurements takes me so far out of the fiction I might as well be playing a board game. I can enjoy this stuff as a tactical exercise in the war game sense, but it brings me out of the moment. More relative measurements work much better for me because I tend to view the world much more abstractly. Rules like this NPC has influence over my PC tend to enrich the fiction for me, where it might bring others out of it.

Yet another thing that tends to bring me out of the fiction are dice rolls for perception, knowledge, and reaching a mutual accord. The rules of the game are making something tense for me as a player that are in no way tense for my character. It misaligns character and player interests.

Back to the original point - questions should be directed towards the characters. *Address the characters, not the players.* It should also be an opportunity, not an expectation. You are always free to throw iit back in the GM's corner if you do not think your character would know.

GM: Candros, you have finally tracked down Kiara Masura, the love of your life and mother to your children. As you move forward to embrace her and run your fingers through her smooth black locks she slaps you across the face. What did you do to deserve such a harsh greeting?
Me: Candros eyes lock onto Kiara's emerald eyes to see no remorse underneath. I don't know. I just do not know.
GM: Are you going to do anything about it? What do you do?

Now we can start playing for real.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> We'd need to know a lot more about the situation other than the contrived little bit of text I wrote above to determine (a) who is initiating the action versus who is reacting to it (maybe a player used a PC ability to call in a favor and this is the guy...but maybe he comes with some kind of cost or complication; eg it was a 7-9 move roll in Dungeon World, a failure by 1-2 in 5e, or an intra-Skill Challenge success in 4e that changes the situation but introduces a new obstacle/complication to the ultimate goal), (b) if its a bit of both for both sides, and (c) what it all means for play (the actual dynamics of the play conversation and the trajectory of the fiction).



I'm taking it at face value - some anxious guy wanders into a pub, trainwrecks the barmaid, sees the PCs, and beelines for their table.  Naturally I assumed that if there was any more to it (e.g. the PCs are expecting someone to turn up but aren't sure who it'll be) you'd have included that in the write-up.  The absence of any such inclusion told me this is just some random guy; and is an element of the game-world proactively coming to the PCs in order to generate a reaction.



> [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] , thoughts on Ilbranteloth's play excerpt above?



   [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] has me covered in post 778, above.  Just pretend I pretty much typed the same again. 

Lan-"my job as a player is to either react to what the game-world does or to go and do something within it, not to co-build it as we go along"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I think we should be careful about confusing our methods with our aims. A given set of techniques might bring about that sense of being there in the moment for a given player while not being well suited for another player. That is not necessarily evidence of radically different aims



No, it's evidence of radically different games! 


> Yet another thing that tends to bring me out of the fiction are dice rolls for perception, knowledge, and reaching a mutual accord. The rules of the game are making something tense for me as a player that are in no way tense for my character. It misaligns character and player interests.



Sometimes those things represent tension for the character as well; and if there's no tension for the character then why would there be for the player?

Lan-"though sometimes in this thread I've felt like rolling a knowledge die just to figure out what the hell I'm reading"-efan


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]

There is tension for the player because they might miss something right in front of their eyes. Their character has no idea. They see what they see and know what they know. I also tend to see dice as ritualized tension. The weight in your hands as you roll them bones signifies something is at stake.

When it comes to characters reaching consensus with no leverage or manipulation being applied we already have a wonderful mechanic for that - their respective players reaching consensus. The thing we do in every moment of play where we accept each others contributions and consent to the fiction they bring to the table.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> There is tension for the player because they might miss something right in front of their eyes. Their character has no idea.



Nor does the player, so no tension; no worries. 


> They see what they see and know what they know.



Yep. 







> I also tend to see dice as ritualized tension. The weight in your hands as you roll them bones signifies something is at stake.



Ah.  If rolling dice has become an automatic cue there's something at stake even if such isn't obvious to either the players or characters then I suggest sprinkling in some fake or meaningless rolls on an irregular basis, to disguise the ones that are for real.  Otherwise it's just too easy to start meta-thinking "Aha!  We're [players] rolling dice.  There must be something significant going on - we'd [characters] better pay closer attention to everything than we were." every time the dice come out.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]: For me, it depends a bit on the game.

In BW, I wouldn't ask "Who is this guy? Do you know him?" Because either, (i) it's framing, in which case I'm in charge (as GM), though perhaps using elements already established by the players, (ii) it's a consequence of a successful check, in which case the action declaration has already established what happens on a success, or (iii) it's a consequence of a failed check, in which case I'm narrating some adverse thing happening.

If, in circumstance (i) or (iii), a player _volunteered_ some connection between his/her PC and the NPC, that would be quite permissible. Either I'd "say 'yes'", or I'd call for a check, or - if it was an attempt to revisit something that had already been tried and failed, then I'd enforce Let it Ride and so veto the attempt.

MHRP is a bit different, though. For instance, Wolverine's player earns 1 XP "when you declare someone an old ally or foe." In my MHRP game, the heroes were raiding a Clan Yashida office tower in Tokyo, looking for information (i) about the attempted theft of some Stark Tech, and (ii) about the whereabouts of Mariko, who was missing. At a certain point Wolverine was in combat with a NPC ninja/martial artist. Wolverine's player, in character, announced that he recognised this person, and their paths has last crossed in Hong Kong (? or Madripoor, or . . . I can't remember the details), and this time Wolverine was not going to let said ninja get the better of him. The XP was therefore earned, and the fiction established. There's no real sense that I've got veto rights as GM, and MHRP doesn't have a mechanic, analogous to a Lore or Circles check, that I can fall back on as a "roll the dice" alternative to "saying 'yes'".

I'll tag [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] on this, because I know he's interested in difference of techniques/approach across different games, and this is an example where different system (at least to me) seem to generate different expectations over what sort of role the players will have in introducing content, and what the circumstances are in which permission to do so is enlivened.

Also, for completeness - on the whole I would tend to run 4e more like BW than MHRP.



Xetheral said:


> Returning to the concept of "ask questions and use the answers", I think the very premise isn't compatible with my GMing style's emphasis on immersion and verisimilitude. And as a player, I don't see how I could maintain my IC focus when I'm confronted with an OOC request from the GM to add an element to the game world.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Are your players simply _phenomenal_ at flipping back and forth from thinking as their characters to thinking as themselves? Or, alternatively, do your players add the requested elements in-character (i.e. the character, rather than the player, is choosing how the character knows the newcomer)?



At least in my experience, when players are volunteering who their PCs might know, and how; or are declaring something like a Circles check or similar check (eg Streetwise in 4e) to meet a contact; that _reinforces_ immersion and verisimilitude. Because it increases the player's sense of being able to move around in the gameworld with the same sense of comfort and predictability as the PC would experience.

At the start of my Cortex Fantasy game - for which I had written up pre-gen PCs - I asked the players to vote on the setting (Japan or Vikings - the PCs were suited to either), and then to help establish the basic logic of the game:



pemerton said:


> After people chose their characters, and we voted on vikings over Japan, the next step was to work out some background. The PCs already had Distinctions and Milestones (that I'd written up, picking, choosing and revising from the Guide and various MHRP datafiles) but we needed some overall logic: and the swordthane needed a quest (one of his milestones) and the troll a puzzle (one of his milestones).
> 
> So it turned out like this: the Berserker (who has Religious Expert d8) had noticed an omen of trouble among the gods - strange patterns in the Northern Lights; and similar bad portents from the spirit world had led the normally solitary scout (Solitary Traveller distinction, and also Animal Spirit) to travel to the village to find companions; and the troll, a Dweller in the Mountain Roots, had also come to the surface to seek counsel and assistance in relation to the matter of the Dragon's Curse; and, realising a need for a mission, the village chieftain chose the noblest and most honourable swordthane of the village - the PC, naturally - to lead it.
> 
> And so the unlikely party of companions set out.



It was the players of the berserker, the scout and the troll who came up with those motivations for converging on the village. If the campaign keeps going (so far we've played two short sessions) it will be my job, as GM, to weave them together in a way that speaks to the unfolding situation of play.

This isn't exactly the same as what Campbell said, but it's not utterly different either:



Campbell said:


> this sort of exchange where we are teasing out the details of the fiction whether written down beforehand or not is not something I view as playing the game. We can't play in the fiction until we know what it is.


----------



## pemerton

Another example of how player's contribute to the shared fiction: in that Cortex Fantasy viking game, the PCs came to a Steading (of the giant chieftain, as it happened . . . who'd have thought?).

The Scout climbed the pallisade while the others went to the gate. Mechanically, this was a check to establish an Asset - _Overview of the Steading_.

In the next turn sequence, the Scout made a check, which included that Asset in the pool, to establish a new Asset - _Giant Ox in the Barn_. I can't remember exactly what his pool for this included, but it would have had his Solo affiliation (he was on his own), his Animal Spirit distinction (being a werewolf himself, he has an affinity for animals), his Enhanced Senses, and his Outdoor Expertise. As well as his Overview of the Steading.

The check succeeded, and so he was able to see the giant ox in the barn, and lead it out. His next action was to try to use that ox to try and bribe the giant chieftain, but it didn't work because the giant, although Slow as Molasses, nevertheless recognised his own ox.

That was fun at the table. To me, at least, it had the ring of a fairy-tale to it, or of the more light-hearted stories about Norse gods tricking giants. But I think it's very hard to have this sort of stuff occur in play if the players aren't able to introduce the fictional elements they need into the game (eg in this case, the giant ox in the barn).

A strength of MHRP/Cortex for this sort of stuff is that it measure all Assets and the like in a common currency, and the same currency used to build dice pools and measure the success of resolution - so the Giant Ox in the Barn will have been a d8 or d10 (I can't remember which) asset, adding a clear, discrete benefit to the dice pool. Even if the player tries to create a "Particle Beam Weapon" asset for blowing up the giant, it will still be measured in the same currency, and provide the same benefit to the pool.

Thus, there is no incentive to break genre or try to establish "unreasonable" fiction. In combination with "subjective" DCs, the system puts the emphasis on engaging the fiction to create colourful events and vignettes, rather than a classic D&D-style eking out of victory by carefully husbanding resources.

This is a difference from Burning Wheel, which uses "objective" DCs, and where PCs can benefit from having beam weapons rather than oxen as their assets. That's one reason why rules like Let it Ride, or calling for a check rather than just "saying 'yes'", are more important in BW to manage player attempts to improve PCs' positions by directly contributing to the fiction. (BW also has other mechanisms, like its PC improvement rules, which create incentives for players to not always eke out every advantage that they might be able to.)


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If rolling dice has become an automatic cue there's something at stake even if such isn't obvious to either the players or characters then I suggest sprinkling in some fake or meaningless rolls on an irregular basis, to disguise the ones that are for real.  Otherwise it's just too easy to start meta-thinking "Aha!  We're [players] rolling dice.  There must be something significant going on - we'd [characters] better pay closer attention to everything than we were." every time the dice come out.



Well, I think following that suggestion would defeat what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] was talking about.

This also relates back to some questions that [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and others asked about the OP, namely, why not just "say 'yes'" to the presence of a vessel in the room?

Picking up the dice, rolling them, calculating the result - this is part of the ritual of play, which (in BW, at least) signals that something that _matters_ is at stake. I don't _want_ to hide that. I want to emphasise it.

So if the PC walks into an inn out of the rain, and the player casually mentions "I hang my wet cloak on a hook at the door", that will be accepted without any need for comment - it's a moment of "saying 'yes'". But if the PC has arranged to send a signal to another character by hanging his/her cloak at the door - and it hasn't already been established, in the fiction, that there are hooks at the door - then that's the time for a check! The PC expects and hopes to hang his/her cloak; the player wants the same thing - the Inns-wise check will tell us whether or not there is a hook at the door. The prevalence of coat hooks at inn doors seems like something that would be pretty common knowledge, so the DC is probably low; but just picking up the dice and making the roll emphasises that something that matters is at stake here.


----------



## Maxperson

Xetheral said:


> For example, I don't think it means much to say that  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s or [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s style is more "player-driven" than the other, because I'm not sure that there is a definition of "player-driven" that makes sense in both contexts simultaneously. Their games are just too different.




It's also not a helpful term to use.  For the DM to drive the game, the players need to have no input at all.  The game is effectively a story where the DM decides what will happen and what the PCs will do.  If the players have control over their PCs, the game is not DM driven, but rather a collaborative effort.

I'm going to use a golf analogy.  In my style of game, I as the DM set up certain events, back story, etcs.  In effect I am aiming for the 2nd hole on the golf course and pulling back the driver for the swing.  At that point everything stops.  The players then decide whether they want to engage what I have set up and put the swing in motion towards the 2nd hole, or whether they want to pivot me and aim for a different hole or even move to a completely different golf course.  At no point can that ball(D&D game) move anywhere without the players choosing to take that swing.  It's a completely collaborative game.  Neither side can drive it.  The reverse is also true.  A game cannot be player driven so long as the DM has input.  The difference here between my style and the style of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is which side pulls back the swing and which side engages the swing to put the ball in motion.  Both styles are completely collaborative.


----------



## Xetheral

It's absolutely true that immersion and verisimilitude can be enhanced or damaged by different things for different players. It's also true, however, that we might instead be using the same labels "immersion" and "verisimilitude" to refer to entirely different feelings.

Normally, I'd consider the risk of the latter extremely small, but since we appear to be using other terms to mean different things in this thread, in this case I consider it a distinct possibility.

Continuing an example from my previous post, the term "player-driven" appears to mean radically different things to pemerton and me. A game where the GM deliberately stymies player intent on a failed die roll (and is required to do so by the mechanics, no less), is incompatible with my usage of the term "player-driven". My usage is in no way privileged, so, since pemerton's usage differs, the term clearly has more usages than I was aware of. But until we can find a shared definition, I don't see how the term is a useful label in discussion.

Similarly, given that at  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s and  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s tables immersion and verisilimitude are enhanced by the same factors that detract from those feelings at my table, I think there is good cause to believe we may be defining the terms differently.



			
				Maxperson said:
			
		

> It's also not a helpful term to use. For the DM to drive the game, the players need to have no input at all. The game is effectively a story where the DM decides what will happen and what the PCs will do. If the players have control over their PCs, the game is not DM driven, but rather a collaborative effort.




I'm going to disagree in the abstract. I think the term usually has descriptive value as a measure of degree rather than as an absolute. I think it's a useful concept when comparing (e.g.) a sandbox game with an adventure path in similar styles of GMing. I assume the the term has similar descriptive value when comparing two of pemerton's games in his style of GMing. Until this thread, I would have thought the term was useful to compare two styles of GMing, but because our styles are so different, I just don't see how to meaningfully use the term to compare a game in my style with a game in his style.


----------



## Maxperson

Xetheral said:


> I'm going to disagree in the abstract. I think the term usually has descriptive value as a measure of degree rather than as an absolute. I think it's a useful concept when comparing (e.g.) a sandbox game with an adventure path in similar styles of GMing. I assume the the term has similar descriptive value when comparing two of pemerton's games in his style of GMing. Until this thread, I would have thought the term was useful to compare two styles of GMing, but because our styles are so different, I just don't see how to meaningfully use the term to compare a game in my style with a game in his style.



To me there is a difference between an adventure path, which leaves PC/Player autonomy intact, and a railroad which removes PC/Player choice.  The former allows the PCs to engage the path or leave the path entirely if they wish.  That's still a collaborative effort in my eyes.  The latter forces things the way the DM wants them and creates a DM driven situation where the players have no real input.


----------



## darkbard

Campbell said:


> Yet another thing that tends to bring me out of the fiction are dice rolls for perception, knowledge, and reaching a mutual accord. The rules of the game are making something tense for me as a player that are in no way tense for my character. It misaligns character and player interests.




I couldn't agree with this more! And yet, I haven't found a good way to address this in 4E. As  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has articulated several times, often these moments (perception and knowledge checks) are ones where something important is at stake. Do you see the assassin lurking in the doorway's shadow, or does he get a surprise attack? Do you recognize the lumbering green-skinned brute as a Troll, and thus know to utilize fire and acid against it? I wouldn't want to deny player agency in such instances.

How do you handle these in your games _without_ breaking player immersion and disrupting/falsely imposing the tension of the moment?


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> When I talk about a game-world I'm talking about the whole thing, including what lies beyond the bits the PCs have actually encountered as those bits are potentially just waiting their turn to become relevant...or not, as the case may be.
> 
> Each time you've used Greyhawk as a setting, regardless of whether the "stuff in this game ... conform to details of what happened or was established in the prior games" it's still conforming to the background Greyhawk canon as a whole (more or less, let's not open that can o' worms again), meaning any player familiar with Greyhawk will have some vague ideas of what to expect.  This sets a whole series of baseline assumptions that whatever comes next can build on...and conveniently gets you off the "DM-driven" hook in this aspect as all you did was select that setting; the rest of the baseline info, maps, etc. is already out there if anyone cares to dig for it.
> 
> My current game-world is Akrayna.  Ever heard of it?  I doubt it - in fact if you have I'd be both surprised and rather impressed, as it's something I made up for this campaign.  My players had never heard of it either, before the campaign started, meaning they didn't have any baseline at all.  They had to learn about it from the maps I'd drawn, the info I'd posted, and things discovered later during the run of play.  Is this DM-driven?  By your definitions I'll guess it is.  Is it bad, or poor, or providing any sort of negative experience?  I don't think so in the least.
> 
> Therefore, DM-driven does not always equal bad.
> 
> Lan-"if a giant falls in the forest and there's no PCs there to see it, does anyone get xp?"-efan





So much great stuff from [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], both of which I think I'll address here too...

What [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is describing here is closer to how things function in my campaign. I will admit that the nature of my games has an awful lot to do with what I like, and the way my brain works. I tend to dig deep into just about anything that interests me, and that pretty much always leads off into tangents that I also dig into. That includes world-building aspects, story-building aspects, and rules too. I like them to all work together.

I have spent a lot of time both learning and detailing what I use in the Realms. And I use a lot of it. I've considered the majority of the games (and certainly all of the Forgotten Realms campaigns) that I've run as part of one campaign. The events and characters from games I ran in the late '80s still show up or have an impact on the current games. They could be legends, sometimes ancestors, and other times still exist. Things that I wrote up decades ago, often come into play in the present campaigns.

But really it comes down to what we prefer as an in-game experience. My players (and we've had discussions, and in many cases tried other systems) like the (essentially) AD&D approach where they know what they need to know as their characters, and the DM handles the rest. I get that it's sort of a self-fulfilling approach, because when I (and some of my players join me) run a public game, even with different approaches, they tend to invite the ones that seem like they will fit our play style best back to the home game. Most of these public games also tie into the home campaign, and characters (and players) have moved from one group to another. 

So when we're looking for new players, we're looking for players that will fit in well with what we do. Likewise, when we start new players, we're invariably teaching the game in the way we like to play it. How that fits into the greater world of RPG innovation really doesn't matter to us. It just matters that we're having a good time. 

I consider myself an enthusiastic hack. But I have a lot of former players (usually due to scheduling issues) that end up playing in other games, then coming back to me to discuss why it's not working as well, or why it's not as much fun, or what they've been doing to try to teach the others. I'm not saying I'm a great DM, or necessarily better than anybody else. Only that for the people that play in my campaigns like the way I (and we) play. And to me, that's the point. If people want to come back to your campaign, or reminisce about how great it was, or even attempt to emulate your play styled, you must be onto something. That this has been the case for 30+ years now, I think I'm onto something that works for me. It might be a very small percentage of the gaming population, but it's more than enough for the time that I can afford to devote to it.

I do enjoy learning more about how other DMs and other game systems work. I'll steal whatever seems to fit. Perhaps my willingness to try new things and approaches, to look for ways to improve my skills, and improve the game for the players is part of that. When I started looking more into BW/DW (because of this forum), we looked at it in some detail, but the group decided the approach didn't fit what they liked. So I could give up some of my D&D time to go try another game, but I'd rather just play D&D. From the late '70s to the early '90s I tried just about every other game that was released. Since the whole group couldn't get together several times a week, a smaller part of the group that loved checking out and trying other things would get together to try them. Whether it was another TSR game world, or another RPG altogether, we tried a lot. The fantasy ones we tended to like the least, since they didn't really fit what we liked in our fantasy RPG. 



Campbell said:


> When it comes to consistency there are few things my group tends to do that I believe helps to maintain it.
> 
> *We constrain detail to what we need to create a space for play.*




Many others have suggested a similar approach. For me, I love the detailed histories and such. They help my brain function to tie things together, bring more ideas into the world, and bring the world to life. Knowing the history of a sword provides some context when they find it, like when Frodo gained Sting. In addition, it's just the way my brain works. I don't expect the players to feel the same, but they do enjoy being able to count on me when they do dig into the history of an object, place, event or person. I wouldn't recommend the approach to everybody, but if you're like me, writing material behind the scenes (even if you don't write it down or bring it into play) can be very rewarding.




Campbell said:


> There is so much richness and diversity to a single life it would be impossible to meaningfully cover it all in play.




Yes, but the more you know about something the more you can meaningfully cover it.



Campbell said:


> We must choose where to focus our attention...Other players are generally free to work with me to elaborate on areas they wish to explore. I use their passion as a resource.




Yep, and mine lie in world-building, rule-building, and many more. My players tend to be passionate about their characters, and the story they are writing with them. They tend not to have much of a world-building slant to it, they don't want to influence that part of the game, instead they want to experience it as their characters.



Campbell said:


> *We are exploring characters. We are not really exploring setting.* ...The social dynamic of play can result in fiction that feels more authentic and less designed. We focus on the fiction as experienced.




Since we're not great acting-type role-players, it's the richness of the setting, the locations, the dungeons, the schemes and mysteries, and things that like that make it feel more authentic and less designed. This flows into our rules as well. For example we don't have issues with 5-minute work days because they treat their characters as people, who like things like sleep, and breaks from work, and food, and a reasonable amount of effort during a given day. I've also modified the rules to support that approach too. The mundane things, the bits of life that make it feel more "realistic" whether it be rules, setting, or interactions, is what helps ground them in the game, makes them feel more immersed in their character within the world.

I'd say we are exploring the characters within their setting. The setting is as important a "character" as the characters, NPCs and story. I'd equate it to comparing Star Wars and Star Trek. Both are science fiction stories, but the setting has a dramatic effect on the characters and stories. 



Campbell said:


> We are not afraid of do overs and talking things out.If we play something out and it does not feel authentic to our sense of the fiction or these characters we are not afraid to speak up. We also do not feel like we need to get it right the first time. If we miss some critical detail we can rewind and replay it or work together to clarify the situation. This ability to call each other out on our crap is a critical component of our play. Our core assumption is that you do not really own your characters and no one really owns the fictional world. We trust the GM to play the world with integrity and we trust the other players to play their characters with integrity. We trust everyone to be curious explorers of the fiction. Constructive criticism along the way is not only valued, but expected.




We aren't afraid to fix an inconsistency, but we won't typically replay it. They _do_ own their characters, and they own as much of the fictional world as their characters impact.

We try not to let problems stop the flow of the game however, and wouldn't want to call each other out. That's probably one of the biggest reasons we have found that we don't like the BW/DW style of play. We prefer to maintain the immersion within the story. That is, the players maintain their immersion within their character, instead of shifting from character to world-building, to potential discussions about how or why that can't or shouldn't happen, or it contradicts this, etc. Likewise, I'm typically not doing much world-building within the course of the game. Certainly, as a DM, improvisation is always part of the game. But by having a thorough understanding of the NPCs and their goals, the events that are occurring in the region, the lay of the land, and things like that. Even the typical behavior of monsters, etc., means that I can also focus on the creation of the story during the game, reacting to the characters and their actions. 

Outside of the game session I don't have any problem with as much input from the players as they want to give. But within the game we expect to be within the scene, and within the moment, with them as their characters and nothing else.



pemerton said:


> Elaborating on that: framing and action declaration are definitely not 1st person narration moments at our table. The discussion moves very flexibly between first person, second person (GM addressing player/PC as "you"), third person but character focused (eg "Jobe is trying to . . . "; "How does that relate to Jobe's Belief that . . . ?"; etc), and god's-eye-view third person.




While there are certainly times when I have to address a player directly, and there is a blend between player/character, and recognizing that we use a more descriptive approach rather than "in character acting," they players do not shift out of their in-character perception. That is, they approach the game as a character experiencing the story, rather than a player playing a character that is experiencing the world, or third person. But that's largely because the players aren't part of the framing. I might ask them where they are standing, and certainly what they do, but the answer is almost always "I...something." A "how does that relate" moment exists only if another character asks. Otherwise what's going on in a character's head stays in that character's (player's) head.

The bottom line is, we have different goals, and we find what works best for us to meet our goals. I won't begin to pretend that my way is the "right way" nor that everybody should be doing it this way. It's just the approach we enjoy.


----------



## Campbell

One of the things that is probably the most different between us is I really don't set aside D&D time or Apocalypse World time. I set aside social time with my friends. When we get together we decide if we want to continue one of our ongoing games or start a new game as a group. If I am not really up to running a game than someone else can run something, or we might play Fiasco, or we might just play board games. This is a big part of the reason I prefer games with minimal to no prep. It's also a big part of the reason we haven't gotten around to playing Burning Wheel. The commitment isn't there. The group isn't always constant either. If a player can't make it we still game - we just usually play something else if their character's absence would not make sense in the fiction.


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## Tony Vargas

darkbard said:


> I couldn't agree with this more
> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has articulated several times, often these moments (perception and knowledge checks) are ones where something important is at stake. D..I wouldn't want to deny player agency in such instances.
> 
> How do you handle these in your games _without_ breaking player immersion and disrupting/falsely imposing the tension of the moment?



 You can use passive scores and roll behind the screen for perception/insight/etc.  (And engage in legerdemain like making decoy checks for no reason, or making checks in advance, in order, so no sound of rolling dice to add inappropriate tension.)

For knowledge checks, OTOH, the joy of being the exposition character can get pretty watered down by the vagaries of the d20. ;(  The character with the best roll craps out, then everyone else jumps in and one of them rolls high enough to do OK.   One thing I've started doing when I call for a knowledge check is to put a mechanical choice before the party:  either the high-check character makes the roll and everyone takes what he has to say as gospel, or they compare notes, hash it out and find a consensus, modeled by a group check.  
But, even if you succeed and your exposition character has the knowledge, it's the DM then tells everyone what's what.  
Exposition seems like it'd be the perfect time to give players some extra fiction-writing agency.  Say, to get all indie with it:  let the player who successfully ID's the heretofore unknown monster and it's weakness name it and decide what the weakness is...


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## Campbell

Maxperson said:


> To me there is a difference between an adventure path, which leaves PC/Player autonomy intact, and a railroad which removes PC/Player choice.  The former allows the PCs to engage the path or leave the path entirely if they wish.  That's still a collaborative effort in my eyes.  The latter forces things the way the DM wants them and creates a DM driven situation where the players have no real input.




I think a major flaw in your analysis is a failure to meaningfully consider the social environment present in adventure path play. I also think you are applying some binary logic here when it comes to railroading that fails to get to the very real nature of what happens between players at the table. This is also why I am *not* overly fond of the way   [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is framing things even though I mostly agree with the point I believe he is trying to make.

If adventure path play is to be functional and coherent there needs to be a shared interest by all players to engage the adventure and try to figure out what they should be doing. The hallmark of skilled play involves properly reading cues, pursuing one of the paths that the adventure has laid out for the play group, find the prepared story, and trying to beat the scenario. We might let our characters influence how we approach things, where the spotlight gets shone, who takes the lead, and other matters of approach. Advocating for our characters and the things they want is secondary if it even enters the picture. While abandoning the adventure path or engaging the fiction in unforeseen ways is always a possibility it is not likely because if our shared interest is in engaging the adventure on its own terms then there is an extremely high social cost for pursuing those courses of actions.

This is a phenomenally different sort of play experience than one in which our shared interests are focused on meaningfully exploring a fiction, advocating for our characters with integrity, pursuing their goals and drives, playing hard, and playing to find out what happens - not just how it happens or why it happens. Up thread I made a big deal about the difference between hooks and opportunities. What separates the two in my mind is that an opportunity exists primarily for players to engage it on their terms - in the ways they want to. It does not determine what their aims should be on social layer of play. Adventure hooks imply a complete a buy in to engage the adventure on its terms, not your own.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Well, I think following that suggestion would defeat what  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] was talking about.
> 
> This also relates back to some questions that  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and others asked about the OP, namely, why not just "say 'yes'" to the presence of a vessel in the room?
> 
> Picking up the dice, rolling them, calculating the result - this is part of the ritual of play, which (in BW, at least) signals that something that _matters_ is at stake. I don't _want_ to hide that. I want to emphasise it.



When it's already clear something's at stake, all is good.

But when it's not clear; or not known to everyone that something relevant is at stake at all, then rolling dice is a big (too big, IMO) tip-off.

Let's use the anxious-guy-in-the-bar example.  Guy arrives, eventually beelines for the PCs' table.  If at that point I start calling for checks the players OOC are going to suddenly view the scene differently than had I not called for checks, and dollars-to-donuts that'll be reflected in how they react in-character.



> So if the PC walks into an inn out of the rain, and the player casually mentions "I hang my wet cloak on a hook at the door", that will be accepted without any need for comment - it's a moment of "saying 'yes'". But if the PC has arranged to send a signal to another character by hanging his/her cloak at the door - and it hasn't already been established, in the fiction, that there are hooks at the door - then that's the time for a check! The PC expects and hopes to hang his/her cloak; the player wants the same thing - the Inns-wise check will tell us whether or not there is a hook at the door. The prevalence of coat hooks at inn doors seems like something that would be pretty common knowledge, so the DC is probably low; but just picking up the dice and making the roll emphasises that something that matters is at stake here.



They didn't previously check the inn for hooks before setting up this signal??  Dummoxes deserve what they get.

If they hadn't checked, that's one where I'd go through the motions of secretly rolling dice and then either ignore the roll and just say yes there's hooks (if it makes sense there'd be hooks there) or go by the roll (if it may or may not make sense e.g. rain here is very uncommon).  When I'm DMing I'm rolling dice all the time...sometimes for real, sometimes for show.  Therefore in this case the players don't know whether I'm rolling for the presence of hooks, whether I'm rolling to see if someone else might catch on to their signal, whether I'm rolling to determine how many people are in the bar, or whether I'm just rolling for the sheer hell of it.  Keeps the mystery going.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I think a major flaw in your analysis is a failure to meaningfully consider the social environment present in adventure path play. I also think you are applying some binary logic here when it comes to railroading that fails to get to the very real nature of what happens between players at the table. This is also why I am overly fond of the way  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is framing things even though I mostly agree with the point I believe he is trying to make.



  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], this (above) doesn't quite parse...



> If adventure path play is to be functional and coherent there needs to be a shared interest by all players to engage the adventure and try to figure out what they should be doing.



Adventure paths are their own different animal, wherein both the players and the DM sort of quasi-agree to - if not completely railroad themselves, at least mostly stay between the ditches as they follow the path from start to end.

They also (usually) have a pre-defined end point, at least from the DM side; which in all other types of game is usually considered a railroad red flag.

Lanefan


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## Darkness

*This thread really belongs in Roleplaying Games General Discussion. Moved.*


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## pemerton

Xetheral said:


> It's absolutely true that immersion and verisimilitude can be enhanced or damaged by different things for different players. It's also true, however, that we might instead be using the same labels "immersion" and "verisimilitude" to refer to entirely different feelings.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> given that at @pemerton's and @Campbell's tables immersion and verisilimitude are enhanced by the same factors that detract from those feelings at my table, I think there is good cause to believe we may be defining the terms differently.



Here's a bit more about this.

Consider the example I was using upthread: the PC enters an inn ut of the rain, and the player casually narrates "I hang my wet cloak on a hook at the door". That is the player authoring new fictional content (ie the existence of hooks at the door of the inn). Does the player have to get the GM's permission first? Does the player have to ask "Are there any hooks at the door? If so, I hang my wet cloak on one."?

If the answer to those questions is "yes", then to me that is immersion-breaking: because instead of my PC being at home in the gameworld (being able to see things, make reasonable judgements eg about the standard layout and facilities of inns, etc), the PC is like an alien in a foreign land who needs the GM to affirme, to the player, verything that the PC sees and can do.

The same thing is true with NPCs: if the player is always dependent on the GM to explain who NPCs are, what their connection is to the PC, etc, then it is as if this character has no friends, no family, no one who is not a stranger to him/her.

It's not a coincidence that so much fantasy RPGing involves Conan-esque characters who are strangers in the lands they travel through. (And see [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s responses upthread to the idea of a PC becoming a magistrate - that this is incompatible with the wandering that is the norm of a PC's life.) REH chose to make Conan a stranger - the only Cimmerian who ever figures in the stories - as a deliberate narrative and thematic device. The hobbits in LotR, for different reasons, are likewise framed as strangers into the situations they encounter. But this is not a necessity of fantasy RPGing. Or fantasy fiction. Ged, in the Earthsea stories, is not a stranger to his world. He knows his way through it. Han Solo is not a stranger to the world of Star Wars. Etc.

In my experience, if a player is going to play a character who is part of the world rather than alienated from it, then it's not viable for every bit of the fiction to be mediated through the GM, as if the PC was learning about the world for the first time.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I might ask them where they are standing, and certainly what they do, but the answer is almost always "I...something." A "how does that relate" moment exists only if another character asks. Otherwise what's going on in a character's head stays in that character's (player's) head.



If I took this approach, I would feel like I was GMing blind. I wouldn't know what the player was hoping his/her PC would achieve. I wouldn't know what was at stake. I wouldln't know how to apply pressure.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> For the DM to drive the game, the players need to have no input at all. The game is effectively a story where the DM decides what will happen and what the PCs will do. If the players have control over their PCs, the game is not DM driven, but rather a collaborative effort.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The reverse is also true. A game cannot be player driven so long as the DM has input. The difference here between my style and the style of @pemerton is which side pulls back the swing and which side engages the swing to put the ball in motion. Both styles are completely collaborative.



A classificatory scheme is of no use if everything we want to classify ends up under the one label.

Compared to a rocket, Usain Bolt and I are both slow. All that tells me is that using _rockets_ as my standard for _fast_ is not very good in a conversation about sprinting speed.

Likewise, if you measure for "GM driven" is "the players sit at the table while the GM reads them a story", you've chosen a bad measure for talking about RPGing - because what you're labelling as "GM driven" isn't RPGing at all!



Maxperson said:


> I as the DM set up certain events, back story, etcs.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> At that point everything stops. The players then decide whether they want to engage what I have set up and put the swing in motion towards the 2nd hole, or whether they want to pivot me and aim for a different hole or even move to a completely different golf course. At no point can that ball(D&D game) move anywhere without the players choosing to take that swing.



Two things:

(1) I prefer a game in which the _players_ do the bulk of the set up. That is what I mean by "player driven", and it clearly differs from what you have described - which is what I call "GM driven".

(2) Why don't you find out which hole of the golf course the players want to shoot for before setting things up? That would seem more efficient.


----------



## pemerton

Xetheral said:


> A game where the GM deliberately stymies player intent on a failed die roll (and is required to do so by the mechanics, no less), is incompatible with my usage of the term "player-driven"



A question: when you are GMing a game, and a player fails a check, what do you do? If they can fail the check yet still get what they wanted, then what was the point of the check?


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Certainly, as a DM, improvisation is always part of the game. But by having a thorough understanding of the NPCs and their goals, the events that are occurring in the region, the lay of the land, and things like that. Even the typical behavior of monsters, etc., means that *I can also focus on the creation of the story during the game*, reacting to the characters and their actions.
> 
> Outside of the game session I don't have any problem with as much input from the players as they want to give. But within the game *we expect to be within the scene, and within the moment, with them as their characters and nothing else*.



I've highlighted two bits of this quote.

The first seems to go right to the core of the thread. It posits the GM as creating the story.

The second seems to go to the discussion with [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] about immersion, and my post not far upthread. Because human beings are related to people around them, and embedded in the world around them, sometimes "being the character" also requires establishing elements of the shared fiction.


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## darkbard

Tony Vargas said:


> You can use passive scores




Y'know, I feel like a much more pervasive use of passive scores, Perception and Insight, of course, but also Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, and Religion for monster ID, than what I currently do is probably the way to go. Make this part of scene framing by the DM but, of course, influenced by player decisions regarding their PC build.

Although in another thread (discussing whether or not to include a surprise round that excludes PCs with lowish passive Perception scores), the consensus from the player agency advocates (and I agree with the logic!) is that denying PCs an active roll partakes of DM Force and thus denies player agency.



> For knowledge checks, OTOH, <snip>  let the player who successfully ID's the heretofore unknown monster and it's weakness name it and decide what the weakness is...




In a game like 4E, this isn't really a viable option, of course.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> It's not a coincidence that so much fantasy RPGing involves Conan-esque characters who are strangers in the lands they travel through. (And see [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s responses upthread to the idea of a PC becoming a magistrate - that this is incompatible with the wandering that is the norm of a PC's life.)




You're misunderstanding my position a bit.  I wasn't saying that all adventurers wander and so being a magistrate doesn't work.  I'm saying that adventuring groups tend to wander and in such a group being a magistrate wouldn't work.  In a city centric campaign, a magistrate would work out rather well.  The entire party is staying within the city, so a separate game wouldn't be called for.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> A classificatory scheme is of no use if everything we want to classify ends up under the one label.
> 
> Compared to a rocket, Usain Bolt and I are both slow. All that tells me is that using _rockets_ as my standard for _fast_ is not very good in a conversation about sprinting speed.
> 
> Likewise, if you measure for "GM driven" is "the players sit at the table while the GM reads them a story", you've chosen a bad measure for talking about RPGing - because what you're labelling as "GM driven" isn't RPGing at all!




Okay, but a game in which both the DM and players contribute to the game in roughly equal manners isn't DM driven.  I would suggest that perhaps your term is off, not my measure.  



> Two things:
> 
> (1) I prefer a game in which the _players_ do the bulk of the set up. That is what I mean by "player driven", and it clearly differs from what you have described - which is what I call "GM driven".




I understand that, but again, the measure you've come up with doesn't seem appropriate.  What you call DM driven is a game in which the players and DM contribute in roughly equal measures.  That's not DM driven by any measure I can come up with.  I think a different and more accurate term needs to be put in place.



> (2) Why don't you find out which hole of the golf course the players want to shoot for before setting things up? That would seem more efficient.



I do.  At session 0 the players and I all toss out ideas for campaign and the players decide which ones all of them like.  I have veto power over ideas that the players toss out that I actively dislike or just don't have time to run due to how much time it would take to prep things.  I usually veto 0-2 of the 10-15 ideas the group settles on.  Then they pare down the ideas until they have only one and I go prep things in that direction.  However, more than once something has happened during the game that the players loved and made hard left towards a different hole.  When they do that I go with it.


----------



## Tony Vargas

darkbard said:


> Y'know, I feel like a much more pervasive use of passive scores, Perception and Insight, of course, but also Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, and Religion for monster ID, than what I currently do is probably the way to go.
> 
> Although in another thread, the consensus from the player agency advocates is that denying PCs an active roll partakes of DM Force and thus denies player agency.



 Passive checks are fine, I think as long as there's a check, the DM making it doesn't erase agency  (and if we want the engagement of players-always-roll we've already given up on the imersions issue anyway), but passive vs a DC, yeah pointless.



> In a game like 4E, this isn't really a viable option, of course.



 Don't see why not, you have a lot of latitude with monsters, no reason you can't delegate some.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Here's a bit more about this.
> 
> Consider the example I was using upthread: the PC enters an inn ut of the rain, and the player casually narrates "I hang my wet cloak on a hook at the door". That is the player authoring new fictional content (ie the existence of hooks at the door of the inn). Does the player have to get the GM's permission first? Does the player have to ask "Are there any hooks at the door? If so, I hang my wet cloak on one."?
> 
> If the answer to those questions is "yes", then to me that is immersion-breaking: because instead of my PC being at home in the gameworld (being able to see things, make reasonable judgements eg about the standard layout and facilities of inns, etc), the PC is like an alien in a foreign land who needs the GM to affirme, to the player, verything that the PC sees and can do.




It's a bit extreme, I think, but I get your point. If the PCs frequent a certain inn, then I know I personally wouldn't mind a player establishing a minor detail like where the coats get hung. Or even something a bit more substantial. 

But what if the player says "I hand my drenched coat to...my long lost brother who is standing beside the door!?!?!" Cue the dramatic music. 

Again I think it comes down to GM judgment. If your GM is reasonable, then they'll likely let you establish coathooks in the local inn. They may kind of expect to be asked "I hang my drenching cloak beside the door...oh, is that what they do here, or some other way of hanging coats?" and the GM would likely just agree and ask you to continue. 

I don't think that a bit of confirmation on the DM's part is all that disorienting to the player that it would carry over to their role playing. 



pemerton said:


> The same thing is true with NPCs: if the player is always dependent on the GM to explain who NPCs are, what their connection is to the PC, etc, then it is as if this character has no friends, no family, no one who is not a stranger to him/her.




I think most games likely allow at least a little input into NPCs by players...supporting cast and family and the like are something I always try to use in my games. Typically, I let the players decide the basics, and then I may take it from there. 

I feel like this is something that the GM has to mitigate to some extent. The example I gave above of the long lost brother showing up out of the blue...that was mostly a joke, but if the players are free to introduce such concepts in play, then what's to stop them? 

I suppose the argument could be made that since nothing is predetermined by the GM, then no plans are being spoiled...the story that emerges is simply what happens. 

My argument against that would be that story takes craft. A revenge story isn't made better or more pure if the protagonist sets out on what he expects to be a long, arduous journey....only to find his nemesis before he takes five steps. 

I'm exaggerating for effect, but aren't these concerns to have? Or at least, aren't they as valid as being concerned with the impact that having to ask the GM for basic world details will have?



pemerton said:


> It's not a coincidence that so much fantasy RPGing involves Conan-esque characters who are strangers in the lands they travel through. (And see [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s responses upthread to the idea of a PC becoming a magistrate - that this is incompatible with the wandering that is the norm of a PC's life.) REH chose to make Conan a stranger - the only Cimmerian who ever figures in the stories - as a deliberate narrative and thematic device. The hobbits in LotR, for different reasons, are likewise framed as strangers into the situations they encounter. But this is not a necessity of fantasy RPGing. Or fantasy fiction. Ged, in the Earthsea stories, is not a stranger to his world. He knows his way through it. Han Solo is not a stranger to the world of Star Wars. Etc.
> 
> In my experience, if a player is going to play a character who is part of the world rather than alienated from it, then it's not viable for every bit of the fiction to be mediated through the GM, as if the PC was learning about the world for the first time.
> 
> If I took this approach, I would feel like I was GMing blind. I wouldn't know what the player was hoping his/her PC would achieve. I wouldn't know what was at stake. I wouldln't know how to apply pressure.




I feel like all of that could be addressed by having a discussion with the players ahead of the game, or in between sessions. I feel like having the game world feel more lived in, more dynamic would be more supported by planning ahead a bit rather than allowing everything to be established on the fly. I mean, I am forced to improv all the time by my players...but I find the improv fun and more constructive because of the amount of "prep" I've done with the world building. The planning is what allows me to more easily improv when needed. 

So when one player explains to me that he has a brother and they were in a mercenary company together, but that his brother left the company for some mysterious reason, and he's been searching for him ever since....that's great. I love that the player came up with that. But doesn't the GM kind of have to decide how the brother comes into it? You've given an example of the "GM reading a story to the players" as a criticism of heavy handed GMing....but isn't that better than the players reading a story to themselves? 

I am sure many games have a very similar style to the Conanesque vibe you described. But I know that's not remotely true of my game, and based on the discussion, I don't expect it's true of most of the other folks posting here. 



darkbard said:


> Y'know, I feel like a much more pervasive use of passive scores, Perception and Insight, of course, but also Arcana, Dungeoneering, Nature, and Religion for monster ID, than what I currently do is probably the way to go. Make this part of scene framing by the DM but, of course, influenced by player decisions regarding their PC build.
> 
> Although in another thread (discussing whether or not to include a surprise round that excludes PCs with lowish passive Perception scores), the consensus from the player agency advocates (and I agree with the logic!) is that denying PCs an active roll partakes of DM Force and thus denies player agency.




How about using the passive approach and then deciding tiers of success? Like, for a lore check of some kind, DC 10 reveals X, DC 15 reveals X and Y, and DC 20 reveals X,Y, and Z. Depending on the system, you may need to tweak it a bit or use slightly different numbers. But instead of forcing a roll where a proficient character could fail and then a non-proficient character could succeed, you instead just let the player know what their PC knows based on 10 plus their skill rank. It makes learned characters seem learned and dumb characters seem...not so learned.

I find this works for knowledge checks and the like. It may require a bit of work beforehand, but I think it can still be abdicated on the fly.


----------



## Shasarak

Lanefan said:


> Lan-"my job as a player is to either react to what the game-world does or to go and do something within it, not to co-build it as we go along"-efan




What about NPCs?  Do you create your characters family or do you leave all of that up to the DM?  What about friends, do you expect the DM to make up childhood friends that may be in the world too?

If I say that my PC is going to visit my old friend Doug who is the Blacksmiths apprentice is that co-creating or does the DM need to give me a list of names at the start of the game?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Consider the example I was using upthread: the PC enters an inn ut of the rain, and the player casually narrates "I hang my wet cloak on a hook at the door". That is the player authoring new fictional content (ie the existence of hooks at the door of the inn). Does the player have to get the GM's permission first? Does the player have to ask "Are there any hooks at the door? If so, I hang my wet cloak on one."?
> 
> If the answer to those questions is "yes", then to me that is immersion-breaking: because instead of my PC being at home in the gameworld (being able to see things, make reasonable judgements eg about the standard layout and facilities of inns, etc), the PC is like an alien in a foreign land who needs the GM to affirme, to the player, verything that the PC sees and can do.



Unless this is an inn they've been to before, the scenario would play out exactly the same as in the real world if I were to walk into a pub and go to hang my coat on a hook...I'd first have to check and see if there's any hooks present.  In game terms, what the PC sees has to be narrated by the DM (who is, remember, responsible for world content), and so of course I have to ask the DM if there's any hooks there.



> The same thing is true with NPCs: if the player is always dependent on the GM to explain who NPCs are, what their connection is to the PC, etc, then it is as if this character has no friends, no family, no one who is not a stranger to him/her.



Characters can have family, friends, etc., as part of their background but these don't usually come up in play that often.



> In my experience, if a player is going to play a character who is part of the world rather than alienated from it, then it's not viable for every bit of the fiction to be mediated through the GM, as if the PC was learning about the world for the first time.



Which, in my case, is why I posted some general information about the game world when my campaign started.  In fact, I probably put way more up there than the average character would know.  As for individual stuff, to go back to the anxious-guy-in-bar example if this is someone previously known to one or more PCs that would come up right away in the narrative.



> If I took this approach, I would feel like I was GMing blind. I wouldn't know what the player was hoping his/her PC would achieve. I wouldn't know what was at stake. I wouldln't know how to apply pressure.



The pressure comes from the giant who's trying to stove your head in; from the mentor who paid for this trip who is expecting a mission report within 2 days when you're still 4 days from town; from the unrelenting storm you've been lost in for days; from the party Thief who just won't pull her weight but expects her full share of everything; from being down to your last day worth of rations...need I go on?

If someone has a specific personal goal in mind for their character I can only assume that at some point or other I'll (as DM) hear about it.  If I don't, it can't have been that important.



> Why don't you find out which hole of the golf course the players want to shoot for before setting things up? That would seem more efficient.



If they're standing on the 2nd tee (which was mentioned) my baseline assumption is they're aiming for the 2nd hole; most likely this means they've just played the 1st and from here will go on to the 3rd.

That said, this isn't exactly the best analogy as if the players decided to play the 8th hole right after the 2nd both the club stewards and the other golfers (not to mention the rules of golf) would probably have some things to say.

Lan-"the pressure, in short, usually comes from sheer survival"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Shasarak said:


> What about NPCs?  Do you create your characters family or do you leave all of that up to the DM?



We've got tables for that. 

Seriously.

If a player wants to figure out a PCs' family and background (which not all do; some just can't be bothered) we'll sit down and roll some dice to see what they've got:
- parents - alive? dead? profession(s)?  adventurers?
- siblings - ditto for each
- children - for long-lived races such as Elves this one can go on for a while!
- hometown
- how much prior travelling has the PC done?
- significant events in character's past, if any
- significant people the character has met, if any



> What about friends, do you expect the DM to make up childhood friends that may be in the world too?



This comes up extremely rarely, to the point where both player and DM just wing it at the time; unless the "friend" is intended to be someone significant.  "Hey, I grew up here <pre-determined by background as above>.  If Brienne's still got that farm just out of town she'll put us up for the night I'm sure!" - this is always cool even if it comes out of nowhere.  "Hey, this guy I grew up with - he was the Duke's son.  Bet he's Duke by now!  He'll get us out of this jam!" out of the blue is not cool.



> If I say that my PC is going to visit my old friend Doug who is the Blacksmiths apprentice is that co-creating or does the DM need to give me a list of names at the start of the game?



This would be cool. (I'd then very quickly determine for myself what if anything makes Doug tick and whether there's anything you might not know about him in-character - highly likely he's just simply a blacksmith's apprentice but maybe he's got married and had a kid since you last saw him, or maybe he's all along been a secret member of some cult or other, or maybe he lost that job and has since gone into baking...)

Simple answer: if what the players dream up stands to give the PC or the party any undue advantage or influence (e.g. the Duke example above) I'm quite likely going to veto it.  Ditto for undue disadvantage; sometimes my players would be quite happy to invent trouble for other PCs: "Hey, I wonder if any of those 'wanted dead or alive: Jocasta Nightshade' posters are still up?".   But something like Doug the apprentice blacksmith?  No problem!

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I think a major flaw in your analysis is a failure to meaningfully consider the social environment present in adventure path play. I also think you are applying some binary logic here when it comes to railroading that fails to get to the very real nature of what happens between players at the table. This is also why I am overly fond of the way  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is framing things even though I mostly agree with the point I believe he is trying to make.



I think you dropped a "not" - I'm guessing that you're _not_ overly fond of the way I'm framing things!



Campbell said:


> If adventure path play is to be functional and coherent there needs to be a shared interest by all players to engage the adventure and try to figure out what they should be doing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> While abandoning the adventure path or engaging the fiction in unforeseen ways is always a possibility it is not likely because if our shared interest is in engaging the adventure on its own terms then there is an extremely high social cost for pursuing those courses of actions.



I agree with this, but I would reframe it slightly, probably bending it in the direction you're not as fond of!

What I wanted to post, after reading [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] talking about "allow[ing] the PCs to engage the path or leave the path entirely if they wish", is _what does allow mean here_?

If the GM has prepped the adventure path - or, to use Maxperson's analogy, if the GM has set up a shot for the 2nd hole - then what happens if the players want to play a different scenario (or, to use the analogy, want to play on a different course)? Are they _really_ free to do that? As in, can the game really be run if they choose that?

What are the expectations around GM prep? What are the players' expectations? If the players expect a "living, breathing" world - a GM-authored backdrop that they explore and learn about through playing the game; and if the players expect a "plot" or a mystery that their PCs will hook onto and try and (re)solve; then how is the GM expected to provide this spontaneously? It seems like it will be a crap game.

Or, conversely, if it turns out that this spontaneous game is a _good_ one, then what was going on with all that effort on prep and pre-authorship? What was it for?

This is actually how I discovered, c 1986/7, how I liked to run a game. I had assumed that running a serious game was all about prep, because I'd read various things (mostly White Dwarf and Dragon articles) that told me so. But then I ended up running some session which were much more spontaneous, where the players had PCs with fairly clear hooks and motivations built into them (OA PCs on one occasion; two demihuman multi-class thieves on the other occasion) - and those turned out to be much better games!

That's not to say that I don't do any prep anymore. I run systems - 4e, BW, even to some extent Cortex/MHRP - that benefit from prepping NPCs/creatures, and in 4e also from drawing maps of locations. But these provide material that I use as part of framing, or narration of consequences. Until they actually come out in play they're potential story elements, not established parts of the shared fiction.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> When they do that I go with it.



Which means what, in practical terms? If you can run a game that has veered "hard left" without prep, what is your prep for?


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> When it's already clear something's at stake, all is good.
> 
> But when it's not clear; or not known to everyone that something relevant is at stake at all, then rolling dice is a big (too big, IMO) tip-off.



But that's the point - I want it to be clear! I want the players to be invested. To invest themselves, they need to know that something is at stake.



Lanefan said:


> Let's use the anxious-guy-in-the-bar example.  Guy arrives, eventually beelines for the PCs' table.  If at that point I start calling for checks the players OOC are going to suddenly view the scene differently than had I not called for checks, and dollars-to-donuts that'll be reflected in how they react in-character.



Correct! Again, that's the point.



Lanefan said:


> They didn't previously check the inn for hooks before setting up this signal??  Dummoxes deserve what they get.



Maybe the arrangements had to be made in a hurry, and they went for the plan that they thought had the least chance of going wrong.



Lanefan said:


> If they hadn't checked, that's one where I'd go through the motions of secretly rolling dice and then either ignore the roll and just say yes there's hooks (if it makes sense there'd be hooks there) or go by the roll (if it may or may not make sense e.g. rain here is very uncommon).



Again, this is where I would have a player making the roll. That let's them both have the ritual experience of resolving a moment of crunch for the PC; and in some systems it also lets them expend resources if they want to (eg if the system allows players to expend fate points or similar to boost their checks).



Lanefan said:


> Unless this is an inn they've been to before, the scenario would play out exactly the same as in the real world if I were to walk into a pub and go to hang my coat on a hook...I'd first have to check and see if there's any hooks present.



My point is that, in the real world, this is not mediated. If you want to know something about your immediate environment you just look around.

I'm sitting at a desk. Without even moving my head (just my eyes) I can see, on the desk, a pile of about two dozen books on various topics, another pile of books and papers dealing with a particular legal topic, various notes and papers spread out around my computer, three memory sticks, and a dozen or so pens. Plus some CDs, some boarding passes sitting around from old travel claims, and various other stuff that I'm not going to type up.

When the GM tells the CoC players that "You walk into the academics office and see a desk strewn with books and papers", there's no way the GM is going to have a list that even remotely captures the detail that the PCs can simply _see_.

Likewise, how many GM's inn descriptions record the presence of hooks for coats at the door? I've never seen that mentioned in a module that I can recall. I've seen many D&D inns with "wine" on the price list, but rarely its colour or its grape. There might be an entry for "stew", but is it lamb, goat, horse or beef? (Or something more exotic?)

A world in which the default assumption is that _nothing is there unless the GM mentions it_ is so barren as to be implausible, outside a very special context such as a dungeon. Which is why dungeons are such an effective vehicle for a certain sort of play!

But once we get out of the dungeon, what are we going to do to rid our world of barren-ness? My solution is this: if the player is assuming that something is there (eg hooks at the door; pens on the desk) and nothing is at stake, I "say 'yes'". Why should my assumptions about what is in the fiction be any more important than there's? It's all just colour, and their sense of the colour is as good as mine.

If something _is_ at stake - ie it's not mere colour - then that's where a roll is required (in BW and 4e, at least; Cortex is a bit trickier in this regard, and therefore poses its own GMing challenges). In 4e that would normally be as part of a skill challenge.



Lanefan said:


> Characters can have family, friends, etc., as part of their background but these don't usually come up in play that often.



The game mentioned in the OP has been driven primarily by the mage PCs desire to redeem his brother, the assassin/wizard's desire to kill the same, and the elven ronin's inability to come to terms with the loss of his master (which was what led him to wander into human lands).

Without those background elements, there wouldn't be any play.



Lanefan said:


> pressure comes from the giant who's trying to stove your head in; from the mentor who paid for this trip who is expecting a mission report within 2 days when you're still 4 days from town; from the unrelenting storm you've been lost in for days; from the party Thief who just won't pull her weight but expects her full share of everything; from being down to your last day worth of rations...need I go on?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> "the pressure, in short, usually comes from sheer survival"



When I look at the sort of fantasy fiction I would like my RPGing to emulate (not usually all at once, but from time to time across the range of sessions, systems and campaigns) I think of LotR, REH's Conan, the Earthsea stories, Arthurian romance, Claremont's X-Men, Star Wars, and the more romantic/passionate "swordsman" movies like Bride With White Hair, Hero, Crouching Tiger, Ashes of Time, etc.

In none of these are the protagonists driven primarily by the pressure for sheer survival. Survival only becomes an issue because _something else_ has motivated them to place themselves in danger.

I think REH's Conan is especially interesting in this respect, because of the centrality of those stories and that character to the "Appendix N" experience. If you look at the Conan stories, he is almost never motivated primarily by mercenary considerations. The mercenary motivations may be part of a framing device, but in the actual events of the stories he acts out of non-mercenary motivations such as honour (eg Black Colossus), or a desire to prove himself (eg Tower of the Elephant), or compassion (eg People of the Black Circle, Jewels of Gwahlur, Tower of the Elephant again).

I don't think these sorts of motivations will easily or naturally emerge in RPGing, if everything is framed as if the stakes are simply survival. But in order to know what will test a player's commitment, in the playing of some particular PC, to honour, or to compassion, or whatever, you need to know how that player, in playing that character, understands the ingame situation. Sometimes that reveals itself through action (eg I remember a couple of occasions when the invoker/wizard in my main 4e game slew helpless prisoners when the opportunity presented itself, because the player - in character - had formed the view that they were beyond redemption and deserved summary execution), but not always. As a GM, the most obvious way to learn this stuff is to ask the player!


----------



## Sadras

@_*pemerton*_ how do you surprise your players with cool twists if all the cool twists, appear to come from content generated by the players? Even as player I enjoy the exploration of content/ideas which are generated by the DM's storytelling - similar to the enjoyment of a movie. It brings me no joy to explore my character's inner law/good/natural vs chaos/evil/technology philosophical theories to drive the adventure.   

Our most recent adventure involved the PCs agreeing to assist some lizardmen led by Snapjaw (HotDQ) to a temple which the lizard-folk held inside a gift from the 'Divine' which would assist them against the Bullywogs and Cultists which latter two groups were abusing/enslaving them.
In truth, what the lizard-folk interpreted as divine gifts were really the regional effects (5e MM) of the unnatural presence of the beholder in the area which was trapped within the temple (disintegrate stalk was damaged).

So the adventure was really their journey through the _Mere of the Dead_, the swamp, to the temple. They faced obstacles, monsters and these temporary unnatural phenomena (floating pebbles, a whistle..etc - beholder regional effects). Throughout the adventure either the lizard folk would say something strange, or a character would hear a phrase or see a line etched against a tree...this was all a riddle (6 lines) delivered in jumbled fashion. The characters eventually arrived at the temple and I revealed the remaining line of the riddle. One of the character's guessed correctly, the answer being a dream. 

That particular player's character awoke inside the temple. Scattered bodies of lizard-folk were everywhere, one of the characters was lying on the floor, wounds all over his body, another was on the other side of the room busy interrogating Snapjaw (the lizard-folk leader) and next to the character floated a large bulbous mass with stalks (the PCs was obviously under a charm spell), the last remaining character was nowhere to be seen and that is how the session ended.

So the whole journey to the temple more or less happened the way it was roleplayed. The setup was if they solved the riddle early, they would have had more resources with which to face the beholder but fewer XP earned, the longer it took them to solve the riddle the greater the amount of XP due to all the encounters, but with less resources available.
The one who solved the riddle would have his character wake up (from the Sleep spell) and I as DM would roll randomly to see who would be affected by the Charm, Cause Wounds and Fear spell.
The character affected by the Sleep spell would get to roll the die as per the Sleep spell to determine his maximum number of hit points before the spell affected him (per 5e Sleep spell)

Was the session railroaded: Sure. 
Was there much story content generated by players: No. 
The player's enjoyed the twist of having a backstory of having initially lost against the beholder and that the session was a dream which did in fact occur and played in similar fashion to how it was role-played by them. 
They enjoyed discovering the riddle, piecing it in the correct order and eventually solving it.
And they are looking forward to how they will resolve this encounter with the beholder given that they are at a disadvantage.

Obviously not all my session are this rail-roady but the above certainly wasn't a 'crap game' for our table.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> A classificatory scheme is of no use if everything we want to classify ends up under the one label.
> 
> Compared to a rocket, Usain Bolt and I are both slow. All that tells me is that using _rockets_ as my standard for _fast_ is not very good in a conversation about sprinting speed.



Amusingly, this is the exact problem I have with your use of "railroading."


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> @_*pemerton*_ how do you surprise your players with cool twists if all the cool twists, appear to come from content generated by the players?



Here's one instance, drawn from the game referred to in the OP (and these events happen not long before the events of the OP):

Two PCs drug the assassin/wizard, so that they can get to the tower and abscond with the (unconscious) mage who is resting there recovering from extreme injury. They decide (for reasons I didn't understand at the time, and still don't) to go there via the catacombs, even though they don't know the way, or even know for sure that there is a way into the tower from the catacombs.

The players fail a Catacombs-wise check. So I tell them that, after some hours of wandering through the catacombs, they are well and truly lost. But then, as they come to a place near the surface, with an opening about head-height onto the street, they hear a taunting voice: the wizard/assassin has regained consciousness, and is heading to the tower, and - having seen them in the catacombs as she passes through the street to the tower - is mocking them! (The third-person plural pronouns in the preceding two sentences straddle players and PCs - I was addressing the players, but addressing them _as _their characters. I mention this mostly because it is something that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] might be interested in, connected to the "advocacy" relationship between player and PC.)​
That was a surprise: the players knew that, with the failed check, something adverse to their PCs' aims would occur. But they weren't expecting it to be the sleeping potion wearing off!

Another example, also one that I've mentioned upthread, and from the same game: when the players fail a check in navigating through the Bright Desert to the Abor-Alz, the failure narration was that, when the PCs arrive at the first waterhole on the edge of the hills (where water falls down and pools in a rock, before spilling over its edge and draining away into the desert sand) they find it fouled.

It turned out that this had been done by a renegade elf. The elf was introduced into the fiction by me, to give effect to the failed check, and to connect that to the elven ronin's Belief that _I will always keep the elven ways_. An elf who fouls waterholes clearly is not keeping the elven ways - but how does one deal with such a filthy personage while keeping the elven ways? Later on, when the PCs failed to find the mace they were looking for in the ruined tower, the player of the mage PC (who was the one who instigated the search, having the mace as an element of backstory) speculated, "Of course the mace is going to be with the renegade elf." Which it was - a twist arising from the failed check, and the interweaving (by me as GM) of various story elements.

In my 4e game, failure is less common (4e is far more generous in it success rate than Burning Wheel) and so twists mostly arise in other ways. One way is out of the various strands of fiction that are generated during skill challenge resolution: on this occasion, for instance, the way that a skill challenge unfolded meant that the PC "paladin" (a fighter/cleric of Moradin) was obliged, out of his sense of honour, to seek a mitigation of punishment for a murderer, even though this contradicted his sense of justice. (Other, less honourable, PCs made a promise in his name that they intended not to keep; but before they could summarily dispatch the beneficiary of the promise the "paladin" PC turned up on the scene and so the murderer NPC was able to hold him to the promise made in his name.)

Another way is simply framing. When the PCs travelled back in time, they helped a young apprentice mage. A hundred years later, in the "present", the PCs learned that (i) the baron of the city they were in had a niece who was the spitting image of the apprentice, (ii) that said niece was engaged to the baron's adviser, whom they knew to secretly be an evil necromancer, and (ii) that the niece hadn't been seen for a few days. They (naturally) formed the conjecture that the necromancer had done something horrible to the niece, and set out to rescue her. The players were genuinely shocked when, at the end of their search for her, they found out that she was a necromancer, performing some ritual over a sarcophagus.

The shock was further compounded when they learned that the apprentice, too (who was the great-grandmother of the niece), had become a necromantic servant of Vecna: Jenna Osterneth, with whom they have since had a relationship that fluctuates between alliance and enmity (a bit like Magneto and the X-Men).

In my BW game I will also use framing to establish surprises, although probably a bit less liberally than in 4e (it's a different game, with different expectations). The first time, in the actual course of play, that the mage PC saw his (NPC) brother was about five or so sessions ago. That was a dramatic moment, and unexpected: the PC had gone to the docks because he had heard that a ship was arriving with a holy man on it, and he was cursed with mummy rot and wanted to be cured. As the Abbot Bernard stepped off the ship, the PC was struck by how much Bernard seemed to resemble his brother; and then he looked across the crowd and saw, on a rise on the other side of the docks, his brother looking down on Bernard with a mix of longing and contempt. The player wasn't expecting to see his brother; nor to learn that his brother was a bastard son of the holy man.

That moment led to a new Belief for the PC: _Now that I have seen Joachim [the brother], I do pity him_.



Sadras said:


> Was the session railroaded: Sure.



Can you elaborate? From what you say, it's not clear. Eg what is the connection of the players to the lizardfolk, the beholder, etc.

If I were to run something like this - the closest I've come is the time-travel scenario mentioned earlier in this post - my main concern would be (i) linking the resource expenditure choices made in the "dream" to the post-dream situation, and (ii) relating the outcomes in the dream sequence to the beholder situation. (So I probably wouldn't just roll randomly for charm, fear etc.)


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Amusingly, this is the exact problem I have with your use of "railroading."



I would posit this difference:  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] denies that any RPGing is player-driven or GM-driven. He asserts that all are both. (His example of GM-driven - ie that players just sit and listen to the GM read a story - I regard as (i) fanciful, and (ii) not an account of RPGing.)

Whereas I don't assert that all RPGing is railroading.


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## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> If the GM has prepped the adventure path - or, to use Maxperson's analogy, if the GM has set up a shot for the 2nd hole - then what happens if the players want to play a different scenario (or, to use the analogy, want to play on a different course)? Are they _really_ free to do that? As in, can the game really be run if they choose that?
> 
> What are the expectations around GM prep? What are the players' expectations? If the players expect a "living, breathing" world - a GM-authored backdrop that they explore and learn about through playing the game; and if the players expect a "plot" or a mystery that their PCs will hook onto and try and (re)solve; then how is the GM expected to provide this spontaneously? It seems like it will be a crap game.




Why couldn't the game really be run if they choose that?

One campaign the players were in Baldur's Gate and a demon incursion began.  It began slowly, with some demons popping up here and there around the Heartlands.  The PCs got into one fight with them and they began hearing of a few other examples.  The PCs decided that demons were too much and for some reason still unknown to me, decided that they wanted to go become pirates.  They got a hold of some maps and found out that there were a bunch of pirates down in the Nelanther Isles, so that's where they headed.

They got a ship and sailed to the Nelanther Isles and became pirates.  Rumors of the demon incursion eventually reached that far south and some of it was good news, and some of it was bad news.  The demon storyline continued without them.  It added depth to the game when they heard about what was happening.  Since the spread was going to encompass everything, even during their pirate adventures sometimes there were some demon tinged elements going on.  They weren't engaging the original storyline, but it occasionally engaged them a bit on the fringe.  Everyone had a blast.

I set up the shot for the 2nd hole and they left the course for a completely different one, and the game ran just fine.


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## Sadras

pemerton said:


> Can you elaborate? From what you say, it's not clear. Eg what is the connection of the players to the lizardfolk, the beholder, etc.




In Hoard of the Dragon Queen (HotDQ) an uneasy alliance exists between the Bullywogs, the Lizardmen and the Cultists, the adventure stipulates that the lizardmen would be amenable to an arrangement between the PCs and the Lizardmen against the other two factions.
As a backstory (and to fast-track the HotDQ story, as we had had 10 full session prior of Murder in Baldur's Gate), I established that the connection which might have been made by the PCs with the lizardmen had already been made by the Harper organisation which in turn asked for the PCs assistance in exploring the alliance with the lizardmen to strike out at the Cutlists. 

As an extra I inserted a partially submerged temple within the swamp which imprisoned a beholder (why or how has not yet been established, only that the beholder does not have the disintegrate stalk available). In the 5e MM it describes the unnatural phenomena (regional effects) which might occur around beholders. These regional effects include the temporary appearance of trinkets - I built on this idea that the lizardmen, rather primitive in technology, saw these trinkets as gifts from the divine and they perceived these gifts would appear when they were in close proximity to the temple. Ignoring some inserted backstory about the tribe's shaman and a guardian of the temple, the lizardmen believed that some powerful gift lay within the temple which would assist them against the Bullywogs and the Cultists.
They relayed all this to the PCs who agreed to help.

Therefore the encounters for the journey were all preset - Shambling Mounds near a sinkhole, a whistle, a Yuan-ti hunting party, floating pebbles and a bridge made of foliage which led to the partially submerged temple roof, which was the nest to a Phase Spider and half a dozen Large Spiders.

I had decided that should they enter the temple before solving the riddle, I would create the inside of the temple from from the player's ideas as they spoke at the table (unknowingly) and the random dungeon tables within the DMG until it would dawn on them that this was a dream.

The adventure was therefore linear, and this mostly because the DM who was to run our Westeros campaign for that session  informed me earlier that day that he was not prepared and asked if I could run something instead. So I skimmed the next chapter of HotDQ, determined I did not want to run it so hastily, used what was needed from the adventure to run this little side vignette.   

Thankfully this railroad session paid off.



> If I were to run something like this - the closest I've come is the time-travel scenario mentioned earlier in this post - my main concern would be (i) linking the resource expenditure choices made in the "dream" to the post-dream situation, and (ii) relating the outcomes in the dream sequence to the beholder situation. (So I probably wouldn't just roll randomly for charm, fear etc.)




I'm not sure I understand you here.
In (i) I used the guidelines in the DMG for encounter difficulties expected for their level and indeed was generous - given the situational disadvantage that was imposed on them when facing the beholder for the '2nd time'. I did mention that the journey to the temple did happen as it was roleplayed somewhat, so the party earned XP for those encounters. There was no linking of resource expenditure choices to be made.

As for (ii), that would have been neat had I thought of it, but I had no idea who was going to solve the riddle and I should mention that I had predetermined which beholder spells would be affecting the party.
It would then be my subjective view on whose outcome in the dream sequence more closely aligned with the fear or charm..etc attacks from the beholder. 
That would be a DM judgment call right? We have no issue with that at our table.


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## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Characters can have family, friends, etc., as part of their background but these don't usually come up in play that often.




Is it possible that such things _don't_ come up in play that often because of the [GM driven] style of the game? That if the game were player-driven, such elements would develop as a result of players authoring their characters' connections to the fictional world?

Not that that is necessary for a good game, of course. But I do see how  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s analysis reveals something important here.


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## pemerton

Sadras said:


> I'm not sure I understand you here.
> In (i) I used the guidelines in the DMG for encounter difficulties expected for their level and indeed was generous - given the situational disadvantage that was imposed on them when facing the beholder for the '2nd time'. I did mention that the journey to the temple did happen as it was roleplayed somewhat, so the party earned XP for those encounters. There was no linking of resource expenditure choices to be made.



What I was trying to get at was that, in the dream, the players spend resources (eg spells, hp etc) but then when they fight the beholder how do those dream expenditures fit in?

If the answer is "it's the same" because the dream is a recollection of the truth, I can see that.


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## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Why couldn't the game really be run if they choose that?
> 
> One campaign the players were in Baldur's Gate and a demon incursion began.  It began slowly, with some demons popping up here and there around the Heartlands.  The PCs got into one fight with them and they began hearing of a few other examples.  The PCs decided that demons were too much and for some reason still unknown to me, decided that they wanted to go become pirates.  They got a hold of some maps and found out that there were a bunch of pirates down in the Nelanther Isles, so that's where they headed.
> 
> They got a ship and sailed to the Nelanther Isles and became pirates.  Rumors of the demon incursion eventually reached that far south and some of it was good news, and some of it was bad news.  The demon storyline continued without them.  It added depth to the game when they heard about what was happening.  Since the spread was going to encompass everything, even during their pirate adventures sometimes there were some demon tinged elements going on.  They weren't engaging the original storyline, but it occasionally engaged them a bit on the fringe.  Everyone had a blast.
> 
> I set up the shot for the 2nd hole and they left the course for a completely different one, and the game ran just fine.



This still doesn't seem to answer my question. If you can run the pirate game without prep, and "everyone had a blast", what is the point of the prep?


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## Xetheral

[MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION],

When you "ask questions and use the answers", how do you decide which player(s) get(s) to provide the answer? Is it first-come-first-serve? Round robin? Collaborative? 

Also, what critetia do you expect the players to use when coming up with their answer? What they would find fun individually? What the other players would find fun? Free association with the current storyline? Logicial inference? Whimsy? I'm having hard time figuring out how I would begin to answer such a question as a player. This is in part because I don't understand which OOC GM responsibilities (if any) implictly attach to such on-the-spot delegation of content creation from the GM to the players.



pemerton said:


> A question: when you are GMing a game, and a player fails a check, what do you do? If they can fail the check yet still get what they wanted, then what was the point of the check?




I describe the direct consequences of failing the task that the check was modeling. I stick as closely as possible to consequences that would be expected in the real world, so that players can rely on their real-world experience to accurately judge the stakes of their actions in advance. When the game world predictably responds to actions analagously to the real world, this contributes to verisimilitude.

The players aren't going to get what they want as a _result_ of a failed check, but the failed check usually doesn't _preclude_ them getting what they want via other means or more effort. For some checks, that won't always be possible. Failure on a check to catch a falling vase, for example, is likely to frustrate the players' intent in catching it, but only as a direct consequence of that failure when the vase, forseeably, shatters.

The point of the check was to determine, in a case where there was doubt about the outcome, whether the action in question succeeded or failed.



pemerton said:


> What are the expectations around GM prep? What are the players' expectations? If the players expect a "living, breathing" world - a GM-authored backdrop that they explore and learn about through playing the game; and if the players expect a "plot" or a mystery that their PCs will hook onto and try and (re)solve; then how is the GM expected to provide this spontaneously? It seems like it will be a crap game.
> 
> Or, conversely, if it turns out that this spontaneous game is a _good_ one, then what was going on with all that effort on prep and pre-authorship? What was it for?




Much of the content of my games is generated on the fly. If the players decide to follow a plotline I hadn't added deliberately (and this happens all the time when the party finds something unexpectedly interesting and decides to pursue it) this does indeed require me to make up a mystery or plot as I go along. Often, I can do this seemlessly, staying one step ahead of the players, without letting on that I've switched to wholesale improv. If it's a situation where I think I need a little planning time first, or I think I'm too tired to pull off full-improv well, I'll simply admit that this is an area of the game I've only got a vague sketch of, and call for a 10-minute break while I fill in the details.

I do a small amount of prep work for each session (I do more at the start of a new campaign), based on my best guess(es) of what the party will choose to do. If I'm wrong and my work isn't used that session, I'll keep it around in case the party follows up later. If they don't, I can file off the serial numbers and use generic parts of it (e.g. a dungeon layout) to supplement future on-the-fly content.


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## Sadras

pemerton said:


> What I was trying to get at was that, in the dream, the players spend resources (eg spells, hp etc) but then when they fight the beholder how do those dream expenditures fit in?
> 
> If the answer is "it's the same" because the dream is a recollection of the truth, I can see that.




Exactly that. 
Any spent resources in getting to the temple are spent as it is a recollection of the truth (as you put it). The only differences in resources which occurred were:
- Fewer hit points for the asleep character, in order for the Sleep spell to take affect;
- The character who fell unconscious thus losing all this hit points due to the continuous Cause Serious Wounds spells. He was the unlucky one, this will be countered by providing some interesting benefit;
- The Charm and Fear spell victims did not suffer any resource loss, but positioning will play a crucial role.

So yes, the first two suffered Hit Point loss as a resource, this will will have to be factored in.


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## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I would posit this difference:  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] denies that any RPGing is player-driven or GM-driven. He asserts that all are both. (His example of GM-driven - ie that players just sit and listen to the GM read a story - I regard as (i) fanciful, and (ii) not an account of RPGing.)
> 
> Whereas I don't assert that all RPGing is railroading.




Let's say I accept your distinction that you've carved out a slightly less overbroad position than Max -- it's still overbroad.


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## Campbell

pemerton said:


> I think you dropped a "not" - I'm guessing that you're _not_ overly fond of the way I'm framing things!




That's exactly right. I think your line of inquiry is misguided for a few reasons.

It presents a false binary that fails to capture the diversity of play as experienced. It also enables debates which present another false binary that also fails to capture actual diversity of play - that a game is either a railroad or there is no significant pressure on a player to follow a path that is contrary to playing their character with integrity. We then become gridlocked in a discussion about which of these false binaries is true, rather than meaningful discussion of play.
It presumes a general lack of shared player interests or any real meaningful distinctions in how the game and social group shape player interests. We then get to avoid the equally contentious, but far more meaningful discussion about conflicts of interest that can arise when we have an aversion to actually talking these things out.
We also sidestep discussions about distinctions between various forms of player motives, the sort of decisions they are expected to make, how they are expected to make those decisions, and what that means for group dynamics, the fiction, and play of the game. For example by framing things in terms of who is driving play the subtle social cues that encourage GMs to mitigate undesired outcomes could be framed as a sort of player driven play when I am fairly certain that is anathema to the way you play roleplaying games. I know it is to me.
It also averts discussion of the possibility that we could all play a game with no one really driving the game. We're all just playing.
I think there are better ways to talk about these distinctions in a way that better accounts for diversity of play and does not assume poor alignment of player interests. Character Advocacy is one such way that I believe avoids going through the weeds.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> What I wanted to post, after reading [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] talking about "allow[ing] the PCs to engage the path or leave the path entirely if they wish", is _what does allow mean here_?
> 
> If the GM has prepped the adventure path - or, to use Maxperson's analogy, if the GM has set up a shot for the 2nd hole - then what happens if the players want to play a different scenario (or, to use the analogy, want to play on a different course)? Are they _really_ free to do that? As in, can the game really be run if they choose that?



Sure it can, assuming the DM has a clue what she's doing.



> What are the expectations around GM prep? What are the players' expectations? If the players expect a "living, breathing" world - a GM-authored backdrop that they explore and learn about through playing the game; and if the players expect a "plot" or a mystery that their PCs will hook onto and try and (re)solve; then how is the GM expected to provide this spontaneously? It seems like it will be a crap game.
> 
> Or, conversely, if it turns out that this spontaneous game is a _good_ one, then what was going on with all that effort on prep and pre-authorship? What was it for?



What happens - and believe me, I say this from experience - is that for the rest of the session in which the left turn occurs the DM is (usually)* winging it as best she can.  During the following week she then takes what happened during that session and uses it as a basis for prep for the session to come.

* - in very rare cases I've seen parties left-turn from one prepped thing directly into another (that in theory they were going to get to sometime later anyway) without realizing it.

Having a well-thought-out setting as a solid foundation certainly helps with the winging factor, as does having a supply of canned modules/maps/adventure ideas on hand for emergencies. 



> Which means what, in practical terms? If you can run a game that has veered "hard left" without prep, what is your prep for?



Well, it's wasted now, isn't it?  Part of the risk of being a DM lies in doing prep for something that may never see play.

But, speaking for myself, I know all too well that the longer I just wing it the more chance there is that I'm going to really mess it up - either generate some awful inconsistencies, or talk myself into a corner, or put a room right where another room already is...that sort of thing; to be avoided if at all possible.

Lan-"flap flap flap"-efan


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## Campbell

Tony Vargas said:


> You can use passive scores and roll behind the screen for perception/insight/etc.  (And engage in legerdemain like making decoy checks for no reason, or making checks in advance, in order, so no sound of rolling dice to add inappropriate tension.)
> 
> For knowledge checks, OTOH, the joy of being the exposition character can get pretty watered down by the vagaries of the d20. ;(  The character with the best roll craps out, then everyone else jumps in and one of them rolls high enough to do OK.   One thing I've started doing when I call for a knowledge check is to put a mechanical choice before the party:  either the high-check character makes the roll and everyone takes what he has to say as gospel, or they compare notes, hash it out and find a consensus, modeled by a group check.
> But, even if you succeed and your exposition character has the knowledge, it's the DM then tells everyone what's what.
> Exposition seems like it'd be the perfect time to give players some extra fiction-writing agency.  Say, to get all indie with it:  let the player who successfully ID's the heretofore unknown monster and it's weakness name it and decide what the weakness is...




I think it is a mistake to associate player agency too strongly with the use of specific mechanisms, particularly ones which players have no reasonable ability to actually utilize themselves. I actually feel that certain sorts of mechanisms can often be used to obscure the impact of GM judgement calls. This provides a certain sort of firewall that can make it difficult to advocate for things a player should have access to by virtue of their fictional positioning of their characters. In a game without perception checks it is entirely reasonable for me to advocate that my character would have had a chance to react to the assassin's strike by pointing out features of the fiction which would be on my side. I could also respond to the nature of the framing, and contest it on grounds of fair play. Similar things could be said for the ways in which action economies often leave gaps to be taken advantage of that do not adequately respect the fiction.

My belief is that player agency is about player decision making and its impact on the playspace. Reliable mechanisms that players can depend on are somewhat helpful, but I believe most rules debates are a form of proxy warfare. We really want to be having a discussion about our fictional positioning and the decisions we are making as players for our characters, but mechanisms can obscure this. I find when the rules of the game are easy to grasp and reliable we often see much rules lawyering subside and instead will often see discussions pointed back towards the fiction.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But that's the point - I want it to be clear! I want the players to be invested. To invest themselves, they need to know that something is at stake.
> 
> Correct! Again, that's the point.



Where sometimes I don't want them to know right now that anything is at stake; they might find out later...or might not...depending on how things go.



> Again, this is where I would have a player making the roll. That let's them both have the ritual experience of resolving a moment of crunch for the PC; and in some systems it also lets them expend resources if they want to (eg if the system allows players to expend fate points or similar to boost their checks).



Yeah, I'm not at all sold on systems where OOC resources can influence die rolls like that.



> My point is that, in the real world, this is not mediated. If you want to know something about your immediate environment you just look around.



Which in the game is modeled by asking the DM.



> I'm sitting at a desk. Without even moving my head (just my eyes) I can see, on the desk, a pile of about two dozen books on various topics, another pile of books and papers dealing with a particular legal topic, various notes and papers spread out around my computer, three memory sticks, and a dozen or so pens. Plus some CDs, some boarding passes sitting around from old travel claims, and various other stuff that I'm not going to type up.
> 
> When the GM tells the CoC players that "You walk into the academics office and see a desk strewn with books and papers", there's no way the GM is going to have a list that even remotely captures the detail that the PCs can simply _see_.
> 
> Likewise, how many GM's inn descriptions record the presence of hooks for coats at the door? I've never seen that mentioned in a module that I can recall. I've seen many D&D inns with "wine" on the price list, but rarely its colour or its grape. There might be an entry for "stew", but is it lamb, goat, horse or beef? (Or something more exotic?)
> 
> A world in which the default assumption is that _nothing is there unless the GM mentions it_ is so barren as to be implausible,



So just ask for more details (preferably those specific ones relevant to what you're doing e.g. don't ask about the number of tables in the bar if your main interest is whether there's a hook or not) until you get the relevant info you need.

Some players will take this too far and ask for descriptions of absolutely everything whether relevant or not; some DMs will also take this too far by proactively describing everything whether relevant or not.  Both of these just waste time.



> But once we get out of the dungeon, what are we going to do to rid our world of barren-ness? My solution is this: if the player is assuming that something is there (eg hooks at the door; pens on the desk) and nothing is at stake, I "say 'yes'". Why should my assumptions about what is in the fiction be any more important than there's? It's all just colour, and their sense of the colour is as good as mine.



Fair enough, as long as the DM always has right of veto.



> If something _is_ at stake - ie it's not mere colour - then that's where a roll is required (in BW and 4e, at least; Cortex is a bit trickier in this regard, and therefore poses its own GMing challenges). In 4e that would normally be as part of a skill challenge.



Again, though - what if the situation dictates that it not be known what's at stake.  OK, there's hooks...you hang your cloak on one...now I'm going to secretly roll to see if a) your contact noticed this and b) if anyone else that might care noticed this.



> The game mentioned in the OP has been driven primarily by the mage PCs desire to redeem his brother, the assassin/wizard's desire to kill the same, and the elven ronin's inability to come to terms with the loss of his master (which was what led him to wander into human lands).
> 
> Without those background elements, there wouldn't be any play.



Whyever not?  Can't the play be driven by greater forces (external plots, wars, impending apocalypse, etc.) than the characters' own angst?



> When I look at the sort of fantasy fiction I would like my RPGing to emulate (not usually all at once, but from time to time across the range of sessions, systems and campaigns) I think of LotR, REH's Conan, the Earthsea stories, Arthurian romance, Claremont's X-Men, Star Wars, and the more romantic/passionate "swordsman" movies like Bride With White Hair, Hero, Crouching Tiger, Ashes of Time, etc.
> 
> In none of these are the protagonists driven primarily by the pressure for sheer survival. Survival only becomes an issue because _something else_ has motivated them to place themselves in danger.



And in those few of that list I'm familiar with the motivation is usually external.  Sure Luke ends up trying to redeem his father (though both father and son are pretty angst-laden anyway; Anakin in the prequels is just painful) but his main motivation is to right the galaxy's wrongs once he learns about them.  Frodo takes the ring due to external pressure - it has to be done and during that fractious council meeting he feels he's the only one who can do it.  The X-men are mostly fighting for their own survival and to prove they belong in the world (in the movies, I don't know the comics at all).  Arthurian romance is just more personal angst against a different backdrop and certainly not enough to hang an entire campaign on (though romance etc. is certainly welcome to arise as a sidebar in the ongoing game).

I'd rather have a campaign where the PCs slowly but surely enmesh themselves in something much bigger than their own lives, and then play that out wherever it may go.  LotR does this very well with Frodo...well, with all the Hobbits, come to that.  Star Wars does it with Luke, if not quite as seamlessly.

And The Hobbit - all of Bilbo's motivation is external to begin with; sure he discovers himself as well as things go along, but that's not his reason for adventuring.

In my games, most adventurers I've seen played are motivated by either sheer greed, by wanting to improve their social standing (e.g. reach name level), or by being recruited into an existing party.



> I don't think these sorts of motivations will easily or naturally emerge in RPGing, if everything is framed as if the stakes are simply survival. But in order to know what will test a player's commitment, in the playing of some particular PC, to honour, or to compassion, or whatever, you need to know how that player, in playing that character, understands the ingame situation. Sometimes that reveals itself through action (eg I remember a couple of occasions when the invoker/wizard in my main 4e game slew helpless prisoners when the opportunity presented itself, because the player - in character - had formed the view that they were beyond redemption and deserved summary execution), but not always. As a GM, the most obvious way to learn this stuff is to ask the player!



Or just watch what the PC does and make mental note e.g. in the case of this wizard I'd be formulating my own ideas on its alignment after this without regard to what's written on the character sheet.

Lan-"when in doubt, ask the DM; if still in doubt, have another beer and try again"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> Is it possible that such things _don't_ come up in play that often because of the [GM driven] style of the game? That if the game were player-driven, such elements would develop as a result of players authoring their characters' connections to the fictional world?



Possibly.  That said, in this campaign only a very few adventures (maybe 3 out of 64+) have taken place anywhere near the home-town of a PC; and in those cases I try (and admittedly don't always succeed as well as I'd like) to make sure the player has some grounding in the PC's background there.

Lasnefan


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## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> I actually feel that certain sorts of mechanisms can often be used to obscure the impact of GM judgement calls. This provides a certain sort of firewall that can make it difficult to advocate for things a player should have access to by virtue of their fictional positioning of their characters. In a game without perception checks it is entirely reasonable for me to advocate that my character would have had a chance to react to the assassin's strike by pointing out features of the fiction which would be on my side. I could also respond to the nature of the framing, and contest it on grounds of fair play.



 You're also left with /just/ that.  You can say your character is being alert, you can describe him as perceptive, but with no mechanic to back you up, you're back to DM judgement calls.  Sure, it's out in the open - you know the system has given you no mechanism with which to model your character in that case, the 'game' is reduced to your ability to advocate for your character and make decisions for him, thus 'gaming the GM' or 'Gygaxian skilled play' - I like to call it 'player as resolution system.'  The character you're playing doesn't matter anymore, just your ability to make a case to your GM.


----------



## Campbell

Tony Vargas said:


> You're also left with /just/ that.  You can say your character is being alert, you can describe him as perceptive, but with no mechanic to back you up, you're back to DM judgement calls.  Sure, it's out in the open - you know the system has given you no mechanism with which to model your character in that case, the 'game' is reduced to your ability to advocate for your character and make decisions for him, thus 'gaming the GM' or 'Gygaxian skilled play' - I like to call it 'player as resolution system.'  The character you're playing doesn't matter anymore, just your ability to make a case to your GM.





That's all you really have with the design of most mainstream game designs anyway. Consider a traditional perception or knowledge check. Here are the judgement calls a GM in a mainstream game generally makes in order to resolve them:

The Content of the Fiction
If a Check is Called For.
The Difficulty Class of the Check.
Any Bonuses or Penalties That Apply.
Whether to Reveal the Difficulty Class If It Is Even Real.
What Success Means.
What Failure Means.

The entire body of the rules remains firmly under the control of the GM. Even if a check is successful there is no guarantee that it will provide real information you can use rather than a chance for the GM to impart bits of world building or color. It implies a certain amount of real machinery that gives some players solace, but is ultimately illusory. Pay No Attention To The GM Behind The Curtain. It might make you feel better about what happens, but it is just as subject to GM judgement calls as a more fiction oriented approach. It also makes it more difficult to see what is going on from the player's perspective, especially when we have a culture that does not see GMs and other players as equals at the game table. We might be able to use the rules as a form of coded language to indirectly address the fiction, but I feel that is all we are really doing.

I feel like a directive like *always say what honesty demands* that is every bit as much part of the system in use has the potential to have far greater impact. It shifts the cultural fabric of the game to one where players are allowed to expect principled decision making from their GMs and see where they are acting against the shared interests of the game. Part of what I enjoy about running a game with explicitly stated principles is that those principles become a measure by which the other players can hold my feet to the fire. It allows us to course correct and helps to keep me honest. Also when we keep things closer to the fiction it becomes far easier to see what is actually going on and tell if my framing was off.

I am not saying there is no use for mechanisms. We know how to structure mechanisms that can have a stronger impact on the social dynamic at the table. The specific questions that *read a charged situation* obliges a GM to answer truthfully if you succeed does far more to encourage GMs to impart useful information. The way Blades in the Dark represents actions according to *effect* and *position*(risk level) encourages transparency, negotiation and powerful expectations of what results should look like in the fiction. Although I am not really that much of a fan of explicit stake setting and intent based resolution much of the time it does create powerful expectations that enable more informed decision making.

I would add that I believe we should be careful that whatever game we use does not short circuit skilled play of fictional position. I think *Things On Character Sheets* can serve to increase our interests in the fiction and relate it to us in a way that can more effectively be gamed, but the beating heart of any roleplaying game should reside in meaningful exploration of the fiction. I also have no significant issue with judgement calls. I just think we should be applying our judgements in principled ways that enable greater player investment in the game and impactful decision making.


----------



## Manbearcat

Xetheral said:


> The descriptive paragraph goes beyond what I'd do all at once: instead I'd spread it out a little to give the players time to interrupt or ask questions. I'd also probably intersperse information about other patrons to make the establishment seem more fluid, rather than forcing the focus on the newcomer.
> 
> But no, I'd never ask my players to tell me who the newcomer was. Honestly, it never would have even occurred to me to do so until reading this thread--that question is completely outside anything I've ever encountered in an RPG. Learning that there is much greater diversity in GMing styles that I ever knew about is part of what makes this thread so interesting.
> 
> That said, I think the giant gulf between the preferred styles of many of the posters is making communication difficult. When two games are so radically qualitatively-different, I'm not sure it's meaningful to try to measure them on the same axis. For example, I don't think it means much to say that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s or [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s style is more "player-driven" than the other, because I'm not sure that there is a definition of "player-driven" that makes sense in both contexts simultaneously. Their games are just too different.
> 
> Returning to the concept of "ask questions and use the answers", I think the very premise isn't compatible with my GMing style's emphasis on immersion and verisimilitude. And as a player, I don't see how I could maintain my IC focus when I'm confronted with an OOC request from the GM to add an element to the game world. I consider myself pretty good at switching back and forth quickly (I have to do it all the time as a GM), but what you're describing sounds extremely jarring--especially the part where after adding the element OOC, I'd need to immediately interact with the element I'd just created, this time from my character's perspective and while trying to forget about the OOC motives underlying my choice of what to add.
> 
> Are your players simply _phenomenal_ at flipping back and forth from thinking as their characters to thinking as themselves? Or, alternatively, do your players add the requested elements in-character (i.e. the character, rather than the player, is choosing how the character knows the newcomer)? Or maybe roleplaying at your table means something different than it does at mine, in a way that makes the transition easier?




I've posted many times over the course of the last few years about developed mental frameworks and cognitive biases being the source of much of the incredulity and mismatched expectations in these discussions.

Here is a quick example (I'll talk about a few other components of inhabitation and mental frameworks in a follow-up, but let us start with this):

D&D 4e has rife Martial Forced Movement inherent to the combat engine.  This almost always (but not always) comes in the form of a rider to an attack in which that rider doesn't require discrete resolution unto itself.  This concept was a problem for many players coming from 3.x that were expecting a process-sim resolution chassis.  For them, as you say above, this draws them out of inhabitation of their PC (Actor Stance), forcing them to engage the situation from either Pawn Stance or Director Stance.  So they're either:

(a) relating to their character as if they are controlling a piece on a game board 

or 

(b) they have a mismatched expectation of what is happening (and what their character is capable of) in the fiction because they conceive this sort of Martial Forced Movement (without discrete mechanical resolution) on an NPC as having the mandate of a director rather than "organically" (I use that term very loosely, because we are, of course, talking about a thing that doesn't actually exist) interacting with the components of our shared imagined space.

Why is this not a problem for any of the participants in my 4e games?  

All of us have been lifelong athletes with two of us playing collegiate sports (and continuing afterward).  When you have that sort of exposure to combat/contact sports, you develop both an instinctual and empirically-driven awareness that the concept of "autonomy" is very different in that arena than what most folks consider (either as their level of autonomy in day to day affairs or how they erroneously extrapolate and map that to "what they think" happens in martial exchanges...think, rather than know, because of lack of intimate exposure).  The significant majority of the micro-exchanges that take place are driven by the subconscious permutations of the martial actor's honed OODA Loop.  The locus of control is indeed internal to the martial actor (they are actually doing the Observation, Orientation, Decision, and Action).  However, due to the nature of the processing (the speed with which it must take place, the muscle memory, the honed instinct, and the inherent gravity/consequence of each decision to be made) that is taking place, it is, for all intents and purposes, automated.

So, for instance, when the ball is snapped, an American Football Linebacker has (a) a suite of assignments, (b) physical keys to read, (c) tons of spatial information to incorporate into his instantaneous decision-making (including not just where objects are, but where s/he is, and relative velocities/angles), (d) and the fact that the mind fundamentally knows that the activity it is engaging in is extremely dangerous.

So all of the myriad of information processing, decisions, and actions that take place in the next few seconds are going to be more the product of automated response to stimuli than shrewd, cognizant-in-the-moment, deliberation.  The Quarterback performs a play-action-fake to the Running Back.  The Linebacker automatically takes a step or two toward the Line of Scrimmage.  The Quarterback pulls it out of the Running Back's belly and drops back to pass.  The Linebacker automatically scrambles back to drop into the Zone coverage assignment it has.  A receiver runs a shallow cross in front of the LB though his zone.  The LB automatically moves forward to a point of contact intercept should the pass go there.  But oh no.  There is another crossing route behind the LB and now they're out of position to contest the pass.  12 yard completion.  This collection of sensory information and route combination is designed precisely to manipulate the LB and achieve this outcome.

This is but one example in a never-ending deluge of them.  Automated Martial Forced Movement happens constantly in contact/physical sports (actual combat sports are even more automated in the moment of action) so 4e's rampant Forced Movement is intuitive to them.  Simultaneously, it also plays to their sense of genre logic (where dynamic movement, forced or otherwise, and battlefield interaction is also rife; be it Wesley and Inigo's famous duel, Pirates of the Caribbean, LotR/Hobbit fights, or Avengers/X-Men).

So, because of this, the phenomenon of Martial Forced Movement in 4e (and active melee control effects like Marking) actually *improves *(considerably so) the capacity for my table's participants to inhabit their characters (because the OODA Loop dynamics are considerably closer to what they've experienced in contact sports/physical martial contests).  The character build mechanics (such as a character being more adept at deploying Forced Movement or having some level of passive resistance to it or ability to actively mitigate/negate it) and the resolution mechanics enhance their conception of archetype and their immersion.

Meanwhile, folks who have a different developed mental framework and different cognitive biases feel...well...very differently about it.

Thoughts on that before we move to other aspects of this component of the conversation?


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> in the real world, this is not mediated. If you want to know something about your immediate environment you just look around.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which in the game is modeled by asking the DM.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> just ask for more details (preferably those specific ones relevant to what you're doing e.g. don't ask about the number of tables in the bar if your main interest is whether there's a hook or not) until you get the relevant info you need.
> 
> Some players will take this too far and ask for descriptions of absolutely everything whether relevant or not; some DMs will also take this too far by proactively describing everything whether relevant or not. Both of these just waste time.
Click to expand...


Relating this back to [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION]'s posts: I don't see how this is very immersive. It seems quite unimmersive to me, as my sense of "being there" is constantly disrupted by this 20-questions-style back-and-forth with the GM to establish basic details which would be immediately known by my PC.

Adding in a constraint of "relevance" only compounds the issue, particularly in an environment where players are discouraged from explaining what their motivations or intentions are for their PCs, and where the GM is keeping secret from the players what s/he thinks is at stake in the situation, and hence there is no real clarity at the table as to what may or may not be relevant.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> he game mentioned in the OP has been driven primarily by the mage PCs desire to redeem his brother, the assassin/wizard's desire to kill the same, and the elven ronin's inability to come to terms with the loss of his master (which was what led him to wander into human lands).
> 
> Without those background elements, there wouldn't be any play.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Whyever not? Can't the play be driven by greater forces (external plots, wars, impending apocalypse, etc.) than the characters' own angst?
Click to expand...


But why would the PCs engage with those "greater forces" in a proactive way, without some motivation?



Lanefan said:


> The Hobbit - all of Bilbo's motivation is external to begin with



I don't think that's right. Bilbo doesn't want to go on an adventure and take risks. He sleeps in and thinks he's got out of it.

But then a sense of shame (or something in that neighbourhood) and loyalty (especially to Gandalf), as well as a longing to break free of village life, lead him to head off and join the dwarves. Those are not external motivations. He's certainly not motivated by a longing for treasure!


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> @_*Manbearcat*_: For me, it depends a bit on the game.
> 
> In BW, I wouldn't ask "Who is this guy? Do you know him?" Because either, (i) it's framing, in which case I'm in charge (as GM), though perhaps using elements already established by the players, (ii) it's a consequence of a successful check, in which case the action declaration has already established what happens on a success, or (iii) it's a consequence of a failed check, in which case I'm narrating some adverse thing happening.
> 
> If, in circumstance (i) or (iii), a player _volunteered_ some connection between his/her PC and the NPC, that would be quite permissible. Either I'd "say 'yes'", or I'd call for a check, or - if it was an attempt to revisit something that had already been tried and failed, then I'd enforce Let it Ride and so veto the attempt.
> 
> MHRP is a bit different, though. For instance, Wolverine's player earns 1 XP "when you declare someone an old ally or foe." In my MHRP game, the heroes were raiding a Clan Yashida office tower in Tokyo, looking for information (i) about the attempted theft of some Stark Tech, and (ii) about the whereabouts of Mariko, who was missing. At a certain point Wolverine was in combat with a NPC ninja/martial artist. Wolverine's player, in character, announced that he recognised this person, and their paths has last crossed in Hong Kong (? or Madripoor, or . . . I can't remember the details), and this time Wolverine was not going to let said ninja get the better of him. The XP was therefore earned, and the fiction established. There's no real sense that I've got veto rights as GM, and MHRP doesn't have a mechanic, analogous to a Lore or Circles check, that I can fall back on as a "roll the dice" alternative to "saying 'yes'".




"Ask questions and use the answers" is definitely not something to be deployed for all play agendas/systems.  It (of course) is a terrible principle for a game like B/X.  It also is dysfunctional for a game like Torchbearer, it being a modernized (much more complicated) B/X but with aspirations and an experience of a different (more profound) sort.

These sorts of games have specific procedures for play conversation which focuses on testing/challenging the players, through their player characters, and finding out what happens.  Torchbearer also has at its heart a much more grim and desperate disposition (which it, intentionally, infects the players with) due to the way all the parts work together.  "Ask questions and use the answers" is (a) not necessary for these games (because each unit of conversation, the high utility prep, the fundamental play procedures, and the resolution mechanics all do their expectant job) and (b) it would actively work against the play agenda of Torchbearer because it could potentially mitigate some/much of that grim, anxious desperation that is part and parcel of the experience.  There are some games where part of the experience of being protagonized is to allow the System Agency to do its thing and provoke your dread, your sense of forboding, your grim outlook, your sense of loss (My Life With Master, Dread, Torchbearer).  "Ask questons and use the answers" is not for those systems.

Unrelated, I think there is some confusion as to the process here of "Ask questions and use the answers."  I don't recall who I should summon here, so I'll just summon  @_*Xetheral*_ and  @_*Lanefan*_ and cross my fingers that the clarification will be relevant to them.

"Who is this guy?...how do you know him?" is an offer.  Its not "leading the witness" or an instruction/demand.  It can absolutely be handled by the player how they see fit.  The following is absolutely a legit response (whether this situation unfolded as a result of framing or was the product of a action resolution (perhaps the system's equivalent of a Contacts move resulted in either a Success with Complications or a Fail Forward/Twist).

*Player*:  _I cover my mouth and speak under my breath to my companions as the man makes a mess of himself toward our table.  "I've never seen this man.  Be on your guard."  I casually slide my boot knife from its sheathe and keep that hand under the table..._


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I think your line of inquiry is misguided for a few reasons.
> 
> It presents a false binary that fails to capture the diversity of play as experienced. It also enables debates which present another false binary that also fails to capture actual diversity of play - that a game is either a railroad or there is no significant pressure on a player to follow a path that is contrary to playing their character with integrity. We then become gridlocked in a discussion about which of these false binaries is true, rather than meaningful discussion of play.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> We also sidestep discussions about distinctions between various forms of player motives, the sort of decisions they are expected to make, how they are expected to make those decisions, and what that means for group dynamics, the fiction, and play of the game. For example by framing things in terms of who is driving play the subtle social cues that encourage GMs to mitigate undesired outcomes could be framed as a sort of player driven play when I am fairly certain that is anathema to the way you play roleplaying games. I know it is to me.
> 
> It also averts discussion of the possibility that we could all play a game with no one really driving the game. We're all just playing.



One reason I have adopte the framing that I have is that I think (hope?) that it can bring out some ideas about modes of GM control/influence over the direction of the game, and especially the content of the shared fiction.

For instance, some posters have suggested that unless the players literally have no choice for their PCs, then the game is not a railroad. But as far as I can see, unless the GM is literally sitting down and reading a story to the players - in which case we don't have a RPG at all - the players must have some choices to make. So the focus then shifts to the ways in which those choices are or are not meaningful, contribute significantly to the themes and directions of play, etc.

I think this can encompass reflecting on the sorts of social cues you mention, but I agree with you that it doesn't foreground them. I'm not a behaviourist by any means, but I think in this sort of discussion it is very hard to get serious and sincere discussion about social cues in situations where the only person able to describe the situation is also probably committed to defending its integrity. This is why I tend to focus on procedures and behaviours at the table - eg who establishes that such-and-such obtains in the shared fiction? How does the fiction - fiction that is public at the table, and fiction that is known only to the GM - figure in action resolution? Etc.

The last of the three points above is interesting, but my reason for sidestepping it - and for relying on what may be an overly-simplistic binary contrast - is that there is a good chance that everyone will describe their game that way (qv [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] above) and then the very real differences become hard to tease out.



Campbell said:


> It presumes a general lack of shared player interests or any real meaningful distinctions in how the game and social group shape player interests. We then get to avoid the equally contentious, but far more meaningful discussion about conflicts of interest that can arise when we have an aversion to actually talking these things out.
> I think there are better ways to talk about these distinctions in a way that better accounts for diversity of play and does not assume poor alignment of player interests. Character Advocacy is one such way that I believe avoids going through the weeds.



Can you elaborate on the presumption that you refer to?

Also, none of the above is meant to persuade that you that my approach is not misguided. It's simply to explain a bit further why I have taken the approach that I have.


----------



## Maxperson

Xetheral said:


> [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION],
> 
> When you "ask questions and use the answers", how do you decide which player(s) get(s) to provide the answer? Is it first-come-first-serve? Round robin? Collaborative?
> 
> Also, what critetia do you expect the players to use when coming up with their answer? What they would find fun individually? What the other players would find fun? Free association with the current storyline? Logicial inference? Whimsy? I'm having hard time figuring out how I would begin to answer such a question as a player. This is in part because I don't understand which OOC GM responsibilities (if any) implictly attach to such on-the-spot delegation of content creation from the GM to the players.




I think you may have me confused with someone else.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> This still doesn't seem to answer my question. If you can run the pirate game without prep, and "everyone had a blast", what is the point of the prep?




I never said I didn't prep.  There was plenty of time for me to prepare for the pirate excursion while they traveled from Baldur's Gate to the Nelanther Isles.


----------



## Campbell

Xetheral said:


> When you "ask questions and use the answers", how do you decide which player(s) get(s) to provide the answer? Is it first-come-first-serve? Round robin? Collaborative?
> 
> Also, what criteria do you expect the players to use when coming up with their answer? What they would find fun individually? What the other players would find fun? Free association with the current storyline? Logical inference? Whimsy? I'm having hard time figuring out how I would begin to answer such a question as a player. This is in part because I don't understand which OOC GM responsibilities (if any) implicitly attach to such on-the-spot delegation of content creation from the GM to the players.




It depends on the specific game and the specific principles in play. When I bring these techniques into other games I generally also have a list of specific principles and agenda I have prepared for the game in question. Generally I prefer *ask provocative questions and build on the answers* to Dungeon World's weakening of the principle to *ask questions and use the answers*. The way that it tends to work in practice for me is I go where my own interests are and ask directed questions of specific players' characters that should add interest to the fiction. I only ask questions that their character should have the answer to.

Here are my expectations for players:

It should be interesting fiction that will have an impact on play.
It should tell us something about your character that we don't already know. Let us peel back the layers on the onion.
Approach the question as a curious explorer of the fiction. 
It should leave room for more questions.

In practice, I am not really all that concerned with vetting their answers. I trust them to play their characters with integrity, be curious about the fiction, and say interesting things.

The following passage from Masks should highlight the use of the technique:



			
				Masks said:
			
		

> *ASK PROVOCATIVE QUESTIONS
> AND BUILD ON THE ANSWERS*
> 
> Always ask questions of the PCs. When you’re curious about something and one of them should know the answer, ask. Make the question pointed, provocative, and leading. Not, “Is there anyone in your class you like?” But, “Someone here is your best friend. Who is it?” Not, “Have you ever been defeated by a villain?” But, “How did Vortex defeat you so badly last time you clashed?” Only ask provocative questions that the PCs would know the answers to. You shouldn’t ask them, “What’s that villain’s dastardly plan?” unless it’s somehow believable that they would know.
> 
> Remember those answers, keep in mind they add to the fiction, and target them for further development. Those answers are now true, and what’s more, the PC who gave you that answer is inherently interested in it—it was their answer! Don’t let it lie. Build on it.








Xetheral said:


> I describe the direct consequences of failing the task that the check was modeling. I stick as closely as possible to consequences that would be expected in the real world, so that players can rely on their real-world experience to accurately judge the stakes of their actions in advance. When the game world predictably responds to actions analogously to the real world, this contributes to verisimilitude.
> 
> The players aren't going to get what they want as a _result_ of a failed check, but the failed check usually doesn't _preclude_ them getting what they want via other means or more effort. For some checks, that won't always be possible. Failure on a check to catch a falling vase, for example, is likely to frustrate the players' intent in catching it, but only as a direct consequence of that failure when the vase, foreseeably, shatters.
> 
> The point of the check was to determine, in a case where there was doubt about the outcome, whether the action in question succeeded or failed.




My approach is generally the same, but with a twist. I am not big on intent, but I still want to know what has changed. I am big on every action being consequential, regardless of the result. Nothing ever stays the same. There is always risk and change involved. The fiction is dynamic. 




Xetheral said:


> Much of the content of my games is generated on the fly. If the players decide to follow a plotline I hadn't added deliberately (and this happens all the time when the party finds something unexpectedly interesting and decides to pursue it) this does indeed require me to make up a mystery or plot as I go along. Often, I can do this seamlessly, staying one step ahead of the players, without letting on that I've switched to wholesale improv. If it's a situation where I think I need a little planning time first, or I think I'm too tired to pull off full-improv well, I'll simply admit that this is an area of the game I've only got a vague sketch of, and call for a 10-minute break while I fill in the details.
> 
> I do a small amount of prep work for each session (I do more at the start of a new campaign), based on my best guesses of what the party will choose to do. If I'm wrong and my work isn't used that session, I'll keep it around in case the party follows up later. If they don't, I can file off the serial numbers and use generic parts of it (e.g. a dungeon layout) to supplement future on-the-fly content.




The biggest difference here is that I do not want to know or guess what they will do. A large part of my fun in running the game comes from playing off the other players and not knowing what course they will take. I want to approach the game with a spirit of curiosity. My prep tends to be focused on thinking up threats and challenges to what the players' characters believe about themselves. I tend to leave this all in potentia rather than nailing things down so I don't become invested in outcomes.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> D&D 4e has rife Martial Forced Movement inherent to the combat engine.  This almost always (but not always) comes in the form of a rider to an attack in which that rider doesn't require discrete resolution unto itself.  This concept was a problem for many players coming from 3.x that were expecting a process-sim resolution chassis.  For them, as you say above, this draws them out of inhabitation of their PC (Actor Stance), forcing them to engage the situation from either Pawn Stance or Director Stance.



Yep, guilty as charged - forced movement as a built-in feature of a regular attack does nothing for me.  If someone - either a PC or a foe - is trying to force movement that gets resolved separately, regardless of the success/failure of the actual attack roll.



> All of us have been lifelong athletes with two of us playing collegiate sports (and continuing afterward).



Which may make you unique - or certainly highly uncommon - among gaming groups.



> So, for instance, when the ball is snapped, an American Football Linebacker has (a) a suite of assignments, (b) physical keys to read, (c) tons of spatial information to incorporate into his instantaneous decision-making (including not just where objects are, but where s/he is, and relative velocities/angles), (d) and the fact that the mind fundamentally knows that the activity it is engaging in is extremely dangerous.
> 
> So all of the myriad of information processing, decisions, and actions that take place in the next few seconds are going to be more the product of automated response to stimuli than shrewd, cognizant-in-the-moment, deliberation.  The Quarterback performs a play-action-fake to the Running Back.  The Linebacker automatically takes a step or two toward the Line of Scrimmage.  The Quarterback pulls it out of the Running Back's belly and drops back to pass.  The Linebacker automatically scrambles back to drop into the Zone coverage assignment it has.  A receiver runs a shallow cross in front of the LB though his zone.  The LB automatically moves forward to a point of contact intercept should the pass go there.  But oh no.  There is another crossing route behind the LB and now they're out of position to contest the pass.  12 yard completion.  This collection of sensory information and route combination is designed precisely to manipulate the LB and achieve this outcome.



May I just chuck in here that American football might not be the best of analogies, due to the very stop-and-start nature of its play; and despite the best (and by that I mean worst) attempts of the turn-based system to make D&D combat a stop-and-start affair I still prefer to think of it as a fog-of-war free-flowing sort of thing.  For a similar sport to use as an analogy, rugby might be a better (though still not perfect) comparison as the action tends to keep flowing longer between stoppages.

Lan-"what's the D&D equivalent to a missed field goal"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> Unrelated, I think there is some confusion as to the process here of "Ask questions and use the answers."  I don't recall who I should summon here, so I'll just summon  @_*Xetheral*_ and  @_*Lanefan*_ and cross my fingers that the clarification will be relevant to them.



Reporting for duty, sir!



> "Who is this guy?...how do you know him?" is an offer.



And my immediate response OOC as a player is something like "How the <bleep> do I know?  It's not my place [as a player] to answer that."



> *Player*:  _I cover my mouth and speak under my breath to my companions as the man makes a mess of himself toward our table.  "I've never seen this man.  Be on your guard."  I casually slide my boot knife from its sheathe and keep that hand under the table..._



I can't say if I've ever seen this man (unless the DM tells me/us whether I/we have or not) as it's not my place to do so; but I can certainly whisper "I'm not sure about this guy" as I surreptitiously slide out my boot knife, as that's a legitimate in-character reaction.

Lan-"meanwhile the barmaid, pissed about being trainwrecked by this guy, is setting up her backstrike..."-efan


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> I never said I didn't prep.  There was plenty of time for me to prepare for the pirate excursion while they traveled from Baldur's Gate to the Nelanther Isles.



OK, so how did that bit of the game work? If it wasn't dealing with your old prepped material (the "2nd hole") and wasn't dealing with your new prepped material (which did while they were en route), how was the fiction for those moments of gaming created?


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> Relating this back to @_*Xetheral*_'s posts: I don't see how this is very immersive. It seems quite unimmersive to me, as my sense of "being there" is constantly disrupted by this 20-questions-style back-and-forth with the GM to establish basic details which would be immediately known by my PC.
> 
> Adding in a constraint of "relevance" only compounds the issue, particularly in an environment where players are discouraged from explaining what their motivations or intentions are for their PCs, and where the GM is keeping secret from the players what s/he thinks is at stake in the situation, and hence there is no real clarity at the table as to what may or may not be relevant.




Okay so I attempted to allow players to have more of an input in the adventure by introducing Plot Points which would allow players to introduce interesting story elements and this is what played out...

PCs met up with an underworld boss requesting they retrieve an item of his (a genie within a lamp which they had recently set free), they declined;
He obtained revenge by hurting those within his organisation who had betrayed him by assisting the PCs. A box with fingers was delivered anonymously to the PCs rooms. The 'betrayers' were nowhere to be found;
PCs met up with the underworld boss again to confront him about the above - he denied any involvement in the box with the fingers or the disappearance of his employees. 
One of the players (25+ years of rpging) decided he wanted to use his Plot Point to have fingers drop out of underworld boss's pocket. Everyone else groaned at the table at the desired use of the Plot Point. Needless to say, the table disallowed it and I removed Plot Points to avoid such situations in the future.

Is this player the exception to the rule. I don't believe so. But allowing that player that much freedom in the narration would have been detrimental to my table. So the proponents of 'no myth', 'player driven stories' or 'shared narration' need to realise that not all tables are equipped to deal with this style of play and truthfully not all players want that.
I have another player who gives me a few lines on his backstory but prefers the GM do the rest of the work in bringing it out through the campaign.
My remaining three players would actually be perfectly fine at any table (sandbox or player driven), but I suspect two of them prefer the DM as the primary narrator of the story.

I believe many of you are forgetting the mix of players at the table and perhaps what they would prefer or what they are best suited for.


----------



## pemerton

Warning, long post incoming!



hawkeyefan said:


> If the PCs frequent a certain inn, then I know I personally wouldn't mind a player establishing a minor detail like where the coats get hung. Or even something a bit more substantial.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If your GM is reasonable, then they'll likely let you establish coathooks in the local inn. They may kind of expect to be asked "I hang my drenching cloak beside the door...oh, *is that what they do here, or some other way of hanging coats*?" and the GM would likely just agree and ask you to continue.
> 
> I don't think that a bit of confirmation on the DM's part is all that disorienting to the player that it would carry over to their role playing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I feel like having the game world feel more lived in, more dynamic would be more supported by planning ahead a bit rather than allowing everything to be established on the fly.



I've highlighted one sentence in this post, because it illustrates what, in my view, tends to undermine immersion: if I'm meant to experience the fiction in the same way (whatever _exactly_ that means) as my character, then why am I having to _ask_ how coats are hung. Wouldn't I (as my PC) know that?

Would it disorient the player and disrupt his/her roleplaying? Well, it won't stop _performance_, I guess. Actors are (I assume) used to being told about what the norms are that their characters are used to, as part of helping them understand how to play their characters, how to react to things, etc.

But [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] didn't talk about roleplaying in that sense - the word used was _immersion_. And I personally think that that sort of GM mediation is an obstacle to immersion. As I said, I feel it makes the character feel like an alien.

And I don't see how GM prep really deals with this issue. GM prep doesn't make the world more "lived in" from the point of view of the player experience of "inhabiting" the PC.



hawkeyefan said:


> But what if the player says "I hand my drenched coat to...my long lost brother who is standing beside the door!?!?!" Cue the dramatic music.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think most games likely allow at least a little input into NPCs by players...supporting cast and family and the like are something I always try to use in my games. Typically, I let the players decide the basics, and then I may take it from there.
> 
> I feel like this is something that the GM has to mitigate to some extent. The example I gave above of the long lost brother showing up out of the blue...that was mostly a joke, but if the players are free to introduce such concepts in play, then what's to stop them?



Why does the player need to be stopped? That is, what is the issue here?

In 4e, the system offers no _mechanic_ for handling this. The advice is simply to "say 'yes'", and this is different from "say 'yes' or roll the dice": the latter is a principle about resolving action declarations, whereas the 4e advice is about player introduction of fictional content. In my 4e game it hasn't come up very often, but one episode I remember is that of a player declaring that his PC gives the secret signal of his cult to the captain of a band of elves with whom the PCs had met up. I took a "yes, but" approach: I thought it might be a bit strong to have the elven captain as an ally, so declared that the captain seemed not to recognise the symbol; but that a bit later, the lieutenant approached the PC and indicated that _he_ had noticed the signal, and then went on to offer cult-related assistance.

In BW and Cortex/MHRP - the other two systems I'm GMing at the moment - the player's declaration that the PC's brother is there _is_ an action declaration. In MHRP it requires spending a "plot point" (a type of player resource that is a central component of that game's resolution economy) to create a "resource", which is (in effect) a species of buff with fiction attached. In the absence of spending the point, at best the player is trying to add some colour to the scene, but can't actually get help from the brother.

In BW either the player is calling on a relationship (which is a type of resource - not entirely unlike a AD&D henchman - established as part of PC building) or is making a Circles check. For the latter, the GM can "say 'yes'" rather than calling for a roll of the dice, if there is nothing at stake; otherwise (as with any other action declaration) a DC is set and the check is resolved. If it fails, the most natural response to the example you gave would be something like "Your brother takes your coat from you, and snarls 'I'll keep this as a downpayment for all that you owe me . . .'" - ie the situation has become one in which the PC has to deal with the enmity of his/her brother.



hawkeyefan said:


> I suppose the argument could be made that since nothing is predetermined by the GM, then no plans are being spoiled...the story that emerges is simply what happens.
> 
> My argument against that would be that story takes craft. A revenge story isn't made better or more pure if the protagonist sets out on what he expects to be a long, arduous journey....only to find his nemesis before he takes five steps.



Well, there are (at least) three things here.

First, if the player wants to play a revenge story of his/her PC against the PC's brother, will s/he immediately narrate an encounter with the brother? To some extent, we have to trust that the players will push the fiction in the directions that speak to what they want out of the game. (I _think_ this connects to some of the ideas [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has been talking about, but I don't know whether he would exactly agree with what I've said here - I hope he might post about that.)

Second, I think there is an issue here that is not about GM predetermination but rather about responsibility for framing conflicts. The so-called "Czege principle" posits, as an empirical conjecture, that "it's not exciting to play a roleplaying game if the rules require one player to both introduce and resolve a conflict." In other words, the tension/drama/excitement of play can be better served by the mechanics, and/or the GM, in various ways, mediating the introduction into the shared fiction of the nemesis against whom revenge is sort. For instance, the appearance of the nemesis might be the result of a successful check (eg the player delcares a tracking check, and succeeds, and now the PC comes over a ridge to see his/her nemesis camped on the hillside below), or of a failed check (eg the player fails a Circles check, and instead of meeting his/her contact in the alley finds his/her nemesis there, standing over the dead body of the contact, with a loaded crossbow pointed in the PC's direction and saying "So, at last we meet . . . "), or simply framing ("You see your nemesis through the crowd: vice versa also, and having noticed you the nemesis starts to hurry off. What do you do?").

These sorts of things would be instances of the player providing the hooks for play, including the existence (in the shared fiction) of the salient story elements (namely, the nemesis; and the PC's desire for revenge), but not actually him-/herself deciding unilaterally when the conflict occurs.

Third, I think there is a high degree of tension between the proposition that "story takes craft" - implying that pre-authorship is therefore desirable - and the proposition that "in a RPG the players make choices that matter". Because if the latter proposition is true, then what has happened to the former? What is left of the GM's carefully crafting, if the players are allowed to make meaningful choices?

To the extent that "story takes craft", I therefore prefer to approach RPGing from a perspective that takes as a premise that all the parties at the table will be contributing to the crafting (eg by creating PCs who are driven, in some sense, by dramatic needs). I also prefer mechanics and procedures that tend, by their very nature, to yield story as an outcome of their use. The 4e combat mechanics are a very clear illustration of this: when used in conjunction with the encounter building guidelines they produce, "automatically" as it were, combat encounters which have dramatic pacing: the PCs are pushed hard (monsters and NPCs have higher default damage and higher default hp), and put on the ropes, but then - if played well by their players - are able to rally (PCs have a depth of healing resources that monsters and NPCs lack), pull out all the stops (PCs have a depth of non-at-will resources that monsters and NPCs lack) and thereby turn the tide, ultimately achieving victory.

4e skill challenges require more skillful GMing to achieve the same dramatic pacing, but they can be used in a similar way.

MHRP/Cortext establishes story through the way dice pools are built (because they are built up out of dice that literally represent elements of the fiction), and every outcome has some literal meaning in the fiction (ie is not just a mechanical notation such as hp depletion). And the rice and fall of the doom pool (the GM's resource pool) conveys directly the sense of dread or the "room to breathe" for the PCs. Of the three games I GM, I think it is the "lightest"/least serious in the sort of story that it supports.

Whereas BW is the most "heavy" or grim in this respect. It's system guarantees that failure will be frequent, and it relies upon its principles for the narration of these failures to do deliver story (as things improve for the PCs, but then turn against them - and because of the basic GMing principles, this is all speaking to the PCs' dramatic concerns).



Campbell said:


> Xetheral said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A question: when you are GMing a game, and a player fails a check, what do you do? If they can fail the check yet still get what they wanted, then what was the point of the check?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I describe the direct consequences of failing the task that the check was modeling. I stick as closely as possible to consequences that would be expected in the real world, so that players can rely on their real-world experience to accurately judge the stakes of their actions in advance. When the game world predictably responds to actions analagously to the real world, this contributes to verisimilitude.
> 
> The players aren't going to get what they want as a _result_ of a failed check, but the failed check usually doesn't _preclude_ them getting what they want via other means or more effort. For some checks, that won't always be possible. Failure on a check to catch a falling vase, for example, is likely to frustrate the players' intent in catching it, but only as a direct consequence of that failure when the vase, forseeably, shatters.
> 
> The point of the check was to determine, in a case where there was doubt about the outcome, whether the action in question succeeded or failed.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> My approach is generally the same, but with a twist. I am not big on intent, but I still want to know what has changed. I am big on every action being consequential, regardless of the result. Nothing ever stays the same. There is always risk and change involved. The fiction is dynamic.
Click to expand...


This is a response to Campbell and [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] (I'm tagging in case the embedded quote doesn't trigger a notification).

For me, the importance of intent - in 4e skill challenges, and almost all BW resolution (it has some rather intricate sub-systems, especially its melee combat sub-system, that make intent less important than task for certain action declarations) - follows from what I just wrote in reply to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]. It is the narration of success and failure in terms of intent that delivers the rise and fall that is part of a story.

I find that focusing on task alone doesn't do that job (unless task is so expansively characterised as to include intent also). To give one example: in my 4e game, the players succeeded at a skill challenge that involved having dinner with the baron (at his invitation) in the company of his advisor (whom they knew to be an evil necromancer; and who himself knew that they knew; but who did not want to be revealed to the baron, and whom they did not really want to reveal less that embarrass the baron and/or turn the baron against them) while keeping secret from the advisor that the magical tapestry he had spent years searching for was, in fact, in the dwarven PC's herald's backpack about 15 feet from the dining table. (Details here.)

Focusing on intent was key to my GMing of this, modulating the consequences of success - which, by the rules of the game, must bring the players closer to what they (as their PCs) want - with maintaining pressure via framing so that the situation is still "alive" and hence the players have a reason to keep declaring actions for their PCs.

The final resolution of the skill challenge involved the 10 CHAR dwarf fighter/cleric making a social check against the advisor, calling him not by his courtly name but by the name used among the goblin and hobgoblin armies he was secretly commanding, and thereby trying to goad him into revealing himself to the baron. The check initially failed, but then another player spent a resource (an action point) to (in the fiction) add another taunt, and thereby (in the mechanics) add a bonus to the dwarf player's check that turned the failure into a success.

That was the end of that session; in the next session, we opened with the taunted advisor turning on the PCs. I declared some action for him, or said something about the situation - I can't now remember what - but then one of the players reminded me: _We succeeded in the skill challenge, with the goal of having the evil advisor reveal himself_. The player's point was that I, as GM, would be dishonouring that success by now allowing some action or element of framing that tended to allow the advisor to try and conceal his evil or make the PCs look like the bad guys. The success doesn't just result in the advisor doing something (in this case, being goaded into attacking the PCs); it also establishes a "meaning" or a context, within the fiction, for that "something" - namely, the advisor is revealing himself as an evil traitor to the baron.

I've given examples upthread already of _failures_ producing story through a focus on intent (eg the discovery of the black arrows; finding the fouled waterhole) so I won't elaborate anymore on that.



Campbell said:


> A large part of my fun in running the game comes from playing off the other players and not knowing what course they will take. I want to approach the game with a spirit of curiosity. My prep tends to be focused on thinking up threats and challenges to what the players' characters believe about themselves.



I would say that this is all true for me also, at least for 4e and BW.

For Cortex/MHRP I feel I'm still on more of a learning curve, including learning exactly what prep (if any) might be useful. NPCs/creatures are very easy to create on the fly, plus I have books full of "datafiles", so that particular aspect of prep (which looms larger in BW and 4e, both of which like a degree of mechanical heft to the threats/challenges) isn't so important.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> OK, so how did that bit of the game work? If it wasn't dealing with your old prepped material (the "2nd hole") and wasn't dealing with your new prepped material (which did while they were en route), how was the fiction for those moments of gaming created?



I can improvise fairly well.  Even when I prep, my limited time often only allows me to create a bare bones outline of things.  The details are usually improvised.  That wasn't the case when I had many hours to prepare, but those days are long gone.  If the players throw me a curve, I can usually improvise for the rest of the evening and then do some prep work before the next game.  Occasionally, they throw the curve so hard that I let them know that I need time to prep some things and we stop the game until the following week.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Warning, long post incoming!
> 
> I've highlighted one sentence in this post, because it illustrates what, in my view, tends to undermine immersion: if I'm meant to experience the fiction in the same way (whatever _exactly_ that means) as my character, then why am I having to _ask_ how coats are hung. Wouldn't I (as my PC) know that?




If it was an inn your character was familiar with, sure. I would expect the GM to let you make that call, unless there was some compelling reason not to (perhaps the map of the inn would not support such a placement?) 

If it was an inn you were not familiar with, then your character would have to look around to see where coats are hung....the equivalent of saying to the GM "I look around to see where the coats are hung..." and having the GM say "on hooks by the door." Now, many GMs may be fine with a player determining a rather mundane detail like the coathooks because they likely wouldn't impact play. That may be different for elements of play that might impact the game more.  



pemerton said:


> Would it disorient the player and disrupt his/her roleplaying? Well, it won't stop _performance_, I guess. Actors are (I assume) used to being told about what the norms are that their characters are used to, as part of helping them understand how to play their characters, how to react to things, etc.
> 
> But [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] didn't talk about roleplaying in that sense - the word used was _immersion_. And I personally think that that sort of GM mediation is an obstacle to immersion. As I said, I feel it makes the character feel like an alien.




Well I was looking at immersion as an element serving role-playing....the more immersed you are, the easier to adopt the role, yes? So in this case I don't really see a problem with conflating the two. I don't see an instance of a player asking a GM "where are the coathooks?" to be any worse than an actual person having to look around a room for coathooks when they walk into a room for the first time. If a character walked into an inn and then went to hang his cloak on a coathook by the door....only to find no coathooks, I would not expect such a panic that made them question their place in the world. Same with a player having to ask the GM to confirm such a detail. It's a minor blip in the grand scheme. 




pemerton said:


> And I don't see how GM prep really deals with this issue. GM prep doesn't make the world more "lived in" from the point of view of the player experience of "inhabiting" the PC.




In the sense that more prep creates a more dynamic rather than static environment. Situations and locations and interactions exist prior to PC involvement, and continue after PC involvement. This would create verisimilitude, which I think would support immersion. 

Now, improv and deciding on the fly are necessities even in games with a lot of GM prep...it's the nature of the beast. But I think that the clearer the picture of the world ahead of time, the easier it is to handle those times when details are needed on the fly. If the players unexpectedly jump aboard a ship as it leaves port, if the GM knows many places where the ship may be going, it will be easier for him to decide where the ship will be going, and why, and who may be aboard, and other details that may be influenced by the elements of the fictional world. 



pemerton said:


> Why does the player need to be stopped? That is, what is the issue here?




It's not necessarily that the player NEEDS to be stopped....but what if it seems better if he was? Let's say the player came up with an idea for some rivalry with his PC's brother. The PC and his brother do not get along, ad have a longstanding enmity. This is decided at character generation. So the GM takes this into consideration, and comes up with some ways to bring the brother into the campaign. 

Now, the player simply decides that his brother is there before him; maybe the player feels an immediate confrontation may be exciting. And that's possible. But the GM may have had another idea that he thinks will be better, but it has to take place further into the campaign. This is where, in a game like mine, the DM has to make a judgement call, and has to decide which of the two approaches would be better/more dramatic/more exciting/etc. and make the call. 

This is why I prefer to allow the players to have input in the fiction at certain points, but not at any and all decision points within the game. This also ties into my mentioning of craft. 



pemerton said:


> In 4e, the system offers no _mechanic_ for handling this. The advice is simply to "say 'yes'", and this is different from "say 'yes' or roll the dice": the latter is a principle about resolving action declarations, whereas the 4e advice is about player introduction of fictional content. In my 4e game it hasn't come up very often, but one episode I remember is that of a player declaring that his PC gives the secret signal of his cult to the captain of a band of elves with whom the PCs had met up. I took a "yes, but" approach: I thought it might be a bit strong to have the elven captain as an ally, so declared that the captain seemed not to recognise the symbol; but that a bit later, the lieutenant approached the PC and indicated that _he_ had noticed the signal, and then went on to offer cult-related assistance.
> 
> In BW and Cortex/MHRP - the other two systems I'm GMing at the moment - the player's declaration that the PC's brother is there _is_ an action declaration. In MHRP it requires spending a "plot point" (a type of player resource that is a central component of that game's resolution economy) to create a "resource", which is (in effect) a species of buff with fiction attached. In the absence of spending the point, at best the player is trying to add some colour to the scene, but can't actually get help from the brother.
> 
> In BW either the player is calling on a relationship (which is a type of resource - not entirely unlike a AD&D henchman - established as part of PC building) or is making a Circles check. For the latter, the GM can "say 'yes'" rather than calling for a roll of the dice, if there is nothing at stake; otherwise (as with any other action declaration) a DC is set and the check is resolved. If it fails, the most natural response to the example you gave would be something like "Your brother takes your coat from you, and snarls 'I'll keep this as a downpayment for all that you owe me . . .'" - ie the situation has become one in which the PC has to deal with the enmity of his/her brother.




This is kind of why I feel GM judgment is the best "mechanic" for handling these kinds of elements...especially since each of the mechanics you mention above still require some level of GM judgment anyway. Now, I can understand the element of giving the player a resource to spend to influence the fiction...especially depending on the setting. Such a mechanic seems designed with a super-heroic setting in mind. The hero finds himself in a death trap, and spends a plot point to determine that there is a rafter hanging over the pit, and he has one bat-rope tucked away in his boot. That kind of thing. 

But to try and influence something such as a newly introduced NPC's secret affiliation? I prefer that to remain within the GM's purview....which seems to be a view you share based on how you handled that scene. Obviously, this will vary depending on the scene or circumstances in question. 



pemerton said:


> Well, there are (at least) three things here.
> 
> First, if the player wants to play a revenge story of his/her PC against the PC's brother, will s/he immediately narrate an encounter with the brother? To some extent, we have to trust that the players will push the fiction in the directions that speak to what they want out of the game. (I _think_ this connects to some of the ideas [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has been talking about, but I don't know whether he would exactly agree with what I've said here - I hope he might post about that.)




Sure. It would seem kind of odd that a player who wants the search for his rival be a part of the game to force a confrontation off the bat...but I am sure we can come up with reasons where that may happen. But here you talk about having trust in the players....which I think is a good thing, but which I think also applies to the GM. Trusting the players to introduce the fiction they want in a way that seems dynamic and interesting does not sound all that different from a more GM oriented style.....the players have to trust that the GM will incorporate their wants for the game, and the desires established for their characters, in a way that will be dynamic and interesting. 




pemerton said:


> Second, I think there is an issue here that is not about GM predetermination but rather about responsibility for framing conflicts. The so-called "Czege principle" posits, as an empirical conjecture, that "it's not exciting to play a roleplaying game if the rules require one player to both introduce and resolve a conflict." In other words, the tension/drama/excitement of play can be better served by the mechanics, and/or the GM, in various ways, mediating the introduction into the shared fiction of the nemesis against whom revenge is sort. For instance, the appearance of the nemesis might be the result of a successful check (eg the player delcares a tracking check, and succeeds, and now the PC comes over a ridge to see his/her nemesis camped on the hillside below), or of a failed check (eg the player fails a Circles check, and instead of meeting his/her contact in the alley finds his/her nemesis there, standing over the dead body of the contact, with a loaded crossbow pointed in the PC's direction and saying "So, at last we meet . . . "), or simply framing ("You see your nemesis through the crowd: vice versa also, and having noticed you the nemesis starts to hurry off. What do you do?").
> 
> These sorts of things would be instances of the player providing the hooks for play, including the existence (in the shared fiction) of the salient story elements (namely, the nemesis; and the PC's desire for revenge), but not actually him-/herself deciding unilaterally when the conflict occurs.




Sure, I agree. I think that is really exactly what I am advocating. It's just that, in my game, a lot of these elements are decided up front in some way. We do add many elements as we go, usually when a player says to me some new idea or character element that he wants to explore, whether it's something brand new, or something that has emerged through play. 




pemerton said:


> Third, I think there is a high degree of tension between the proposition that "story takes craft" - implying that pre-authorship is therefore desirable - and the proposition that "in a RPG the players make choices that matter". Because if the latter proposition is true, then what has happened to the former? What is left of the GM's carefully crafting, if the players are allowed to make meaningful choices?




I don't think that pre-authorship must be better...certainly there are on the spot decisions that I or my players have made that have been some of the best things in our game. But in general, I think that more often than not, a thought out story will be better than one created on the fly. So for me, when I say craft, what I mean is the GM's ability to view the options at hand, and decide the best for the game, whether that's a pre-authored element he had come up with, or some crazy tangent introduced due to player action. 

So let's say that the GM is weighing some inspiring moment by the players that leads the story in an unexpected way, versus the story he already had in mind which had a long term payoff that he expected to be a truly exciting moment. The GM has to decide which will actually be better for the game and story. In those moments, I try to be as impartial as possible and do what I think will be the most fun. And despite my predisposition toward pre-authored elements, I still often will let the inspiring moment carry the events. 

This is why I advocate an approach that does not force me down one road because of "principles". Some folks would always go with the player introduced content, others would always go with the GM introduced content. I can see a case for either....so I decide based on the actual instance in question. 



pemerton said:


> To the extent that "story takes craft", I therefore prefer to approach RPGing from a perspective that takes as a premise that all the parties at the table will be contributing to the crafting (eg by creating PCs who are driven, in some sense, by dramatic needs). I also prefer mechanics and procedures that tend, by their very nature, to yield story as an outcome of their use. The 4e combat mechanics are a very clear illustration of this: when used in conjunction with the encounter building guidelines they produce, "automatically" as it were, combat encounters which have dramatic pacing: the PCs are pushed hard (monsters and NPCs have higher default damage and higher default hp), and put on the ropes, but then - if played well by their players - are able to rally (PCs have a depth of healing resources that monsters and NPCs lack), pull out all the stops (PCs have a depth of non-at-will resources that monsters and NPCs lack) and thereby turn the tide, ultimately achieving victory.




Sure, some games have mechanics in place that help establish certain game elements automatically, as you say. I can understand that. to kind of use your example of 4E combat....other combats in other systems can also be made to be dramatic. They may require more effort on the part of the GM rather than the rules, though. I believe that's the point you are making, correct? So games that have similarly designed rules for the story building element of the game may take some of the burden off of the GM, and create a recognized and more uniform approach to that aspect of the game. That's kind of what I am getting out of your example. And I wouldn't disagree.

As I've said, I don't think that having many elements that are pre-authored by the GM means that the players cannot also drive the story of the game. I think it's really just a question of how it comes about. For me, I find collaboration with the players at the start of the game and throughout to be the biggest factor. In the 5E system, I don't think there are many mechanical expressions to enforce this approach....but I prefer a looser system in that regard.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Sadras said:


> PCs met up with the underworld boss again to confront him about the above - he denied any involvement in the box with the fingers or the disappearance of his employees.
> One of the players (25+ years of rpging) decided he wanted to use his Plot Point to have fingers drop out of underworld boss's pocket. Everyone else groaned at the table at the desired use of the Plot Point. Needless to say, the table disallowed it and I removed Plot Points to avoid such situations in the future.



 Not too surprising - either that a 25-year veteran of traditional TTRPGs would pull a gaff like that, nor that the table's reaction was to toss the mechanic rather than try to master it.  You spring a new idea in an otherwise comfortable and familiar environment, and the most likely consequences are going to be clumsily leveraging the idea within the priorities of the existing paradigm and/or rejecting it outright.  

I've tried these kinds of techniques and been in games that used them, and they can work, if the players are up for it, or if the DM does a good enough job introducing and mediating the new mechanic.  Neither most eds of D&D nor long-time D&Ders are exactly the ideal candidates for such an introduction, though, so I'm not sure how relevant it is in a 5e forum...


----------



## tomBitonti

The question about doors and hanging cloaks on pegs seems to be diverting from the real issues here.

What is important is whether the PCs have a pre-arranged signal, whether the players want the signal to be discreet, and whether the environment creates a hurdle to using the signal as planned.

What would matter is whether the PCs are familiar with the locale, how good they are at being discreet, and how closely and well they are being watched.

Then:

Player: I want to signal to _someone at the inn_ that (variously) _I have arrived_ or _we are proceeding as planned_ or _abort the operation!_.

GM: As you approach the inn, you notice the Sheriff and two deputies lurking inside.  You don't know how, but they seem to be on to your plan, or at least aware of your presence.  You can continue to attempt to deliver the message, but the Sheriff will almost certainly notice you and detain you if you simply walk into the inn.  (The inn had been under observation, and a spy overheard the PCs plan to meet there later in the week, although, the spy was not able to hear all of the details of the plan.)

The details of _how_ the signal is delivered don't seem to me to be particularly relevant.  The issue how the GM intrudes on the PCs when the attempt to deliver their signal.  Does the GM evaluate the plan relative to the difficulty and particulars of the environment, then allow dice to decide the outcome, or does the GM declare (or virtually declare by make the task very unlikely to succeed) that the plan fails?  The difference is whether challenges to the plan are inherent in the scene (say, the players are particularly bad at this sort of activity, or the inn is very busy because the day the players selected was a busy holiday), or inherent in the system (the GM spends resources to create challenges at suitably dramatic story points), or are arbitrary (the GM wants a particular outcome and clumsily imposes it).

Thx!
TomB


----------



## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> Not too surprising - either that a 25-year veteran of traditional TTRPGs would pull a gaff like that, nor that the table's reaction was to toss the mechanic rather than try to master it.  You spring a new idea in an otherwise comfortable and familiar environment, and the most likely consequences are going to be clumsily leveraging the idea within the priorities of the existing paradigm and/or rejecting it outright.
> 
> I've tried these kinds of techniques and been in games that used them, and they can work, if the players are up for it, or if the DM does a good enough job introducing and mediating the new mechanic.  Neither most eds of D&D nor long-time D&Ders are exactly the ideal candidates for such an introduction, though, so I'm not sure how relevant it is in a 5e forum...




Well, the thread got moved to the RPG General Discussion forum....but yeah, it started in the 5E forums, so that was how I was approaching it. 

I think you're right in that player buy-in is absolutely required to allow for the kind of focus shift such a playstyle would require on an old school D&D group. It's such a change from the established norms. 



tomBitonti said:


> The question about doors and hanging cloaks on pegs seems to be diverting from the real issues here.
> 
> What is important is whether the PCs have a pre-arranged signal, whether the players want the signal to be discreet, and whether the environment creates a hurdle to using the signal as planned.
> 
> What would matter is whether the PCs are familiar with the locale, how good they are at being discreet, and how closely and well they are being watched.
> 
> Then:
> 
> Player: I want to signal to _someone at the inn_ that (variously) _I have arrived_ or _we are proceeding as planned_ or _abort the operation!_.
> 
> GM: As you approach the inn, you notice the Sheriff and two deputies lurking inside.  You don't know how, but they seem to be on to your plan, or at least aware of your presence.  You can continue to attempt to deliver the message, but the Sheriff will almost certainly notice you and detain you if you simply walk into the inn.  (The inn had been under observation, and a spy overheard the PCs plan to meet there later in the week, although, the spy was not able to hear all of the details of the plan.)
> 
> The details of _how_ the signal is delivered don't seem to me to be particularly relevant.  The issue how the GM intrudes on the PCs when the attempt to deliver their signal.  Does the GM evaluate the plan relative to the difficulty and particulars of the environment, then allow dice to decide the outcome, or does the GM declare (or virtually declare by make the task very unlikely to succeed) that the plan fails?  The difference is whether challenges to the plan are inherent in the scene (say, the players are particularly bad at this sort of activity, or the inn is very busy because the day the players selected was a busy holiday), or inherent in the system (the GM spends resources to create challenges at suitably dramatic story points), or are arbitrary (the GM wants a particular outcome and clumsily imposes it).
> 
> Thx!
> TomB




My fault for treating the signal from the original example as the important point. But I do see it as relevant because in the example, there is a specific action OTHER than the delivery of the coded message that is called out. If the player says "I send a signal to any potential guild members...." or what have you, that's one thing. If the player wants to simultaneously author some specific in-world element AND establish that element as the signal, that's something else. Now, that element being something as mundane as coathooks, no  big deal. But I would imagine there could be examples given that could lead to issues. 

But I agree entirely with your approach.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> To give one example: in my 4e game, the players succeeded at a skill challenge that involved having dinner with the baron (at his invitation) in the company of his advisor (whom they knew to be an evil necromancer; and who himself knew that they knew; but who did not want to be revealed to the baron, and whom they did not really want to reveal less that embarrass the baron and/or turn the baron against them) while keeping secret from the advisor that the magical tapestry he had spent years searching for was, in fact, in the dwarven PC's herald's backpack about 15 feet from the dining table. (Details here.)
> 
> Focusing on intent was key to my GMing of this, modulating the consequences of success - which, by the rules of the game, must bring the players closer to what they (as their PCs) want - with maintaining pressure via framing so that the situation is still "alive" and hence the players have a reason to keep declaring actions for their PCs.
> 
> The final resolution of the skill challenge involved the 10 CHAR dwarf fighter/cleric making a social check against the advisor, calling him not by his courtly name but by the name used among the goblin and hobgoblin armies he was secretly commanding, and thereby trying to goad him into revealing himself to the baron. The check initially failed, but then another player spent a resource (an action point) to (in the fiction) add another taunt, and thereby (in the mechanics) add a bonus to the dwarf player's check that turned the failure into a success.
> 
> That was the end of that session; in the next session, we opened with the taunted advisor turning on the PCs. I declared some action for him, or said something about the situation - I can't now remember what -



So far this all sounds like some good times.  But then it runs hard on the rocks...


> but then one of the players reminded me: _We succeeded in the skill challenge, with the goal of having the evil advisor reveal himself_. The player's point was that I, as GM, would be dishonouring that success by now allowing some action or element of framing that tended to allow the advisor to try and conceal his evil or make the PCs look like the bad guys. The success doesn't just result in the advisor doing something (in this case, being goaded into attacking the PCs); it also establishes a "meaning" or a context, within the fiction, for that "something" - namely, the advisor is revealing himself as an evil traitor to the baron.



...right here.

The dice shouldn't force you into anything specific, and if they do I put that down to a system flaw as dice really have no place here.  Instead, just as the players are (I hope!) having their PCs do what they'd naturally do, so should you as DM have the ability to put yourself in the head of that advisor and have him react as he'd naturally react; dice be damned.  If the advisor's natural in-character reaction would be to try and turn the blame back on to the PCs then the dice shouldn't prevent this; also you as DM will have to put yourself into the head of the baron and determine what his reaction might be to all this.

More broadly, this is an example where allowing dice to dictate what happens in a straight role-playing situation is poor design.

And flip it around for a moment: how often are the players thusly forced into having their PC react in a way determined by dice rather than natural RP?  If never, then the same should apply to NPCs.

Lanefan


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> Well, the thread got moved to the RPG General Discussion forum....but yeah, it started in the 5E forums, so that was how I was approaching it.



 Ah, so it has. That's good.



pemerton said:


> For me, the importance of intent - in 4e skill challenges, and almost all BW resolution - ... is the narration of success and failure in terms of intent that delivers the rise and fall that is part of a story.
> 
> To give one example: in my 4e game, the players succeeded at a skill challenge that involved having dinner with the baron (at his invitation) in the company of his advisor (whom they knew to be an evil necromancer; and who himself knew that they knew; but who did not want to be revealed to the baron, and *whom they did not really want to reveal less that embarrass the baron and/or turn the baron against them*) while keeping secret from the advisor that the magical tapestry he had spent years searching for was, in fact, in the dwarven PC's herald's backpack about 15 feet from the dining table.
> 
> The final resolution of the skill challenge involved the 10 CHAR dwarf fighter/cleric making a social check against the advisor, calling him not by his courtly name but by the name used among the goblin and hobgoblin armies he was secretly commanding, and thereby trying to goad him into revealing himself to the baron.



 That underlined attempt seems at odds with the above *bolded* part of the intent of the challenge.


----------



## darkbard

Tony Vargas said:


> That underlined attempt seems at odds with the above *bolded* part of the intent of the challenge.




If I remember correctly from the original thread, the PCs were anxious about forcing the issue of revelation through their direct actions; but if they could cause the necromancer to "out" himself, they hoped this would allow the baron to view their actions as unbiased by some ulterior motivation.

But I'm sure pemerton will correct me if I'm wrong about or misunderstood this from his original post.


----------



## Tony Vargas

darkbard said:


> If I remember correctly from the original thread, the PCs were anxious about forcing the issue of revelation through their direct actions; but if they could cause the necromancer to "out" himself, they hoped this would allow the baron to view their actions as unbiased by some ulterior motivation.
> 
> But I'm sure pemerton will correct me if I'm wrong about or misunderstood this from his original post.



 OK, that makes sense, then...


Lanefan said:


> The dice shouldn't force you into anything specific, and if they do I put that down to a system flaw as dice really have no place here.  Instead, just as the players are (I hope!) having their PCs do what they'd naturally do, so should you as DM have the ability to put yourself in the head of that advisor and have him react as he'd naturally react; dice be damned.



 In the context of 5e, I'd say, sure, in fact, the roll should never have been called for if it wasn't going to matter, but, as an empowered DM, you can always narrate the results that way, anyhow.  It may be a 'system flaw' in a sense, but the DM steps in and negates it.

In the context of BW or 4e, OTOH, the consequences for success or failure in the challenge have been set, the DM has a bit less latitude to override or ignore them, in theory - he still can, of course, what's the book going to do, talk back to him? - but that's hardly a flaw in the system, it's the system working properly in that context.  The PCs tried to do something, succeeded, and they did it.  The NPC can try to do damage control, but he's not just going to magically make it go away (unless, y'know, he can magically make it go away by editing the Baron's memories or something...)...


----------



## Manbearcat

I answered the below indirectly in my last post with a focus on mental frameworks and cognitive bias.  I'm going to answer this a little more directly now.  



Xetheral said:


> Are your players simply _phenomenal_ at flipping back and forth from thinking as their characters to thinking as themselves? Or, alternatively, do your players add the requested elements in-character (i.e. the character, rather than the player, is choosing how the character knows the newcomer)? Or maybe roleplaying at your table means something different than it does at mine, in a way that makes the transition easier?




My regular players have played a considerable cross-section of games with different demands on them mentally and emotionally.  I've run all of the following for them in either one/two-shot, short-term (few months), to long term (campaign):

1)  B/X
2)  AD&D
3)  3.x
4)  4e
5)  5e
6)  Torchbearer
7)  Dungeon World
8)  13th Age
9)  Strike! (Star Wars hack)
10)  SW Edge of the Empire
11)  Cortex+ (Marvel Heroic, Fantasy Heroic, Leverage)
12)  Apocalypse World
13)  Mouse Guard
14)  The One Ring
15)  Dread 
16)  My Life With Master
17)  Sorcerer
18)  Dogs in the Vineyard
19)  Fiasco
20)  Fate Core

Some stuff I'm probably forgetting.  My take on this is simple.  Diversification and malleability of mental framework is an inevitable outcome of exposure to (a) varying thematic premises to be addressed, (b) varying types of play paradigms/priorities, (c) varying types of system agency, (d) varying types of player responsibility and agency, (e) varying qualities of PC inhabitation (typically achieved by a combination of a - d).  Playing more games, playing more types of games gives rise to a more wieldy, more seamless "cognitive toggle", let us call it.  I'm certain my players feel enriched for it (regardless of the game they're presently playing) even if it isn't something we discuss with any level of deep analysis (though it is overtly addressed from time to time).

Pulling a piece from the Jenga tower in Dread when something is at stake engenders a sense of ominous foreboding.  As the fiction escalates and the tower becomes more unstable, the players feel the dreadful weight of momentous inevitability as their PCs navigate the horror that is closing in on them.

A player in a Dogs game has to confront a good man ruined by a major sin against the Faith (say, the infidelity of his wife with his own brother).  Maybe he's a retired Dog (gun-toting Paladin in a wild-west that never was) himself, a legend who now has dedicated himself to a life of service as a minister to at-risk youth.  Meanwhile, his famous gun has kept the peace in the small town of Big Water even though he doesn't serve in any official capacity and hasn't had to draw it in a decade.  Well, he's been drinking himself into a stupor day, noon, and night for weeks now (a sin against the Faith)...inconsolably grieving and embittered.  His state is such that he has people not only fearing that he might take his own life...but maybe he is a risk to others as well?  

Well, when words don't work and I escalate the situation straight from words...past fists/knives...and I pull out that trusty Colt with a "back the hell up son...God ain't payin' attention and I ain't playin' "...(and a whole new and very dangerous/lethal dice pool), what are you going to do?  He's drunk as a skunk (a trait that will affect his dice pool) but he's still a better shot than you (will also affect his dice pool).  You're proud of the Dogs's legacy (will affect your dice pool).  But something has to give here.  No one is above the law, above The Faith.  The small sins lead to the bigger ones.  The bigger ones lead to the actual invitation of the supernatural to corrupt the soul and everything the soul touches.  Is this the blustery cycle of grief by a hero so profoundly betrayed...or is this the actual dissolution of what he has always stood for, making him the perfect tool for the wicked, malign forces of this world?

And Dog's aren't a dime-a-dozen...and a dead Dog doesn't serve so well, so what good are you as a meal for the worms and the carrion birds?

All of those games demand different things (mentally, emotionally, from a cognitive workload perspective, from a responsibility perspective) from the players, have very different resolution mechanics and play paradigms.  While AD&D, 3.x, and 5e have a healthy market share of the overall TTRPG player-base (with extreme overlap in their advocates), their own shared paradigm doesn't remotely encapsulate the means to PC inhabitation.



Xetheral said:


> [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION],
> 
> When you "ask questions and use the answers", how do you decide which player(s) get(s) to provide the answer? Is it first-come-first-serve? Round robin? Collaborative?
> 
> Also, what criteria do you expect the players to use when coming up with their answer? What they would find fun individually? What the other players would find fun? Free association with the current storyline? Logicial inference? Whimsy? I'm having hard time figuring out how I would begin to answer such a question as a player. This is in part because I don't understand which OOC GM responsibilities (if any) implictly attach to such on-the-spot delegation of content creation from the GM to the players.




I suspect this was probably meant for me so I'm going to go ahead and answer.  There is subtle nuance to this depending upon the game, but since we're talking about Dungeon World, I'll use that (but this same thing could apply to a myriad of the above games).

1)  Say something interesting or cede the play back to me (eg "I don't know this guy" etc).

2)  Respect the integrity of the prior-established fiction.

3)  Heed genre logic.

4)  This is a game about action/adventure, discovery, snowballing danger, and relationships (with others and with what you believe in).  I'm giving you an opportunity to advance one or more of those, so do it.  

5)  If this isn't initial scene framing and its the product of a 7-9 outcome on a Contacts (ish) move, the complication/cost I am telegraphing should be clear.  This guy clearly isn't subtle.  Maybe you don't want to draw attention to yourself.  Oops.  Or maybe he isn't fully reliable.  Or maybe he's good at what he does, but he's classically in debt to the wrong people and using him as a hireling may introduce some guilt by association.  If I'm giving you the opportunity to tell us a little bit about the world here and pick your poison...then do it with integrity...then put the ball back in my court and I'll run with it.


Make sense?


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> PCs met up with an underworld boss requesting they retrieve an item of his (a genie within a lamp which they had recently set free), they declined;
> He obtained revenge by hurting those within his organisation who had betrayed him by assisting the PCs. A box with fingers was delivered anonymously to the PCs rooms. The 'betrayers' were nowhere to be found;
> PCs met up with the underworld boss again to confront him about the above - he denied any involvement in the box with the fingers or the disappearance of his employees.
> One of the players (25+ years of rpging) decided he wanted to use his Plot Point to have fingers drop out of underworld boss's pocket. Everyone else groaned at the table at the desired use of the Plot Point. Needless to say, the table disallowed it and I removed Plot Points to avoid such situations in the future.





Manbearcat said:


> If I'm giving you the opportunity to tell us a little bit about the world here and pick your poison...then do it with integrity...then put the ball back in my court and I'll run with it.



I think Manbearcat's comment here seems apposite. (Also [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]'s response upthread, about expectations and familiarity.)

Not having been at your (Sadras's) table for this event, it's hard to comment, but as you present it it looks like a pretty tightly GM-run game (eg the hurting of the PCs' allies in the organisation is similar to the assassination of the marquis that was being discussed upthread - this seems to have been narrated by the GM as a "failure off-screen" consequence for the players having their PCs deny the boss's request). Was the player being juvenile? Deliberately disruptive? Didn't have any other ideas? Couldn't conceive of anything else being feasible in the fiction?

I don't see this sort of example as any sort of "case against" player input into the shared fiction.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> That underlined attempt seems at odds with the above *bolded* part of the intent of the challenge.



  [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] is correct about this: they didn't themselves want to reveal or unmask the traitor - but, as events unfolded, they were able to goad him into unmasking himself.



Lanefan said:


> The dice shouldn't force you into anything specific



Then what's the point of them? And how do you resolve combat, if the GM is free at any time to ignore the intiative, to hit and damage dice? (On the grounds that the dice shouldn't force the GM into anything specific.)



Lanefan said:


> If the advisor's natural in-character reaction would be to try and turn the blame back on to the PCs then the dice shouldn't prevent this



This is like saying that if the advisor's natural reaction is to parry the blow, then the PC shouldn't be able to cut his head off. In terms of the resolution system, it's the wrong order of operations: we find out whether or not the advisor can parry _by rolling the dice_. We find out whether or not the advisor has been goaded into a response that undoes his own plans _by rolling the dice_.

Personally, I find it very hard to see how the ficiton is going to include that sort of thing if the GM is not bound by the dice and is always free to narrate NPCs as s/he thinks is rational for them. Whey, then, would they ever make errors or act out of passion?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Then what's the point of [dice]? And how do you resolve combat, if the GM is free at any time to ignore the intiative, to hit and damage dice? (On the grounds that the dice shouldn't force the GM into anything specific.)



Because we can't role-play combat (the best attempts of some LARP types notwithstanding) amd thus we need game mechanics to replace it, but we *can* roleplay social interactions and thus don't - or shouldn't - need game mechanics.



> This is like saying that if the advisor's natural reaction is to parry the blow, then the PC shouldn't be able to cut his head off. In terms of the resolution system, it's the wrong order of operations: we find out whether or not the advisor can parry _by rolling the dice_.



If someone's taking a hack at the advisor and his reaction is to parry that's going to affect his AC.  Simple combat mechanics.



> We find out whether or not the advisor has been goaded into a response that undoes his own plans _by rolling the dice_.



Can't speak for you, but I've no idea what my social AC is or what I need to roll to socially hit or damage my buddy.  Ditto for my characters and-or NPCs.  Those mechanics flat-out don't apply here.



> Personally, I find it very hard to see how the ficiton is going to include that sort of thing if the GM is not bound by the dice and is always free to *narrate NPCs as s/he thinks is rational for them.* Whey, then, would they ever make errors or act out of passion?



Who says they're always going to be rational?  And, interesting you use the term "narrate" NPCs rather than "play" them: as DM you're playing the NPC according to its own personality, quirks, traits, and - yes - established backstory.  I'll play them as I think is in character for them, rational or not.

Clearly this advisor is under some stress; meaning his on-the-fly reactions might not necessarily be the most rational or well-thought-out.  Depending how the conversation (played out in-character at the table!) goes maybe he slips up and says or does something he shouldn't; or maybe he really gets mad, snaps, and runs screaming from the room; or maybe the PCs' gambits fail and he brazens it out this time.  No need for dice; just react in-character to what the PCs say and-or do.

Lan-"I'll only ask for a check as long as someone else is buying"-efan


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Because we can't role-play combat (the best attempts of some LARP types notwithstanding) amd thus we need game mechanics to replace it, but we *can* roleplay social interactions and thus don't - or shouldn't - need game mechanics.




This demonstrates how much we're talking at cross purposes because of system design philosophy. Lanefan plays 5E, which largely dispenses with the, in my opinion, advances made by 4E (and the "indie" RPGs mentioned throughout this thread), which devise an elegant mechanic by which social interactions can work--and work well--based upon PC design, not player skill. Lanefan embraces 5E's reverse, putting the emphasis of social interaction on the player--and then DM judgment in response--not the character and the neutral arbiter of the dice.

But, of course, sometimes a perfectly average Joe wants to play a charismatic sweet talker or brilliant scholar, and games that provide mechanics for social interaction based on PC build, not player skill, facilitate this.


----------



## Imaro

You know one thing I haven't seen addressed in this thread is how different player types do or don't work with narrative power.  I'd honestly like to get [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] 's, [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] , [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] (as well as anyone else who wants to comment) opinions on how narrative control and authorship (and their play styles in general) relate to the various player types.  I honestly think this has way more to do with what the response to introducing this type of play style will be within a particular group (I don't think whether one has played D&D or one has played a plethora of systems has as much to do with it as the experience one plays for... but that's just my opinion).  Robin Laws lists out the following player types...

The Power Gamer
The Butt-Kicker 
The Tactician
The Specialist
The Method Actor
The Storyteller
The Casual Gamer

I don't want to list on the defining characteristics of all of these in the thread but I can link to the page here... http://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/theory/models/robinslaws.html ... where they are defined.  I also believe these same player types were listed in the 4e corebooks for D&D and the DMG for 5e.

Now honestly I just don't see how your play style can work for say The Power Gamer... who actively looks "to finding quirks and breakpoints he can exploit to get large benefits at comparatively low costs.".  This type of player is going to use that narrative power as an exploit to give himself more power and not necessarily for the benefit of the story or group.  Another one I don't see this play style working with well is The Butt-Kicker... he or she is just not going to be invested enough to want to utilize narrative power and giving it to them seems that it will either not be utilized or utilized to circumvent the narrative to get to combat.

I also see issues, though admittedly to a lesser extent, with The Tactician... who wants "problems" to "beat" through his own acumen and strategical thinking.  This seems at odds with allowing him to control or create things through the narrative as they will either be used to solve the puzzle (similar to [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] example above) or they will be looked at as a cheat of sorts and robbing this type of player of what they enjoy about the game... mainly solving the challenges put forth by the DM through his own mental aptitude and his character's abilities.

I don't see any inherent issues with The Specialist or The Storyteller... but surprisingly enough I see issues with The Method Actor, who rather than his actions be bound by the dice rolls would rather they be an outgrowth of how he conceives his character... The fact that he views the rules as a "necessary evil" seems almost contradictory to play to see what happens... He wants to play to see how his character as interpreted by him responds and acts... irregardless of what the dice or rules proclaim.  Finally this also seems like a play style that demands a certain amount of engagement on the players part that a casual gamer may not be comfortable with or willing to invest.

Honestly at first glance the play style [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] seem to be espousing (one of shared narrative, playing to see what happens and non-causality linked consequences) seems to be designed for very specific player types... IMO that's what [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] earlier example points out.  It's for the most part a play style designed for The Storytellers and that doesn't clash with The Specialist... the others it seems, at least IMO, aren't as well suited to this play style.  Though honestly I'd be interested in other posters takes on this.


----------



## Imaro

darkbard said:


> This demonstrates how much we're talking at cross purposes because of system design philosophy..




Is it system design philosophy... or is it player goals for enjoyment when playing... or maybe a mixture of both?


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> [
> This is like saying that if the advisor's natural reaction is to parry the blow, then the PC shouldn't be able to cut his head off. In terms of the resolution system, it's the wrong order of operations: we find out whether or not the advisor can parry _by rolling the dice_. We find out whether or not the advisor has been goaded into a response that undoes his own plans _by rolling the dice_.




A few things.  First, sometimes personality trumps skill challenges and player desires.  Scrooge isn't going to loan a PC 10,000 gold pieces, so a social challenge to see if he "parries" the request fails from the get go.  It should be disallowed.  The same would apply to the counselor if he's the sort that wouldn't out himself.  Second, assuming it's possible for him to out himself, once the outing is done, it's done.  An attempt to mitigate or negate the damage done does't change the fact that he outed himself.  He can mitigate the damage AND still have outed himself.  The social challenge wasn't, "I want to get the advisor to out himself and then stupidly gawk for some unknown reason, rather than try to mitigate the damage like a man of his intelligence would do.".  



> Whey, then, would they ever make errors or act out of passion?



He made the error of passion, and now he's trying to mitigate some or all of the damage done.  That mitigation doesn't negate the success.


----------



## BryonD

Imaro said:


> I'd honestly like to get ... opinions on how narrative control and authorship (and their play styles in general) relate to the various player types.
> 
> ...
> 
> 
> Honestly at first glance the play style [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] seem to be espousing (one of shared narrative, playing to see what happens and non-causality linked consequences) seems to be designed for very specific player types... IMO that's what [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] earlier example points out.  It's for the most part a play style designed for The Storytellers and that doesn't clash with The Specialist... the others it seems, at least IMO, aren't as well suited to this play style.  Though honestly I'd be interested in other posters takes on this.




Some time back Pemerton and I had multiple conversations on the specific topic of "role playing" vs. "authorship" and the merits and drawbacks of players being completely limited to things they could do if they truly were in the shoes of their character vs players sharing some of the function of a DM.  I doubt you would be surprised to hear that we rather strongly disagreed in our preference.  (and this was, of course, further complicated by contributions from others (not P) refusing to accept the distinction between "preference" and objectively better gaming)  

I believe you are exactly right in your assessment of where the division falls.


----------



## Imaro

BryonD said:


> Some time back Pemerton and I had multiple conversations on the specific topic of "role playing" vs. "authorship" and the merits and drawbacks of players being completely limited to things they could do if they truly were in the shoes of their character vs players sharing some of the function of a DM.  I doubt you would be surprised to hear that we rather strongly disagreed in our preference.  (and this was, of course, further complicated by contributions from others (not P) refusing to accept the distinction between "preference" and objectively better gaming)
> 
> I believe you are exactly right in your assessment of where the division falls.




Yeah I have definitely been getting an... _expose the unwashed masses/poor deprived roleplayers (which seems to be any D&D player who doesn't prefer 4e) to these superior techniques_... vibe by some posters.  Instead of an open exchange between the differing styles that's actually about trading and exploring the merits and pitfalls of both approaches.  It's why I've mostly been lurking during this discussion.


----------



## tomBitonti

Re: The gamers types listed by [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], I'm thinking there is more room to accommodate the specialist and the tactician if defining the scene is separated from resolving the scene.  Also, the degree to which a scene can be modified, possibly by using scarce resources, can add a strategic element which is a positive to players of these two roles.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Imaro

tomBitonti said:


> Re: The gamers types listed by @_*Imaro*_, I'm thinking there is more room to accommodate the specialist and the tactician if defining the scene is separated from resolving the scene.  Also, the degree to which a scene can be modified, possibly by using scarce resources, can add a strategic element which is a positive to players of these two roles.
> 
> Thx!
> TomB




I think I agree with you in general... but now we are getting into the necessity of building a dedicated rules structure (to create a scarce resource, determine how one gains it, and regulate how and when it can be used) for narrative control, which at that point I think we have to ask... will this actively enhance (as opposed to not contradict or not get in the way) the play experience for these players to a great enough extent that adding and having to learn these extra rules is desirable?  

We also have to consider that there is a subset of players, for whatever reason (don't find it fun, like exploration of an objective setting, are casual, etc.)  who just don't want to author the narrative.  Once you start to add rules that push this playstyle as oppose to allowing it off the cuff, you are making it harder for your game to accommodate and appeal to said players.

EDIT: In other words why are we placing an intrinsic and positive value on giving players authorial/narrative control?  That's, IMO, part of the problem with this conversation.  Many in this thread are assuming that this type of play style is inherently something that we should strive to incorporate or move our games towards (though I've not seen the reverse)... but why is that?  Why are we assuming it's inherent positive quality or effect on our games?  When honestly I've yet to see anything in this thread that convinces me it's objectively a better way.


----------



## tomBitonti

Imaro said:


> I think I agree with you in general... but now we are getting into the necessity of building a dedicated rules structure (to create a scarce resource, determine how one gains it, and regulate how and when it can be used) for narrative control, which at that point I think we have to ask... will this actively enhance (as opposed to not contradict or not get in the way) the play experience for these players to a great enough extent that adding and having to learn these extra rules is desirable?
> 
> EDIT: In other words why are we placing an intrinsic and positive value on giving players authorial/narrative control?  That's, IMO, part of the problem with this conversation.  Many in this thread are assuming that this type of play style is inherently something that we should strive to incorporate or move our games towards (though I've not seen the reverse)... but why is that?  Why are we assuming it's inherent positive quality or effect on our games?  When honestly I've yet to see anything in this thread that convinces me it's objectively a better way.




Additional text omitted.  I'm pretty sure that I haven't advocated one style over another, although it should be clear that I'm not a fan of "railroading", which I would accept as "clumsily forcing an outcome".

I do think that allowing a player to take part in defining a scene needs to be handed carefully, either due to disinterest, or because a player may be untrustworthy and will wreck the scene.

For the example of sending a signal at the bar:

Player intrusion: Helped one of the barmaids with a thug problem, so can obtain a little assistance.
GM intrusion: A fight is breaking out as the PC arrives.

I definitely think that what works for one group will often not work for others.  I don't think there is a single best approach.  (But, there are bad approaches.)

Thx!
TomB


----------



## hawkeyefan

Imaro said:


> EDIT: In other words why are we placing an intrinsic and positive value on giving players authorial/narrative control?  That's, IMO, part of the problem with this conversation.  Many in this thread are assuming that this type of play style is inherently something that we should strive to incorporate or move our games towards (though I've not seen the reverse)... but why is that?  Why are we assuming it's inherent positive quality or effect on our games?  When honestly I've yet to see anything in this thread that convinces me it's objectively a better way.




I think that an importance on player agency....of the players' decisions mattering to the game....is being stressed. But I also think it's also kind of the reverse....where the GM's agency, or at least required action on the part of the GM, is reduced. 

I do think you've kind of touched on the crux.....some folks value that agency above most other factors. I don't know if anyone would make a case for that being an objective fact rather than just a preference, though.


----------



## BryonD

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that an importance on player agency....of the players' decisions mattering to the game....is being stressed. But I also think it's also kind of the reverse....where the GM's agency, or at least required action on the part of the GM, is reduced.
> 
> I do think you've kind of touched on the crux.....some folks value that agency above most other factors. I don't know if anyone would make a case for that being an objective fact rather than just a preference, though.



how could that possibly be even contemplated as objective fact? It is abundantly clear that to some large number of people the value of that agency is less than the cost of it.  Which isn't to claim that the opposite is any less purely preference.  

It is objective fact that there are groups which strongly prefer each and groups which are much more moderate.
In theory it could also be shown as objective fact that one approach creates more players and sales.  
But there is nothing objective about "more fun" for either.

Ultimately though, it isn't honest debate to frame the conversation around one side as virtuous and the other as backwards.
To me, quotes from 4E designers regarding things like making monks cool game pieces rather than focused on modeling a monk are completely destroying the attraction of the game.  But I can readily see why someone else may feel the opposite.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

I am not a huge fan of Robin Laws' player type analysis. The intent of knowing who you are playing with and knowing what they want out of the game is mostly benign. However, in my experience, it fails to adequately capture the diversity of play experiences. I find that what motivates a player in any given moment is often a moving target. Our overall tendencies will also change over time. Furthermore it presumes conflict between things that do not have to conflict in any way. The right set of techniques and mechanics can do a lot to alleviate these conflicts. Additionally, it fails to capture the nuances within any single category. As an example, one "Method Actor" might be mostly concerned with details of characterization and color where another is more concerned with making character defining or revealing decisions and experiencing the same emotions as their character. What I find most problematic about the analysis is the idea that when we sit down to play a roleplaying game is that a given player will always be looking for the same sort of fun, rather than meaningfully taking on the interests of the game.

Out of curiosity I took this quiz to determine my player type. Here are the results:

Method Actor - 96%
Tactician - 75%
Storyteller - 71%
Power Gamer - 71%
Butt Kicker - 46%
Specialist - 42%
Casual Gamer: 25%

When it comes to playing roleplaying games I pretty much like all of it. I am most concerned with advocating for my character vigorously and experiencing things as they do in a meaningful way. In the pursuit of those character goals I want to utilize my competitive desires and skill as a gamer. That means applying skilled fictional positioning and application of system mastery alongside a healthy dose of teamwork. I also want a compelling story to result, but I do not want to sacrifice character advocacy or skilled play in the name of getting there. I do not want to be gifted or told a story. I want to earn it and experience it through my character advocacy, skilled play, and creative contributions. I want to grab story by the throat and play in the moment. A good deal of my frustrations with playing and running mainstream games in the past was dealing with conflicts between my various desires, having to sacrifice one in the name of another. I am pretty much done with that.

I get that preferences are different and we should not begrudge people their preferences. Throughout the course of this thread I have been attempting to distill down the unique values of a particular approach that I personally find rewarding and enjoyable. It's not the only approach that I find rewarding. It's not the only approach that I think people should find rewarding. I would encourage them to try it sometime, maybe in lieu of a board gaming night. I think we can enjoy many different things. I also think we should be careful not to condemn passion and thoughtful criticism. I get that I can be overzealous at times and be overly harsh in my criticism. I am trying to approach this thread thoughtfully.

If you feel I am trying to put your play in a box, please tell me. I do not want to do that. I hate when people try to put my play in a box. That's why the flexible vs. focused thing vexes me so. I have experienced a great deal of very real diversity of play and played games with people of widely different backgrounds and interests within the umbrella of using these techniques. I also feel it fails to consider the unspoken assumptions and expectations that go along with most forms of adventure gaming. Things like long campaigns, the group as a gestalt character, finding the story, character as ideal, and a culture focused on outcomes rather than playing to find out. I am not saying that's like a bad way to play. I do find it to be just as specific an experience. It's just that the 1990s created this highly specific culture of play that we tend to take for granted.


----------



## Imaro

hawkeyefan said:


> I do think you've kind of touched on the crux.....some folks value that agency above most other factors. I don't know if anyone would make a case for that being an objective fact rather than just a preference, though.




I'm not claiming it's an objective fact, only that in this thread it seems to be presented by a few posters as objectively positive as opposed to something with positive and negative facets.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> (which seems to be any D&D player who doesn't prefer 4e)



 The experience the OP related to begin with wasn't in D&D - 'Burning Wheel' or something.  If you're sensing a vibe it's probably indie v D&D - and it may well be coming from both sides of the conversation.



Maxperson said:


> A few things.  First, sometimes personality trumps skill challenges and player desires.  Scrooge isn't going to loan a PC 10,000 gold pieces, so a social challenge to see if he "parries" the request fails from the get go.  It should be disallowed.



 It would be like throwing a dart at an enemy behind a stone wall, it's simply not going to work w/o line of effect.  



Imaro said:


> ... but now we are getting into the necessity of building a dedicated rules structure (to create a scarce resource, determine how one gains it, and regulate how and when it can be used) for narrative control, which at that point I think we have to ask... will this actively enhance the play experience for these players to a great enough extent that adding and having to learn these extra rules is desirable?



 There needn't be any such a necessity:  if the game already has resource-driven rules, for instance, they can simply be adapted.  



> We also have to consider that there is a subset of players, for whatever reason who just don't want to author the narrative.



 They could decline to accumulate said resources - or to use them that way if they're an existing system being adapted to that purpose.



> Many in this thread are assuming that this type of play style is inherently something that we should strive to incorporate or move our games towards... but why is that?  Why are we assuming it's inherent positive quality or effect on our games?  When honestly I've yet to see anything in this thread that convinces me it's objectively a better way.



 'Better' is clearly subjective, but it's not like using one technique precludes others, so you don't need to decide which is better and use it exclusively.  Not that I see that being acknowledged, either.  



Campbell said:


> I am not a huge fan of Robin Laws' player type analysis. The intent of knowing who you are playing with and knowing what they want out of the game is mostly benign. However, in my experience, it fails to adequately capture the diversity of play experiences. I find that what motivates a player in any given moment is often a moving target. Our overall tendencies will also change over time. Furthermore it presumes conflict between things that do not have to conflict in any way.



 Very true.  And the same thing happens with games, styles, and techniques.  The classifications aren't inherently invalid, but if treated as absolutes or as antithetical, become problematic.



> The right set of techniques and mechanics can do a lot to alleviate these conflicts.



 Since a given player's 'type' can actually shift emphasis with the situation or morph over time, a flexible enough system to smoothly accommodate multiple 'types' or styles or agendas or whatever set of boxes is under discussion, can be a plus even if there's not a conflict at the table, initially, or even if there is (say the table's 'type' shifts in step, or it's a single-player game, for instance).


----------



## hawkeyefan

BryonD said:


> how could that possibly be even contemplated as objective fact? It is abundantly clear that to some large number of people the value of that agency is less than the cost of it.  Which isn't to claim that the opposite is any less purely preference.
> 
> It is objective fact that there are groups which strongly prefer each and groups which are much more moderate.
> In theory it could also be shown as objective fact that one approach creates more players and sales.
> But there is nothing objective about "more fun" for either.
> 
> Ultimately though, it isn't honest debate to frame the conversation around one side as virtuous and the other as backwards.
> To me, quotes from 4E designers regarding things like making monks cool game pieces rather than focused on modeling a monk are completely destroying the attraction of the game.  But I can readily see why someone else may feel the opposite.




No, I understand that. I don't think it is an objective matter. I was replying to @_*Imaro*_ who mentioned that in his post. 



Imaro said:


> I'm not claiming it's an objective fact, only that in this thread it seems to be presented by a few posters as objectively positive as opposed to something with positive and negative facets.




I understood. I'm sorry my comment was not clearer. What I was saying is that although I think at times it may seem like some folks are pushing this play style as inherently preferable, I think if asked directly, they would acknowledge that it is totally a matter of preference. 

So while sometimes they may seem like they feel that way about it, I don't think anyone has flat out said "this is a better way to play and here is why". 

Hope that clarifies....I was not disagreeing with you so much as making that distinction.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> (which seems to be any D&D player who doesn't prefer 4e)



 The experience the OP related to begin with wasn't in D&D - 'Burning Wheel' or something.  If you're sensing a vibe it's probably indie v D&D - and it may well be coming from both sides of the conversation.  Though, I guess if you had a spectrum of indie-to-D&D it might look something like:

MLwM>D/V>DA>BW>13A><B/X<4e<5e<2e<3.x/PF<1e<0e.



Maxperson said:


> A few things.  First, sometimes personality trumps skill challenges and player desires.  Scrooge isn't going to loan a PC 10,000 gold pieces, so a social challenge to see if he "parries" the request fails from the get go.  It should be disallowed.



 It would be like throwing a dart at an enemy behind a stone wall, it's simply not going to work w/o line of effect.  



Imaro said:


> ... but now we are getting into the necessity of building a dedicated rules structure (to create a scarce resource, determine how one gains it, and regulate how and when it can be used) for narrative control, which at that point I think we have to ask... will this actively enhance the play experience for these players to a great enough extent that adding and having to learn these extra rules is desirable?



 There needn't be any such a necessity:  if the game already has resource-driven rules, for instance, they can simply be adapted.  



> We also have to consider that there is a subset of players, for whatever reason who just don't want to author the narrative.



 They could decline to accumulate said resources - or to use them that way if they're an existing system being adapted to that purpose.



> Many in this thread are assuming that this type of play style is inherently something that we should strive to incorporate or move our games towards... but why is that?  Why are we assuming it's inherent positive quality or effect on our games?  When honestly I've yet to see anything in this thread that convinces me it's objectively a better way.



 'Better' is clearly subjective, but it's not like using one technique precludes others, so you don't need to decide which is better and use it exclusively.  Not that I see that being acknowledged, either.  



Campbell said:


> I am not a huge fan of Robin Laws' player type analysis. The intent of knowing who you are playing with and knowing what they want out of the game is mostly benign. However, in my experience, it fails to adequately capture the diversity of play experiences. I find that what motivates a player in any given moment is often a moving target. Our overall tendencies will also change over time. Furthermore it presumes conflict between things that do not have to conflict in any way.



 Very true.  And the same thing happens with games, styles, and techniques.  The classifications aren't inherently invalid, but if treated as absolutes or as antithetical, become problematic.



> The right set of techniques and mechanics can do a lot to alleviate these conflicts.



 Since a given player's 'type' can actually shift emphasis with the situation or morph over time, a flexible enough system to smoothly accommodate multiple 'types' or styles or agendas or whatever set of boxes is under discussion, can be a plus even if there's not a conflict at the table, initially, or even if there is (say the table's 'type' shifts in step, or it's a single-player game, for instance).  



pemerton said:


> [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] is correct about this: they didn't themselves want to reveal or unmask the traitor - but, as events unfolded, they were able to goad him into unmasking himself.



 It seems like the goal or 'stakes' shifted, then?



> Then what's the point of them? And how do you resolve combat, if the GM is free at any time to ignore the intiative, to hit and damage dice? (On the grounds that the dice shouldn't force the GM into anything specific.)



 It can certainly be done, the GM would base his judgement on the characters and the actions the players chose for them - not formal mechanical actions like "I attack" but more descriptive ones ("I swing my ax, butally, full-force," "I slide my rapier under his guard," etc), and it would depend upon the GM's judgement, the player's knowledge of the sort of combat being resolved relative to the GM's perception of what is 'correct' knowledge of that topic, the player's creativity, his ability to declare actions in a way that encourages the GM to rule in his favor, etc.  



> Personally, I find it very hard to see how the ficiton is going to include that sort of thing if the GM is not bound by the dice and is always free to narrate NPCs as s/he thinks is rational for them. Whey, then, would they ever make errors or act out of passion?



 Because it fits the NPC in question or the flow of the story at that point?


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]
> 
> I am not a huge fan of Robin Laws' player type analysis. The intent of knowing who you are playing with and knowing what they want out of the game is mostly benign. However, in my experience, it fails to adequately capture the diversity of play experiences.




Well I don't think it's trying to be exhaustive... but as a general guideline I think it serves it's purposes pretty well.  I am curious what play experiences do you believe it is not addressing?



Campbell said:


> I find that what motivates a player in any given moment is often a moving target. Our overall tendencies will also change over time. Furthermore it presumes conflict between things that do not have to conflict in any way. The right set of techniques and mechanics can do a lot to alleviate these conflicts. Additionally, it fails to capture the nuances within any single category. As an example, one "Method Actor" might be mostly concerned with details of characterization and color where another is more concerned with making character defining or revealing decisions and experiencing the same emotions as their character. What I find most problematic about the analysis is the idea that when we sit down to play a roleplaying game is that a given player will always be looking for the same sort of fun, rather than meaningfully taking on the interests of the game.




So given player motivation is a moving target at any given time... player tendencies will shift over time, and there are nuances within any single category of player type... why would a single set of techniques and mechanics be a better choice than one that has wide reaching and a broader focus?

Hmmm... this line of thinking has made me wonder something else as well. I tend to run long term campaigns and with the assumptions above it seems that a more focused rules set would actually grow stale or boring over a longer period of time, where as a less focused more broad based rule set would more easily accommodate those changing tastes and tendencies... what do you think?

Finally I want to address your last sentence above... I don't find it problematic at all to assume the average player when sitting down to a roleplaying game is going to be looking for the same sort of fun (in a general sense)... in fact I'd say it pretty much bears out in my experience.  One of my brothers who games is a butt-kicker... doesn't matter if it's D&D, Mage the Awakening, FATE or Numenera he wants to kick but and take names.  I have another brother who is a Tactician... no matter what else he might enjoy he always finds riddles, puzzles and mysteries fun to engage with.  While they may enjoy other things about the game I know as DM/GM for a fact that these things will always engage and interest them while other things will be hit or miss at times. 




Campbell said:


> When it comes to playing roleplaying games I pretty much like all of it. I am most concerned with advocating for my character vigorously and experiencing things as they do in a meaningful way. In the pursuit of those character goals I want to utilize my competitive desires and skill as a gamer. That means applying skilled fictional positioning and application of system mastery alongside a healthy dose of teamwork. I also want a compelling story to result, but I do not want to sacrifice character advocacy or skilled play in the name of getting there. I do not want to be gifted or told a story. I want to earn it and experience it through my character advocacy, skilled play, and creative contributions. I want to grab story by the throat and play in the moment. A good deal of my frustrations with playing and running mainstream games in the past was dealing with conflicts between my various desires, having to sacrifice one in the name of another. I am pretty much done with that.




Do you think someone who enjoys all of those to an equal degree is the norm?  Anyway  It seems, at least from this read that... _player advocacy and experiencing things as the character does in a meaningful way_... are what is most important to you and it reflects in your score of 96% Method Actor.  The others are things you enjoy but it seems pretty clear form the passage above that without that Method Acting component you wouldn't enjoy or probably even play the game... and so you prefer games that accommodate or even push for that.. or am I misreading?  That's great if you've got others who value that as much as you do... but if they don't well what do you do then?  If they want to kick some butt right now but the pursuit of your character goals and advocating for your character isn't leading to that... what happens?



Campbell said:


> I get that preferences are different and we should not begrudge people their preferences. Throughout the course of this thread I have been attempting to distill down the unique values of a particular approach that I personally find rewarding and enjoyable. It's not the only approach that I find rewarding. It's not the only approach that I think people should find rewarding. I would encourage them to try it sometime, maybe in lieu of a board gaming night. I think we can enjoy many different things. I also think we should be careful not to condemn passion and thoughtful criticism. I get that I can be overzealous at times and be overly harsh in my criticism. I am trying to approach this thread thoughtfully.




So far I've enjoyed reading your posts even if I don't necessarily agree with them all... but I do think when we are fans of something, we tend to have a blindness to it's flaws or even other factors that influence why we enjoy it.  That's what I am trying to explore... do these techniques and mechanics need a certain type of player, length of campaign, even state of mind to enjoy... if so that should be discussed along with the mechanics and technique.  We have a poster [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] who tried giving his players some authorial and narrative control and it flopped.  but instead of us examining why this happened he is summarily dismissed by [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].  that to me is where we are blind to the faults of our own preferences.   



Campbell said:


> If you feel I am trying to put your play in a box, please tell me. I do not want to do that. I hate when people try to put my play in a box. That's why the flexible vs. focused thing vexes me so. I have experienced a great deal of very real diversity of play and played games with people of widely different backgrounds and interests within the umbrella of using these techniques. I also feel it fails to consider the unspoken assumptions and expectations that go along with most forms of adventure gaming. Things like long campaigns, the group as a gestalt character, finding the story, character as ideal, and a culture focused on outcomes rather than playing to find out. I am not saying that's like a bad way to play. I do find it to be just as specific an experience. It's just that the 1990s created this highly specific culture of play that we tend to take for granted.




I don't think you've placed me in a box but then I haven't contributed enough about my playstyle for that to happen, mainly because as with the example above I don't believe some posters are here for a discussion or an exchange of ideas but more to prove their playstyle has all the advantages and not a single drawback... and yeah that conversation isn't really all that interesting to me.


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> The experience the OP related to begin with wasn't in D&D




The OP is about D&D 5e...

EDIT: Which is why I would assume it started in the D&D 5e forums and one of the reasons D&D is continually referenced.


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> There needn't be any such a necessity:  if the game already has resource-driven rules, for instance, they can simply be adapted.




I think this is kind of self evident so I figured it didn't need to be said.  



Tony Vargas said:


> They could decline to accumulate said resources - or to use them that way if they're an existing system being adapted to that purpose.




I'm not sure what the has to do with the point I was addressing in my post (mainly why one wouldn't prefer this particular play style) but yes you could choose play a game and only leverage certain rules for certain players... unless of course none of them want to use them.



Tony Vargas said:


> 'Better' is clearly subjective, but it's not like using one technique precludes others, so you don't need to decide which is better and use it exclusively.  Not that I see that being acknowledged, either.




Actually I, and a few others did advocate for this earlier in the thread...


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> The OP is about D&D 5e...



 The game the OP was talking about running was not, it was vaguely 'an FRPG...'  
You'll notice this thread has been moved the the general forum.

The techniques that have been getting discussed are more typical of indie games than of any edition of D&D, though, so it's hardly an edition-war thread as you seemed to want to imply.  Then again, the indie|D&D divide is even wider, if less vicious.



Imaro said:


> I think this is kind of self evident so I figured it didn't need to be said.



 When you say something is necessary, it's not self-evident that it isn't - and if it were, what would be the point of saying it's necessary.  

Anyway, it's not necessary to establish completely new mechanics to adopt some of the techniques that    



> but yes you could choose play a game and only leverage certain rules for certain players... unless of course none of them want to use them.



 Or just use the same rules in different ways.  The point being, there needn't be much (if any) rules-complexity burden or overhead in accommodating a range of techniques.  If no player wanted to use a certain rule in a certain way, it simply doesn't get used that way.  



> We have a poster Sadras who tried giving his players some authorial and narrative control and it flopped. but instead of us examining why this happened he is summarily dismissed by Tony Vargas and pemerton.



 I don't recall what pemerton had to say to that one, but I didn't dismiss it and did examine why it happened.  It happened because someone with 25 years of ingrained experience using a different set of techniques didn't use the brand-new-to-him technique well, and the group as a whole dropped it rather than give it the same 25 years to get it right.  



Imaro said:


> Actually I, and a few others did advocate for this earlier in the thread...



 Cool, maybe we could get back to that?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> Yeah I have definitely been getting an... _expose the unwashed masses/poor deprived roleplayers (which seems to be any D&D player who doesn't prefer 4e) to these superior techniques_... vibe by some posters.  Instead of an open exchange between the differing styles that's actually about trading and exploring the merits and pitfalls of both approaches.  It's why I've mostly been lurking during this discussion.




Or... you could read it as people passionate about their gaming who are presenting their ideas strongly and in the best possible light.  I don't get any real sense of superiority from posters on either sides, just impassioned arguments about their preferences.

That said, your points on what types of gamers different techniques engage is spot on.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> Cool, maybe we could get back to that?




Don't ask, lead!


----------



## Imaro

Ovinomancer said:


> Or... you could read it as people passionate about their gaming who are presenting their ideas strongly and in the best possible light.  I don't get any real sense of superiority from posters on either sides, just impassioned arguments about their preferences.
> 
> That said, your points on what types of gamers different techniques engage is spot on.




You could be right here... I just get a little suspicious when something is presented without any flaws or drawbacks.


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> The game the OP was talking about running was not, it was vaguely 'an FRPG...'
> You'll notice this thread has been moved the the general forum.
> 
> The techniques that have been getting discussed are more typical of indie games than of any edition of D&D, though, so it's hardly an edition-war thread as you seemed to want to imply.  Then again, the indie|D&D divide is even wider, if less vicious.
> 
> When you say something is necessary, it's not self-evident that it isn't - and if it were, what would be the point of saying it's necessary.
> 
> Anyway, it's not necessary to establish completely new mechanics to adopt some of the techniques that
> 
> Or just use the same rules in different ways.  The point being, there needn't be much (if any) rules-complexity burden or overhead in accommodating a range of techniques.  If no player wanted to use a certain rule in a certain way, it simply doesn't get used that way.
> 
> Cool, maybe we could get back to that?




I think we're talking past each other and I tend to think it's because you comment on snippets of posts without regard for the context of the original post... so I'm not sure there's much meaningful discussion to be had about any of the above quotes.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Imaro said:


> You could be right here... I just get a little suspicious when something is presented without any flaws or drawbacks.




Me, too, usually.  But it occurs to me that, for those things we've become fans of, it's hard to see the faults, much less present them fairly.  At least, that's the leeway I'm extending.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Me, too, usually.  But it occurs to me that, for those things we've become fans of, it's hard to see the faults, much less present them fairly.  At least, that's the leeway I'm extending.




As someone whose game leans toward GM Driven....if I had to pick one of the two very broad buckets of "GM Driven" or "Player Driven"....there are certainly drawbacks. 

It's easy for there to be conflict between what the players want and what the GM has planned, so you can have mixed expectations for the game.

It's possible to overlook, or even not to be aware of, players' goals for their characters and the fiction of the game overall. 

I think "railroading" is probably more of a possibility (although I am coming to hate that term due to its vagueness and widely differing application). 

All of these ultimately kind of have the same effect....some form of reduction in player agency, whether it is somehow taken away, subverted, or totally missing to begin with. That chance seem, to me, to be the major concern of those posters who seem to be critical of that style (although I admit, I could be way off on that, but that's the gist I get). And to touch on [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]'s earlier point....I think most of us would agree that player agency in and of itself is a good thing. But I don't know if it must be paramount....that the preservation of player agency must be preserved at all costs. So even though we see it as a good thing, there certainly could be plenty of valid reasons to eschew it from time to time. 

I'm sure there are more concerns about GM Driven games...I just threw out a few. Others can add to that. I'm hoping that some of the more Player-Driven-Minded folks will be willing to share their views on the drawbacks of that approach; I have my own ideas, but I'd like to hear what they have to say first.


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> Lanefan plays 5E



 [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] Incorrect.  I both play and run a much-modified version of 1e; and have reasonably decent knowledge of what makes all the other e's tick (though 4e confounds me sometimes).


> which largely dispenses with the, in my opinion, advances made by 4E (and the "indie" RPGs mentioned throughout this thread)



I'll dispute the word "advances" but will for now accept "changes"; as said changes are to - I'd argue most people - going to include a combination of advances, regressions, and sideways movement; and an advance for some will be seen as a regression for others.


> which devise an elegant mechanic by which social interactions can work--and work well--based upon PC design, not player skill. Lanefan embraces 5E's reverse, putting the emphasis of social interaction on the player--and then DM judgment in response--not the character and the neutral arbiter of the dice.
> 
> But, of course, sometimes a perfectly average Joe wants to play a charismatic sweet talker or brilliant scholar, and games that provide mechanics for social interaction based on PC build, not player skill, facilitate this.



And as soon at those mechanics become part of the game players start relying on them - "skip the talk, Mr. DM; I'll just roll a check to see if I persuade him or not" - rather than their own creativity and imagination as reflected by their character.  This to me is a regression big enough to defeat the entire purpose of a *role-playing* game.

That said, from what I can tell (and to their credit) most DMs get their players to at least try role-playing before resorting to dice.

Lan-"just rolled 18 - did I persuade you?"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

I think [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] is on to something with post 858 where he lists the gamer types and how they might work within a player-driven game; I largely agree with the analysis there given.

My only quibble would be that a player-driven game will probably end up at complete odds with the Tactician; in that it'd be an altruistic Tactician indeed who, when designing the scene, didn't now and then (or frequently) toss in a tactical advantage for her PC and-or the rest of the party.

And as for this angle:


			
				hawkeyefan said:
			
		

> As someone whose game leans toward GM Driven....there are certainly drawbacks.
> 
> It's easy for there to be conflict between what the players want and what the GM has planned, so you can have mixed expectations for the game.
> 
> It's possible to overlook, or even not to be aware of, players' goals for their characters and the fiction of the game overall.
> 
> I think "railroading" is probably more of a possibility (although I am coming to hate that term due to its vagueness and widely differing application).



Another sometimes-all-too-real drawback to a primarily-DM-driven game (and I confess to speaking from experience here) comes about if-when the DM flat out hasn't got any - or has run out of - good ideas as to where to drive to.  This can quickly become a campaign-ender if the players haven't got anything on the boil either.

Solutions - also learned through experience: always have a storyboard (and update it now and then to reflect what's actually happened in the game), always have something "in reserve" to allow for left turns, and always be ready to hit the curveball.

Lan-"and go in to any campaign with the expectation that it'll last for the rest of your life - plan long, and it'll go long"-efan


----------



## Campbell

The primary reason why I am so down on a flexible approach comes down to expectations. The value of any social system is setting expectations and granting permissions. When I am playing in a game where GM techniques are bound to change moment to moment I have no way to meaningfully make impactful decisions. I cannot feel the ground underneath my feet. If a game does not optimally fit the experience I am looking for I can either sit this one out or take on the interests of the game and have a measure of fun. When I have tried running games like this in the past the cognitive weight of constantly reading the room and prioritizing one player's desires over another was soul crushing for me.

The pain point for me is this: we get a situation where we all sit around the table and try to play our own individual games instead of playing the same game. We do not address our very real conflicts of interest. Instead we depend on the GM to smooth them over. When things become untenable socially we look to the GM to resolve our social conflict and lack of trust in each other. We put all the responsibility on the GM for our own fun making running a game an onerous task. Because the GM takes on this extra social responsibility this can often shift the dynamics away from one where we are peers, fellow gamers, and creative collaborators.

Upthread [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] bulked a bit when I suggested that any player could air a grievance about the fiction or group direction openly. This sort of thing as a common fixture of my play group. It is expected that we are all going to work together to resolve player level conflicts of interest. It is a necessary component to ensuring that all players remain engaged and motivated. Hacking the game is something that is always on the table as well as making adjustments to our characters and the fiction.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Upthread [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] bulked a bit when I suggested that any player could air a grievance about the fiction or group direction openly.



Grievances with the fiction are always problematic as you don't know what's coming down the pipe.  Maybe this series of adventures that someone finds boring or dull or disturbing is intended to lead to another series that the same person would consider excllent.

Group direction?  Not sure what you mean there, unless you're referring to real-world players not getting along (which happens).  That sort of discussion happens, just preferably not during the game session; that's what pubs, email, and the other 6 days of the week are for. 


> Hacking the game is something that is always on the table as well as making adjustments to our characters and the fiction.



Hacking the game - as in, rule changes or ideas and that sort of thing - is also always open for discussion* here; but again not during a game session.

* - with the known proviso that, where possible, no really major changes will usually be made within a campaign that would invalidate earlier parts of that same campaign.

Lanefan


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Incorrect.  I both play and run a much-modified version of 1e; and have reasonably decent knowledge of what makes all the other e's tick (though 4e confounds me sometimes).




You, good sir, have my apologies for miscategorizing your gameplay. I should have said you have indicated a preference for systems whose design philosophy is DM empowerment and skilled play.



> And as soon at those mechanics become part of the game players start relying on them - "skip the talk, Mr. DM; I'll just roll a check to see if I persuade him or not" - rather than their own creativity and imagination as reflected by their character.




I don't think this _must_ be true, but I will concede that this is the viewpoint assumed by many who rejected the significant philosophical changes of 4E (often before really giving the system a fair shake). And when this _is_ true, it can make for a roleplaying poor RPG.

One of the great things about this thread, however, is that it (along with many similar threads by [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], etc.) demonstrates how the design philosophy of 4E (and "indie" style gaming much more broadly) can provide fertile ground for roleplaying through the mechanics, not by dispensing with them in favor of DM judgment.


----------



## Campbell

I would caution thinking of mainstream games and indie games in a binary sense. Indie games often function in ways that are different from mainstream games and there are certain common trends, but there is a great degree of diversity of experience between games, including the intended GMing and play principles, expectations placed on players, and overall machinery of play. It takes a different set of skills to run and play Burning Wheel that are distinct from running and playing Apocalypse World. There are also some very significant areas of disagreement within the indie community over things like introspection vs. conflict, stake setting, character intent vs. player intent, if intent should even be a thing, character vs. story advocacy, and amongst more emotionally charged designs Nobody Gets Hurt vs. I Will Not Abandon You. You might have seen some of that play out in some of my interactions with  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]. I do not think there is such a thing as an indie style. There are multiple approaches to roleplaying games. Some of them come from one community. Some from another.

This passage from Playing Passionately covers it in more detail:



			
				Encultured Systems said:
			
		

> Imagine for a moment that you are playing poker. After the round it’s revealed that you have the high hand with two pair when all of a sudden the guy across from you says, “Ah! I’ve got the Ace of Diamonds!” and collects all the cards on the table and places them in front of himself. Just to make it a little weirder he doesn’t even stop you from taking your winnings. You might rightfully ask, “What are you doing?” To which he replies, “I always like to take tricks in my card games.” You might then carefully go over the rules of poker and this individual smiles and nods and says, “Yes, I understand that you won the hand, I just find that trick taking really enhances card games.”
> 
> You would assume, I hope, that the person you were talking to was insane. So, why, I ask, do we as role-players not blink an eye when a fellow role-player says something like, “When I GM I usually have the players submit a detailed character write up for approval. I generally like at least two pages.” without any context as to what is being played? Role-playing games are the only games I can think of where players carry around with them huge systemic behaviors from game to game. The GM who *always* has his players submit detailed character write ups for approval is going to have a hard time with “In A Wicked Age…” in a shocking way and will probably be confused on a profoundly disappointing level with something more subtle like “Sorcerer.”
> 
> These encultured systems have their roots in the very dawn of the hobby where play was a highly individualized amalgam of rule-books, magazine articles and house rules. It probably reached the height of formalization with games like Vampire where rules to “do stuff” were provided but to what end, what emphasis and under what structure were *intentionally* left “up to the individual group.” Play groups *had* to develop individualized systemic techniques to make functional play happen at all. These personally developed techniques then got carried around from game to game as a matter of course often unacknowledged. Sometimes players would go so far as to claim these techniques were how the game was “supposed” to be played despite the total lack of (unified) textual backing.
> 
> Now some of you might be thinking, “Isn’t this just System Matters all over again?” or maybe the idea of purposeful design? Yes, yes it is. Then why bring it up? Because the community has forgotten. I see people carrying around Kickers, Bangs, Relationship Maps, Scene Framing and Stakes just likes Detailed Character Backgrounds, The Party, Faction Maps and Rule Zero got carried around. “Say Yes, or roll the dice” has become encultured as a particularly poisonous mantra. This has lead to the idea of “Forge-style” or “Story Game style” games. People aren’t playing the game at hand; they’re playing some weird amalgamation of every game they have ever played.
> 
> However just like it was toxic to bring all your Vampire techniques into Sorcerer it’s equally as toxic to bring all that “Story Game” stuff as some kind of unified play-style into other games. How many people know that The Producer always frames scenes in Primetime Adventures? Don’t believe me? Look it up. How many people know that there’s a perfectly functional and more basic way to play Sorcerer without a Relationship Map? Read Chapter 4 carefully. Look at how people’s ideas of Stakes has lead to mass confusion on how to play “In A Wicked Age…” and yet the text is rather clear on what to procedurally do.
> 
> To address this I offer two pieces of advice. To designers, I say consider what systemic (social and mechanical) techniques are required and/or work in your game and say that in the text explicitly. Don’t hand wave it away as, “It’s a story game. People know how to play those.” To players, I say read the text. Do what the text says. Don’t drag encultured rules into play. Stop taking tricks in your “card games.”


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] and   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]

I think there are good social mechanics and there are bad social mechanics. For my interests any mechanism in a roleplaying game should spark interest in the fiction and require players to engage not just the mechanism, but also their underlying fictional positioning. This applies just as much to violent confrontations as it does to talking stuff out. Good social mechanics actually draw us and make us care about what is going on in the fiction.A good example is the Social Influence subsystem in Exalted 3e where in order to get someone to do something I have to find out what they value (Intimacies) and provoke them to act in accordance with their values. In order to defend against my successful influence they have to defend by spending Willpower and pointing to something else they value just as much. These mechanics also apply to player characters by the way. This keeps our interest on the fiction and requires players to actually engage it, making arguments and applying leverage that cuts to the core of their target's interests.

Here's a really bad social mechanic for my interests: Roll Diplomacy. If you roll really high they like you and will do whatever you want them to. I hate Diplomancers!

*Good*
Fiction -> Mechanisms -> Fiction
Fiction -> Fiction

*Bad*
Mechanisms -> Mechanisms
Mechanisms -> Fiction


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> If I took this approach, I would feel like I was GMing blind. I wouldn't know what the player was hoping his/her PC would achieve. I wouldn't know what was at stake. I wouldln't know how to apply pressure.




I'm not saying I don't know anything about their character. We discuss stuff like that out of game time, plus I learn tons during the course of the game based on what they say/do within the game world.

I'm saying that during the game I'm not going to ask something like, "how does that related to x, and how does it make you feel?" from DM to player/character.  That's too much like a breaking the 4th-wall sort of moment for me.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I've highlighted two bits of this quote.
> 
> The first seems to go right to the core of the thread. It posits the GM as creating the story.
> 
> The second seems to go to the discussion with [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] about immersion, and my post not far upthread. Because human beings are related to people around them, and embedded in the world around them, sometimes "being the character" also requires establishing elements of the shared fiction.




I probably didn't word that very well, but here's what I said:

"Certainly, as a DM, improvisation is always part of the game. But by having a thorough understanding of the NPCs and their goals, the events that are occurring in the region, the lay of the land, and things like that. Even the typical behavior of monsters, etc., means that I can also focus on the creation of the story during the game, reacting to the characters and their actions."

And my clarification is that I can focus on _my part_ of the story. It also means that I can focus on the _player's_ creation of the story during the game. The bulk of the story is written by the players through the actions of their PCs. 

I provide, as I stated there, the NPCs and their goals, the events, lay of the land, behavior of monsters, etc., and react as them, or within those parts of the fiction. I don't get to write the stories of the characters. That's what the players do. And in general, we share the fiction of their history, but that's handled in our games outside of the game session itself.

The only real exception I can think of is something from character history, like running into an NPC they "know" but has never been in play before, and we might have to address the relationship they have with the NPC and potential shared history. Most of the time that's glossed over, "Hey, Mornagan, long time, no see...and you spend a few moments reminiscing about old times...so what brings you to Loudwater?" I might give them a fair amount of leeway on the development of those types of relationships, but it's still usually built on a back-and-forth, and usually outside of the session if we're going deeper. Basically I know the goals and rough personality of the NPC and based on whether we decide there is any history of note, we develop some back history.

The PCs are essentially the pointy stick of the world, and they are looking to me to let them know what happens when they poke something.

Just like us, in our world, they are the characters and only the characters. They don't decide what happens when they poke something, they only make the decision to poke it or not and how they react to what happens. So I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is onto something when he considers it reactive.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] Incorrect.  I both play and run a much-modified version of 1e;



 So, 1e, then  ...I ran a much-modified (a 2-3 inch thick d-ring binder of crazy variants) version of 1e for years, and 2e similarly-modded.  I have a hard time believing anyone ever ran 1e 'RAW.'  But, y'know, 1e was a very DM-empowering edition, as is 5e.



> and have reasonably decent knowledge of what makes all the other e's tick (though 4e confounds me sometimes)...
> I'll dispute the word "advances"



 Well, it does confound you, and you are still running a game from the 80s...
but, yeah, 'advanced' it's a misnomer:  I doubt there was much in a 'modern' WotC ed of D&D that hadn't been done by some not-D&D RPG by oh, the mid '90s at the latest.  

'Less classic,' perhaps?



> to include a combination of advances, regressions, and sideways movement; and an advance for some will be seen as a regression for others.



 ...?  An advance can hardly seem like a regression.  By definition the latter is calling back something from the past.  An advance can seem bad or in the wrong direction based on subjective opinion, sure, and a regression can seem like a terribly good idea when people are burning you in effigy for moving away from tradition... 



> And as soon at those mechanics become part of the game players start relying on them - "skip the talk, Mr. DM; I'll just roll a check to see if I persuade him or not" - rather than their own creativity and imagination as reflected by their character.  This to me is a regression big enough to defeat the entire purpose of a *role-playing* game.



 Nod.  The 3.x Diplomancer was notorious, that way.  But, really, if an RPG is going to let you play a range of characters, not just clones of yourself dropped in some genre setting (not that 20th century reader-identification characters dropped into fantasy worlds wasn't a staple of genre for a long time), it's going to have to have resolution mechanics based on the character, not just the player.  



Campbell said:


> I would caution thinking of mainstream games and indie games in a binary sense.



 Above I posited a continuum, so I guess I agree.  
But, indie does kinda come off as the intellectual revolutionary minority struggling against the dogmatic/oppressive establishment, ironic as that is in such a small pond.  And both sides can be more than a little elitist - both sides of a hobby that tends towards elitism, I might add (one way to look at the continued unpopularity of your obsession is as an exclusive elite rather than an excluded fringe).


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> the flexible vs. focused thing vexes me so. I have experienced a great deal of very real diversity of play and played games with people of widely different backgrounds and interests within the umbrella of using these techniques. I also feel it fails to consider the unspoken assumptions and expectations that go along with most forms of adventure gaming. Things like long campaigns, the group as a gestalt character, finding the story, character as ideal, and a culture focused on outcomes rather than playing to find out. I am not saying that's like a bad way to play. I do find it to be just as specific an experience. It's just that the 1990s created this highly specific culture of play that we tend to take for granted.



I agree with you about the inaptness of "flexible vs focused". _Good for what I'm used to doing with it_ isn't a sign of _flexibiility_ in a system.

I think a similar point applies to the idea of "player buy in". There is nothing distinctive about, say, Burning Wheel or 4e compared to AD&D 2nd ed such that the former two require "buy in" in a way that the latter doesn't.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> You know one thing I haven't seen addressed in this thread is how different player types do or don't work with narrative power.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Robin Laws lists out the following player types...
> 
> The Power Gamer
> The Butt-Kicker
> The Tactician
> The Specialist
> The Method Actor
> The Storyteller
> The Casual Gamer
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Now honestly I just don't see how your play style can work for say The Power Gamer... who actively looks "to finding quirks and breakpoints he can exploit to get large benefits at comparatively low costs."
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I also see issues, though admittedly to a lesser extent, with The Tactician... who wants "problems" to "beat" through his own acumen and strategical thinking. This seems at odds with allowing him to control or create things through the narrative





Campbell said:


> I am not a huge fan of Robin Laws' player type analysis
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I find that what motivates a player in any given moment is often a moving target. Our overall tendencies will also change over time. Furthermore it presumes conflict between things that do not have to conflict in any way.



I agree that there are severe limitations to this sort of player categorisation.

But the group I play with would - by ENworld standards, judging from threads - be classified as Power Gamers, Optimisers and Tacticians. They like building PCs for effectiveness, and playing for the same.

(Btw, the quoted description of "power gamers" doesn't seem generally applicable, because it seems to be relevant only to games with "breakpoints" - I prefer to avoid such games.)

There is no general tension (that I've encountered, at least) between playing for effectivness and a game in which the action and focus of the game are led by the players rather than the GM.

As far as "beating a problem" being "at odds with allowing [a player] to control or create things through the narrative", I don't see why. Beating a problem by goading an advisor into outing him-/herself doesn't seem different, in this respect, from beating a problem by (say) blowing it up. Likewise for beating a problem by succeeding at a Circles check and thereby meeting a friendly NPC.



Imaro said:


> why are we placing an intrinsic and positive value on giving players authorial/narrative control?



I'm not sure who you are intending to denote by "we".

In the OP I place value on a game not being a railroad, which is to say I placed value on the game - that is to say, the focus of play, and the outcomes in the shared fiction - being driven by the players rather than the GM. My reason for doing that is because I prefer it.


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> Not having been at your (Sadras's) table for this event, it's hard to comment, but as you present it it looks like a pretty tightly GM-run game (eg the hurting of the PCs' allies in the organisation is similar to the assassination of the marquis that was being discussed upthread - this seems to have been narrated by the GM as a "failure off-screen" consequence for the players having their PCs deny the boss's request). Was the player being juvenile? Deliberately disruptive? Didn't have any other ideas? Couldn't conceive of anything else being feasible in the fiction?
> 
> I don't see this sort of example as any sort of "case against" player input into the shared fiction.





Imaro said:


> We have a poster @Sadras who tried giving his players some authorial and narrative control and it flopped. but instead of us examining why this happened he is summarily dismissed by @Tony Vargas and @pemerton.



Apparently "summary dismissal" has some meaning in American English that is different from its meaning in Australian English.

In the usage I'm familiar with, replying to someone and trying to tease out possible reasons something undesirable might have happened in a game - on a very thing evidence base - isn't a dismissal, let alone a summary one.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> during the game I'm not going to ask something like, "how does that related to x, and how does it make you feel?" from DM to player/character.



But this is exactly what I'm saying would leave me feeling blind. If I don't know what the PC's motivation is, or how the player sees that relating to other concerns and declared convictions of the PC, then I don't know what is _really _happening in the fiction and how best to handle it as GM.

As an approach to GMing I learned this from the very good referee of a free-form Cthulhu/Dreamlands game that I played in once at a convention.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I've no idea what my social AC is or what I need to roll to socially hit or damage my buddy.



This is an odd comment, because I don't know what my combat AC is either, or what I need to roll to physically hit or damage my buddy. These are just mechanical constructs. (And in the case of damage in D&D, don't even correlate to anything distinctive in the fiction - eg if an ogre with 20 hp takes 3 hp damage, we don't know anything in particular that has happened in the fiction except that somehow the ogre's chances of prevailing have been slightly set back.)

That said, the episode of play I described - being a 4e skill challenge - doesn't use "social AC" or "social damage". It is more fiction-focused than that, and is resolved by the players accruing the requisite number of successes prior to suffering 3 failures.



Maxperson said:


> sometimes personality trumps skill challenges and player desires. Scrooge isn't going to loan a PC 10,000 gold pieces, so a social challenge to see if he "parries" the request fails from the get go



This seems to be about framing, and what is a permissible action declaration. (And  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] made the same point upthread.)

Once the check has been framed and resolved, however, I don't see any reason why it is not binding on the GM just as much as on the players. Combat as a domain of fictional endeavour does not generate any distinctive demand of finality in resolution. (Eg early D&D had morale and loyalty checks, which were as binding as combat. The idea that social/emotional responses cannot be governed by binding mechanics unless, in the fiction, those mechanics correlate to the use of magic, is a more recent prejudice.)



Lanefan said:


> And as soon at those mechanics become part of the game players start relying on them - "skip the talk, Mr. DM; I'll just roll a check to see if I persuade him or not" - rather than their own creativity and imagination as reflected by their character.  This to me is a regression big enough to defeat the entire purpose of a *role-playing* game.



The only RPG I'm aware of which might have social mechanics that resemble this is 3E.



Campbell said:


> I think there are good social mechanics and there are bad social mechanics. For my interests any mechanism in a roleplaying game should spark interest in the fiction and require players to engage not just the mechanism, but also their underlying fictional positioning.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Here's a really bad social mechanic for my interests: Roll Diplomacy. If you roll really high they like you and will do whatever you want them to.



I agree with the first bit. Of the systems I'm GMing at present, the one with the most abstract social resolution mechanics is Cortex/MHRP, but I have found that in play it produces quite strong ficitonal positioning, with a lot of colour in both action and outcome. I'm thinking of things like the trickster PC trying to buy off a giant chieftain with the ox stolen from the giant's own barn; or Bobby Drake swooping up one of the B.A.D. girls on his ice slide, and carrying her off into the moonlight; or Wolverine causing Nightcrawler to break down in tears by executing a captured NPC right in front of him. There's no ambiguity as to what is taking place in the fiction.

Also with the second, though would add: I don't really see 3E-style Diplomacy as an action resolution mechanic at all (eg because it doesn't really require an action declaration). I see it as a species of scene-reframing: the player doesn't like the scene the GM has framed, with a hostile NPC/creature - and so, by rolling the dice, s/he reframes it into one where the NPC/creature is not hostile.



Campbell said:


> Upthread [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] bulked a bit when I suggested that any player could air a grievance about the fiction or group direction openly. This sort of thing as a common fixture of my play group.



I wouldn't say it's _common_ at my table, but the example I posted upthread - where a player called me on my followup from a skill challenge because he thought my framing wasn't respecting the established fiction of the players'/PCs' success - might count as an example.



Lanefan said:


> Maybe this series of adventures that someone finds boring or dull or disturbing is intended to lead to another series that the same person would consider excllent.



My personal preference is to avoid stuff that a player finds boring or dull. (That's not to say that I always succeed. But this relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post quoted just above - if I realise the game is boring or dull for someone, I will act on that.)


----------



## Campbell

Imaro said:


> I think I agree with you in general... but now we are getting into the necessity of building a dedicated rules structure (to create a scarce resource, determine how one gains it, and regulate how and when it can be used) for narrative control, which at that point I think we have to ask... will this actively enhance (as opposed to not contradict or not get in the way) the play experience for these players to a great enough extent that adding and having to learn these extra rules is desirable?
> 
> We also have to consider that there is a subset of players, for whatever reason (don't find it fun, like exploration of an objective setting, are casual, etc.)  who just don't want to author the narrative.  Once you start to add rules that push this playstyle as oppose to allowing it off the cuff, you are making it harder for your game to accommodate and appeal to said players.
> 
> EDIT: In other words why are we placing an intrinsic and positive value on giving players authorial/narrative control?  That's, IMO, part of the problem with this conversation.  Many in this thread are assuming that this type of play style is inherently something that we should strive to incorporate or move our games towards (though I've not seen the reverse)... but why is that?  Why are we assuming it's inherent positive quality or effect on our games?  When honestly I've yet to see anything in this thread that convinces me it's objectively a better way.




I want to clarify something really quick. This is emphatically *not* what I look for in a game. It directly cuts against my interests most of the time. I am all for *disciplined and targeted* use of director stance to introduce compelling fiction to play through, enhance interest in the fiction, and to clarify the situation. We speak about things that go unsaid, speak to intuitions, and drives.   I believe this is an area best left to GM judgement. 

I am also interested in rules that reflect areas of the fiction that often go unrepresented in most mainstream games.Things that speak to our characters inner lives, social pressures, tension, stress, drives, emotions - the type of stuff that I feel is not often adequately enough considered in most play. 

I am fundamentally and deeply uninterested in distributing narrative control in play. I do not like it when games like Fate, Cortex+ or Night's Black Agents directly model narrative structures. I want the overall focus to be directly on the fiction. When Fate tells me I have to pay to use my fictional positioning it puts a sour taste in my mouth. When it tells me to set DCs based on dramatic need rather than the fiction things get worse. Mechanics like compels and GM Intrusion in Numenera are not something I am fond of at all. I am no more interested in player scripting than I am of GM scripting.

All that being said, I can find a measure of fun playing these sorts of games. It just does not feel very natural to me. It's not optimal. I have to work at it in a way that I just don't when playing Apocalypse World, Stars Without Number, B/X or Dogs in the Vineyard. Because of its purposeful design I can adopt my own interests to the interests of the game in a way that is *less difficult* than playing Vampire or any game where our shared interests might flex and weave moment to moment. I don't have to struggle in vain so much. I can enjoy it for what it is even if I would much rather be playing something else. I am also glad its out there for people who really enjoy that sort of thing. Diversity of experience should be celebrated.

Edit: Fixed significant typo. I meant that I find it less difficult to play in a way contrary to my general preferences when a game is clear about the things it is about.


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> ...?  An advance can hardly seem like a regression.  By definition the latter is calling back something from the past.  An advance can seem bad or in the wrong direction based on subjective opinion, sure, and a regression can seem like a terribly good idea when people are burning you in effigy for moving away from tradition...



I was trying to say that some changes may be viewed by some as advances (as in, improvements) while other people may view those same changes as opposite-of-advancements (as in, they make the game worse) while still others may view them either as neutral or as just change-for-the-sake-of-change.  Bad choice of words, I suppose.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In the OP I place value on a game not being a railroad



I think many of us here would agree in general with this sentiment...



> which is to say I placed value on the game - that is to say, the focus of play, and the outcomes in the shared fiction - being driven by the players rather than the GM.



...while not at all agreeing with this one, as the two things are nowhere near the same - as has been shown all sorts of times during the 900 or so posts between the one you're referring to and this one.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But this is exactly what I'm saying would leave me feeling blind. If I don't know what the PC's motivation is, or how the player sees that relating to other concerns and declared convictions of the PC, then I don't know what is _really _happening in the fiction and how best to handle it as GM.



And why should you?

Your job (and my job, in my game) is to as neutrally as you can present the game world, the setting, the opportunities for adventure, and the inhabitants of all of the above.

Ideally, it's presented in exactly the same way to:
 - an angst-riddled Elf Druid who just wants to sort out his feelings for his father and then save all the poor defenseless trees
 - a roaring drunkard of a Part-Orc warrior whose only motivation is to kill anything he can and then eat it afterwards
 - a lonely Mage who is looking for her husband, who long ago ran off to join the militia and never came back
 - a happy Dwarf Rogue who has no real motivations at all other than adventuring is more fun than mining

If this is the party that gets rolled up I'm just going to find a way to get them into a field adventure and then run that adventure.  If I immediately start tailoring things to the Druid and the Mage and their personal problems I'm doing a disservice to the other two who just want to get after it.  Sooner or later down the road I might work in something about the Mage's husband and where he ended up, if it's even still relevant by then; and angsty Druid can just go right on being angsty - though the inevitable arguments between he and the Dwarf over the usefulness of trees are bound to be good entertainment!

Never mind that the minute they start a quest or mission whose goal is to find the Mage's husband it's inevitable the Mage will then either retire or die at the first opportunity.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This is an odd comment, because I don't know what my combat AC is either



Mine is most likely 10, no matter what edition you use.  



> That said, the episode of play I described - being a 4e skill challenge - doesn't use "social AC" or "social damage". It is more fiction-focused than that, and is resolved by the players accruing the requisite number of successes prior to suffering 3 failures.



It still, however, completely defeats the point of creative role-playing by reducing a social interaction to a series of dice rolls.  We (well, most of us) don't have swords and shields and armour at the table, and aren't generally much use at spellcraft, so those must be mirrored or replicated somehow by something: this game uses dice.

But we do all have mouths and brains and (I hope!) imaginations and creativity at the table, meaning there should be much less - if any - necessity to mechanize these aspects of the game.



> (Eg early D&D had morale and loyalty checks, which were as binding as combat. ...)



Perhaps I'd better note here than when I do use those mechanics (which isn't all that often) I take the results as guidelines rather than binding.



> My personal preference is to avoid stuff that a player finds boring or dull. (That's not to say that I always succeed. But this relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s post quoted just above - if I realise the game is boring or dull for someone, I will act on that.)



Ditto here, except that I don't expect every player to not be bored every minute of the time - it's the old line about you can please some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time.  I get more concerned if it seems things are boring for everyone, or everyone except one; that's when I have to do something about it.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> This is emphatically *not* what I look for in a game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I am fundamentally and deeply uninterested in distributing narrative control in play.



A recurrent theme in threads that touch on what I have called "player-driven" RPGing is that the idea of player influence on play very quickly gets conflated, by at least some posters, with players authoring their own challenges, or players resolving situations by introducing novel fitional elements in a way that is somehow external to the action resolution mechanics.

I think that conflation tends to miss the way that quite a few RPGs are played.

For instance, when the player of a fighter in a 4e game uses CaGI, that is not an authoring by that player of his/her own challenge; and it is not solving the challenge by way of introducing some novel fictional element that circumvents action resolution. In the fiction, it can correspond to a range of possibilities, depending on context (eg most of the time in my game it represents the dwarven polearm master defeating his enemies by dint of superior footwork and weapon handling; the first time it was used, some of the forced movement was narrated as goblins, who had been fleeing down a corridor, turning around to avoid being cut down from behind); in the play of the game, it is just another status-imposition attack, like the many others found in that and other editions of D&D.

In my BW game, when the player says "I look around for a vessel to catch the spilling blood", and I then call for a Perception check, both phenomenoligically and mechanically I don't find it fundamentally different from any other action declaration. The fact that, as a consequence of success, it is now established that there is a vessel in the room, whereas before it was uncertain, is no different (in my experience) from the myriad other elements of fiction that get established as part of the resolution of action declarations.



Campbell said:


> I do not like it when games like Fate, Cortex+ or Night's Black Agents directly model narrative structures. I want the overall focus to be directly on the fiction. When Fate tells me I have to pay to use my fictional positioning it puts a sour taste in my mouth.



In Cortex/MHRP you don't have to pay to _use_ your fictional positioning - you just have to play to _establish_ it (in the form of an asset)!

It makes the game very different from, say, BW. Or even 4e.



Campbell said:


> All that being said, I can find a measure of fun playing these sorts of games. It just does not feel very natural to me. It's not optimal.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Because of its purposeful design I can adopt my own interests to the interests of the game in a way that is *more difficult* than playing Vampire or any game where our shared interests might flex and weave moment to moment. I don't have to struggle in vain so much.



Should the bit that I've bolded read _less difficult_?


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the player driven vs. GM driven framing. Under that framing it feels like the point is to resolve creative conflicts between players and GMs. That's not what I want. Ideally when we sit down to play a game our interests as players are the same. What I want rules to bring to the table is a fiction that is not what either of us wanted, but is compelling enough to accept. I want the game to actively contribute. I want it to get in our way in ways that are an improvement over the sort of hard won consensus you find in Principled Freeform roleplaying. It needs to make the conversation more interesting for its presence. System must earn its keep or be banished. We do not need it to functionally play. 



pemerton said:


> Should the bit that I've bolded read _less difficult_?




Exactly so. I meant to clarify that I would rather play in a principled way using a different set of skills than try to play in my most preferred way, but be met with frustration when I am not being rewarded for it socially, frictionally, or mechanically.


----------



## Manbearcat

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]
> 
> I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the player driven vs. GM driven framing.




While I'm not uncomfortable with it (or at least not in examining moments of play in that fashion), I've been trying to divide things into:

1)  GM agency
2)  Player agency
3)  System agency

I think examining moments of play in those discrete silos and examining the (hopefully significant and coherent) bleed is the most functional way forward in this conversation.  Further, I think the examination of (3) and how it facilitates the general play agenda (thereby facilitating either or both of (1) and (2) from one moment to the next) is also extremely interesting and fertile ground for this discussion.  The reason why I think its fertile ground is because I think it inevitably reveals a person's perceptions of the boundaries of (1) especially if they hold that (1) is system agnostic, therefore cross-RPG orthodox, and should be carried forth wherever they go.  I think exploration of the nature of those boundaries are essential to understanding collateral (or sometimes direct) impacts to (2).


----------



## Nagol

Manbearcat said:


> While I'm not uncomfortable with it (or at least not in examining moments of play in that fashion), I've been trying to divide things into:
> 
> 1)  GM agency
> 2)  Player agency
> 3)  System agency
> 
> I think examining moments of play in those discrete silos and examining the (hopefully significant and coherent) bleed is the most functional way forward in this conversation.  Further, I think the examination of (3) and how it facilitates the general play agenda (thereby facilitating either or both of (1) and (2) from one moment to the next) is also extremely interesting and fertile ground for this discussion.  The reason why I think its fertile ground is because I think it inevitably reveals a person's perceptions of the boundaries of (1) especially if they hold that (1) is system agnostic, therefore cross-RPG orthodox, and should be carried forth wherever they go.  I think exploration of the nature of those boundaries are essential to understanding collateral (or sometimes direct) impacts to (2).




I'm pretty sure GM agency cannot be considered system agnostic.  The expectations and requirements on the GM for _Amber_ is substantially different than any edition of D&D, for example.  The agency I express running  _FATE_ is more constrained than _Champions_ and is much more constrained than when I run D&D.


----------



## Manbearcat

Nagol said:


> I'm pretty sure GM agency cannot be considered system agnostic.  The expectations and requirements on the GM for _Amber_ is substantially different than any edition of D&D, for example.  The agency I express running  _FATE_ is more constrained than _Champions_ and is much more constrained than when I run D&D.




You'll be unsurprised to find that I completely agree!

However, I'd like to hear more on this from others, because I've seen a lot of evidence over the years to indicate that a major conflict in the greater TTRPG culture is one of "GM Mandate vs System Agency". However that conflict gets sorted out in one's head (and then at one's table) is no small part of this conversation.

 [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] , I'll post some thoughts on what you've written later.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> This seems to be about framing, and what is a permissible action declaration. (And  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] made the same point upthread.)
> 
> Once the check has been framed and resolved, however, I don't see any reason why it is not binding on the GM just as much as on the players. Combat as a domain of fictional endeavour does not generate any distinctive demand of finality in resolution. (Eg early D&D had morale and loyalty checks, which were as binding as combat. The idea that social/emotional responses cannot be governed by binding mechanics unless, in the fiction, those mechanics correlate to the use of magic, is a more recent prejudice.)




It was binding.  The check was for him to reveal himself.  Not to reveal himself and then not do anything about it.  Once he revealed himself, you were no longer bound with regard to his actions.  An advisor presumably has an agile mind and would try to mitigate the revealing the first check caused.  Those are two different actions.


----------



## Imaro

hawkeyefan said:


> I'm sure there are more concerns about GM Driven games...I just threw out a few. Others can add to that. *I'm hoping that some of the more Player-Driven-Minded folks will be willing to share their views on the drawbacks of that approach;* I have my own ideas, but I'd like to hear what they have to say first.




Emphasis mine... I'd be interested in this as well... [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], and any others that would be interested in chiming in?


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Emphasis mine... I'd be interested in this as well... @_*pemerton*_, @_*Manbearcat*_, and any others that would be interested in chiming in?




Because this is a quick one and I've answered it before, I'll just do this right quick. Couple easy examples:

1) It places a greater cognitive burden on players. To some that is a feature. To others it is too mentally taxing/exhausting (3 buddies of mine I solely run AD&D and B/X for are in this camp).

2) Why would someone smuggle "ask questions and use the answers" in the midst of a B/X dungeon crawl?

a) We don't need answers. The prep is already done to create those answers.
b) The system machinery works beautifully as is. Interesting, challenging stuff is going to spin out of orthodox play. All it's inclusion would likely do is render something coherent and functional incoherent and disfunctional.
c) There is no system machinery and play principles to account for/integrate it. Challenge/puzzle gaming can become compromised then with unintegrated player authorial control (coupled with neutral refereeing) that works at cross purposes.

A-C above makes "ask questions and use the answers" a bad fit for a game like B/X.


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> The primary reason why I am so down on a flexible approach comes down to expectations. The value of any social system is setting expectations and granting permissions.




Yes but if the expectation that various techniques will use within the framework of the games rules... and the DM is transparent with said techniques... isn't that value still attained/maintained?



Campbell said:


> When I am playing in a game where GM techniques are bound to change moment to moment I have no way to meaningfully make impactful decisions. I cannot feel the ground underneath my feet. If a game does not optimally fit the experience I am looking for I can either sit this one out or take on the interests of the game and have a measure of fun. When I have tried running games like this in the past the cognitive weight of constantly reading the room and prioritizing one player's desires over another was soul crushing for me.




So is it from a DM perspective, a players perspective or both that you find the mixing of techniques non-satisfactory?  Also I'd like to delve further into some of the comments above but I want to make sure I have a grasp on and am on the same page when it comes to what you are expressing here... Can you give an example where meaningful decisions are made untenable through the using of various techniques in the same game or play session?  

On a side note I find [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s (and I believe [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s as well) way of playing (at least as they have described it and given examples of it in this thread) to have the same type of dissonance for me (the feeling of not having the ground beneath my feet)... where my chance to spot something, instead of determining whether I see it, actually determines whether it exists in the fiction or not at all... and/or whether my brother is evil.  How do I determine what the consequences of failure for an action are when it can be anything deemed appropriate by the DM. 



Campbell said:


> The pain point for me is this: we get a situation where we all sit around the table and try to play our own individual games instead of playing the same game. We do not address our very real conflicts of interest. Instead we depend on the GM to smooth them over. When things become untenable socially we look to the GM to resolve our social conflict and lack of trust in each other. We put all the responsibility on the GM for our own fun making running a game an onerous task. Because the GM takes on this extra social responsibility this can often shift the dynamics away from one where we are peers, fellow gamers, and creative collaborators.




I'm not sure I agree with all of this.  We are still playing the same game if the DM is transparent about how he will be running it (even if using a variety of techniques).  We do depend on the GM to smooth over (I would say give screen time too) the conflicts of interest that individuals may have due to their differing desires and goals for the game.  

Now where I disagree...I would say that the GM arbitrating social conflicts is not a requirement in a GM-Driven game... players are just as free to work out their social conflicts with each other as they are to call on the GM to intervene.  And where you see this as a lack of trust in the players I see this as giving trust to the DM.  I often find this preferable because the DM tends to have an overall view of the game and isn't advocating for one particular character (remember we are not discussing the worst case scenario but instead are assuming DM's with integrity as the default).

I also don't agree that a DM driven game puts all the responsibility for fun on the DM.  It give the DM certain parameters in which to design so that he accommodates the various player types at his table but they still are responsible for engaging with and making choices about the DM generated content and fiction that bring about fun for themselves.  As a DM I don't find this onerous at all... but instead relish the creative experience of designing the world and the uncertainty around how or even if the players will choose to have their characters interact with what is put before them.  For me that's what I enjoy about running the game.  While I agree that all playing the games are peers and collaborators... I don't agree that in order to achieve this we all must have equal say in all parts of the game.  I see the player and DM roles as fundamentally different but equal for the enjoyment of the play experience.          




Campbell said:


> Upthread  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] bulked a bit when I suggested that any player could air a grievance about the fiction or group direction openly. This sort of thing as a common fixture of my play group. It is expected that we are all going to work together to resolve player level conflicts of interest. It is a necessary component to ensuring that all players remain engaged and motivated. Hacking the game is something that is always on the table as well as making adjustments to our characters and the fiction.




I can't speak for [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] but I can say that I have no issues with a player airing a grievance about the fiction or group direction openly... as long as it doesn't bring the play to a screeching halt for 2 hours.  See the thing is sometimes with a group, especially of individuals advocating for themselves... these types of discussions can drag the entire game down... where as one trusted person who makes a decision all are willing to accept can keep the game going and avoid deadlock arguments.  I would have to know more about the type of hacking and adjustments you are speaking to in your last sentence to comment on it.  Are you saying in the middle of the game a player can change the abilities his character has?  Rewrite the fiction of a room?  Add fiction to said room?  Or what exactly?


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> Because this is a quick one and I've answered it before, I'll just do this right quick. Couple easy examples:
> 
> 1) It places a greater cognitive burden on players. To some that is a feature. To others it is too mentally taxing/exhausting (3 buddies of mine I solely run AD&D and B/X for are in this camp).
> 
> 2) Why would someone smuggle "ask questions and use the answers" in the midst of a B/X dungeon crawl?
> 
> a) We don't need answers. The prep is already done to create those answers.
> b) The system machinery works beautifully as is. Interesting, challenging stuff is going to spin out of orthodox play. All it's inclusion would likely do is render something coherent and functional incoherent and disfunctional.
> c) There is no system machinery and play principles to account for/integrate it. Challenge/puzzle gaming can become compromised then with unintegrated player authorial control (coupled with neutral refereeing) that works at cross purposes.
> 
> A-C above makes "ask questions and use the answers" a bad fit for a game like B/X.




Ok... number 1... I get and understand (actuallyI agree with it and it serves to illustrate a big component of whether certain techniques are a good fit having to do with players and type.

But you've totally lost me with number 2... I'm reading it but I think I may be having a hard time parsing exactly what you are saying, but I'm not sure why...


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> Ok... number 1... I get and understand (actuallyI agree with it and it serves to illustrate a big component of whether certain techniques are a good fit having to do with players and type.
> 
> But you've totally lost me with number 2... I'm reading it but I think I may be having a hard time parsing exactly what you are saying, but I'm not sure why...




I'll give a shot at answering.  Apologies if this is stuff you already know.  

The phrase "Ask questions and use answers" is a principle of Dungeonworld GMing.  One of the expectations of the game is the GM cannot know everything and will seek input to keep momentum going.  Another expectation is the GM is curious how the situations will be resolved.  So the GM is encouraged to ask questions and incorporate the answers into the fiction as it is playing out at the table.  One of the easiest and most common questions is "Now that X has happened, what do you do?" but any time the DM doesn't know something, he is encouraged to ask some form of question to help fill in the blanks.  So if the PCs declare they don't trust the chest in the middle of the room and prod it with a pole if might in fact be a mimic.  It wasn't a mimic until the PCs decided to engage with it but now that they have, there it is.  Dungeonworld play is best characterised by the question "What is going to happen?"

This principle conflicts with the base B/X DM stance which Is that is neutral adjudicator who primarily reacts to PC gambits.  The chest in the middle of the room either is or is not a mimic as dictated by the map key and notes.  B/X play is best characterised by the question "How well will we do?"

Play is engaging and fun for those involved for somewhat different reasons in the games.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Apparently "summary dismissal" has some meaning in American English that is different from its meaning in Australian English.
> 
> In the usage I'm familiar with, replying to someone and trying to tease out possible reasons something undesirable might have happened in a game - on a very thing evidence base - isn't a dismissal, let alone a summary one.




Wait a  minute... what?  these were the replies to that example...



Tony Vargas said:


> Not too surprising - either that a 25-year veteran of traditional TTRPGs would pull a gaff like that, nor that the table's reaction was to toss the mechanic rather than try to master it.  You spring a new idea in an otherwise comfortable and familiar environment, and the most likely consequences are going to be clumsily leveraging the idea within the priorities of the existing paradigm and/or rejecting it outright.




Ok, in this post we are given "the" reasons for the reaction by a poster who knows absolutely nothing about the group... how does this type of reply do anything but make assumptions and shut down conversation?  Nowhere is [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] asked anything about the assumptions being made about his group... he is instead told why they reacted the way they did.

also...



pemerton said:


> Not having been at your (Sadras's) table for this event, it's hard to comment, but as you present it it looks like a pretty tightly GM-run game (eg the hurting of the PCs' allies in the organisation is similar to the assassination of the marquis that was being discussed upthread - this seems to have been narrated by the GM as a "failure off-screen" consequence for the players having their PCs deny the boss's request). Was the player being juvenile? Deliberately disruptive? Didn't have any other ideas? Couldn't conceive of anything else being feasible in the fiction?
> 
> I don't see this sort of example as any sort of "case against" player input into the shared fiction.




Now you at least pose some questions and are trying to suss out what happened... but again the last sentence seems to indicate that you've already decided what you opinion of the example is without any of the pertinent information you asked for...


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> It still, however, completely defeats the point of creative role-playing by reducing a social interaction to a series of dice rolls.



Luckily that's not what the systems that I GM (4e, BW, Cortex/MHRP) do.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Ideally, [the gameworld is] presented in exactly the same way to:
> - an angst-riddled Elf Druid who just wants to sort out his feelings for his father and then save all the poor defenseless trees
> - a roaring drunkard of a Part-Orc warrior whose only motivation is to kill anything he can and then eat it afterwards
> - a lonely Mage who is looking for her husband, who long ago ran off to join the militia and never came back
> - a happy Dwarf Rogue who has no real motivations at all other than adventuring is more fun than mining
> 
> If this is the party that gets rolled up I'm just going to find a way to get them into a field adventure and then run that adventure.



Well, that is pretty different from how I run a game.

I don't run what you call "field adventures". And I frame the PCs into situations that speak to their needs and aspirations as characters.



Lanefan said:


> Your job (and my job, in my game) is to as neutrally as you can present the game world, the setting, the opportunities for adventure, and the inhabitants of all of the above.



That might be a reasonable description of your job. It's a terrible description of mine, though!

My job (as I conceive of it) is to apply pressure to the players, by presenting to them ingame situations that - in light of their PCs' concerns, aspirations, etc -drive those PCs to action. To quote Paul Czege,

Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently. 

<snip>

I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out.

<snip>

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.

<snip>

the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.​
I suspect my RPGing is pretty lowbrow by Czege's standards, but his statement of method is one that I often come back to. The gameworld is not something that I present "neutrally". I'm doing my best to turn that "firehose of adversity and situation" onto the PCs: to force the players to make choices that will push them in terms of their aspirations and motivations (both in character, and in their capacity as third-person-barrackers-for-their-PCs).

In my experience, that's how RPGing produces dramatic characters and dramatic story.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I am still somewhat uncomfortable with the player driven vs. GM driven framing. Under that framing it feels like the point is to resolve creative conflicts between players and GMs. That's not what I want. Ideally when we sit down to play a game our interests as players are the same. What I want rules to bring to the table is a fiction that is not what either of us wanted, but is compelling enough to accept. I want the game to actively contribute.



I think I agree with all this.

My reason for the qualifier "I think" is that what counts as _the game actively contributing_ might be understood differently. I'm thinking of both mechanics and princples, which - together - generate constraints on what new stuff can be introduced into the shared fiction, when, and by whom.

When I'm talking about player- vs GM-driven, I'm not trying to point to a conflict of interests, but rather where the impetus for the content of the shared fiction comes from. In talking about player-driven RPGing, I'm trying to get at the idea that the player - through the building and playing of the PC - is at the heart of the shared fiction; and that the GM is riffing off the players, and introducing material to challenge or respond to what the players have put out there.

Again, as with my earlier post, none of the above is intended as persuasion or even justification, just elaboration/explanation. (And I think you'll see that ideas around "intent" or player aspiration/motivation are figuring in the previouos paragraphs in a way that you may not fully identify or agree with. I'm not trying to be bloody-minded in doing that. Rather, it's the framework within which I'm able to articulate my approach - though, as I hope has come through in some of my posts contrasting MHRP/Cortex with BW with 4e, I don't see my approach as being _entirely_ monolithic.)


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> It was binding.  The check was for him to reveal himself.  Not to reveal himself and then not do anything about it.  Once he revealed himself, you were no longer bound with regard to his actions.  An advisor presumably has an agile mind and would try to mitigate the revealing the first check caused.  Those are two different actions.



I think it's a sufficient response to say that I (and my players) were there and you were not. And hence we had a better handle on what had been established, and what happened, then you are going to have by reading a couple of posts several years later.

For instance, what was central to the situation, but what you are completely missing (and I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] missed it also), was that the advisor's revealing of his treachery _affected the other NPCs present_, especially the Baron - that is, his treachery was  _revealed to them_. And the PCs had succeeded in their goal of not embarassing the Baron: the opprobrium had fallen entirely on the advisor.

This mattered to how subsequent events unfolded, and when I started to frame things without full regard to this my player correctly called me on it.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> How do I determine what the consequences of failure for an action are when it can be anything deemed appropriate by the DM.



Luke Crane explains (Adventure Burner, p 251):

I find the results of failure implicit in most tests. If I'm doing my job correctly as GM, the situation is so charged that the player knows he's going to get dragged into a world of **** if he fails. We project the consequences into the fiction as we're talking in-character and jockeying before the test.​
In my case, there is also out-of-carachter talking and jockeying.

I would relate this to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s invocation (from PbtA-type games) of _honesty in relation to the fiction_. The consequences are implicit in the trajectory of things: past events; PC Beliefs/background/aspirations; the framing of this particular check.

I can tell you, at the table, when the search for the mace revealed the black arrows, there was shock (in the sense of _horror_), but not shock (in the sense of _confusion_). No one was puzzled as to where that bit of fiction came from.



Imaro said:


> hawkeyfan said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm hoping that some of the more Player-Driven-Minded folks will be willing to share their views on the drawbacks of that approach
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'd be interested in this as well... [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION],  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], and any others that would be interested in chiming in?
Click to expand...


By "drawbacks" do we mean "bad things"? In that case, I can't say I've encountered any.

If we're talking about weaknesses in particular systems, well that's a different topic. 4e has well-known issues about the interface between combat and non-combat resolution.

If we're talking about challenges for or demands on participants, that's a different thing too. MHRP/Cortex Heroic puts a lot of pressure on the GM to manage the Doom Pool effectively, which is often not easy to do at all. BW is _demanding_ on players, because (i) it asks them to give so much to the game, and (ii) a lot of the time it punches them in the gut as a reward for that giving. But I wouldn't call this a "drawback" - it's the system doing exactly what it says on the tin!

So, I don't know of any general disadvantages to running a game in which the action and the focus of the shared fiction has its origin with the players' choices for their PCs. Unless one doesn't want to run such a game. But that's not really a "drawback", so much as a mismatch of methods with preferences. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] gives an example of this with respect to B/X. I ran a session of AD&D fairly recently, using random dungeon generation, and obviously that's a very different thing - but I ended up reaching the following conclusion:



pemerton said:


> I think if I was going to try AD&D again I would really need to put the effort in to designing a more interesting dungeon - the number of empty rooms was a real issue. On the other hand, a greater density of inhabitants increases the proportion of combat to exploration and the likelihood of a TPK, so I'm not sure that that is a straightforward solution. And increasing the "story" elements (eg chaotic sigils and ancient scrolls) tends to push things in a direction that other systems are probably better at. So, in the end, I'm not sure that this sort of classic D&D is the best fit for our group.



So, as I said, no drawbacks for my group.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I think it's a sufficient response to say that I (and my players) were there and you were not. And hence we had a better handle on what had been established, and what happened, then you are going to have by reading a couple of posts several years later.




Sure.  Why would the advisor have gone Forest Gump, though, and not have tried to mitigate what happened?  That doesn't make any sense to me.  Perhaps you could clarify.



> For instance, what was central to the situation, but what you are completely missing (and I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] missed it also), was that the advisor's revealing of his treachery _affected the other NPCs present_, especially the Baron - that is, his treachery was  _revealed to them_. And the PCs had succeeded in their goal of not embarassing the Baron: the opprobrium had fallen entirely on the advisor.




How does the advisor trying to mitigate things 1) somehow embarrass the Baron, or 2) rewind time so that he didn't reveal his treachery?  It seems to me that both of those goals are still accomplished regardless of his attempts to mitigate the damage.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> The primary reason why I am so down on a flexible approach comes down to expectations. The value of any social system is setting expectations and granting permissions. When I am playing in a game where GM techniques are bound to change moment to moment I have no way to meaningfully make impactful decisions. I cannot feel the ground underneath my feet. If a game does not optimally fit the experience I am looking for I can either sit this one out or take on the interests of the game and have a measure of fun. When I have tried running games like this in the past the cognitive weight of constantly reading the room and prioritizing one player's desires over another was soul crushing for me.
> 
> The pain point for me is this: we get a situation where we all sit around the table and try to play our own individual games instead of playing the same game. We do not address our very real conflicts of interest. Instead we depend on the GM to smooth them over. When things become untenable socially we look to the GM to resolve our social conflict and lack of trust in each other. We put all the responsibility on the GM for our own fun making running a game an onerous task. Because the GM takes on this extra social responsibility this can often shift the dynamics away from one where we are peers, fellow gamers, and creative collaborators.
> 
> Upthread @_*Lanefan*_ bulked a bit when I suggested that any player could air a grievance about the fiction or group direction openly. This sort of thing as a common fixture of my play group. It is expected that we are all going to work together to resolve player level conflicts of interest. It is a necessary component to ensuring that all players remain engaged and motivated. Hacking the game is something that is always on the table as well as making adjustments to our characters and the fiction.




I'm all for open discussion about the game and its events, so I am with you on that. I think there's a time and place for it, and my group has established it's part of our wrap up/wind down time post game. 

But your experience with flexibility is very much the opposite of mine. I thibk that flexibility and adaptation can be baked in assumptions of the game, and that players and GMs can indeed plan for them just as they can any other system. I do thibk this is best accomplished with a long-standing group of players, where they've had time to familiarize themselves with each others' judgment, but in my experience it is still achheivable with players and GMs new to each other and/or the game.

I find that such flexibility is not "soul crushing" but liberating...I don't feel constrained by the rules, but rather supported by them. Part of that comes from the ability to actually set the rules aside at times.  



pemerton said:


> I agree with you about the inaptness of "flexible vs focused". _Good for what I'm used to doing with it_ isn't a sign of _flexibiility_ in a system.
> 
> I think a similar point applies to the idea of "player buy in". There is nothing distinctive about, say, Burning Wheel or 4e compared to AD&D 2nd ed such that the former two require "buy in" in a way that the latter doesn't.




What about player buy in when moving from one system to another? I would expect ot to be a big factor then...wouldn't you? Let's say someone is familiar with 5E and then they play Burning Wheel with you. Would you expect much of the game's success to rely on that player's ability to change his mindset so that his playstyle matches the new system? 

So while I think that any game does require player buy in, I do think that such a shift in style can indeed be a factor. 



pemerton said:


> Well, that is pretty different from how I run a game.
> 
> I don't run what you call "field adventures". And I frame the PCs into situations that speak to their needs and aspirations as characters.
> 
> That might be a reasonable description of your job. It's a terrible description of mine, though!
> 
> My job (as I conceive of it) is to apply pressure to the players, by presenting to them ingame situations that - in light of their PCs' concerns, aspirations, etc -drive those PCs to action. To quote Paul Czege,
> Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.​
> I suspect my RPGing is pretty lowbrow by Czege's standards, but his statement of method is one that I often come back to. The gameworld is not something that I present "neutrally". I'm doing my best to turn that "firehose of adversity and situation" onto the PCs: to force the players to make choices that will push them in terms of their aspirations and motivations (both in character, and in their capacity as third-person-barrackers-for-their-PCs).
> 
> In my experience, that's how RPGing produces dramatic characters and dramatic story.




I agree with you here about neutrality. I dont thibk that's somethibg I really shoot for. Unless we look at it as a balance between rooting for the players and wanting to challenge them. I have to say that as a GM I'm very biased in some ways. 



pemerton said:


> By "drawbacks" do we mean "bad things"? In that case, I can't say I've encountered any.
> 
> So, as I said, no drawbacks for my group.




Yes, drawbacks in the general sense....a weakness or flaw. If you made a list of pros and cons about a system, something from the con list.

Perhaps we need to get more specific because your assessment of "no drawbacks for my group" seems odd to me.

Let's say you're going to start a new fantasy game; which system would you choose? Why not the others? Let's limit the choices to those games you consider more player driven.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Let's say you're going to start a new fantasy game; which system would you choose? Why not the others? Let's limit the choices to those games you consider more player driven.



There's no need to speculate!

In the past year I've run three "first session": Cortex Plus Fantasy Hack, 4e Dark Sun, and AD&D using random dungeon generation.

As I indicated in the post you replied to, I don't think that AD&D is a very good fit for my group. So that game is unlikely to progress much further, though - on the off chance that it does - I've been making some notes for how I would run Castle Amber.

The basic issue I have with AD&D, as I self-quoted upthread, is that the exploration tends to be a bit tedious; but too much combat makes it to random and reduces the element of player choice; while increasing the "story" elements pushes the game in a direction where other systems are stronger.

4e, Cortex/MHRP and BW - the three fantasy systems I'm GMing regularly - all have their own, different feel. I've posted about that in this thread.

BW is the most grim, and most demanding on players. MHRP is generally quite light - both mechanics and story - though in our fantasy game I'm finding out whether it can be pushed in a bit more of a serious direction. In resolution, the mechanics play a role that I suspect [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] would find too dominating - fictional positioning doesn't really have a very big life of its own - but I find the game produces very colourful and vivid fiction as an output of resolution, because of the way every input into and output of resolution is directly correlated to the fiction.

4e has a very distinctive feel: the rally-narrative of combat, the D&D classes, skill challenges in which players roll all the dice and their's no mechanism for PvP except in the way the fiction is adjudicated. Dark Sun is something new for me, and I'm still developing my sense of it (we've only played a few sessions of this game).

Each system does different things. I'm probably most comfortable running 4e, simply for reasons of familiarity, but at the moment I'm probably enjoying the other two systems more, simply because they do things that 4e doesn't.

The most avid BW-enthusiast among my players may start some GMing soon, too, which will give me a chance to play BW. I think I will find that a challenge, but not necessarily a bad one. It does require being ready to see one's PC suffer in a way that isn't really going to happen in 4e or MHRP/Cortex.


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> The final resolution of the skill challenge involved the 10 CHAR dwarf fighter/cleric making a social check against the advisor, calling him not by his courtly name but by the name used among the goblin and hobgoblin armies he was secretly commanding, and thereby trying to goad him into revealing himself to the baron. The check initially failed, but then another player spent a resource (an action point) to (in the fiction) add another taunt, and thereby (in the mechanics) add a bonus to the dwarf player's check that turned the failure into a success.
> 
> That was the end of that session; in the next session, we opened with the taunted advisor turning on the PCs. I declared some action for him, or said something about the situation - I can't now remember what - but then one of the players reminded me: _We succeeded in the skill challenge, with the goal of having the evil advisor reveal himself_. The player's point was that I, as GM, would be dishonouring that success by now allowing some action or element of framing that tended to allow the advisor to try and conceal his evil or make the PCs look like the bad guys. The success doesn't just result in the advisor doing something (in this case, being goaded into attacking the PCs); it also establishes a "meaning" or a context, within the fiction, for that "something" - namely, the advisor is revealing himself as an evil traitor to the baron.





Maxperson said:


> Why would the advisor have gone Forest Gump, though, and not have tried to mitigate what happened?  That doesn't make any sense to me.  Perhaps you could clarify.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> How does the advisor trying to mitigate things 1) somehow embarrass the Baron, or 2) rewind time so that he didn't reveal his treachery?  It seems to me that both of those goals are still accomplished regardless of his attempts to mitigate the damage.



I don't understand your characterisation of the advsior as "Forest Gump", and I don't really follow your questions either.

The players won the skill challenge. The upshot of that is that the advisor is revealed: the baron knows that he is an evil traitor, and that has redounded upon him (the advisor), not upon the PCs.

In the fiction, the advisor can sputter and protest as much as he wants; at the table, though, that is all mere colour. The advisor is exposed, and the PCs have maintained - indeed, consolidated - their good relationship with the baron. That is the premise from which future events begin.

As the player pointed out, any other approach would rob the players of their success.

EDIT: 4e non-combat resolution is determined by the players making checks, engaging the fiction as narrated by the GM. There is no such thing, in the 4e context, as the advisor making a check to persuade the baron. That part of the fiction has all been settled in the course of the skill challenge, buy the players' checks.

Contrast, say, Burning Wheel where - assuming a similar scene were resolved as a Duel of Wits - the advisor might have been making checks against the PCs, or adding helping dice to another actor's pool. In that system, the relevant principle for finality would be "Let it Ride", meaning that the outcome of the DoW would be binding on everyone who participated in it.

As per my reply to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] just a bit upthread, different systems have their own distinctive approaches to resolution. The 4e skill challenge has some weak spots - eg it doesn't handle PvP all that well - but it has some strengths as well. I find it tends to make the fiction quite vivid, and it really puts the players and their choices for their PCs at the centre of the action.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> The players won the skill challenge. The upshot of that is that the advisor is revealed: the baron knows that he is an evil traitor, and that has redounded upon him (the advisor), not upon the PCs...
> There is no such thing, ...as the advisor making a check to persuade the baron. That part of the fiction has all been settled in the course of the skill challenge, buy the players' checks.
> ...skill challenge has some weak spots - eg it doesn't handle PvP all that well - but it has some strengths as well. I find it tends to make the fiction quite vivid, and it really puts the players and their choices for their PCs at the centre of the action.



Sorry to chop up your post like that, but you make a point about SCs, that only the players roll, in essence, and go on to talk about weak spots.  In some scenarios, I've found the NPCs just being part of the 'framing' of the challenges a weakness, at times I wanted to have an NPC that opposed or monkeywrenched what the players were doing.  In one case I actually ended up creating an NPC with specific abilities that could be triggered to mess with the challenge, exception-based design to the rescue yet again (it was almost as facile a 'solution' as DM Empowerment, that way).  
The Skill Challenge framework is easy to adapt to any game with otherwise straightforward/binary skill checks, but it'd be nice if it had more was of incorporating an opposing side (or interfering 3rd parties, I suppose) into the resolution.  Yet, in d20, specifically, I personally find the most obvious mechanism, opposed checks, to be problematic, ie 'too swingy.'


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> I was trying to say that some changes may be viewed by some as advances (as in, improvements) while other people may view those same changes as opposite-of-advancements (as in, they make the game worse) while still others may view them either as neutral or as just change-for-the-sake-of-change.  Bad choice of words, I suppose.



Largely a matter of taste, yes.  If you like the old version, refinements might be OK or not; gradual evolution might be tolerable if it's slow enough, but advancement or revolutionary or radical change of any kind is likely hard to accept.



Imaro said:


> Ok, in this post we are given "the" reasons for the reaction by a poster who knows absolutely nothing about the group....



  At worst, it's a different spin on the anecdote, but it's based only on the information in the anecdote, itself.  That it was the only time they tried, that the player in question was very experienced, and that something only went wrong once before it was dropped.  



> .. how does this type of reply do anything but make assumptions and shut down conversation?



 The intent was to acknowledge the experience, not dismiss it.  The point I see that example actually making, though, is that introducing a new technique or idea into an otherwise accustomed activity can be challenging.


----------



## Sadras

Tony Vargas said:


> Not too surprising - either that a 25-year veteran of traditional TTRPGs would pull a gaff like that, nor that the table's reaction was to toss the mechanic rather than try to master it.  You spring a new idea in an otherwise comfortable and familiar environment, and the most likely consequences are going to be clumsily leveraging the idea within the priorities of the existing paradigm and/or rejecting it outright.




So explain to me why the other players of 25+ years of experience at my table who did not appreciate that particular use of the Plot Point did not even enter your simplified equation and broad brush painting of an entire player base. Is my one player somehow reflective of all D&D veterans in your view?



> I've tried these kinds of techniques and been in games that used them, and they can work, *if the players are up for it*, or if the DM does a good enough job introducing and mediating the new mechanic.




Bolded for emphasis. Sure, but that was my point which you seemed to skip over so quickly to explain away the 'clumsy' player narrative: That not all players are the same or desire the same thing, even at the same table.

I think @_*Imaro*_'s point regarding the various types of players has much merit in this regard. 



> Neither most eds of D&D nor long-time D&Ders are exactly the ideal candidates for such an introduction, though, so I'm not sure how relevant it is in a 5e forum...




As others have explained, this thread was moved. Plot Points are very much relevant in 5e and 5e forums (refer to the DMG). I feel I must add my players have read and played other RPG's besides D&D.



pemerton said:


> Not having been at your (Sadras's) table for this event, it's hard to comment, but as you present it it looks like a pretty tightly GM-run game (eg the hurting of the PCs' allies in the organisation is similar to the assassination of the marquis that was being discussed upthread - this seems to have been narrated by the GM as a "failure off-screen" consequence for the players having their PCs deny the boss's request).




 @_*pemerton*_ we do not resolve every social conflict through the use of roles if there is no need for it. We follow the story organically and yes 'failure off-screen' (as well as 'success off-screen') does occur and the PCs were expecting some fall-out of some kind given their first meeting with the underworld-boss which was not to neither party's satisfaction.
They new that releasing the genie was:
a) Going to anger someone (as they did not know who at the time and neither did I, it was later weaved into the story); and
b) Repercussions would be felt by those (be it the boss's employees or the PCs) who made it possible.



> Was the player being juvenile? Deliberately disruptive? Didn't have any other ideas?



A stalemate was reached between the characters and the boss. They suspected strongly he was guilty but could not prove it. The player is/was rather confident of his character's abilities but was not permitted (by the party) through story-flow to act on them and so leaned towards using the Plot Point to force the issue and thus gain the reasoning required to act and get the other characters' buy-in.

Their interaction with the boss was one of many side-quests of exploration within the sandbox adventure (MiBG) I was running, so it was not like I was deliberately limiting options and that the adventure had reached a halt. In fact, with the table overturning the use of the Plot Point and not resolving the conflict via combat where one party loses, they were able to make use of their relationship with the boss to further the main storyline through some ingenuity on their part.



> Couldn't conceive of anything else being feasible in the fiction?



 Of course not.



> I don't see this sort of example as any sort of "case against" player input into the shared fiction.



Why is that?


----------



## Tony Vargas

Sadras said:


> So explain to me why the other players of 25+ years of experience at my table who did not appreciate that particular use of the Plot Point did not even enter...



 I didn't assume they were all veteran players, merely that the 'plot point' technique was new to them.  Either way - whether a table full of veterans or a veteran among new players - your anecdote is still illustrative of the challenges of trying out a new technique.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> A recurrent theme in threads that touch on what I have called "player-driven" RPGing is that the idea of player influence on play very quickly gets conflated, by at least some posters, with players authoring their own challenges, or players resolving situations by introducing novel fitional elements in a way that is somehow external to the action resolution mechanics.



What it screams out to me is that it changes the players' entire job description.  

In war, a prisoner of war's first duty is to try to escape.  In D&D (among many other games) a player's first duty is to more or less looking for advantages for his-her own PC or (less often) for the party as a whole.  The game world (along with many of its occupants) is to some extent the enemy; a mostly wild thing that exists to be tamed, subdued, beaten up, or otherwise dealt with...and it's the DM's job to keep it real, keep it dangerous, and keep it a reasonably level playing field.  The DM builds the fences, the players knock them down.

But here, at face value as it sits the player can either narrate in or roll-check in their own advantages whenever they like, and the DM is powerless to stop them.  So, the player either has to consciously rein in their tendencies to seek advantage (which not all player can or will do) or the game risks becoming a farce. 



> For instance, when the player of a fighter in a 4e game uses CaGI, that is not an authoring by that player of his/her own challenge; and it is not solving the challenge by way of introducing some novel fictional element that circumvents action resolution. In the fiction, it can correspond to a range of possibilities, depending on context (eg most of the time in my game it represents the dwarven polearm master defeating his enemies by dint of superior footwork and weapon handling; the first time it was used, some of the forced movement was narrated as goblins, who had been fleeing down a corridor, turning around to avoid being cut down from behind); in the play of the game, it is just another status-imposition attack, like the many others found in that and other editions of D&D.



Not sure if using CaGI as an example is the best idea here, as you've just opened up the awful can o' worms that are 4e quasi-magical martial abilities.

That said, most of those forced-movement abilities seemed to me like the game trying to find ways to circumvent its own action resolution:

Paladin: "My imposing presence shall intimidate these foul beasts and send them scurrying to their holes!" (rolls great on the intimidate check)
DM: "Cowed by your confident stride and booming voice, the Goblins flee."
Dwarf: "No you don't!  Come and Get It!"

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Well, that is pretty different from how I run a game.
> 
> I don't run what you call "field adventures".



You ran Night's Dark Terror, and what is that if not either a series of small self-contained field adventures (e.g. each goblin lair is its own little mission, the yellow-robed wizard's lair is another, and so on) or one great big one, depending how you define it?



> And I frame the PCs into situations that speak to their needs and aspirations as characters.
> 
> That might be a reasonable description of your job. It's a terrible description of mine, though!
> 
> My job (as I conceive of it) is to apply pressure to the players, by presenting to them ingame situations that - in light of their PCs' concerns, aspirations, etc -drive those PCs to action. To quote Paul Czege,
> 
> Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.​
> I suspect my RPGing is pretty lowbrow by Czege's standards, but his statement of method is one that I often come back to. The gameworld is not something that I present "neutrally". I'm doing my best to turn that "firehose of adversity and situation" onto the PCs: to force the players to make choices that will push them in terms of their aspirations and motivations (both in character, and in their capacity as third-person-barrackers-for-their-PCs).
> 
> In my experience, that's how RPGing produces dramatic characters and dramatic story.



You make the game world and story fit the PCs, where I expect the PCs to find their way in a game world and story that may have no knowledge of them at all until they get out and do something about it.

I'm going to drop a bit of a bomb here: from this post and various others I'm getting close to calling your style of play "Emo-gaming", as it more and more appears to be in the same vein of inward-looking emotionally-driven personal angst drama that gave us things like Twilight (the books and movies) and its ilk.  Finding and-or redeeming the mage's lost brother takes precedence over answering the Queen's call to defend the southern marches against the Orc invasion (if they ever bother to acknowledge the Queen's call at all) because the personal emotional needs of the mage trump the needs of the realm.  Small picture beats big picture.

And that, you can keep.  I'd far rather have outward-looking characters who see what's going on in the game world and go and do something about it in whatever manner they see fit.  Orcs are invading?  Cool!  Let's go down there and kick some ass...or see which side is winning then join up...or just loot the fallen...or go north instead; there'll be lots to do up there as all the usual defenders will be in the south...  Big picture beats small picture.

Lan-"and in case it isn't clear, I avoid all things Twilight like the plague"-efan


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> There's no need to speculate!
> 
> In the past year I've run three "first session": Cortex Plus Fantasy Hack, 4e Dark Sun, and AD&D using random dungeon generation.
> 
> As I indicated in the post you replied to, I don't think that AD&D is a very good fit for my group. So that game is unlikely to progress much further, though - on the off chance that it does - I've been making some notes for how I would run Castle Amber.
> 
> The basic issue I have with AD&D, as I self-quoted upthread, is that the exploration tends to be a bit tedious; but too much combat makes it to random and reduces the element of player choice; while increasing the "story" elements pushes the game in a direction where other systems are stronger.
> 
> 4e, Cortex/MHRP and BW - the three fantasy systems I'm GMing regularly - all have their own, different feel. I've posted about that in this thread.
> 
> BW is the most grim, and most demanding on players. MHRP is generally quite light - both mechanics and story - though in our fantasy game I'm finding out whether it can be pushed in a bit more of a serious direction. In resolution, the mechanics play a role that I suspect [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] would find too dominating - fictional positioning doesn't really have a very big life of its own - but I find the game produces very colourful and vivid fiction as an output of resolution, because of the way every input into and output of resolution is directly correlated to the fiction.
> 
> 4e has a very distinctive feel: the rally-narrative of combat, the D&D classes, skill challenges in which players roll all the dice and their's no mechanism for PvP except in the way the fiction is adjudicated. Dark Sun is something new for me, and I'm still developing my sense of it (we've only played a few sessions of this game).
> 
> Each system does different things. I'm probably most comfortable running 4e, simply for reasons of familiarity, but at the moment I'm probably enjoying the other two systems more, simply because they do things that 4e doesn't.
> 
> The most avid BW-enthusiast among my players may start some GMing soon, too, which will give me a chance to play BW. I think I will find that a challenge, but not necessarily a bad one. It does require being ready to see one's PC suffer in a way that isn't really going to happen in 4e or MHRP/Cortex.




So why do you find 4E most comfortable? What is it about BW or Cortex that make them less comfortable? 

Every system has flaws...so I'm curious what you consider te glaws of these systems. 

I love the 5E system for D&D. I feel it's an improvement over the recent editions. But I know it still has plenty of flaws. My players and I are either comfortable with those flaws or we've found ways to address them, but I had to be aware of then to do that.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> By "drawbacks" do we mean "bad things"? In that case, I can't say I've encountered any.
> 
> If we're talking about weaknesses in particular systems, well that's a different topic. 4e has well-known issues about the interface between combat and non-combat resolution.
> 
> If we're talking about challenges for or demands on participants, that's a different thing too. MHRP/Cortex Heroic puts a lot of pressure on the GM to manage the Doom Pool effectively, which is often not easy to do at all. BW is _demanding_ on players, because (i) it asks them to give so much to the game, and (ii) a lot of the time it punches them in the gut as a reward for that giving. But I wouldn't call this a "drawback" - it's the system doing exactly what it says on the tin!
> 
> So, I don't know of any general disadvantages to running a game in which the action and the focus of the shared fiction has its origin with the players' choices for their PCs. Unless one doesn't want to run such a game. But that's not really a "drawback", so much as a mismatch of methods with preferences. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] gives an example of this with respect to B/X. I ran a session of AD&D fairly recently, using random dungeon generation, and obviously that's a very different thing - but I ended up reaching the following conclusion:
> 
> So, as I said, no drawbacks for my group.



To say your system has no drawbacks or negative aspects is I think naive at best and disingenuous at worst.

I mean, we can probably all say our various systems have no drawbacks for our own groups, if we put the rose-coloured glasses on; but the question was being asked* on a higher level than that: what are the potential downsides to your system overall.

* - I think, as I'm not the one who originally asked it.

Lanefan


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I don't understand your characterisation of the advsior as "Forest Gump", and I don't really follow your questions either.




Because the advisor would have to be retarded not to attempt to mitigate the damage from his outing himself.



> The players won the skill challenge. The upshot of that is that the advisor is revealed: the baron knows that he is an evil traitor, and that has redounded upon him (the advisor), not upon the PCs.




And he was revealed.  Challenge won.  That really has no bearing on what the advisor does next, though.  If he attempts to mitigate the damage, it in no way tarnishes that win.



> In the fiction, the advisor can sputter and protest as much as he wants; at the table, though, that is all mere colour. The advisor is exposed, and the PCs have maintained - indeed, consolidated - their good relationship with the baron. That is the premise from which future events begin.




I don't understand eliminating the possibility of people being outed or outing themselves and being able to mitigate that damage.  That seems like a perfectly reasonable and viable path for the game to go down, and one that is quite fun.



> As the player pointed out, any other approach would rob the players of their success.




And he was wrong.  That success is untarnished by any mitigation after the fact.  They are two separate events.



> As per my reply to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] just a bit upthread, different systems have their own distinctive approaches to resolution. The 4e skill challenge has some weak spots - eg it doesn't handle PvP all that well - but it has some strengths as well. I find it tends to make the fiction quite vivid, and it really puts the players and their choices for their PCs at the centre of the action.



Our difference here isn't the system used to get to the result.  It's that you seem to be taking two separate events, outing and mitigation, and turning them into one event, and I'm taking the position that they are two separate events.  If the are separate, then you are not bound to have the advisor behave in a retarded manner.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Lanefan said:


> * - I think, as I'm not the one who originally asked it.
> 
> Lanefan




That was me....but you had it right. That's what I was hoping to hear about.


----------



## Sadras

Tony Vargas said:


> Either way - whether a table full of veterans or a veteran among new players - your anecdote is still illustrative of the challenges of trying out a new technique.




...or my anecdote is still illustrative of the snags which might be experienced within player-driven/shared narration roleplaying games.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> But this is exactly what I'm saying would leave me feeling blind. If I don't know what the PC's motivation is, or how the player sees that relating to other concerns and declared convictions of the PC, then I don't know what is _really _happening in the fiction and how best to handle it as GM.
> 
> As an approach to GMing I learned this from the very good referee of a free-form Cthulhu/Dreamlands game that I played in once at a convention.




As far as I can tell, that's easy. The monsters or the world around the PCs don't know what the PCs motivation is, and they don't care. Maybe the NPC does, but the only thing the NPC knows of the character's motivation is what they discern by the PCs action and words.

As the DM I don't need to know any more at that point in time to react as the NPC or the monsters, or whatever. Just like the players don't know the motivations of the NPCs. I (usually) do, but they have to figure that out, if they care to.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> So why do you find 4E most comfortable? What is it about BW or Cortex that make them less comfortable?



I've been GMing 4e pretty steadily for 8+ years. And it's class system rests on D&D tropes that I've been working with for 30+ years.

BW, as I've said, requires kicking the players in the guts. Repeatedly. That's demanding on them, but it can be hard on the GM as well.  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has talked about the "inner"/emotional dimension of this sort of thing upthread, better than I am able to. But using the OP as an example: it's not _easy_ to have the brother decapitated in front of the PCs because they failed a check that brought that whole arc to a head. It's tempting always to interpose one more check, to offer them a chance to get out of jail for free. But at a certain point you have to be true to the fiction and let the guillotine fall.

4e doesn't generate this sort of pressure because its maths (not unlike 5e, to which it is the main mechanical precursor for the maths of resolution), is biased heavily in favour of player/PC success. So failures in 4e tend to be minor setbacks on the way to success. It doesn't deliver failures at the rate, and with the stakes, that BW does on a regular basis.

Cortex/MHRP I think I've already posted about. Managing the Doom Pool is hard, because it is a mixture of opposition (all checks in MHRP are opposed, and if there is no acting NPC then the Doon Pool is the opposition), "stakes" (if the Doom Pool grows big enough the GM can end the scene, which can cost the players/PCs in fictional terms) and all-purpose GM reource (spending dice to boost NPC checks, add new elements to a scene, etc). I'm getting better at it, but it's not a trivial matter. (When I first bought and started preparing to run MHRP, Doom Pool management was the main topic of conversation - other than silly (and mistaken) rants about the supposed lack of a PC build system - and once you start running the game you quickly see why.)

But I wouldn't describe any of this as "drawbacks". They're not flaws; they're differences. In a different domain of gaming, compare five hundred to bridge: lighter, easier to play for fun/with beginners, not as technically demanding (because it's generally enough to count trumps and off-suit court cards); or compare backgammon to chess (similar considerations apply). The demanding character of bridge or chess isn't a flaw though, nor is the light character of five hundred or backgammon.

As it happens, I personally enjoy the light card and board games more; turning to FRPGing, I don't know if I would want to run BW alone, but probably it's my favourite at the moment for intensity - but with a larger group I'm enjoying MHRP just as a change of pace that produces some amusing fiction.



Lanefan said:


> the question was being asked* on a higher level than that: what are the potential downsides to your system overall.



Well, isn't that fairly obvious? - the "downside" is that someone won't enjoy it.

To me it seems to make more sense to talk about the sorts of demands a system puts on participants, known points of weakness or less-than-smooth handling in the mechanics, etc.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> you make a point about SCs, that only the players roll, in essence, and go on to talk about weak spots.  In some scenarios, I've found the NPCs just being part of the 'framing' of the challenges a weakness, at times I wanted to have an NPC that opposed or monkeywrenched what the players were doing.  In one case I actually ended up creating an NPC with specific abilities that could be triggered to mess with the challenge, exception-based design to the rescue yet again (it was almost as facile a 'solution' as DM Empowerment, that way).
> The Skill Challenge framework is easy to adapt to any game with otherwise straightforward/binary skill checks, but it'd be nice if it had more was of incorporating an opposing side (or interfering 3rd parties, I suppose) into the resolution.  Yet, in d20, specifically, I personally find the most obvious mechanism, opposed checks, to be problematic, ie 'too swingy.'



Under the influence of [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION], who used to post about this stuff in 2008/9, I do this via my handling of the fiction - ie I narrate NPCs doing things, the environment doing things, etc, which will be bad for the PCs unless they take steps to counteract it.

It's a sort of "active defence" approach. It doesn't interface all that smoothly with the combat mechanics, but there are workarounds (including the old standby of spending an encounter attack power for a +2 to the check).


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> As far as I can tell, that's easy. The monsters or the world around the PCs don't know what the PCs motivation is, and they don't care. Maybe the NPC does, but the only thing the NPC knows of the character's motivation is what they discern by the PCs action and words.
> 
> As the DM I don't need to know any more at that point in time to react as the NPC or the monsters, or whatever.



In my experience, this may be a reasonable approach to running a simulation, but is not all that likely to reliably produce dramatic story.

Just to pick on one, well-known example: it's fairly important to the story of Star Wars that the imperial-wanted droids end up in the house of the one person who is ready to be heir to the Jedi tradition. In terms of fictional contrivances, that involves (i) the landing on a particular side of the planet; (ii) being picked up by the Jawas (and both droids being captured by the same Jawas, despite going different ways); (iii) those Jawas coming to Luke's farm; (iv) the farm happening to need some new droids; (v) the first droid purchased being broken, so that R2D2 can replace it.

None of that can be understood simply from the perspective of the droids, the farm and the Jawas. From an RPG point of view, you can't get it (reliably) from random encounter tables, random reaction tables, random rolls to get lost, random rolls for equipment malfunction, etc.

In RPGing, the analogue is framing situations, and narrating consequencs, so that they speak to the dramatic concerns of the players as expressed via their PCs. This requires knowing what those dramatic concerns are.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> the advisor would have to be retarded not to attempt to mitigate the damage from his outing himself.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Challenge won.  That really has no bearing on what the advisor does next, though.  If he attempts to mitigate the damage, it in no way tarnishes that win.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't understand eliminating the possibility of people being outed or outing themselves and being able to mitigate that damage.  That seems like a perfectly reasonable and viable path for the game to go down, and one that is quite fun.



This is like saying, "The orc was reduced to zero hp, but it seems quite reasonable, viable and fun for it in fact just to be a flesh wound, so the orc gets up and keeps on fighting" I mean, maybe some people would find that fun, and maybe in some RPG systems that is reasonable and viable, but as I prefer to play that would clearly be a violation of finality in resolution.

And to reiterate a point I made upthread (I think to [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION]): it is no answer to this to say that the orc can't get up because, in the fiction, it is unconscious or dead. Because the only way we know that fiction is via the mechanical state of zero hp; and we can only infer to the fiction if that mecahnical state ensures finality.

In the skill challenge, the players' success establishes that the advisor reveals himself in a way that redounds upon him and does not hurt the PCs' relationship with the baron. That's what they were angling for, and that's what they got. The matter is settled.

As I said, in the fiction the advisor can snivel and weasel - as Wormtongue does once Gandalf unmasks him - but that is not going to change the situation. As GM, I don't get a "do over". The established result stands.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> we do not resolve every social conflict through the use of roles if there is no need for it. We follow the story organically and yes 'failure off-screen' (as well as 'success off-screen') does occur
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The player is/was rather confident of his character's abilities but was not permitted (by the party) through story-flow to act on them and so leaned towards using the Plot Point to force the issue and thus gain the reasoning required to act and get the other characters' buy-in.



So why didn't the rest of the table work with the player to try to establish some variant on what the player wanted that _would _force the issue without violating the fiction (eg maybe an underling comes in to see the boss, carrying the fingers of a couple more stool pigeons)?

If the answer is, the rest of the group didn't want the issue forced via Plot Point expenditure, then that suggests that that particular mechanic is a bad fit for that group and/or that game.

But that may not be the answer - as I said, I wasn't there and so don't know.

In any event, I don't regard it as a case against some mechanic that not everyone likes it or wants to use it. Not everyone likes chess, but that's not an issue for chess.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Ok... number 1... I get and understand (actuallyI agree with it and it serves to illustrate a big component of whether certain techniques are a good fit having to do with players and type.
> 
> But you've totally lost me with number 2... I'm reading it but I think I may be having a hard time parsing exactly what you are saying, but I'm not sure why...






Nagol said:


> I'll give a shot at answering.  Apologies if this is stuff you already know.
> 
> The phrase "Ask questions and use answers" is a principle of Dungeonworld GMing.  One of the expectations of the game is the GM cannot know everything and will seek input to keep momentum going.  Another expectation is the GM is curious how the situations will be resolved.  So the GM is encouraged to ask questions and incorporate the answers into the fiction as it is playing out at the table.  One of the easiest and most common questions is "Now that X has happened, what do you do?" but any time the DM doesn't know something, he is encouraged to ask some form of question to help fill in the blanks.  So if the PCs declare they don't trust the chest in the middle of the room and prod it with a pole if might in fact be a mimic.  It wasn't a mimic until the PCs decided to engage with it but now that they have, there it is.  Dungeonworld play is best characterised by the question "What is going to happen?"
> 
> This principle conflicts with the base B/X DM stance which Is that is neutral adjudicator who primarily reacts to PC gambits.  The chest in the middle of the room either is or is not a mimic as dictated by the map key and notes.  B/X play is best characterised by the question "How well will we do?"
> 
> Play is engaging and fun for those involved for somewhat different reasons in the games.




Thanks Nagol.  This is precisely what I was trying to convey.

I'm assuming the above sorts out your question Imaro?


----------



## Manbearcat

> Originally Posted by Sadras
> we do not resolve every social conflict through the use of roles if there is no need for it. We follow the story organically and yes 'failure off-screen' (as well as 'success off-screen') does occur
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The player is/was rather confident of his character's abilities but was not permitted (by the party) through story-flow to act on them and so leaned towards using the Plot Point to force the issue and thus gain the reasoning required to act and get the other characters' buy-in.





pemerton said:


> So why didn't the rest of the table work with the player to try to establish some variant on what the player wanted that _would _force the issue without violating the fiction (eg maybe an underling comes in to see the boss, carrying the fingers of a couple more stool pigeons)?
> 
> If the answer is, the rest of the group didn't want the issue forced via Plot Point expenditure, then that suggests that that particular mechanic is a bad fit for that group and/or that game.
> 
> But that may not be the answer - as I said, I wasn't there and so don't know.
> 
> In any event, I don't regard it as a case against some mechanic that not everyone likes it or wants to use it. Not everyone likes chess, but that's not an issue for chess.




 @_*Sadras*_ , I think like pemerton I'm still trying to sort out what the issue at the table was.  Was it:

1)  The players at your table don't like resources that grant players Director Stance, period?

2)  The players at your table thought this particular deployment of a Director Stance resource was a lame gambit because they prioritize different ways of defeating challenges (that don't entail or rely upon interacting with a metagame economy and deploying earned resources)?

3)  The players at your table thought this particular deployment of a Director Stance resource produced lame or genre incoherent fiction?

If its something else, I'm not sure what it is.  My thoughts on 1 through 3 are simple though.

(1) doesn't tell us anything about the fundamental nature of Director Stance resources (or even more tame versions of player authorship).  It just tells us that your players in particular find them unpalatable.  If such a system says what it does and is designed such that it does what it says (and yields the actual experience/impact upon play that is intended by the designers), then it is objectively good system machinery.  Whether or not the experience is aesthetically or functionally 

(2) is the most complex of the three because there is lots of context required.  A metagame resource economy that isn't well-integrated into a system (holistically) may feel facile in the way it engages players (emotionally) or in the way it produces fiction (the fiction may not be particularly dynamic, the impact may be superficial, or the players may not feel "hooked into" their role in creating this new fiction because of the disconnectedness of the reward cycle; either the nature of the gaining of the resource, the nature of the resource itself, or the nature/results of the resources expenditure).  (2) can easily be incoherently "bolted-on" design, over-complex design, or flat out poor implementation that is at fault. 

The other aspect of (2) is having "challenge-based" play priorities competing simultaneously with other priorities.  If the game is supposed to prioritize "skilled play", *and *the attainment of the metagame resource isn't costly/difficult, then you've got an incoherent/mismatch of play priority and game design (which sounds like what may be happening here).

(3) is simple enough.  Don't create lame or genre incoherent fiction through your resource deployment.  Lame is going to be subjective so the table will have to sort that out.  Genre incoherency is more easily ascertained.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> On a side note I find [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s (and I believe [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s as well) way of playing (at least as they have described it and given examples of it in this thread) to have the same type of dissonance for me (the feeling of not having the ground beneath my feet)... where my chance to spot something, instead of determining whether I see it, actually determines whether it exists in the fiction or not at all... and/or whether my brother is evil.  How do I determine what the consequences of failure for an action are when it can be anything deemed appropriate by the DM.




This goes all the way back to the Shrodinger's Gorge conversations of yesteryear.  

I think what is happening here:

1)  You possess a mental framework and attendant play preferences that prioritizes (a) Actor Stance, (b) classic Gygaxian "skilled play", and (c) task resolution that is discretized/granular enough (to meet your threshold), rather than abstract, and is underwritten by process simulation.  I'm certain that the overwhelming majority of other posters in this thread (and that post on EnWorld these days) follow suit.  

2)  You enjoy story, but it needs to be an emergent outgrowth of the above.  Play agenda, GMing principles, GMing techniques, system agency, and PC build tools/resources that are at tension with/compete with any of (a), (b), or (c) above must be muted or outright gutted.  Genre coherency, dramatic trajectory, dynamic play moments/results are great, but if they are systemitized and they conflict with (1) above, there is a problem.

So you're wary of things like:

* Principled, abstract conflict resolution mechanics that are predicated upon metagame concepts like "genre logic", "snowballing danger", "action always", "play to find out".

* Following directly from the above, the GMing technique of Fail Forward whereby the fictional fallout of action resolution is governed by "intent" (along with the other principles directly above).  For example:

Intent - I want to get us out of this hot, horseback pursuit through the badlands and into the safety of the forest's embrace.  

Fictional positioning/danger - Gaining large force of enemies.  Treacherous badlands topography.  Ranged weapons and spells whizzing by our heads.  Tiring horses.

Task - "I'm going to try to locate the hidden trail that got us into the badlands and will lead us out to the forest."

Failure result - "You crest a rise and nothing looks familiar.  The sound of running water greets your ears and then the sight of a great gorge greets your eyes.  Dead-end.  An 80 foot plummet leads to a rushing river.  The forest lies on the other side with the landing some 10 feet below your height and a 25 - 30 foot span of empty air between you and it."


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> This is like saying, "The orc was reduced to zero hp, but it seems quite reasonable, viable and fun for it in fact just to be a flesh wound, so the orc gets up and keeps on fighting" I mean, maybe some people would find that fun, and maybe in some RPG systems that is reasonable and viable, but as I prefer to play that would clearly be a violation of finality in resolution.




No.  No it's not like that at all.  It's like saying you hit the cleric for 6 points of damage without knocking him out, and then deciding that he heals himself for his action.  Two separate actions, the second of which does not prevent the first from being successful.  You successfully hit, and then he decided to mitigate the damage.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> a mental framework and attendant play preferences that prioritizes (a) Actor Stance, (b) classic Gygaxian "skilled play", and (c) task resolution that is discretized/granular enough (to meet your threshold), rather than abstract, and is underwritten by process simulation.  I'm certain that the overwhelming majority of other posters in this thread (and that post on EnWorld these days) follow suit.



 Sure, all three of those points are how people have been playing D&D for decades - if you couldn't find ways to cope with that you left the hobby or moved on to more obscure niche RPGs, and different chambers with different echos, like the Forge (thus Actor Stance, rather than just playing your character).  

So there's this divide in attitude and perception that renders various aspects of RPGs, even when darn near universal, all-consuming to one side and/or utterly repugnant to the other, and a preference here or style there gets blown up into an irreconcilable/inconceivable gulf.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> No.  No it's not like that at all.  It's like saying you hit the cleric for 6 points of damage without knocking him out, and then deciding that he heals himself for his action.  Two separate actions, the second of which does not prevent the first from being successful.  You successfully hit, and then he decided to mitigate the damage.



Mzperson, what you say here is wrong. You are assuming that the hit for 6 hp does not reduce the cleric to zero hp.

In the episode of play I described, the skill challenge was over. The statuts of the fiction, vis-a-vis the standing of the advisor in the eyes of the baron and other important persons, was resolved. In the players'/PCs' favour.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Mzperson, what you say here is wrong. You are assuming that the hit for 6 hp does not reduce the cleric to zero hp.




Unless the advisor was rendered retarded(unconscious), he was capable(still had hit points) of attempting mitigation.


----------



## Sadras

Manbearcat said:


> @_*Sadras*_ , I think like pemerton I'm still trying to sort out what the issue at the table was.




I don't believe that is a fair - Tony Vargas, Pemerton as well as Imaro all appeared to understand what the issue was if you look at their responses.

But to answer your question.



> 3)  The players at your table thought this particular deployment of a Director Stance resource produced lame or genre incoherent fiction?
> 
> (3) is simple enough.  Don't create lame or genre incoherent fiction through your resource deployment.  Lame is going to be subjective so the table will have to sort that out.  Genre incoherency is more easily ascertained.




So in the end you're saying DM judgement is what it comes down to, which is pretty much what this thread is about? 
Auditing a player on this level is no fun at all for me. I can organically ascertain the response of NPC's given I know their (NPCs) motivations/limitations and I can determine the success of a plan carried out by a character/party through die mechanic *BUT* to tell a player your 'narration sucks' is just a line I'd rather not cross.

Even if you stipulate the table decides, it still does not appeal to me. Who do you believe would make the first objection? What if 2 out of 3 players object? What if the DM votes with the previous 2 and we have a tie? Even if one player has an issue it's messy any which way you cut it because we are messing with a player's immersion of the storyline. 

As an aside, there is a post-apocalyptic RPG called Summerland, where a success (via the die) means the player narrates the success, while failures are narrated by the DM. That I find is more palatable for my group of players (specifically two who would be more troublesome with the former approach).


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> So why didn't the rest of the table work with the player to try to establish some variant on what the player wanted that _would _force the issue without violating the fiction (eg maybe an underling comes in to see the boss, carrying the fingers of a couple more stool pigeons)?
> 
> If the answer is, the rest of the group didn't want the issue forced via Plot Point expenditure, then that suggests that that particular mechanic is a bad fit for that group and/or that game.
> 
> But that may not be the answer - as I said, I wasn't there and so don't know.




To be honest, they probably never thought of something along those lines. I remember some within the group did not want to resolve the situation via combat, it would have got messy, politically within the city, as it would have predictably resulted in negative repercussions for the party within the main storyline. 

I actually did not want to evaluate the player's use of the Plot Point and so I was willing to allow it and explore the mechanic and new direction of the story, but the table (rest of the players) preferred not to, as the fiction seemed out of place for them, and so I complied with table consensus.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> In the episode of play I described, the skill challenge was over. The statuts of the fiction, vis-a-vis the standing of the advisor in the eyes of the baron and other important persons, was resolved. In the players'/PCs' favour.



I'm unclear on something:
 [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] seems to suggest that this particular challenge succeeding and revealing the advisor's secrets is but step one in what could then become an ongoing series of challenges as the advisor tries to mitigate his losses and save his own bacon.
 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] however seems to suggest that this particular challenge succeeding means the advisor's bacon is already cooked and he can do nothing further to bail himself out.

My question for pemerton is what's wrong with Maxperson's approach here?  Why doesn't the advisor in effect get to mount his own skill challenge to see how well - if at all - he can limit the damage after being outed?  On a broader scale, why pin the entire resolution of what seems like a very interesting scenario on the outcome of just one all-or-nothing challenge (along with, I can only assume, some actual role-play at the table) where there's such clear options to spin it out further and make the outcome less binary?

Lanefan


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION]

Not wanting players to make director stance creative decisions because you do not want to have to make creative judgements of those decisions is absolutely a valid group preference. Trust is not a binary thing. We can trust someone to make a particular sort of decision, but not another. It is possible that we trust the other players to make decisions about their characters' actions, but not about other areas of the fiction. In my own play I trust players to make decisions about  elements of the fiction that are deeply connected to their characters, but do not choose to entrust them with decisions about the adversity they are facing in the moment.

I also believe that trust comes with expectations.  I trust players to make decisions for their characters, but I expect that they will do so with integrity to their characters. The other players trust me to play the world with integrity, but they also expect that I will follow the rules, follow the fiction, and play to find out.  These expectations are powerful because they allow informed decision making. When we play in a principled way we allow others to make principled decisions as well. Continued play builds trust and can lead us to a point where we make contributions and decisions effortlessly. Constructive criticism can be important because it allows us to communicate how our expectations are being met, not being met, or exceeded. This allows us to meaningfully communicate and collaborate.

I would caution that all we are doing when we make decisions about who is making these calls is moving around who we grant credibility. We are not removing creative judgments about the content of the fiction and the contributions we all make to it. Even if we limit the contributions players make to the actions their characters take they are still making creative decisions subject to the creative judgements of all other players. I believe we make these judgements all the time even if we do not directly voice criticism. There is nothing wrong with this.


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## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> In my experience, this may be a reasonable approach to running a simulation, but is not all that likely to reliably produce dramatic story.
> 
> Just to pick on one, well-known example: it's fairly important to the story of Star Wars that the imperial-wanted droids end up in the house of the one person who is ready to be heir to the Jedi tradition. In terms of fictional contrivances, that involves (i) the landing on a particular side of the planet; (ii) being picked up by the Jawas (and both droids being captured by the same Jawas, despite going different ways); (iii) those Jawas coming to Luke's farm; (iv) the farm happening to need some new droids; (v) the first droid purchased being broken, so that R2D2 can replace it.
> 
> None of that can be understood simply from the perspective of the droids, the farm and the Jawas. From an RPG point of view, you can't get it (reliably) from random encounter tables, random reaction tables, random rolls to get lost, random rolls for equipment malfunction, etc.
> 
> In RPGing, the analogue is framing situations, and narrating consequencs, so that they speak to the dramatic concerns of the players as expressed via their PCs. This requires knowing what those dramatic concerns are.




Well, there's a big difference between not asking the player at the table during the session, and not knowing anything at all. The players and I work together on backstories and backgrounds. I give them as much freedom as possible, usually only reigning in things that don't work within the world (particularly around things they don't know) or rules, so for the most part I'm just setting boundaries. Sometimes, if appropriate, I add my own elements, like the character who is an orphan and doesn't know anything about their prior family.

In addition, I listen while we're playing. A great many of the story elements I provide, through the goals and history of the NPCs, events, and such, come from ideas and thoughts the players have during the course of the game. The main difference is that instead of allowing them to write the fiction of others themselves, while the game is progressing, I incorporate it into the fiction of others to show up later in the game. It ties them into the story very well, although most of the time they don't pick up on the fact that many of the ideas come from them. Another reason I use this approach is that it makes it more likely that they'll be able to unravel the various mysteries and schemes since they are exactly the sort of things that they would come up with.

In your Star Wars example, there is basically one thing that has to happen - the droids need to get to Luke. It could be as simple as the pod crashing on their farm. Or it can be as complex as the movie. 

None of that requires knowing the motivations or the dramatic concerns of the players. We don't know the motivations of the droids, other than R2 is on a mission. All we know about the jawas is that they collect, repair, and sell droids among other things. Owen's motivation is to keep the farm running and the family fed. Luke's motivation at this point has nothing to do with the rest of his story.

In an RPG context one could see this all as a railroad, and Luke's story in particular. The DM holds out a carrot, "Hey, you don't have to go to the university to be with your friends, you can hang out with this crazy hermit and save the world." He even pushes it with stories of the father he never met.

Luke declines. "Yeah, right, I think I'll stick with trying to get Uncle Owen to let me go to the university."

So the DM insists - "The stormtroopers inexplicably kill his aunt and uncle, who are the type that probably told the stormtroopers that they were happy to have the droids as soon as my nephew gets back with them."

In fact, much (most) of the Star Wars story arc has little to do with any but the most basic character motivations. At least anything of depth. Leia must try to save the rebels and destroy the empire. Because she's the princess, obviously. Obi-Wan is somehow willing to be drawn into all of this, and Luke's motivation is one of revenge, primarily. Han is just in it for the money, then gets stuck with them because they can't escape the tractor beam. Chewie goes with Han, and R2 and 3PO are there because they're Luke's now.

Act 1: Establish the characters and get them together.
Act 2: Get captured by tractor beam while attempting to find the Princess. Free the Princess and escape.
Act 3: Destroy the Death Star.

The biggest character development of the movie was Han returning to save Luke. It was brushed off with comedy, but it was a moment of growth.

I'll also point out that when the original Star Wars was released, Luke was not the Jedi heir, he was just another guy. At that point in the saga literally anybody could be Obi-Wan's padawan. It wasn't until George Lucas wrote _The Empire Strikes Back_ that family connections were made. 

The reality is, movies and TV series typically function more like what I'm used to - the DM (director, writer) provides the world, and the characters react to it. The DM (or audience) knows the characters by their actions and what they say, not by what's going on in their head. There are exceptions, of course.

On the other hand, novels typically have a lot of "in-the-character's head" experiences. We often get a much clearer understanding of who they are and what motivates them. None of that is necessary for the rest of the world to respond. The world and the activities in it continue no matter what the protagonist is thinking. 

Naturally, in the real world, the world also has no idea what's going on in anybody's head. It's not thinking - hey a hurricane here would make an interesting event for the characters to overcome. And what about a thug botching a hit job and killing an innocent bystander? That would fit with this person's story particularly well. That's just not the way it works.

And yet, there are certain people that make something more of their life. That have a story worth telling. By default, the PCs have a very high likelihood of being those people. And the players can increase their likelihood of that by paying attention to the hooks the DM throws their way. Because they are typically interested in an interesting story too.

A certain type of story, or feel, might be more likely using a certain game or rule system, and a certain approach to running the game. For me, a person who likes things to have a certain internal consistency, and loves to see how the players and their characters will tackle whatever challenge or puzzle that comes their way, a more traditional division between DM and players works well.

For others, giving the players more freedom in developing the world around them, and the stories of others, provides for a different and preferred experience. I've run dozens of games in the past, particularly up through the early '90s. I admit that for many of them they were a diversion, something different for us. But ultimately we all agreed that we liked our regular AD&D game and approach better. The games that gave the players the most freedom to control events and things outside of their character, the less they liked it. I'm not implying at all that they are bad games, or that it's not a valid approach. It just didn't work well for us.

I do agree that a good DM will tie (at least some) of the events and actions of NPCs and such into the story threads. I do that all the time. The more that you utilize the players own ideas and the character motivations, the more involved they will be in the story. But I don't think it's essential (think James Bond), nor do I think you have to break immersion in the middle of the game to get it.


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## Ilbranteloth

Tony Vargas said:


> Sorry to chop up your post like that, but you make a point about SCs, that only the players roll, in essence, and go on to talk about weak spots.  In some scenarios, I've found the NPCs just being part of the 'framing' of the challenges a weakness, at times I wanted to have an NPC that opposed or monkeywrenched what the players were doing.  In one case I actually ended up creating an NPC with specific abilities that could be triggered to mess with the challenge, exception-based design to the rescue yet again (it was almost as facile a 'solution' as DM Empowerment, that way).
> The Skill Challenge framework is easy to adapt to any game with otherwise straightforward/binary skill checks, but it'd be nice if it had more was of incorporating an opposing side (or interfering 3rd parties, I suppose) into the resolution.  Yet, in d20, specifically, I personally find the most obvious mechanism, opposed checks, to be problematic, ie 'too swingy.'




Most contested rolls in my campaign are against passive skills. For example a grapple attempt is mostly going to be against the creature's passive score unless they will use their reaction to contest it actively (we handle reactions a bit differently).

The circumstances also play a big part, depending on what the players describe their characters doing, combined with the possible counters that the target has. Since it's based (at least in part) on passive skills with modifiers, it's much less swingy. 

In general, if I feel I have to start designing encounters to oppose specific approaches and tactics by the PCs, then there's probably something amiss in the rules. There should be more than one counter to a given tactic. 

I've also been considering (quite strongly) about going to a 2d10 replacement for the d20. I like the bell curve better, and it would allow two levels of advantage/disadvantage as well (one extra die, two extra dice). The main question is whether my players are too attached to their d20s...


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## Campbell

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]

I want to thank you for your continued participation and thoughtful analysis.


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## pemerton

Sadras said:


> I actually did not want to evaluate the player's use of the Plot Point





Sadras said:


> Auditing a player on this level is no fun at all for me. I can organically ascertain the response of NPC's given I know their (NPCs) motivations/limitations and I can determine the success of a plan carried out by a character/party through die mechanic *BUT* to tell a player your 'narration sucks' is just a line I'd rather not cross.



With respect to this, I agree with [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]; including that, in a creative endeavour like RPGing, there's no avoiding some sort of judgements of others' creative efforts, even if it's only keeping one's groan at the GM's latest contrivance an inward one, or a rolled eye to another player that the GM doesn't see.



Sadras said:


> I remember some within the group did not want to resolve the situation via combat, it would have got messy, politically within the city, as it would have predictably resulted in negative repercussions for the party within the main storyline.



This raised another question in my mind: what if the player had just declared, speaking as his PC, "I attack the boss!" Would the rest of the table have vetoed that too?


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## Ilbranteloth

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]
> 
> I want to thank you for your continued participation and thoughtful analysis.




Thanks! I try.

These discussions have both really expanded and refocused my own games. I also realized today that my responses show in another way why I prefer the way I play - many of my responses are rewritten multiple times (often 4 or 5) with _completely_ different answers. Clearly I do better when I have a chance to think things through a bit more than off the cuff.

The same thing applies when DMing - I can improvise certain things well, but I do much, much better if I have a lot to draw on first, which is all of the background and history I already have in the campaign. Obviously that has a big impact on what styles and approaches are comfortable.

But I also think it's important to be as good as I can as a DM. So playing to my strengths certainly makes sense, especially since our games are 3-4 hours once/week now, rather than the old 6-8+ hours multiple times a week. You've got to make it count.


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## Campbell

Tony Vargas said:


> Sure, all three of those points are how people have been playing D&D for decades - if you couldn't find ways to cope with that you left the hobby or moved on to more obscure niche RPGs, and different chambers with different echos, like the Forge (thus Actor Stance, rather than just playing your character).
> 
> So there's this divide in attitude and perception that renders various aspects of RPGs, even when darn near universal, all-consuming to one side and/or utterly repugnant to the other, and a preference here or style there gets blown up into an irreconcilable/inconceivable gulf.




I think directly correlating *just playing your character* to *actor stance* involves a pretty narrow conception of what *playing your character* means and the various ways to approach roleplaying games.

I can play my character by making decisions for my character based on pursuing the objectives of the game whether stated or not. This is the way D&D was mostly originally played. This is *pawn stance* play.

I can play my character by making decisions for my character based on on my conception of my character's knowledge, motivation, drives, intuitions, and  goals. This is *actor stance* play.

I can play my character by making decisions for my character based on my desires for where the narrative should go and what I believe would be best "for the story". This is *author stance* play.

I can play my character while describing their inner thoughts, things that go unsaid, describing their actions in visual terms, describing dialog in broad strokes, and describing their intent. I can also talk about their connections to the fiction, say how they view the situation, and provide gaps for other players to play off of. This is *director stance* play.

No matter the stance you are still *playing your character* and making decisions for them.

I think talking in terms of stance can be a fruitful to tease out player motivations and play techniques. However, there are significant issues with the stance model that I believe can lead us to draw the wrong conclusions about Actual Play. Time to put my beefs out on open display.


It can often lead to conversations where we talk around issues of player motivations and play techniques instead of directly addressing them in a real way.
It assumes that we are in a particular stance at any moment and that the stances are mutually exclusive. Actual motivations and human behavior are far more complex than all that. We actually make decisions based on a multitude of considerations that we actively prioritize. We also often justify our decisions after the fact.
It can serve to limit our discussions of player motivations to the 3 primary stances: actor, author, pawn. It ignores social considerations, aesthetic considerations, and many other factors. Additionally distinctions are not normally made within the particular primary stance. Am I pursuing the objectives of the game because I am motivated by challenge, achievement, status, power to affect the game world, or completion? Is it a combination of these things?
Director stance depicts a set of techniques, not player motives. These techniques are overly broad. Some instances may be acceptable where others may not. It basically describes any instance where you are not using first person description.


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## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> In your Star Wars example, there is basically one thing that has to happen - the droids need to get to Luke. It could be as simple as the pod crashing on their farm. Or it can be as complex as the movie.
> 
> None of that requires knowing the motivations or the dramatic concerns of the players. We don't know the motivations of the droids, other than R2 is on a mission. All we know about the jawas is that they collect, repair, and sell droids among other things. Owen's motivation is to keep the farm running and the family fed. Luke's motivation at this point has nothing to do with the rest of his story.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In an RPG context one could see this all as a railroad, and Luke's story in particular.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> when the original Star Wars was released, Luke was not the Jedi heir, he was just another guy. At that point in the saga literally anybody could be Obi-Wan's padawan.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The reality is, movies and TV series typically function more like what I'm used to - the DM (director, writer) provides the world, and the characters react to it.
> 
> The more that you utilize the players own ideas and the character motivations, the more involved they will be in the story. But I don't think it's essential <snippage> to break immersion in the middle of the game to get it.



There is a lot going on here. I don't know that I'll respond sensibly to all of it, but will try to convey some of the thoughts I had.

(1) _Not necessary to break immersion_: I don't think that's a significant object of dispute. But, as per the disussion upthread between [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION], [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and me, what breaks immesion vs what preseves immersion can be rather variable. As I said in a few posts, I find that depending up on the GM as sole mediator of the gameworld, so that players never (as their PCs) have their own perceptions/intuitions/understandings to rely upon, quite immersion breaking. (Unless the PC is literally meant to be an alien in the fictional world.)

(2) _Anyone could have been Obi-Wan's apprentice_: Luke's name is _Skywalker_; his father was a great pilot and a great Jedi who left him a lightsabre as an heirloom; his father was killed by Darth Vader. These are the things that make Luke the appropriate heir to the Jedi tradition, and cast him in dramatic opposition to Vader and the Empire. (In a very different way from Leia, whose opposition is political, not personal/spiritual in the same way, at least before the Death Star is used to blow up Alderaan.)

(3) _Star Wars as a railroad_: as with the discussion, way upthread, of LotR, we can't tell simply from a recount of the fiction whether or not an episode of RPGing was a railroad. But whether or not it is a railroad, my point is that you are not going to get a story in which _the droids carrying a message for Obi Wan Kenobi_ end up, by coincidence as it were, in the hands of the prospective heir to Obi Wan, simply via random determination of encounters, droid malfunctions etc.

There are multiple alternatives to random determination: railroading is one; what I have been referring to as player-driven RPGing is another.

But consider using (say) the Stormtrooper massacre at the farm as a framing device. I think it would be harsh for a GM to just do that willy-nilly! It makes sense, rather, as the consequence of a failure. (Say, a failed Navigation roll to travel from Obi-Wan's house back to the farm, having realised the threat posed by the Empire's hunt for the droids.) But to know that that would be an appropriate consequence for failure, one needs to understand what is at stake for the player in declaring that action for his/her PC. This is what I'm saying I couldn't judge without knowing what is motivating the action declaration, which was the trigger for this particular discussion.

(4) _The writer provides the world and the characters react to it_: the writer of a fiction is a person in the real world; the characters exist only in imagination. So the two can never interact.

The writing of a fiction includes the writing of the actions of persons who are elements within that fiction. The question about RPGing is who gets to write which bits, according to what sorts of procedures. Eg does the GM frame Luke (as a PC) into a confrontation with the Empire because the GM wants to run an Empire-oriented game, or the table as a whole does, or the player has written something about opposition into the Empire into the PC's backstory, etc.

The same sorts of considerations apply to the farm massacre. Who wrote in these family members of Luke the PC? Is the killing off of the farm providing the player/PC with something that s/he wanted (freedom from farming) though at a high cost (death of family members)? Or is it undesired through-and-through?

These are all questions about authorship, not about in-fiction events.


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## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I think directly correlating *just playing your character* to *actor stance* involves a pretty narrow conception of what *playing your character* means and the various ways to approach roleplaying games.



Agreed.



Campbell said:


> Actual motivations and human behavior are far more complex than all that. We actually make decisions based on a multitude of considerations that we actively prioritize. We also often justify our decisions after the fact.



I've often made the point, over many years and many thread, that "stance" is a logical notion, not a psychological one. There is no particular correlation between the stance in which an episode of play (by a player of his/her PC) occurs, and the pschological state, motivations, experiences etc of that player.

My poster child for this is the play of a relgious character, which - to be played in character - requires specifying things about the constraints of morality, the dictates of the gods, etc, all of which are - from the technical point of view - director stance.


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## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> Unless the advisor was rendered retarded(unconscious), he was capable(still had hit points) of attempting mitigation.



The advisor can perform whatever actions he wants. But - as a question of framing or adjudication - they won't have any effect.

The inability of those actions to affect the attitude of the Baron (towards both advisor and PCs) has been established by the players' victory in the skill challenge. That's what follows from winning the challenge. It establishes finality.



Lanefan said:


> I'm unclear on something:
> [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] seems to suggest that this particular challenge succeeding and revealing the advisor's secrets is but step one in what could then become an ongoing series of challenges as the advisor tries to mitigate his losses and save his own bacon.
> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] however seems to suggest that this particular challenge succeeding means the advisor's bacon is already cooked and he can do nothing further to bail himself out.
> 
> My question for pemerton is what's wrong with Maxperson's approach here?



To me, that's llike the following scenario:

* The group is playing classic dungeon-crawling D&D.

* The players come up with a plan to defeat the trolls in room 71 and steal their treasure. Their plan is based on good intelligence about the vulnerability of trolls to fire. Their knowledge of the treasure is the result of casting Contact Other Planes and the various rolls coming up successfully.

* The PCs implement said plan, and defeat the trolls. They take the gold pieces out of the dungeon.

* For a lark (or perhaps vindictively?), the GM decides, retrospectively, that the gold was really an extended-duration Fool's Gold effect, and overnight all the PCs hard-won gp turn into iron. Which robs them of both treasure and XP.​
What's wrong with that? It's the GM cheating the players out of their victory by abusing his/her supposed authority over the content of the shared fiction.

Likewise in my case.



Lanefan said:


> Why doesn't the advisor in effect get to mount his own skill challenge to see how well - if at all - he can limit the damage after being outed?



There's no such thing. All the advisor's efforts are wrapped up in the skill challenge that was resolved. The players won, and that settles those elements of the fiction.



Lanefan said:


> On a broader scale, why pin the entire resolution of what seems like a very interesting scenario on the outcome of just one all-or-nothing challenge



Why have finality to anything? Why not let every combat go on for ever? Have every monster spring back to life because the gods will it so?

Or to look at it another way: you're asking, _why pin the entire resolution on_ X? Well, it has to be pinned on _something_? So why not _X_? I mean, that's how the game works.

The episode took over an hour of play at the table. It was fun; it was done. The matter was resolved. The players won. They defeated their nemesis socially; in the next session, they went on to defeat him in combat. In subsequent sessions they defeated his army.

There's nothing wrong with the players winning. I can come up with plenty of new material to challenge them, without rewriting the outcomes of action resolution to rob them of their victories.

Likewise if the players lose, they lose. No retries. The game moves on. We don't need to keep replaying the same scene.


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## Sadras

Campbell said:


> Continued play builds trust and can lead us to a point where we make contributions and decisions effortlessly. Constructive criticism can be important because it allows us to communicate how our expectations are being met, not being met, or exceeded. This allows us to meaningfully communicate and collaborate.
> 
> Even if we limit the contributions players make to the actions their characters take they are still making creative decisions subject to the creative judgements of all other players. I believe we make these judgements all the time even if we do not directly voice criticism. There is nothing wrong with this.






pemerton said:


> With respect to this, I agree with @_*Campbell*_; including that, in a creative endeavour like RPGing, there's no avoiding some sort of judgements of others' creative efforts, even if it's only keeping one's groan at the GM's latest contrivance an inward one, or a rolled eye to another player that the GM doesn't see.




Inward judgements/evaluations is very different to expressing them overtly and in this case not even questioning them, but the ability to overrule the use of the resource, in this instance Plot Points, and therefore veto the creative effort. @_*pemerton*_ based on your opening post, this would be a judgement call, and thus I would be railroading according to you, correct? I didn't set a DC (high or low), I made the decision that the Plot Point could not be used to alter the fiction in this particular way. 



> This raised another question in my mind: what if the player had just declared, speaking as his PC, "I attack the boss!" Would the rest of the table have vetoed that too?




They would have raised an objection and question his character's rationale for deciding on that course of action, but ultimately the decision for what his character would do would rest with the player not with the table (that's the standard buy-in when roleplaying). The player has full control of his character, the Plot Point resource though provides the player control beyond the scope of his character though.


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## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> The advisor can perform whatever actions he wants. But - as a question of framing or adjudication - they won't have any effect.
> 
> The inability of those actions to affect the attitude of the Baron (towards both advisor and PCs) has been established by the players' victory in the skill challenge. That's what follows from winning the challenge. It establishes finality.




So far what you have described is that the skill challenge established that the advisor outed himself, and that the player mistakenly thought that the advisor attempting mitigation negated that outing.  You then described yourself backing off based on that player's mistaken perception.  Since then you have repeatedly said that the challenge to out the advisor also prevents mitigation, even though one doesn't affect the other since they are two separate events.  No amount of mitigation would have prevented or negated that outing.




> The group is playing classic dungeon-crawling D&D.
> 
> * The players come up with a plan to defeat the trolls in room 71 and steal their treasure. Their plan is based on good intelligence about the vulnerability of trolls to fire. Their knowledge of the treasure is the result of casting Contact Other Planes and the various rolls coming up successfully.
> 
> * The PCs implement said plan, and defeat the trolls. They take the gold pieces out of the dungeon.
> 
> * For a lark (or perhaps vindictively?), the GM decides, retrospectively, that the gold was really an extended-duration Fool's Gold effect, and overnight all the PCs hard-won gp turn into iron. Which robs them of both treasure and XP.




Except that it's not like that at all.  I'll re-write the last paragraph to explain what it is really like.

* Unbeknownst to the players, because they failed to ask the question when they cast Contact Other Plane, the troll has a brother who finds out about the death of Grgash at the hands of the PCs.  He sets out to try to kill them and bring back the treasure(mitigation).  

The possibilities are that he could fail(no mitigation), get the treasure back, but fail to kill the PCs(partial mitigation) or kill them and get the treasure(full mitigation).  However, no amount of that attempted mitigation can negate the success of the original action. They did in fact succeed at killing Grgash and getting his treasure out of the dungeon.



> What's wrong with that? It's the GM cheating the players out of their victory by abusing his/her supposed authority over the content of the shared fiction.




No it isn't.  It's simply the game progressing in a reasonable manner.  They didn't find out about the brother who existed prior to their planned kill and snatch of the troll's treasure, and so mitigation could possibly happen.  Likewise, the advisor has a brain which existed prior to the party's forced outing, and so mitigation could possibly happen.  It's not cheating the players out of anything, and it certainly isn't abuse of any kind.


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## pemerton

Sadras said:


> Inward judgements/evaluations is very different to expressing them overtly and in this case not even questioning them, but the ability to overrule the use of the resource, in this instance Plot Points, and therefore veto the creative effort. @_*pemerton*_ based on your opening post, this would be a judgement call, and thus I would be railroading according to you, correct? I didn't set a DC (high or low), I made the decision that the Plot Point could not be used to alter the fiction in this particular way.



I think it's definitely a judgement call.

Whether or not it's railroading (as per my OP) depends on the motivation and upshot: is it _the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative_? If it's policing genre or consistency with already established fiction, then no. If it's trying to stop the player pushing the scene in the direction the PC wants (in this case, something happens that "outs" the boss in front of the PCs), then yes.

In the example you give, though, it doesn't seem like it's the GM, but rather the table, exercising a veto.


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## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> So far what you have described is that the skill challenge established that the advisor outed himself, and that the player mistakenly thought that the advisor attempting mitigation negated that outing.  You then described yourself backing off based on that player's mistaken perception.  Since then you have repeatedly said that the challenge to out the advisor also prevents mitigation, even though one doesn't affect the other since they are two separate events.  No amount of mitigation would have prevented or negated that outing.



I don't understand why you're trying to correct me on my understanding of an episode of play that I GMed and you didn't, using a mechanic that (as best I'm aware) you are not familiar with and that I am very familiar with.

The players succeeded in a skill challenge which established that the advisor revealed himself in a way that did not undermine the PCs' standing in the eyes of the baron (and other worthies), but rather redounded upon the advisor himself. That's not up for dispute: it's what happened at the table.

The fact that you keep redescribing the outcome, by reference only to a narrow conception of the events in the fiction, rather than the _actual_ outcome, doesn't change the reality of what actually took place. You say _ the challenge to out the advisor also prevents mitigation, even though one doesn't affect the other since they are two separate events._ This assertion is an error. Success in the challenge established, in the fiction, the relationship (i) of the advisor to the baron and (ii) of the baron to the PCs.

I don't know what you mean by "separate events", but neither (i) nor (ii) is separate from the players' success in the skill challenge. They are the direct consequences of that success.

Thus, when - in the next session - I started framing something that put that success into doubt, a player called me on it. He was correct to do so. The players are entitled to their victory, and it is not liable to being undone by GM reframing.


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## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I don't understand why you're trying to correct me on my understanding of an episode of play that I GMed and you didn't, using a mechanic that (as best I'm aware) you are not familiar with and that I am very familiar with.
> 
> The players succeeded in a skill challenge which established that the advisor revealed himself in a way that did not undermine the PCs' standing in the eyes of the baron (and other worthies), but rather redounded upon the advisor himself. That's not up for dispute: it's what happened at the table.
> 
> The fact that you keep redescribing the outcome, by reference only to a narrow conception of the events in the fiction, rather than the _actual_ outcome, doesn't change the reality of what actually took place. You say _ the challenge to out the advisor also prevents mitigation, even though one doesn't affect the other since they are two separate events._ This assertion is an error. Success in the challenge established, in the fiction, the relationship (i) of the advisor to the baron and (ii) of the baron to the PCs.
> 
> I don't know what you mean by "separate events", but neither (i) nor (ii) is separate from the players' success in the skill challenge. They are the direct consequences of that success.
> 
> Thus, when - in the next session - I started framing something that put that success into doubt, a player called me on it. He was correct to do so. The players are entitled to their victory, and it is not liable to being undone by GM reframing.




The problem here is one of communication.  Because it's obvious to you how your mechanic works, you haven't explained it well, and, even when you note that Max may not be familiar with the mechanic you used you just insist he can't understand instead of explaining it.

Here's how I understand it.   The players announced an intention to get the advisor to out himself.  The intention was that this be complete and irrevocable -- that, if successful, the advisor would be placed into a position where there was no mitigation of his failure.  You framed the challenge necessary to accomplish this intent, and play commenced.  The players were successful which means you have to honor their intent going forward -- the advisor cannot mitigate the result because that would be against the intent of the challenge.  In this framework, the NPCs involved have no ability to force an agenda outside of the challenge.  In other words, the advisor cannot concoct a new plan that would thwart the player's intent because the advisor, as an NPC, is entirely reactionary outside of framing -- the NPC cannot force a new challenge on the players, he's only a piece to be used as part of a challenge the players set for themselves.  NPCs are framing devices only.

Max, on the other hand, sees that the initial intent of 'get the advisor to out himself' was accomplished, but he sees the advisor has having an agenda that can be pushed against the players via narration -- to Max, the advisor isn't held to outcome as immutable, but can now enact a new agenda to limit the damage.  He's still outed himself, but he is still free to act against the PCs.  In this sense, the NPCs have and act upon their own agendas even outside of the challenge framing -- ie, the NPC can force a new challenge on the players.  NPCs have individual agency against the PCs.

This is part and parcel of the meta discussion going on here, between DM-centric and Player-centric playstyles and resolution mechanics.  In a player centric game, the world and it's NPCs are framing devices only -- they exist only to provide the challenges against player stated intents.  In a DM-centric game, the world and NPCs have their own agendas that they persue, and can force those agendas against players.  This is really the critical divide I discern between the concepts -- in one, the world exists only as antagonist to the player desires, in the other, the world exists for players to pit themselves against it.  The difference coming from the source of struggle, from the PCs or from the world.  Of course, these can be blended to a lesser or greater degree with a lesser or greater degree of success.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> The players announced an intention to get the advisor to out himself.  The intention was that this be complete and irrevocable -- that, if successful, the advisor would be placed into a position where there was no mitigation of his failure.  You framed the challenge necessary to accomplish this intent, and play commenced.  The players were successful which means you have to honor their intent going forward -- the advisor cannot mitigate the result because that would be against the intent of the challenge.  In this framework, the NPCs involved have no ability to force an agenda outside of the challenge.  In other words, the advisor cannot concoct a new plan that would thwart the player's intent because the advisor, as an NPC, is entirely reactionary outside of framing -- the NPC cannot force a new challenge on the players, he's only a piece to be used as part of a challenge the players set for themselves.  NPCs are framing devices only.
> 
> Max, on the other hand, sees that the initial intent of 'get the advisor to out himself' was accomplished, but he sees the advisor has having an agenda that can be pushed against the players via narration -- to Max, the advisor isn't held to outcome as immutable, but can now enact a new agenda to limit the damage.  He's still outed himself, but he is still free to act against the PCs.  In this sense, the NPCs have and act upon their own agendas even outside of the challenge framing -- ie, the NPC can force a new challenge on the players.  NPCs have individual agency against the PCs.



This characterisation of play seems to involve a category error: it posits that NPCs exercise causal power over the events at the gaming table.

That is impossible, though, because NPCs are purely imaginary, and imaginary beings don't exercise causal influence over real-world events.

The issue is not about "NPC agency" - it's about authorship, and how the content of the shared fiction is established.

That is,    [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is not "see[ing] the advisor as having an agenda that can be pushed against the players via narration" (the advisor doesn't _narrate_ - the advisor simply _acts_). Rather, Maxperson is seeing the _GM_ as enjoying the authority to put into question, in some fashion, the advisor's relationship with the baron _in spite of_ the outcome of the skill challenge (he hasn't explained exactly how this would be done: does he imagine the GM rolling a CHA/Diplomacy/Persuasion check for the advisor against some DC also set by the GM?).

Whereas I have repeatedly, and quite clearly, asserted that _the relationship between advisor and baron_ is settled as part of the skill challenge. It's one of the outcomes that the players, by their play of their PCs, have secured. This is why I made the comparison to reducing an enemy to zero hp; or to a moral or loyalty check in classic D&D. These are all mechanics the produce finality in resolution: they don't simply generate temporary pertubations in the fiction which the GM is free to retest or reopen.

I think that if I had described the PCs using (say) some sort of Geas spell on the advisor, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] would not be positing that the matter of the advisor's capacity to change his relationship with the baron is still open. Which is to say, Maxperson is not confused, in general, by the concept of finality in resolution. For whatever reason, though, he seems unable to accept that finality had been achieved on this occasion, via this particular mechanical procedure.



Ovinomancer said:


> In a player centric game, the world and it's NPCs are framing devices only -- they exist only to provide the challenges against player stated intents.  In a DM-centric game, the world and NPCs have their own agendas that they persue, and can force those agendas against players.



This is not correct. (And, again, appears to involve the same category error.)

The advisor had his own agenda. He pursued it. He attempted to force the PCs' hands, in two ways (at least: the session was several years ago, and so even with the benefit of an actual play report my memory is not perfect):

(1) The advisor tried to trick/goad the PCs into revealing information about the whereabouts of the tapestry; the players dealt with this by such measures as taking steps to ensure that the most vulnerable PC, the dwarven fighter/cleric with CHA 10 and poor social skills, was not at the table with the advisor;

(2) The advisor escalated things to try and force the PCs to reveal him to the baron, so that they would be tarnished as trying to smear him and/or take advantage of his magic secrets (eg the tapestry), rather than being the heroes who had saved the baron from his influence. Had the players failed at the challenge, it is likely that something of this sort would have happened, as the evening would have ended with the advisor leaving the dinner, apparently forced out by the PCs speaking against him but not proving their case.​
His attempts to do this, however, failed. The PCs kept the information about the tapestry secret; and the advisor's strategy (2) ended up backfiring, as the baron accepted the word of the dwarven "paladin", in the context of the advisor being goaded into revealing himself.

Just as, in combat, a NPC can't keep pursuing his/her agenda if reduced to zero hp, or if his/her moral breaks; so likewise in a skill challenge. If the challenge is resolved with the players successful, and their success defeats the NPC's agenda, then that is as it is: the agenda has failed.



Ovinomancer said:


> This is really the critical divide I discern between the concepts -- in one, the world exists only as antagonist to the player desires, in the other, the world exists for players to pit themselves against it.



In my view this doesn't mark out any meaningful distinction.

There is no meaningful difference that I can see between _the world exists for players to pit themselves against, as an antagonist_ (which is your characterisation of "player-centric") and _the world and NPCs have their own agendas, that they force against players_ (which is your characterisation of "GM-centric"). Both describe relationships of opposition between the desires of PCs and the desires of NPCs/antagonists (or "the gameworld" in some more general, somewhat anthropomorphised, conception).

The difference, rather, is over who has the capacity to _resolve_ those conflicts. Can the players do so, via action resolution procedures? Or do conflicts continue on until, on whatever basis, the GM deems them to be exhausted as the subject-matter of play.   [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and    [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] appear to be expressing the latter preference.

That preference may lead to fun RPGing, or not, depending on a range of factors including (perhaps most importantly) the preferences of the participants. But it seems pretty clear to me that it is not a preference about the "agency" of NPCs/antagonists, or their capacity to oppose the PCs and thereby to be a source of opposition to the players. It is a preference about who exercises what sort of control over the content of the fiction, and be what sorts of procedures that control is exercised.


----------



## pemerton

The idea of finality can be approached fairly straightforwardly by considering a system like MHRP/Cortex, which (unlike D&D, any edition) uses an identical resolution system for all sorts of conflicts.

If the players (via their action declarations for their PCs) inflict a sufficent degree of Physical Stress on the advisor, they knock him out cold. At which point the scene is resolved, and - however much, as a matter of colour, we imagine the advisor struggling against his bonds when he regains consciousness - he has been defeated and can't come back as a physical threat until something external to him occurs that would open up that possibility.

If the players (via their action declarations fo rthe PCs) inflict a Treachery Revealed complication of succicient severity on the advisor, then likewise the scene ends, via exactly the same mechanical pathway, and - however much, as a matter of colour, we imagine the advisor wheedling and whining Wormtongue-like to the baron - he has been defetaed and can't come back as a social threat until something external to him occurs that would open up that possibility.

One of the significant areas of GM judgement in running a game in which the players can establish final results via action resolution (and each of 4e, BW and Cortex/MHRP is such a game; D&D is more generally, also, at least in some respect, eg combat) is determining _when to allow that something external to a defeated threat/challenge has allowed it to re-emerge as a threat/challenge_. Is this permissible simply as a matter of framing, if enough time/action has passed? Is it something to be done only as a consequence of failure, and if so, what sort of failure?

One thing that is at stake here is the basic issue of the repetitiveness in the fiction: is the game going to turn into a respawn-fest? or a version of comic book melodrama, where every 50 episodes or so Peter has to stop Aunt May from marrying a supervillain, while Batman has to deal with the Joker _again_.

But another thing, which arguably is more important at least in the sort of RPGing I prefer, is the integrity of the fiction _as determined by the players' action declarations for their PCs_. The GM has a duty to honour this; and a casual overturning of player victories does not discharge that duty.

I don't think this is something in respect of which there can be hard-and-fast rules. But it is not something (in my view) where the GM can afford to be careless, or to satisfy him-/herself with the thought that "_of course_ the BBEG will have a henchman capable of casting Resurrection, or Break Enchantment, or, . . ." The issues is not one of in-fiction plausibility or explicability, but of respect owed, at the table, among participants in the game.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> This characterisation of play seems to involve a category error: it posits that NPCs exercise causal power over the events at the gaming table.
> 
> That is impossible, though, because NPCs are purely imaginary, and imaginary beings don't exercise causal influence over real-world events.
> 
> The issue is not about "NPC agency" - it's about authorship, and how the content of the shared fiction is established.
> 
> That is,    [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is not "see[ing] the advisor as having an agenda that can be pushed against the players via narration" (the advisor doesn't _narrate_ - the advisor simply _acts_). Rather, Maxperson is seeing the _GM_ as enjoying the authority to put into question, in some fashion, the advisor's relationship with the baron _in spite of_ the outcome of the skill challenge (he hasn't explained exactly how this would be done: does he imagine the GM rolling a CHA/Diplomacy/Persuasion check for the advisor against some DC also set by the GM?).
> 
> Whereas I have repeatedly, and quite clearly, asserted that _the relationship between advisor and baron_ is settled as part of the skill challenge. It's one of the outcomes that the players, by their play of their PCs, have secured. This is why I made the comparison to reducing an enemy to zero hp; or to a moral or loyalty check in classic D&D. These are all mechanics the produce finality in resolution: they don't simply generate temporary pertubations in the fiction which the GM is free to retest or reopen.
> 
> I think that if I had described the PCs using (say) some sort of Geas spell on the advisor, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] would not be positing that the matter of the advisor's capacity to change his relationship with the baron is still open. Which is to say, Maxperson is not confused, in general, by the concept of finality in resolution. For whatever reason, though, he seems unable to accept that finality had been achieved on this occasion, via this particular mechanical procedure.
> 
> This is not correct. (And, again, appears to involve the same category error.)
> 
> The advisor had his own agenda. He pursued it. He attempted to force the PCs' hands, in two ways (at least: the session was several years ago, and so even with the benefit of an actual play report my memory is not perfect):
> 
> (1) The advisor tried to trick/goad the PCs into revealing information about the whereabouts of the tapestry; the players dealt with this by such measures as taking steps to ensure that the most vulnerable PC, the dwarven fighter/cleric with CHA 10 and poor social skills, was not at the table with the advisor;
> 
> (2) The advisor escalated things to try and force the PCs to reveal him to the baron, so that they would be tarnished as trying to smear him and/or take advantage of his magic secrets (eg the tapestry), rather than being the heroes who had saved the baron from his influence. Had the players failed at the challenge, it is likely that something of this sort would have happened, as the evening would have ended with the advisor leaving the dinner, apparently forced out by the PCs speaking against him but not proving their case.​
> His attempts to do this, however, failed. The PCs kept the information about the tapestry secret; and the advisor's strategy (2) ended up backfiring, as the baron accepted the word of the dwarven "paladin", in the context of the advisor being goaded into revealing himself.
> 
> Just as, in combat, a NPC can't keep pursuing his/her agenda if reduced to zero hp, or if his/her moral breaks; so likewise in a skill challenge. If the challenge is resolved with the players successful, and their success defeats the NPC's agenda, then that is as it is: the agenda has failed.
> 
> In my view this doesn't mark out any meaningful distinction.
> 
> There is no meaningful difference that I can see between _the world exists for players to pit themselves against, as an antagonist_ (which is your characterisation of "player-centric") and _the world and NPCs have their own agendas, that they force against players_ (which is your characterisation of "GM-centric"). Both describe relationships of opposition between the desires of PCs and the desires of NPCs/antagonists (or "the gameworld" in some more general, somewhat anthropomorphised, conception).
> 
> The difference, rather, is over who has the capacity to _resolve_ those conflicts. Can the players do so, via action resolution procedures? Or do conflicts continue on until, on whatever basis, the GM deems them to be exhausted as the subject-matter of play.   [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and    [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] appear to be expressing the latter preference.
> 
> That preference may lead to fun RPGing, or not, depending on a range of factors including (perhaps most importantly) the preferences of the participants. But it seems pretty clear to me that it is not a preference about the "agency" of NPCs/antagonists, or their capacity to oppose the PCs and thereby to be a source of opposition to the players. It is a preference about who exercises what sort of control over the content of the fiction, and be what sorts of procedures that control is exercised.




No error, just a willful misinterpretation on your part in order to create a complaint.  Of course NPCs don't exist, neither do advisors, barons, or PCs.  I didn't feel it necessary to point out the obvious.  However, a fictional construct can be assigned agendas (else how do stories work?), and those can be played with integrity by the DM/GM.  This was the context in which I presented everything because I felt it obvious that one would understand that NPCs aren't real.  I regret my error.

So, if you could respond to the post again, this time with the understanding that 'NPCs' and 'NPC agendas' refer to a DM representing pre-established fictional impulses with integrity and honesty, maybe we can go somewhere.  So long as we're mired in 'but your post doesn't make sense because I refuse to connect the obvious dots and instead am standing on a semantic argument that NPCs are actually real,' I fear we may not ever progress.


----------



## TwoSix

pemerton said:


> Thus, when - in the next session - I started framing something that put that success into doubt, a player called me on it. He was correct to do so. The players are entitled to their victory, and it is not liable to being undone by GM reframing.



Interesting, that.  What you accepted as a natural and appropriate pushback by the player, I imagine would not be acceptable in [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], et al's games.  The DM has a much wider latitude to frame new challenges in their gaming model.  Social contract is, as always, key.



pemerton said:


> The difference, rather, is over who has the capacity to _resolve_ those conflicts. Can the players do so, via action resolution procedures? Or do conflicts continue on until, on whatever basis, the GM deems them to be exhausted as the subject-matter of play.    [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and     [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] appear to be expressing the latter preference.
> 
> That preference may lead to fun RPGing, or not, depending on a range of factors including (perhaps most importantly) the preferences of the participants. But it seems pretty clear to me that it is not a preference about the "agency" of NPCs/antagonists, or their capacity to oppose the PCs and thereby to be a source of opposition to the players. It is a preference about who exercises what sort of control over the content of the fiction, and be what sorts of procedures that control is exercised.



I feel like the pertinent question here is "Does your game procedure allow for the framing of scenes by the DM that are not in response to explicit player declaration?"  For example, to use the advisor concept introduced previously, let's say that the advisor is enraged by the PC's success at reducing his status in court.  He is so enraged that he performs an arcane ritual in secret to summon a malevolent extraplanar entity, which he commands to attack the PCs.  

I think having said demon attack the PCs in retribution would be a natural and expected consequence in "living world"/"NPC agenda" play procedure games.  The PCs have angered the advisor, having the advisor retaliate is a second-order consequence of their actions.   But this framing would be problematic in a BW/Cortex style game, as the advisor's action aren't a direct consequence of any PC's failure to mechanically reach their intent.  Now, being attacked by a demon could be a consequence of a hundred other possible future failures on the PC's part, and tying the demon's appearance back to the spurned advisor would make a satisfying narration for that consequence.  But ultimately, you wouldn't introduce a summoned demon simply as something for the PCs to have a conflict with without player input.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> This characterisation of play seems to involve a category error: it posits that NPCs exercise causal power over the events at the gaming table.
> 
> That is impossible, though, because NPCs are purely imaginary, and imaginary beings don't exercise causal influence over real-world events.
> 
> The issue is not about "NPC agency" - it's about authorship, and how the content of the shared fiction is established.




Okay not sure I agree with this.  What "real-world events" are you speaking too?  My understanding of the area of contention seems to be around in-game events where the NPC can exercise causal power over said events.  You may exercise a playstyle where that isn't a desired aspect of play but that doesn't make it impossible.




pemerton said:


> That is,    @_*Maxperson*_ is not "see[ing] the advisor as having an agenda that can be pushed against the players via narration" (the advisor doesn't _narrate_ - the advisor simply _acts_). Rather, Maxperson is seeing the _GM_ as enjoying the authority to put into question, in some fashion, the advisor's relationship with the baron _in spite of_ the outcome of the skill challenge (he hasn't explained exactly how this would be done: does he imagine the GM rolling a CHA/Diplomacy/Persuasion check for the advisor against some DC also set by the GM?).




No... I think you have it wrong... mainly because I see the advisor as being capable of having an agenda that can be pushed via narration (by the DM/GM of course just as the players narrate the agendas for their PC's).  you say this isn't possible but unless we're getting caught up around the pedantic point of the fictional advisor not being able to narrate (which I think is minor in the realm of the bigger picture)... I've yet to see you posit why the advisor having an agenda (and it being narrated by whoever is playing the advisor) isn't possible as opposed to not preferable to you. 



pemerton said:


> Whereas I have repeatedly, and quite clearly, asserted that _the relationship between advisor and baron_ is settled as part of the skill challenge. It's one of the outcomes that the players, by their play of their PCs, have secured. This is why I made the comparison to reducing an enemy to zero hp; or to a moral or loyalty check in classic D&D. These are all mechanics the produce finality in resolution: they don't simply generate temporary pertubations in the fiction which the GM is free to retest or reopen.
> 
> I think that if I had described the PCs using (say) some sort of Geas spell on the advisor, @_*Maxperson*_ would not be positing that the matter of the advisor's capacity to change his relationship with the baron is still open. Which is to say, Maxperson is not confused, in general, by the concept of finality in resolution. For whatever reason, though, he seems unable to accept that finality had been achieved on this occasion, via this particular mechanical procedure.




But even with your example of a geas spell... it isn't a permanent settling of said relationship.  It has a duration, means of dispelling it, etc.  I don't think the confusion was around finality in resolution but around, as @_*Ovinomancer*_ cited, a difference of playstyle in how NPC's are run and what purpose they serve. 



pemerton said:


> This is not correct. (And, again, appears to involve the same category error.)
> 
> The advisor had his own agenda. He pursued it. He attempted to force the PCs' hands, in two ways (at least: the session was several years ago, and so even with the benefit of an actual play report my memory is not perfect):
> (1) The advisor tried to trick/goad the PCs into revealing information about the whereabouts of the tapestry; the players dealt with this by such measures as taking steps to ensure that the most vulnerable PC, the dwarven fighter/cleric with CHA 10 and poor social skills, was not at the table with the advisor;
> 
> (2) The advisor escalated things to try and force the PCs to reveal him to the baron, so that they would be tarnished as trying to smear him and/or take advantage of his magic secrets (eg the tapestry), rather than being the heroes who had saved the baron from his influence. Had the players failed at the challenge, it is likely that something of this sort would have happened, as the evening would have ended with the advisor leaving the dinner, apparently forced out by the PCs speaking against him but not proving their case.​
> His attempts to do this, however, failed. The PCs kept the information about the tapestry secret; and the advisor's strategy (2) ended up backfiring, as the baron accepted the word of the dwarven "paladin", in the context of the advisor being goaded into revealing himself.




Can I ask two questions...

1.) Who initiated a mechanical resolution of this?
2.) How was that mechanical resolution implemented?




pemerton said:


> Just as, in combat, a NPC can't keep pursuing his/her agenda if reduced to zero hp, or if his/her moral breaks; so likewise in a skill challenge. If the challenge is resolved with the players successful, and their success defeats the NPC's agenda, then that is as it is: the agenda has failed.




But the PC's implemented their agenda and it succeeded... what I (and others I believe) don't understand is why the advisor can not then pursue a different agenda of mitigating the fall out in the eyes of the Baron (I mean this stuff happens in fiction all the time).  IMO your analogies all seem off... I feel like this is akin to your PC loosing a battle... then going up a level, finding a magic sword and going back to ambush the same guy who beat you... and you as DM claiming the battle between you two was already decided you can never fight him in any way again.  IMO... it's not the same challenge it is a different challenge with a (slightly) different agenda. 



pemerton said:


> In my view this doesn't mark out any meaningful distinction.
> 
> There is no meaningful difference that I can see between _the world exists for players to pit themselves against, as an antagonist_ (which is your characterisation of "player-centric") and _the world and NPCs have their own agendas, that they force against players_ (which is your characterisation of "GM-centric"). Both describe relationships of opposition between the desires of PCs and the desires of NPCs/antagonists (or "the gameworld" in some more general, somewhat anthropomorphised, conception).
> 
> The difference, rather, is over who has the capacity to _resolve_ those conflicts. Can the players do so, via action resolution procedures? Or do conflicts continue on until, on whatever basis, the GM deems them to be exhausted as the subject-matter of play.   @_*Maxperson*_ and    @_*Lanefan*_ appear to be expressing the latter preference.
> 
> That preference may lead to fun RPGing, or not, depending on a range of factors including (perhaps most importantly) the preferences of the participants. But it seems pretty clear to me that it is not a preference about the "agency" of NPCs/antagonists, or their capacity to oppose the PCs and thereby to be a source of opposition to the players. It is a preference about who exercises what sort of control over the content of the fiction, and be what sorts of procedures that control is exercised.




Yeah I think you're missing the point.  GM Driven games don't by necessity mean players can't resolve the conflicts through action resolution procedures.  It seems the difference is that in GM driven games... well the GM has just as much right to use said resolution procedures for NPC's as well... this leads to the bigger difference I feel [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] seems to be driving at... those of agency and who is the protagonist.  In a player driven game, as far as I have been able to tell only the players through their characters ever act as protagonists and the NPC's, setting, color, history, etc. only exist and are only necessary when facilitating the goal of allowing that protagonism to be expressed, they are only ever reactive (whether as a success or consequence) to the players actions.  

In a GM driven game both players and GM are able to express agency and protagonism through their characters. The GM can drive action just as readily as the players through having agendas and goals for NPC's that are mutable and independent of the PC's actions, having them take proactive actions to realize those agendas in the game (whether that is through means known by the PC's or as you call it secret backstory the players may not be aware of), and leveraging the same mechanics the players can, and perhaps even some they can't, for resolution of actions.  Granted I could be off base with this but this, IMO is the high level difference I've been able to suss out between the two styles.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Campbell said:


> I think directly correlating *just playing your character* to *actor stance* involves a pretty narrow conception of what *playing your character* means and the various ways to approach roleplaying games.
> 
> I can play my character by making decisions for my character based on pursuing the objectives of the game whether stated or not. This is the way D&D was mostly originally played. This is *pawn stance* play.
> 
> I can play my character by making decisions for my character based on on my conception of my character's knowledge, motivation, drives, intuitions, and  goals. This is *actor stance* play.
> 
> I can play my character by making decisions for my character based on my desires for where the narrative should go and what I believe would be best "for the story". This is *author stance* play.
> 
> I can play my character while describing their inner thoughts, things that go unsaid, describing their actions in visual terms, describing dialog in broad strokes, and describing their intent. I can also talk about their connections to the fiction, say how they view the situation, and provide gaps for other players to play off of. This is *director stance* play.
> 
> No matter the stance you are still *playing your character* and making decisions for them.
> 
> I think talking in terms of stance can be a fruitful to tease out player motivations and play techniques. However, there are significant issues with the stance model that I believe can lead us to draw the wrong conclusions about Actual Play. Time to put my beefs out on open display.
> 
> 
> It can often lead to conversations where we talk around issues of player motivations and play techniques instead of directly addressing them in a real way.
> It assumes that we are in a particular stance at any moment and that the stances are mutually exclusive. Actual motivations and human behavior are far more complex than all that. We actually make decisions based on a multitude of considerations that we actively prioritize. We also often justify our decisions after the fact.
> It can serve to limit our discussions of player motivations to the 3 primary stances: actor, author, pawn. It ignores social considerations, aesthetic considerations, and many other factors. Additionally distinctions are not normally made within the particular primary stance. Am I pursuing the objectives of the game because I am motivated by challenge, achievement, status, power to affect the game world, or completion? Is it a combination of these things?
> Director stance depicts a set of techniques, not player motives. These techniques are overly broad. Some instances may be acceptable where others may not. It basically describes any instance where you are not using first person description.




This is very interesting. Don't have time to really digest it right now, so I'll just comment on it to save it for later...


----------



## Sadras

TwoSix said:


> I feel like the pertinent question here is "Does your game procedure allow for the framing of scenes by the DM that are not in response to explicit player declaration?"  For example, to use the advisor concept introduced previously, let's say that the advisor is enraged by the PC's success at reducing his status in court.  He is so enraged that he performs an arcane ritual in secret to summon a malevolent extraplanar entity, which he commands to attack the PCs.
> 
> I think having said demon attack the PCs in retribution would be a natural and expected consequence in "living world"/"NPC agenda" play procedure games.  The PCs have angered the advisor, having the advisor retaliate is a second-order consequence of their actions.   But this framing would be problematic in a BW/Cortex style game, as the advisor's action aren't a direct consequence of any PC's failure to mechanically reach their intent.  Now, being attacked by a demon could be a consequence of a hundred other possible future failures on the PC's part, and tying the demon's appearance back to the spurned advisor would make a satisfying narration for that consequence.  But ultimately, you wouldn't introduce a summoned demon simply as something for the PCs to have a conflict with without player input.






Imaro said:


> No... I think you have it wrong... mainly because I see the advisor as being capable of having an agenda that can be pushed via narration (by the DM/GM of course just as the players narrate the agendas for their PC's).  you say this isn't possible but unless we're getting caught up around the pedantic point of the fictional advisor not being able to narrate (which I think is minor in the realm of the bigger picture)... I've yet to see you posit why the advisor having an agenda (and it being narrated by whoever is playing the advisor) isn't possible as opposed to not preferable to you.
> 
> ...(snip)...
> 
> In a player driven game, as far as I have been able to tell only the players through their characters ever act as protagonists and the NPC's, setting, color, history, etc. only exist and are only necessary when facilitating the goal of allowing that protagonism to be expressed, they are only ever reactive (whether as a success or consequence) to the players actions.




This reminds me of the time where we were discussing consequence of a character's actions and the possibility of a DM narrating a consequence of said action without being a result of a success/failure mechanic. @_*pemerton*_ brought up an example where a decision by a PC to side with the Raven Queen instead of Vecan, resulted in Vecna (without a roll) hurting said PC's familiar. It appears in that instance the NPC (Vecna) had an agenda, which was pushed by GM narration. If I recall correctly, @_*pemerton*_ did not feel this was a real consequence as the 'damage' to the familiar was only temporary (and therefore colour). 

Unless @_*pemerton*_ has changed his position since then, in @_*TwoSix*_'s question and example, the answer would have to be no. The advisor's motivations do not enter the storyline at all which is in line with @_*Imaro*_'s assessment of how pemerton treats NPC's.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> There is a lot going on here. I don't know that I'll respond sensibly to all of it, but will try to convey some of the thoughts I had.




You often respond more sensibly to what I write than I do! :>)



pemerton said:


> (2) Anyone could have been Obi-Wan's apprentice: Luke's name is Skywalker; his father was a great pilot and a great Jedi who left him a lightsabre as an heirloom; his father was killed by Darth Vader. These are the things that make Luke the appropriate heir to the Jedi tradition, and cast him in dramatic opposition to Vader and the Empire. (In a very different way from Leia, whose opposition is political, not personal/spiritual in the same way, at least before the Death Star is used to blow up Alderaan.)




Yes, but as we now know, Vader killed a lot of Jedis. It didn't have to be Vader's son that became the hero (although that's the direction the story later took). In fact, one could argue that the entire Star Wars story shifted from a pulp/action story to something with more depth with that one line at the end of _Empire_. The series shifted from rebellion to redemtion.



pemerton said:


> There are multiple alternatives to random determination: railroading is one; what I have been referring to as player-driven RPGing is another.




A living sandbox is another. I'd say random determination is between 10-40% of what's going on at any given point. Although many of those randomly determined things are options for a placed encounter.



pemerton said:


> But consider using (say) the Stormtrooper massacre at the farm as a framing device. I think it would be harsh for a GM to just do that willy-nilly! It makes sense, rather, as the consequence of a failure. (Say, a failed Navigation roll to travel from Obi-Wan's house back to the farm, having realised the threat posed by the Empire's hunt for the droids.) But to know that that would be an appropriate consequence for failure, one needs to understand what is at stake for the player in declaring that action for his/her PC. This is what I'm saying I couldn't judge without knowing what is motivating the action declaration, which was the trigger for this particular discussion.




So part of the problem I'm having, is that when I look at a scene (like this) I read it as I would run/experience it in my game. 

The "failure" on Luke's part was to purchase the wrong (right) droids and follow the one that ran away. Those were the actions that led to the massacre at the farm.

If I'm the DM of that game, the stormtroopers are hunting down the droids, and killing all they encounter to avoid witnesses that the Empire was there. (To be honest, other than a plot element to free Luke from his home, I'm not sure why the stormtroopers killed the jawas or his family, as it's clear that the Empire is already on Tatooine once they arrive in Los Eisley). In any event, that's what the stormtroopers are doing, so if Luke's not there (by design, or he'd be killed too), they are.

The motivation of the action declaration? Again, the movie unfolds like a game session:

1) Uncle Owen (NPC) has dragged Luke along to get a droid that can help on the farm. Mission: Find droid.

2) DM describes scene at the jawa crawler. There's a bit of role-playing in selecting a droid. It smokes, the Luke PC picks out another one that the DM (as 3PO) points out as another suitable droid.

3) Return to home/bed/morning where the DM describes (via the NPCs) that R2 has disappeared. Luke's motivation? Find him. Could be others, but that's the only one that matters. Off he goes. (Naturally, because the adventure won't continue if he doesn't).

4) The DM describes the terrain, following the tracks, scenes with Obi-Wan, etc. until we get to Luke realizing that the stormtroopers would be heading to his home when they find the jawa crawler.

So I guess what I really don't understand is how that would play out differently if the players were writing more of what's going on in the world. How would this scene be authored differently at your table? The lines seem to be very obviously drawn at certain points in terms of authorship.



pemerton said:


> (4) _The writer provides the world and the characters react to it_: the writer of a fiction is a person in the real world; the characters exist only in imagination. So the two can never interact.




Of course they do. The imaginary characters react to the imaginary world. Whether it's the DM describing the world, or one of the players, it's ultimately the same thing: 

One of the participants is describing what's going on, and then the rest of the participants react to that.

Whether it's one participant responsible for all but the actions of the characters (DM), or that's somehow divided amongst the group as a whole is the only difference. 



pemerton said:


> The writing of a fiction includes the writing of the actions of persons who are elements within that fiction. The question about RPGing is who gets to write which bits, according to what sorts of procedures. Eg does the GM frame Luke (as a PC) into a confrontation with the Empire because the GM wants to run an Empire-oriented game, or the table as a whole does, or the player has written something about opposition into the Empire into the PC's backstory, etc.
> 
> The same sorts of considerations apply to the farm massacre. Who wrote in these family members of Luke the PC? Is the killing off of the farm providing the player/PC with something that s/he wanted (freedom from farming) though at a high cost (death of family members)? Or is it undesired through-and-through?
> 
> These are all questions about authorship, not about in-fiction events.




And as I've said, the players get to write their backstory, with my setting certain boundaries. They'll give me their backstory, and I'll let them know if anything is out-of-bounds, and usually give them some ideas of my own (which are almost always tied into the world). They work those together, and it's up to them if they like what I propose or not and incorporate it if they do. Sometimes we'll go back and forth a bit. But in the end, they have as much freedom as I can give them in the setting, and they have final approval for anything that falls within those boundaries. Obviously, I'm aware of these motivations, goals, etc. at this point.

So the player would have detailed the family and the farm. The killing of the family is an event. In my campaigns it would have been an event dictated by the course of action in the story created by the players - that is, Luke purchased the wrong (right) droids, which then put him, and his family, in the path of the Empire that is looking for the droids and killing all witnesses.

As the DM, that course of action is put into play from the goals of the Empire, the mission of the stormtroopers, and the fact that the trail of the droids leads to Luke. How Luke feels about it is irrelevant in regards to the Empire and the actions they take.

Once the event has occurred, you're asking if there is a silver lining - that's not my decision to make. The player decides how Luke feels about it. He might share how he feels, he might not. Obi-Wan has to react to it, but he reacts to it in character, that is, only with the information at hand, what he can see, and what Luke does and says. If Obi-Wan feels compelled to ask about it, then I'd ask about it, but in character as Obi-Wan. Otherwise, the next decision is still up to Luke - are you with me or not?

Certainly, the more the player reveals about their feelings, the more it gives me to work with. But my knowing the character motivation isn't a requirement. There's no known character motivation in many published adventures. They often give several hooks to help the DM pull the characters in. Sometimes there are specific ones, but then you have to ensure somebody fits that mold. Otherwise the motivations are usually the same - kill the evil monsters, get treasure, save who/whatever.

In many campaigns, they never get past the kill monsters, get treasure (and gain levels and abilities), as the basic motivation. I like to tie them into the world better. They are people, who would prefer to have more than a peasant, probably have some family, probably eventually would like a family, a home, stuff they like, etc. In fact, that's really my primary focus initially - to point out to the players that the characters are people and should act like it. Once again, though, that's instruction and insight provided outside the gaming table, not during the session.

If Luke decides he's free from the farm and his Uncle, might have an inheritance, and go off to university with his friends, then that's where the story leads. Of course, the droids are his too, which might lead the Empire back to him again.

Does the GM frame Luke (the PC) into a confrontation with the Empire? Well, I make it possible. I create the story arc - that is the plans, goals, and actions the NPCs/organizations/monsters/world will be taking unless something changes it. In this case the stormtroopers are after the droids. If Luke doesn't pick these droids, then the stormtroopers find them with the jawas, kills them, and takes the droids. Meanwhile, Luke is still farming. Not as interesting a story perhaps (at least so far), but as I said, it's the players that are writing the story. It's certainly very likely that his path will cross with the Empire's, but it doesn't have to.

In my campaign, the PCs are actively involved in 14 different story arcs right now, if I recall. Some of those are individual personal ones, others are group ones. And some of the group ones are shared by a few of the characters, some by all. They've probably completed as many, and ignored probably 10 times that by now. Because I don't want to be reliant on them picking the "right" one, nor do I want to set up the scenario where they are picking one particular option because they know the DM needs them to.

Luke has to buy those droids. That's really the only option in that story.

In addition, while I think it makes sense and is prudent to have several choices lead in the same general direction, to the same long-term possibility, I don't think all choices should lead there. But I also want them to learn and see, at least sometimes, that their choices have consequences. There is rarely a "right" choice. For example, you know that there is a hit out to assassinate 3 people. You don't have time to alert the authorities, and you can't save them all. There will be consequences related to the one you save, and consequences related to the two you didn't. You might not always see them, but I'll consider them anyway in case they might come into play later.

To what I am seeing more and more as my "simulationist" brain, this is what makes the most sense to me. When you walk out your door in the morning, you could meet somebody you haven't seen in years, you could be in a car accident, you could witness a crime, or there could be an act of nature. You have no control over any of that and, for the most part, none of that gives a crap what your motivations are for the day. The car accident doesn't care if you were on the way to save drowning puppies, or off to rob a bank. All the accident cares about is that you happened to be in that place at that time. 

My dramatic fiction brain thrives on seeing how people react to the world around them. Particularly in difficult situations, moral dilemmas, matters of life and death, things like that.   

I frame the situation: Stormtroopers killed your family.

The next question is, "what do you do?" and not, "how does that make you feel?" The players handle the emotional and psychological reactions, along with their actions. Usually all three of those are fairly evident at the table).


----------



## BryonD

When one side flatly states that they can't perceive the other sides position, doesn't that mean it is time to stop trying to reach a meaningful resolution?


----------



## Ovinomancer

BryonD said:


> When one side flatly states that they can't perceive the other sides position, doesn't that mean it is time to stop trying to reach a meaningful resolution?



Which side is that, exactly?


----------



## Campbell

When it comes down to the adviser example put forth by [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] my own concerns would be entirely focused on the fiction. Was the defeat significant? Did he pay an appropriate social cost? I would have no issues with attempts to mitigate that defeat as long as they came from a place where the GM was playing all their NPCs with integrity and giving the players the victory they have earned. *Don't be a weasel* are words to live by whether you are a GM or another player. I absolutely believe in maintaining a spirit of fair play. That being said I believe [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] made the right call *for the game he was running*. If I was running 4e I would have made the same call.  Part of playing any game involves taking on its own interests.

All that being said I am not really a fan of of games in which player intent becomes a fixture of play. I think it can lead to all sorts of perverse incentives that allow players to protect their characters and drive outcomes through manipulation of the rules in ways that have nothing to do with the interests of the fiction. In a game with explicit stake setting  players have a powerful release valve to mitigate consequences to what they would be willing to accept, run around fictional positioning, and create emotional distance between them and their PC. In particular deficient forms you might even see situations where players stop advocating for their characters and use intent to guarantee that what they really want to happen will happen regardless of the results. It also often means that we cannot have consequential success.

This passage from Play Passionately cuts through to some of the core issues I have with this sort of play for my interests.



			
				The Slippery Slope of Stakes said:
			
		

> Stake Setting is a technique that has become fairly popular over the last few years. At its most basic Stake Setting is simply clearly articulating before the core mechanic is deployed what will be resolved in the fiction by that mechanic. In the earliest games that used this technique it was pretty clear that Stakes were about the in-fiction intentions, goals and wants behind the actions of the in-fiction character. However, over the years Stakes Setting has slid down a slope that is actually detrimental to playing passionately.
> 
> The slope takes Stakes away from being about the immediate in-fiction character concerns about an in-fiction conflict and shifts it towards a focus on the player’s desired outcome. For example, we may see players strategizing for character failure. “If I win, the villain kills my guy.” Sometimes the group resorts to hashing out in full what will happen for BOTH success and failure. “If I win she marries me, but if I lose she marries Joe.” At its most extreme sometimes Stakes will concern things wholly outside the character. “If I win the monster is really the ghost of Captain Roberts!”
> 
> Most often what the trip down this slope is about is protecting the player’s vision of how the story “should” go. The simplest form this takes concerns pre-deciding whether the character should succeed or fail at the conflict at hand and then Stakes become about negotiating what the consequences of that are. This is done in the name of avoiding “disappointing” outcomes when the players are clearly invested in how things “should” go.
> 
> When this happens, Stakes stop being concerned with short-term resolution of at-hand conflicts and become about resolving huge chunks of story all in one go, so that players start competing over how much story they can carve out for themselves. It’s no longer about whether NPC Alice right here and now is receptive to my character’s flirting. Instead it’s suddenly about whether or not Alice marries my character. Soon that becomes, if she doesn’t marry my character then she has to marry NPC Joe because then at least my character can fight him and so on and so on.
> 
> That investment in outcomes and how the story “should” go is what I meant by player-side railroading in my previous article. What’s happened is that the players have cut off their ability to participate as an audience member (with no idea what’s about to happen) in favor of being pure authors (imposing what you WANT to happen).
> 
> Constantly coming to vigorous creative agreement about how the story “should” go and always going for what the players *want* to have happen means the players never challenge themselves. They never let themselves be surprised (in the audience sense) and are never forced to re-evaluate where they want to go next (in the author sense).
> 
> Playing passionately is a delicate two-step between being an author and being an audience. It’s about participating as an author in the short term while preserving all the excitement and anticipation of being an audience in the long term. That happens by being invested in the tension of the situation at hand and rolling with the outcomes the system delivers.




That being said, I don't like have a problem with it. I just find it can interfere with the fantasy of playing a character in the moment and really playing to find out what happens. There are techniques that can help mitigate this. We can be really disciplined about staying focused on character intent. We can call shenanigans when we feel players are attempting to railroad play towards the outcomes they want rather than advocating for their characters.

Story Advocacy vs. Character Advocacy and the effects it has on meaningful tension, emotive play, and player experience of the fictions is probably the longest and most contentious debate within the indie community. I do not expect to solve it today. I just wanted to throw it out there.


----------



## BryonD

Ovinomancer said:


> Which side is that, exactly?




this



pemerton said:


> In my view this doesn't mark out any meaningful distinction.
> 
> There is no meaningful difference that I can see between _the world exists for players to pit themselves against, as an antagonist_ (which is your characterisation of "player-centric") and _the world and NPCs have their own agendas, that they force against players_ (which is your characterisation of "GM-centric"). Both describe relationships of opposition between the desires of PCs and the desires of NPCs/antagonists (or "the gameworld" in some more general, somewhat anthropomorphised, conception).


----------



## Ovinomancer

BryonD said:


> this




Thanks, I'm not fond of rhetorical questions.  I tend to drive straight at them.


----------



## Campbell

I'm going to take another stab at the framing of play as either GM driven or driven by the other players. Previously, I have taken issue with presenting this as a binary, particularly in regard to my desire to not really have anyone driving for particular outcomes, but for everyone to simply bring it and play the game to find out what happens. I am going to attack it from another angle.

If player agency is not a thing that you either have or you do not have is it a spectrum? I do not think so. I believe we have agency over specific things. Historically, one of my major pain points with playing most mainstream roleplaying games is the tactical overhead view it tends to give you of your character, the setting, and their situation instead of the deeply personal view that we have of our own lives. We tend to have far more agency over our characters in a roleplaying game than we do over our own lives. Things like the weight of social obligations, the people we care about, our cultural traditions and practices, emotional safety, limits of perspective, our natural curiosity, our personalities, and our own intuitions and emotions hold far more sway over us than they do for our characters. This often results in a sort of Uber Rational form of play where Player Characters seldom seem like authentic people. Roleplaying games often do a good job of representing physical violence and consequences, but often ignore the vast and far reaching impact of other elements of the fiction.

One of the things that most indie roleplaying games push back against is the *Walled Off Gardens* we create when we play most mainstream roleplaying games. In Systems Design a *Walled Off Garden* is an information system where users can only interact and use data in pre-approved ways. Access is rigidly controlled. The ways in which we generally play most mainstream games function in very similar ways. We have Character Concepts, Visions For Our Worlds, and The Story to think of. We don't want to risk that anyone might get hurt, but we don't really want to talk about stuff so we construct these very elaborate webs of ways you are allowed to use my stuff.

I don't mean for that to come off super harsh. I just mean that we are generally very protective of the things that belong to us. Because play exists in this culture where my character wholly belongs to me and is not shared it is precious to me. Generally as a condition of play I accept that physical violence might happen to my character, but other forms of violence are generally off the table. This includes social violence, psychological violence, emotional violence, and can even include what I would call *Conceptual Violence*. *Conceptual Violence* occurs when the events of play redefine a character in a way that makes a player like them or identify with them less. So if I'm the Social Guy and I fail a crucial Diplomacy roll in a crunch moment I look over to the GM because I *don't want the dice to define my character*. Here's another example: I am playing a Paladin because I love the idea of playing a good guy with a *Code of Honor*. I don't really want my character to be put in situations where following the code is difficult for me as a player because I want to play a good guy - not a conflicted guy. This is a form of player agency generally expected in mainstream play, but not in most indie play. Fate is real big on protecting players from *Conceptual Violence*.

Consider social mechanics in most mainstream roleplaying games. Generally players' characters are immune to being meaningfully influenced by other players' characters and NPCs except in ways that players allow. Additionally mechanisms for influencing NPCs are entirely under the GM's purvey. Let's contrast this with a game like *Masks*. In Masks there are no mechanisms to represent lasting physical harm, but there are mechanisms with teeth to represent who a character cares about, how they see themselves, and their emotional states. These mechanisms can be deployed from one player's character to another player's character, on NPCs, and as consequences applied by the GM. We are all required to follow the fiction, and the player character affecting mechanisms provide more room for decision making. Still this is a meaningful difference in player agency. When running Masks one of my hard moves is to say now you care about what this NPC has to say and there are mechanics that back that up. A player can also *provoke someone susceptible to their words* say what an NPC does and as long as it makes sense in the fiction and they succeed as the GM I cannot do a damn thing about it. I have to follow the fiction.

Let's say I am running Burning Wheel and two players' characters get into an argument about stuff that hinges on their beliefs. According to my principles as I GM if one player isn't willing to Say Yes to the other we are going to Roll The Dice. I would call for a binding Duel of Wits.

The same concept applies for things like character backstory. In the games I prefer to run and play you do not get to come to the table with a 2-3 page backstory or any backstory at all really. We are all collaborators. I want everyone to be interested in everyone's stuff. I also want this stuff to actually matter to play. The best way to encourage that is to work on it together in a meaningful way. I fully expect connections between various players' stuff and active and vigorous collaboration. This is a meaningful difference in agency.

Finally, let's take a look at the assumption that the players' characters are part of a group and can depend on one another. In many of the games I like to run and play this is not a valid assumption to make. I expect shared interests on the part of all players, but do not require it of their characters. Often a significant portion of the active adversity in a game like Apocalypse World can come from the other players' characters. If you want their help you generally have to actually earn it. Alliances are often temporary and tend to shift over time. I feel like this is also a fundamental difference in player agency.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I don't understand why you're trying to correct me on my understanding of an episode of play that I GMed and you didn't, using a mechanic that (as best I'm aware) you are not familiar with and that I am very familiar with.




I can only go by what you say here, and what you've described here is as I've stated it.  As stated here, the advisor attempting mitigation would not negate the challenge the PCs won.  If you have some other information you have not described here that would change that, please share it.



> The players succeeded in a skill challenge which established that the advisor revealed himself in a way that did not undermine the PCs' standing in the eyes of the baron (and other worthies), but rather redounded upon the advisor himself. That's not up for dispute: it's what happened at the table.




Correct.  It also would not be altered at all if the advisor was able to mitigate the damage.



> The fact that you keep redescribing the outcome, by reference only to a narrow conception of the events in the fiction, rather than the _actual_ outcome, doesn't change the reality of what actually took place. You say _ the challenge to out the advisor also prevents mitigation, even though one doesn't affect the other since they are two separate events._ This assertion is an error. Success in the challenge established, in the fiction, the relationship (i) of the advisor to the baron and (ii) of the baron to the PCs.




Actually, I'm saying that it doesn't prevent mitigation.  The success of the established challenge as you have described it was that the outing not affect the PCs.  If he mitigates things, they are still not affected and he still outed himself.



> I don't know what you mean by "separate events", but neither (i) nor (ii) is separate from the players' success in the skill challenge. They are the direct consequences of that success.




Event number 1 is the challenge to get the advisor to out himself.  Event number 2 is the advisor attempting to mitigate the damage caused by event number 1.



> Thus, when - in the next session - I started framing something that put that success into doubt, a player called me on it. He was correct to do so. The players are entitled to their victory, and it is not liable to being undone by GM reframing.



As you have described it here, you weren't actually putting the success in doubt.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> This characterisation of play seems to involve a category error: it posits that NPCs exercise causal power over the events at the gaming table.
> 
> That is impossible, though, because NPCs are purely imaginary, and imaginary beings don't exercise causal influence over real-world events.




This is not correct.  The NPCs do exercise that power over events.  They do it through the DM who has created the personality, desires and goals, quirks, etc. for that NPC and puts himself into the NPC's shoes to make that decision.  When I make a decision for an NPC, I am not making a decision for myself at all.  The NPC may decide to take a course that I myself would not take were I to make the same decision on my own.  

The same presumably applies to PCs.  The players ought to be making the decisions that their PCs would make, and not the ones that the players just feel like making without any thought about the PCs goals and motivations.




> That is,    [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is not "see[ing] the advisor as having an agenda that can be pushed against the players via narration" (the advisor doesn't _narrate_ - the advisor simply _acts_). Rather, Maxperson is seeing the _GM_ as enjoying the authority to put into question, in some fashion, the advisor's relationship with the baron _in spite of_ the outcome of the skill challenge (he hasn't explained exactly how this would be done: does he imagine the GM rolling a CHA/Diplomacy/Persuasion check for the advisor against some DC also set by the GM?).




No.  I am in fact seeing the advisor as having his own agenda.



> I think that if I had described the PCs using (say) some sort of Geas spell on the advisor, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] would not be positing that the matter of the advisor's capacity to change his relationship with the baron is still open. Which is to say, Maxperson is not confused, in general, by the concept of finality in resolution. For whatever reason, though, he seems unable to accept that finality had been achieved on this occasion, via this particular mechanical procedure.




Correct.  I get you view it as final.  My issue is the advisor developing a spontaneous case of retarded in order to accomplish that finality, because retarded is the only thing that explains him not attempting to mitigate the damage.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> I'm going to take another stab at the framing of play as either GM driven or driven by the other players. Previously, I have taken issue with presenting this as a binary, particularly in regard to my desire to not really have anyone driving for particular outcomes, but for everyone to simply bring it and play the game to find out what happens. I am going to attack it from another angle.
> 
> If player agency is not a thing that you either have or you do not have is it a spectrum? I do not think so. I believe we have agency over specific things. Historically, one of my major pain points with playing most mainstream roleplaying games is the tactical overhead view it tends to give you of your character, the setting, and their situation instead of the deeply personal view that we have of our own lives. We tend to have far more agency over our characters in a roleplaying game than we do over our own lives. Things like the weight of social obligations, the people we care about, our cultural traditions and practices, emotional safety, limits of perspective, our natural curiosity, our personalities, and our own intuitions and emotions hold far more sway over us than they do for our characters. This often results in a sort of Uber Rational form of play where Player Characters seldom seem like authentic people. Roleplaying games often do a good job of representing physical violence and consequences, but often ignore the vast and far reaching impact of other elements of the fiction.
> 
> One of the things that most indie roleplaying games push back against is the *Walled Off Gardens* we create when we play most mainstream roleplaying games. In Systems Design a *Walled Off Garden* is an information system where users can only interact and use data in pre-approved ways. Access is rigidly controlled. The ways in which we generally play most mainstream games function in very similar ways. We have Character Concepts, Visions For Our Worlds, and The Story to think of. We don't want to risk that anyone might get hurt, but we don't really want to talk about stuff so we construct these very elaborate webs of ways you are allowed to use my stuff.
> 
> I don't mean for that to come off super harsh. I just mean that we are generally very protective of the things that belong to us. Because play exists in this culture where my character wholly belongs to me and is not shared it is precious to me. Generally as a condition of play I accept that physical violence might happen to my character, but other forms of violence are generally off the table. This includes social violence, psychological violence, emotional violence, and can even include what I would call *Conceptual Violence*. *Conceptual Violence* occurs when the events of play redefine a character in a way that makes a player like them or identify with them less. So if I'm the Social Guy and I fail a crucial Diplomacy roll in a crunch moment I look over to the GM because I *don't want the dice to define my character*. Here's another example: I am playing a Paladin because I love the idea of playing a good guy with a *Code of Honor*. I don't really want my character to be put in situations where following the code is difficult for me as a player because I want to play a good guy - not a conflicted guy. This is a form of player agency generally expected in mainstream play, but not in most indie play. Fate is real big on protecting players from *Conceptual Violence*.
> 
> Consider social mechanics in most mainstream roleplaying games. Generally players' characters are immune to being meaningfully influenced by other players' characters and NPCs except in ways that players allow. Additionally mechanisms for influencing NPCs are entirely under the GM's purvey. Let's contrast this with a game like *Masks*. In Masks there are no mechanisms to represent lasting physical harm, but there are mechanisms with teeth to represent who a character cares about, how they see themselves, and their emotional states. These mechanisms can be deployed from one player's character to another player's character, on NPCs, and as consequences applied by the GM. We are all required to follow the fiction, and the player character affecting mechanisms provide more room for decision making. Still this is a meaningful difference in player agency. When running Masks one of my hard moves is to say now you care about what this NPC has to say and there are mechanics that back that up. A player can also *provoke someone susceptible to their words* say what an NPC does and as long as it makes sense in the fiction and they succeed as the GM I cannot do a damn thing about it. I have to follow the fiction.
> 
> Let's say I am running Burning Wheel and two players' characters get into an argument about stuff that hinges on their beliefs. According to my principles as I GM if one player isn't willing to Say Yes to the other we are going to Roll The Dice. I would call for a binding Duel of Wits.
> 
> The same concept applies for things like character backstory. In the games I prefer to run and play you do not get to come to the table with a 2-3 page backstory or any backstory at all really. We are all collaborators. I want everyone to be interested in everyone's stuff. I also want this stuff to actually matter to play. The best way to encourage that is to work on it together in a meaningful way. I fully expect connections between various players' stuff and active and vigorous collaboration. This is a meaningful difference in agency.
> 
> Finally, let's take a look at the assumption that the players' characters are part of a group and can depend on one another. In many of the games I like to run and play this is not a valid assumption to make. I expect shared interests on the part of all players, but do not require it of their characters. Often a significant portion of the active adversity in a game like Apocalypse World can come from the other players' characters. If you want their help you generally have to actually earn it. Alliances are often temporary and tend to shift over time. I feel like this is also a fundamental difference in player agency.




This is good stuff, but I'm genuinely confused by what you mean by player agency in this context.  I view it as the ability for the player to make meaningful choices, but you seem to view it more as how much jeopardy of harm the player may be in via his character and/or how much other players have a say in how a player plays his character?  Because, to be frank, the idea that that DM can dictate that I, as a player, must play my character in a way that forces me to care about an NPC is alien to the concept of player agency.  It's an interesting mechanic, for sure, but it actively requires that the player relinquish some agency, some freedoms of choice, for it to take effect.

I do agree about many mainstream games (read D&D here) work to reduce a character to a set of numbers and combat abilities.  I'm trying to break down my players reaching for dice to answer questions as they ask them and instead frame their intent and, if I deem it necessary, I'll ask for them to roll.  Mostly because I'm tired of "I ask the guard where (clatter) the King is, I have a 13 Diplomacy check," but also because I'd like them to consider their character as more than the numbers.

What's funny about this is that they do this very well in some other systems, but prefer D&D and always seem to revert to type.


----------



## Maxperson

Imaro said:


> IMO your analogies all seem off... I feel like this is akin to your PC loosing a battle... then going up a level, finding a magic sword and going back to ambush the same guy who beat you... and you as DM claiming the battle between you two was already decided you can never fight him in any way again.  IMO... it's not the same challenge it is a different challenge with a (slightly) different agenda.




This is a good point.  If the DM is not allowed to do anything that might affect a success, the PCs become in effect immortal after their first success at anything.  Death would completely "undo" that success in the same way that mitigation "undoes" the advisor's outing.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> That is,    [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is not "see[ing] the advisor as having an agenda that can be pushed against the players via narration" (the advisor doesn't _narrate_ - the advisor simply _acts_). Rather, Maxperson is seeing the _GM_ as enjoying the authority to put into question, in some fashion, the advisor's relationship with the baron _in spite of_ the outcome of the skill challenge (he hasn't explained exactly how this would be done: does he imagine the GM rolling a CHA/Diplomacy/Persuasion check for the advisor against some DC also set by the GM?).




It doesn't really matter what resolution method he uses, but you might want to be careful about trying to get into someone else's head. How do you know he's not seeing the advisor has having agency? That's *your* bias. I'm not convinced it's his.




pemerton said:


> Whereas I have repeatedly, and quite clearly, asserted that _the relationship between advisor and baron_ is settled as part of the skill challenge. It's one of the outcomes that the players, by their play of their PCs, have secured. This is why I made the comparison to reducing an enemy to zero hp; or to a moral or loyalty check in classic D&D. These are all mechanics the produce finality in resolution: they don't simply generate temporary pertubations in the fiction which the GM is free to retest or reopen.
> 
> I think that if I had described the PCs using (say) some sort of Geas spell on the advisor, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] would not be positing that the matter of the advisor's capacity to change his relationship with the baron is still open. Which is to say, Maxperson is not confused, in general, by the concept of finality in resolution. For whatever reason, though, he seems unable to accept that finality had been achieved on this occasion, via this particular mechanical procedure.
> 
> This is not correct. (And, again, appears to involve the same category error.)




It is, however, perfectly reasonable. Have you given us any reason to believe the advisor's agendas, whatever they are, are permanently and conclusively foiled other than to say the players passed some mechanical test that exposed the advisor? For Maxperson, using one method to foil and agenda isn't necessarily the end of the matter. And that's every bit as reasonable as your assertion that their mechanical pass permanently settles the issue because either could be true based on the fiction of the event and the ultimate consequences the advisor faced. If he merely lost the trust of the baron, that trust could be repaired. If he was imprisoned, he could be released, even pardoned. If he was executed, well... let's just say that villains often have ambiguous deaths. That's what enables them to be recurring villains.
If you've decided that the advisor's done because you won't be using him in your scene framing in the future - fine. It's final. But a similar situation in Maxperson's game, clearly, wouldn't be final.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> one of my major pain points with playing most mainstream roleplaying games is the tactical overhead view it tends to give you of your character, the setting, and their situation instead of the deeply personal view that we have of our own lives. We tend to have far more agency over our characters in a roleplaying game than we do over our own lives. Things like the weight of social obligations, the people we care about, our cultural traditions and practices, emotional safety, limits of perspective, our natural curiosity, our personalities, and our own intuitions and emotions hold far more sway over us than they do for our characters. This often results in a sort of Uber Rational form of play where Player Characters seldom seem like authentic people. Roleplaying games often do a good job of representing physical violence and consequences, but often ignore the vast and far reaching impact of other elements of the fiction.



I think a fairly typical manifestation of what you call "Uber Rational" play, and what I would probably call a species of "alienation" from the PC, is the idea that social interaction can all be handled by "the face" character - as if the fighter, the wizard etc go through life never having anything they want to say to another, never being moved, etc.

One feature of the advisor scenario that I haven't paricularly called out, but that I think is rather significant as one sign or marker of how it was unfolding at the table, is that (i) the final check of the challenge is a social chec (to goad the advisor), and (ii) it is made by the player of the 10 CHA, no trained social skills, fighter/cleric. That is to say, the player is invested in the fiction, and _cares about how the fictional position of his PC_. He doesn't want his PC to just sit there looking gormless, the butt of the advisor's jibes, and so he (in character) _speaks out_.

I have also seen this happen in combat eg the invoker/wizard charge an opponent wielding his Rod of Seven Parts. Because that is what expresses the motivations of the PC given the fictional position, even if - from a wargaming point of view - it is not the most rational of choices.

An interseting feature of 4e, compared to (say) AD&D or BW, is that it tends to create a lot of space for these sorts of "irrational" action declarations because it is rather soft on players as far as consequences are concerned. I can imagine that for your ( [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s) concerns, that might make it a bit insipid. For me, it is a fairly nice reconciliation of my sentimentality (which wants the players to win) and my desire for the game to emphasis immersion in the fiction and the characters (which I feel it delivers, as per these examples I've given).



Campbell said:


> Generally as a condition of play I accept that physical violence might happen to my character, but other forms of violence are generally off the table. This includes social violence, psychological violence, emotional violence, and can even include what I would call *Conceptual Violence*. *Conceptual Violence* occurs when the events of play redefine a character in a way that makes a player like them or identify with them less.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Consider social mechanics in most mainstream roleplaying games. Generally players' characters are immune to being meaningfully influenced by other players' characters and NPCs except in ways that players allow.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Let's say I am running Burning Wheel and two players' characters get into an argument about stuff that hinges on their beliefs. According to my principles as I GM if one player isn't willing to Say Yes to the other we are going to Roll The Dice. I would call for a binding Duel of Wits.



Again, this made me think of some episodes of play I've experienced.

In the OP game, after the discovery of the cursed black arrows (which some posters upthread characterised as what you have called "conceptual violence), there was a DoW between the mage PC and the wizard/assassin (assisted by the elven ronin). The mage lost, and so had to give up on his commitment to redeem his brother.

In our MHRP game, after seeing Wolverine kill a defeated NPC in cold blood and thereby suffering significant emotional trauma, the same player - playing Nightcrawler - reached the 10 XP trigger for his religious milestone, and abandoned his religion. Which then required spending 5 XP to change out his Devout Catholic distinction. The character definintely changed as a result of those things.

4e doesn't really allow for this sort of thing, because it's got no really effective PvP mechanics (even if the focus is just on combat, PvP combat in 4e is not going to play all that well for my purposes, because it won't leverage the mechanical features of the system that - again, for my purposes - make the system work, which depend on the various mechanical asymmetries between PCs and NPCs).


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> a fictional construct can be assigned agendas (else how do stories work?), and those can be played with integrity by the DM/GM.



This happened in the episode of play I described. The advisor had an agenda. He pursued it (as described in the post you quoted). He failed.

That is why I disagree with the contrast you drew between "GM-centric" and "player-centric". There is no difference in respect of NPCs pursuit of their agendas. The difference concerns the process whereby the outcome of that agenda is resolved.



Imaro said:


> My understanding of the area of contention seems to be around in-game events where the NPC can exercise causal power over said events.  You may exercise a playstyle where that isn't a desired aspect of play but that doesn't make it impossible.



Huh? Of cousre the advisor can, in the fiction, _do things_ (ie exercise causal power over the fiction). Eg he can say things, which others hear.

That's not in dispute.

What [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] is saying, however, is that _the advisor saying things might change the baron's mind about him_. Whereas, in the particular context under discussion, that is not going to happen because _the baron's mind is already made up_. And the players achieved that result, by succeeding at the skill challenge.

In other words, the issue is not _what can the advisor do in the fiction_? It is _what directions for the fiction are open, or not, give what has happened at the table_?



Imaro said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The advisor had his own agenda. He pursued it. He attempted to force the PCs' hands, in two ways (at least: the session was several years ago, and so even with the benefit of an actual play report my memory is not perfect):
> 
> (1) The advisor tried to trick/goad the PCs into revealing information about the whereabouts of the tapestry; the players dealt with this by such measures as taking steps to ensure that the most vulnerable PC, the dwarven fighter/cleric with CHA 10 and poor social skills, was not at the table with the advisor;
> 
> (2) The advisor escalated things to try and force the PCs to reveal him to the baron, so that they would be tarnished as trying to smear him and/or take advantage of his magic secrets (eg the tapestry), rather than being the heroes who had saved the baron from his influence. Had the players failed at the challenge, it is likely that something of this sort would have happened, as the evening would have ended with the advisor leaving the dinner, apparently forced out by the PCs speaking against him but not proving their case.​
> His attempts to do this, however, failed. The PCs kept the information about the tapestry secret; and the advisor's strategy (2) ended up backfiring, as the baron accepted the word of the dwarven "paladin", in the context of the advisor being goaded into revealing himself.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can I ask two questions...
> 
> 1.) Who initiated a mechanical resolution of this?
> 2.) How was that mechanical resolution implemented?
Click to expand...


Here is a link (perhaps the third or fourth time I've linked it in this series of posts) to the actual play report. That post contains the answers to your questions. The short version: the PCs attended dinner with the baron, at the baron's request; they matched wits with the advisor; the advisor lost. Mechanically, this was a skill challenge. It was framed and adjudicated by me, the GM. The skill checks whose resolution determined the outcome were made by the players, for their PCs.



Imaro said:


> GM Driven games don't by necessity mean players can't resolve the conflicts through action resolution procedures.  It seems the difference is that in GM driven games... well the GM has just as much right to use said resolution procedures for NPC's as well
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In a GM driven game both players and GM are able to express agency and protagonism through their characters. The GM can drive action just as readily as the players through having agendas and goals for NPC's



As I have already posted, the advisor had his agenda. He pursued it. In the particular context of 4e skill challenge resolution, this occured via my narration of the advisor's actions: to quote from the original actual play report ("Paldemar" is the advisor),



pemerton said:


> The general pattern involved - Paldemar asking the PCs about their exploits; either the paladin or the sorcerer using Bluff to defuse the question and/or evade revealing various secrets they didn't want Paldemar to know; either the paladin or the wizard then using Diplomacy to try to change the topic of conversation to something else - including the Baron's family history; and Paldemar dragging things back onto the PCs exploits and discoveries over the course of their adventures.
> 
> Following advice given by LostSoul on these boards back in the early days of 4e, my general approach to running the skill challenge was to keep pouring on the pressure, so as to give the players a reason to have their PCs do things. And one particular point of pressure was the dwarf fighter/cleric - in two senses. In story terms, he was the natural focus of the Baron's attention, because the PCs had been presenting him as their leader upon entering the town, and subsequently. And the Baron was treating him as, in effect, a noble peer, "Lord Derrik of the Dwarfholm to the East". And in mechanical terms, he has no training in social skills and a CHA of 10, so putting the pressure on him forced the players to work out how they would save the situation, and stop the Baron inadvertantly, or Paldemar deliberately, leading Derrik into saying or denying something that would give away secrets.



The NPC pursued his goals. He lost. There is no difference between you, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] and me over whether or not NPCs have goals and pursue them. The difference is over _how to determine when the PCs fail in that pursuit_.



Sadras said:


> The advisor's motivations do not enter the storyline at all



This is wrong. The advisor's motivations are central to the scene, as is evident in the description of it in the actual play report (linked and quoted above).



Imaro said:


> I see the advisor as being capable of having an agenda that can be pushed via narration (by the DM/GM of course just as the players narrate the agendas for their PC's).  you say this isn't possible



No. To repeat mysefl: I'm saying that _that already happened, and the NPC lost_.

This is why I keep using the word _finality_. The NPC tried to push his agenda, but it didn't work. The PCs' counter-agenda succeeded, resulting in the advisor's standing at court being undone. (This is why, in multiple posts, I have made the comparison to Wormtongue being outed as a traitor at the court of King Thedoen.)



Imaro said:


> I don't think the confusion was around finality in resolution but around, as @_*Ovinomancer*_ cited, a difference of playstyle in how NPC's are run and what purpose they serve.



 [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] didn't identify any difference in purpose. He purported to contrast _the world existing for players to pit themselves against, as an antagonist_ (the characterisation of "player-centric") and _the world and NPCs having their own agendas, that they force against players_ (the characterisation of "GM-centric"). But there is no contrast between these things. They are just two different ways of describing opposition between the PCs and various other elements of the shared fiction.

What I am talking about is the difference in _how NPC's are run_. The particular difference at issue in this discussion is over _who gets to determine that a NPC failed in pursuing his/her agenda_.



Imaro said:


> what I (and others I believe) don't understand is why the advisor can not then pursue a different agenda of mitigating the fall out in the eyes of the Baron
> 
> <snip>
> 
> even with your example of a geas spell... it isn't a permanent settling of said relationship.  It has a duration, means of dispelling it, etc.



The advisor can - in the fiction - do whatever he wants. It's just that _at the table, we already know_ that such stuff is mere colour. The baron's mind is made up about the advisor, because the players won the skill challenge.

There's no mystery here. That's what it means to win a skill challenge with the goal (among other things) of estabslishing the baron's opinion of the advisor.

On the permanence of this (or of a Geas spell, etc), see my post immediately after the one you replied to. Dispelling the geas is in the same general ballpark of GM moves as raising the defeated enemy from the dead, etc. The issue of when results can be reopened is a significant one. But they can't be reopened in the session immediately following the players' victory, when nothing in the fiction has changed to reopen them, and nothing at the table has changed either (eg the players haven't had a subsequent failure, which might have as its consequence the advisor once again growing in the baron's estimation).



Imaro said:


> IMO your analogies all seem off... I feel like this is akin to your PC loosing a battle



I don't at all understand how the players winning a skill challenge is meant to be analogous to the PCs _losing_ a battle. However, if that is how you see it, it would help explain why you do not share my view about the significance of the players' successs.



TwoSix said:


> I feel like the pertinent question here is "Does your game procedure allow for the framing of scenes by the DM that are not in response to explicit player declaration?"  For example, to use the advisor concept introduced previously, let's say that the advisor is enraged by the PC's success at reducing his status in court.  He is so enraged that he performs an arcane ritual in secret to summon a malevolent extraplanar entity, which he commands to attack the PCs.
> 
> I think having said demon attack the PCs in retribution would be a natural and expected consequence in "living world"/"NPC agenda" play procedure games.  The PCs have angered the advisor, having the advisor retaliate is a second-order consequence of their actions.   But this framing would be problematic in a BW/Cortex style game, as the advisor's action aren't a direct consequence of any PC's failure to mechanically reach their intent.  Now, being attacked by a demon could be a consequence of a hundred other possible future failures on the PC's part, and tying the demon's appearance back to the spurned advisor would make a satisfying narration for that consequence.  But ultimately, you wouldn't introduce a summoned demon simply as something for the PCs to have a conflict with without player input.



This is interesting.

In the actual game that this came from, the advisor - having lost socially - set out to win via brute magical power (ie the scene transitioned into a combat scene). The players had no objection to this: in D&D 4e combat is, in general, a "legitimate" (heck, even a default) mode of presenting and resolving opposition; and it followed naturally from what they had succeeded in doing (goading the advisor into outing himself).

In BW, I think it would depend on other elements of context - eg, what other Beliefs various PCs have about the advisor, opposing demon summoners, etc.

I agree that there are constraints on framing that go beyond asking "What would I do if I were an evil advisor outed at court?"


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> @_*pemerton*_ brought up an example where a decision by a PC to side with the Raven Queen instead of Vecan, resulted in Vecna (without a roll) hurting said PC's familiar. It appears in that instance the NPC (Vecna) had an agenda, which was pushed by GM narration. If I recall correctly, @_*pemerton*_ did not feel this was a real consequence as the 'damage' to the familiar was only temporary (and therefore colour).



You recall isn't quite correct.

The consequence was not mere colour. It was a meaningful consequence. It followed from what the player had staked on the action resolution, which had two main "vectors": (1) The player (as his PC) had implanted the Eye of Vecna in his familiar; (2) The player (as his PC) had chosen to thwart Vecna by actively taking the steps to ensure that the soulds of the dead of the Underdark would flow to the Raven Queen rather than to Vecna.


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> This is good stuff, but I'm genuinely confused by what you mean by player agency in this context.  I view it as the ability for the player to make meaningful choices, but you seem to view it more as how much jeopardy of harm the player may be in via his character and/or how much other players have a say in how a player plays his character?  Because, to be frank, the idea that that DM can dictate that I, as a player, must play my character in a way that forces me to care about an NPC is alien to the concept of player agency.  It's an interesting mechanic, for sure, but it actively requires that the player relinquish some agency, some freedoms of choice, for it to take effect.
> 
> I do agree about many mainstream games (read D&D here) work to reduce a character to a set of numbers and combat abilities.  I'm trying to break down my players reaching for dice to answer questions as they ask them and instead frame their intent and, if I deem it necessary, I'll ask for them to roll.  Mostly because I'm tired of "I ask the guard where (clatter) the King is, I have a 13 Diplomacy check," but also because I'd like them to consider their character as more than the numbers.
> 
> What's funny about this is that they do this very well in some other systems, but prefer D&D and always seem to revert to type.




It does involve giving up a measure of agency we normally have in most mainstream games and is definitely not right for everyone, and should adamantly be done with discipline and sensitivity. However, it helps us to go places where we would otherwise not go and experience compelling stories that are fundamentally about characters.

In a game like Masks players retain complete autonomy over character actions. This is not like Vampire where we fail our Self Control roll and frenzy. What changes is the mechanical impact of those actions. When someone has Influence over you it is harder to work against them on a mechanical level. Let's take a look at the impact of one of the Conditions which represent a character's emotional state:

When you are *Angry* take -2 to *Comfort or Support Someone* or *Pierce The Mask*. Being Angry means it is difficult to provide emotional aid or see beyond the obvious.
Clear *Angry* by hurting someone or breaking something important. You can remove the *Angry Condition* by lashing out. You can still control your anger. It just impacts you until you either act out or someone *Comforts Or Supports* you. The game also provides other means to clear *Conditions*.

It's all about providing a play space where other elements of the fiction can be just as important and worthy of representation as the physical stuff. We have all been conditioned to accept that we do not have agency over physical consequences even though that has a dramatic and binding impact over our play experience. I'm not sure how social and emotional consequences are meaningfully different. In meatspace I do not have control over when I am angry, the impact of other people's words, or my cultural indoctrination. I still control my behavior, but these things are impactful. The game is structured so that there is plenty of meaningful decisions to be made around the themes of growing up, coming together as a team, social pressure from adults and your peers, and dealing with the turbulence of adolescence. Plus kicking some super villain tail in between. It's meant to provide an experience like the Teen Titans, Young Justice, or New Mutants.  

It is a particular philosophy of game design. It says that rules can serve to reinforce the experience of playing a character with integrity. They can bring our characters experiences to life and let us live them. Through the right resolution mechanics, the right reward systems, and principled play we can alleviate the conflicts that exist between playing our characters with integrity, playing the mechanics, and playing the fiction optimally. When we do things right they are the exact same thing.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> Thus, when - in the next session - *I started framing something that put that success into doubt*, a player called me on it. He was correct to do so. The players are entitled to their victory, and it is not liable to being undone by GM reframing.



 That's the (bolded) bit I'm confused by.  We're you 'framing' things at the next session to negate the prior SC, so they'd have to out the NPC all over again?  I know you said you didn't remember the specifics, but I'm having trouble thinking of something that'd do that, rather than just being 'damage control' or 'spin' on the NPC's part.  Sudden reversals of fortune are a standard in genre, well, pulp and melodrama corners of genre, anyway.  



pemerton said:


> The advisor had his own agenda. He pursued it. He attempted to force the PCs' hands, in two ways (at least: the session was several years ago, and so even with the benefit of an actual play report my memory is not perfect):
> 
> (1) The advisor tried to trick/goad the PCs into revealing information about the whereabouts of the tapestry; the players dealt with this by such measures as taking steps to ensure that the most vulnerable PC, the dwarven fighter/cleric with CHA 10 and poor social skills, was not at the table with the advisor;
> 
> (2) The advisor escalated things to try and force the PCs to reveal him to the baron, so that they would be tarnished as trying to smear him and/or take advantage of his magic secrets (eg the tapestry), rather than being the heroes who had saved the baron from his influence. Had the players failed at the challenge, it is likely that something of this sort would have happened, as the evening would have ended with the advisor leaving the dinner, apparently forced out by the PCs speaking against him but not proving their case.​
> His attempts to do this, however, failed. The PCs kept the information about the tapestry secret; and the advisor's strategy (2) ended up backfiring, as the baron accepted the word of the dwarven "paladin", in the context of the advisor being goaded into revealing himself.
> 
> Just as, in combat, a NPC can't keep pursuing his/her agenda if reduced to zero hp, or if his/her moral breaks; so likewise in a skill challenge. If the challenge is resolved with the players successful, and their success defeats the NPC's agenda, then that is as it is: the agenda has failed.



 OK, that helps, some.


----------



## Lanefan

This is all too hifalutin' for me so I'm just going to poke at a few specific logs in the fire...


Campbell said:


> I don't mean for that to come off super harsh. I just mean that we are generally very protective of the things that belong to us. Because play exists in this culture where my character wholly belongs to me and is not shared it is precious to me. Generally as a condition of play I accept that physical violence might happen to my character, but other forms of violence are generally off the table. This includes social violence, psychological violence, emotional violence, and can even include what I would call *Conceptual Violence*. *Conceptual Violence* occurs when the events of play redefine a character in a way that makes a player like them or identify with them less.



Would this include things like unexpected and permanent alignment change, thus forcing a change of character class due to alignment restrictions?  Permanent polymorph into an obvious member of a different culture than your own (thus completely changing one's relationship with one's own culture)?  Cloning?  Long-term quest or geas effects that force a character into certain courses of action she might well never have otherwise taken?  Charm and-or domination effects, whether by another PC or by the opposition?  Etc.

I ask because these are all things that have happened in our games.  Quests and charms happen all the time, the others much less often but all have happened to my own PCs.

It's part of the game.



> Consider social mechanics in most mainstream roleplaying games. Generally players' characters are immune to being meaningfully influenced by other players' characters and NPCs except in ways that players allow.



Depends how much PvP you allow.  Charming someone else's unco-operative PC is a staple around here. 



> When running Masks one of my hard moves is to say now you care about what this NPC has to say and there are mechanics that back that up. A player can also *provoke someone susceptible to their words* say what an NPC does and as long as it makes sense in the fiction and they succeed as the GM I cannot do a damn thing about it. I have to follow the fiction.



Sounds just like charm spells, only without the magic.



> Let's say I am running Burning Wheel and two players' characters get into an argument about stuff that hinges on their beliefs. According to my principles as I GM if one player isn't willing to Say Yes to the other we are going to Roll The Dice. I would call for a binding Duel of Wits.



Which, ironically enough, takes away player agency in a game that purports to promote it.

If two characters get into an argument re conflicting beliefs, if true player agency is to be maintained they should and must be allowed to sort it out on their own; even if it means one or both ultimately leave the party or one ends up hurting or even killing the other.

I'm not sure how you can have this...


> The same concept applies for things like character backstory. We are all collaborators. I want everyone to be interested in everyone's stuff. I also want this stuff to actually matter to play. The best way to encourage that is to work on it together in a meaningful way. I fully expect connections between various players' stuff and active and vigorous collaboration.



...and this...


> Finally, let's take a look at the assumption that the players' characters are part of a group and can depend on one another. In many of the games I like to run and play this is not a valid assumption to make. I expect shared interests on the part of all players, but do not require it of their characters. Often a significant portion of the active adversity in a game like Apocalypse World can come from the other players' characters. If you want their help you generally have to actually earn it. Alliances are often temporary and tend to shift over time.



...at the same time.  If you're forcing them all to have connections with each other built as a groupthink exercise among the players, you're also largely baking in their reasons to work as a team and stand up for each other whether any given player wants this or not; making it unlikely they're ever going to significantly oppose each other or get rough with each other or walk out on each other.

Lanefan


----------



## Campbell

This post should be of particular interest to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION].

I want to address the specific pain points, requirements, and player suitability for the way I prefer to run games. Before I can meaningfully do that I feel like I have to lay some groundwork. That means addressing Robin Laws' Player Types and why I believe it is not really a suitable form of player analysis, particularly when games break the common cultural modes of mainstream roleplaying games. I include games like Fate, Numenera, and Night's Black Agents in my conception of mainstream roleplaying game culture. Fate is an extremely well tuned game designed to reinforce the *Walled Off Gardens* typical of most mainstream games.

Robin Laws' Player Types were born out of observing a particular sort of Culture of Play common in the mainstream of the hobby. I feel it is a mistake to assume those particular behaviors would naturally arise when playing roleplaying games of a different stripe. It is very much like the assumption that Bartle's Player Types analysis which was based on observing the behavior of players in MUDs would apply to other sorts of games. Nick Yee's Motivations of Play in MMORPGs found that even in a games with a culture of play as similar to MUDs as MMOs that the specific behaviors exhibited in MUDs did not reliably exhibit themselves.

Much like Bartle's Player Types Robin Law's Analysis makes some allowances for players who exhibit some of the behaviors of multiple Player Types, but assumes that players have a primary Player Type. In short it assumes that there must be a conflict between Method Actor play and Power Gamer play. It puts our play in a box. This is who we are as players rather than features of a particular design or cultural environment. This can lead to the faulty assumption that there is nothing we can do as designers, players, and GMs to alleviate tensions between different sorts of play. Furthermore there is no meaningful methodology for determining where a player fits.

Probably the most damning and problematic feature of this sort of analysis is that it posits predictive power to a model that has none. By confusing behavior with the motives that lead to that particular behavior within a specific Culture of Play it has the potential to lead to game and scenario design that fails to meaningfully serve the interests of its target audience. If I am engaging in Power Gaming behavior because I want to have power over the fictional world or because I do not want meaningful challenges amping up the difficulty of challenges to suit my character is unlikely to lead to a compelling experience. On the other hand that might be just what I am looking for if the underlying motivation behind my Power Gaming is to create a suite of resources to strategically deploy in order to make impactful decisions and show my mastery over the rules of the game in play and I have a high need for challenging content. Sometimes that Power Gaming might even be a symptom as in the case of a player who has found their efforts to deploy skilled use of fictional positioning are constantly frustrated by a given GM's techniques. This can often be almost impossible to read in long standing groups where we always play in the same way with the same GM.

I think we can do better. I think we can do much better. It starts by actually getting to the core of what motivates player behaviors instead of simply observing that behavior. Enter The Gamer Motivation Model developed by Quantic Foundry Labs. While it covers motivations that are specific to video game design rather than roleplaying games I think the underlying motivations behind why we play games apply more universally. After all, video games owe a lot to D&D. It's only fair they give something back. 

The Gamer Motivation Model has the advantage of being based on far more rigorous research. It is an empirical model based on meaningful statistical analysis developed by a team that has academic backgrounds in both computer science and social science with more than 40 peer-reviewed papers. It is also based on a phenomenally large dataset (220,000+ independent data points) that would be almost impossible to attain for an industry as small as tabletop roleplaying games. It also has proven predictive power.

Here's a brief talk on the model.

[video=youtube;YZwiQd-0xqQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZwiQd-0xqQ[/video]      

I will be covering the Gamer Motivation Model in more detail in future posts. Below I have linked my profiles for both their Gamer Motivation Profile and Board Gamer Motivation Profile. It is not uniquely suited to roleplaying games, but I think it is better than pretty much anything we have.

My Gaming Style is *Action-Oriented, Proficient, Relaxed, Social, and Deeply Immersed*
My Board Gaming Style is *High Conflict, Strategic, and Immersed*


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't at all understand how the players winning a skill challenge is meant to be analogous to the PCs _losing_ a battle.



The analogy was between your NPC losing a skill challenge and your PC (one assumes in a different game) losing a battle.

At least, that's how I read it.

Broader question regarding the advisor scenario for [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] : with all that was going on there - the hour at the table, conflicting agendas all over the place, etc. - what was the rationale for basing the entire outcome on one single all-or-nothing skill challenge, rather than breaking it down into some smaller parts?

Lanefan


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> You recall isn't quite correct.
> 
> The consequence was not mere colour. It was a meaningful consequence.It was a meaningful consequence. It followed from what the player had staked on the action resolution, which had two main "vectors": (1) The player (as his PC) had implanted the Eye of Vecna in his familiar; (2) The player (as his PC) had chosen to thwart Vecna by actively taking the steps to ensure that the soulds of the dead of the Underdark would flow to the Raven Queen rather than to Vecna.




You have not proven that my recollection was incorrect. Your response merely reflects that the PC thwarted Vecna which is not something I disputed. However we do though seem to be in disagreement over the word 'meaningful'.

For you, _meaningful consequence_ is when a deity (Epic Level, probably 25+) only destroys a PC's familiar as his revenge for actively thwarting him, which _meaningful consequence_ can be undone by a 1st level caster with the feat Arcane Familiar, which familiar may be re-summoned  after a short rest (5 minutes in 4e). 

For me, said consequence is colour and certainly not meaningful.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]

If it helps I'm not really shooting for Oscar or fine art novel level fiction when I play roleplaying games. I want things to be emotionally charged, but there is still plenty of bloody catharsis and action involved. As Play Passionately put it "I like to be emotionally conflicted while I punch zombies in the face." I'm really looking for the game to play out like a Netflix, HBO, AMC, Showtime, or FX Drama. Street Level Marvel and Vertigo Comics are also inspirations. I also dearly love Swords and Sorcery fiction. Common media touchstones include Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy, Mad Max: Fury Road, Penny Dreadful, Game of Thrones, Vikings, Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, American Gods, Conan, Elric, Black Company, Taboo, and The Walking Dead. Not super deep stuff, but still like compelling character focused stories. There are games that aim higher, but I generally don't play them that much.

When I talk about mainstream gaming culture I am mostly talking about the Culture of Play that developed and was crystallized during the 1990s. Specifically the modes of play purported by games like AD&D 2e, Vampire - The Masquerade, Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, 7th Sea, Legend of the 5 Rings, Shadowrun, Exalted, Pathfinder, Numenera, Fate, and the like as played according to their texts. I expect that your game, much like AD&D 1e exists somewhere in between that era and the Roleplaying Game as Wargame era. More Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, Planescape. Less Greyhawk. Based on my reading of later modules my inner Roleplaying Games as War Games fan would argue that Gygax spent too much time in California and not enough time in Lake Geneva as First Edition waned. Also Dragonlance money.

What I am emphatically not talking about when I speak about mainstream roleplaying games and why I choose not to use the traditional motif are games like Moldvay B/X, Classic Traveller, Classic RuneQuest, Stars Without Number, and Godbound. Lewis Pulsipher of  The White Dwarf is probably the most clear voice of this style of game. It's the roleplaying games as games, not stories crew that I view as traditional. To be fair what would become known as the Middle School Culture of Play that I am addressing as Mainstream Games was pretty much always there. Lewis Pulsipher was always pretty critical of what he called the California school and constantly warned against what this thread over on Big Purple calls the Narrative Grasping Reflex, both on the parts of players and GMs. *There have been gaming style conflicts as long as roleplaying games have been a thing!*

When it comes to games like Burning Wheel or Apocalypse World restricting player agency in ways that both Traditional Games as in War Games or Lake Geneva School and Mainstream Games as in Middle School or California School games do not that was my entire point! They are designed to grant players additional agency in some areas like granting them access to the sort of intuitions and social advantages we meaningfully experience in meatspace and being able to depend on the rules and meaningful skilled use of fictional positioning. They are also designed to limit player agency in ways we experience in meatspace where we can be meaningfully convinced of things we would otherwise choose not to be convinced of, to feel the weight of our emotions, psychological limitations, social obligations, and cultural conditioning. The design goal was not to maximize player agency. It was to resolve conflicts between our various motives as gamers to meaningfully enable emotionally conflicted play where we meaningfully play to find out what happens without having designs on the outcome! *I was taking  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] to task for what I regarded as a poor argument even if we generally like the same sort of play!*

Quick Note: They do so using wildly different techniques. Burning Wheel, Cortex+, Dogs in the Vineyard and D&D 4e utilize a set of principles, resolution mechanics, and reward structures that rely on binding conflicts, player intent, and intense action. Those games can sometimes result in Story Advocacy. Fiction First games like Blades in the Dark, Sorcerer, Apocalypse World, and Masks rely more on specific representational resolution mechanics and reward structures that preserve player autonomy, snowballing consequences, and war gaming style skilled play of fictional positioning to get to a similar place. Obviously the second set of techniques feels more organic to me. it relates to another one of my occasional snipes at  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and another long standing Indie Beef - Walking vs. Running Towards Conflict. I like a bit more introspection and strategy in my games.

Here's another Play Passionately passage.



			
				Walk said:
			
		

> Fictional conflict is often the centerpiece of game design and as such the texts advocate “getting to the conflicts.” I believe that historically texts have over emphasized this central point from bad play experiences characterized by players spending whole sessions describing their characters shopping or having their characters sitting around chatting about their fictional lives. These kinds of play experiences were sometimes lauded as “incredible” because “we never had to roll the dice.” The central play skill was *avoiding* conflicts so as not to resort to “roll-playing.” These texts were written to show that dramatic confrontations that turned on die roll could be as emotionally engaging as any “pure” role-playing experience.
> 
> Unfortunately this idea of “driving to conflict” has been taken to a problematic extreme. What I’ve observed is groups struggling to introduce conflict into a scene if it appears that scene is about to end without one. The central play skill has shifted to *making* conflicts. This leads to all kinds of weird pseudo-conflicts over things like whether or not someone realizes something, or notices something or even feels one way or another or worse whether it’s ninjas or pirates that attack. They feel forced and contrived… and that’s because they are.
> 
> It comes down to the fact that play can be about “driving to conflict” without every single scene having a conflict in it. Indeed, for conflict to occur characters must have things over which they conflict. The difference between the kind of role-playing that early indie-texts were afraid of and good solid story building role-playing is that the scenes without conflicts point towards what conflicts will arise later. These non-conflict scenes establish key beliefs, priorities, loyalties, and passions which later elements of the narrative will threaten. With out scenes that first establish and then later update and develop these character elements “conflict” is essentially a meaningless term.
> 
> When you let go of the “must have conflict NOW” urge then play progresses much more smoothly and much more naturally. Establishing scenes becomes more about feeding curiosity, “I’d like to see how X and Y interact” or follow up action, “Given what’s just happened I’d like my character to do X.” The play skill involved becomes about *identifying* conflicts when they occur.
> 
> Sit back. Relax. Play Passionately.




When it comes to resolving the apparent contradiction between vigorous collaborative agreement and the possibility for competitive play and sometimes even open conflict here's what I have to say: I view it like a friendly poker game. We are all there fundamentally for the same reasons. Connections and relationships between Player Characters need not be warm and fuzzy. They might even be overtly hostile. In the moment we might be working at cross purposes, but we all want to find out what happens more than we want to win. It's not cut throat. We are motivated more by the challenge and strategy involved than a need to win. There is a strong fair play and good sportsmanship element. Even in games like Masks and Blades in the Dark where group play is assumed there will often be a measure of competition and conflict driven in part by the rules of the game.

Look at this mechanic from Masks as an example:



			
				Spending Team Selfishly said:
			
		

> PC team members can also spend Team to act selfishly.
> 
> When you act selfishly, say how your actions ignore or insult your teammates, remove one Team from the pool, and shift one Label up and one Label down, your choice. You can use this option after rolling to alter the Label you’re rolling with.
> 
> Because you can act selfishly after you roll, this can boost a miss up to a hit, or a partial hit up to a full hit, by changing the Label you rolled with. All you have to do is spend the Team from the pool and describe your character doing something that ignores or insults your teammates.
> 
> Generally, your teammates can determine whether they feel ignored or insulted by the selfish action, but the GM can push on it if it seems appropriate.
> 
> Acting selfishly may save you when you can’t be helped by anybody else, but it has a cost you can’t avoid.




We want overwhelming unity of player interests with sustained in game conflict of interest just like when we play Poker. In this conception the GM is a player too for when group play is like a thing!

I know the common conception is that collaboration and cooperation are actively opposed to competition, but Quantic Foundry Lab's findings show otherwise. Relevant passages quoted below.



			
				Competition Is Not The Opposite of Community said:
			
		

> If the appeal of Community and Competition exists on opposing ends of the same spectrum, we would find a strong negative correlation between these two factors. Instead, we found a strong positive correlation in the data overall (r = .45). Gamers who care about either Community or Competition are likely to also care about the other factor.
> 
> We dug deeper to make sure it wasn’t men or women that skewed this correlation, and the correlation strength was nearly identical when we split the data by gender: r = .45 for men, and r = .43 for women.
> 
> The correlation strength was also largely identical when we split the data by age segments: 13-25 year olds (r = .44), ages 26-35 (r = .43), and ages 36+ (r = .41).






			
				Social us Social said:
			
		

> Instead of being polar opposites, Competition and Community essentially both load on a single Social factor. Gamers who enjoy social interaction tend to like all kinds of social interaction, whether it’s chatting, or emoting high fives, or being on a team, or playing against another team. It’s all social to them.
> 
> The real Social spectrum goes like this: On one end of the spectrum are gamers who don’t care about social interaction, even when they’re playing MMOs. They strongly prefer independence and keeping to themselves. On the other end of the spectrum are gamers who crave the excitement of social interaction. And once a gamer cares about social interaction, they are likely to be interested in both Community and Competition.






			
				Consider the Counterfactual said:
			
		

> This reality has always been staring us in the eyes.
> 
> If Competition were the opposite of Community, team sports wouldn’t make sense, and wouldn’t be such a dominant cultural phenomenon. There simply wouldn’t be enough people to fill all the positions needed in high school, college, and professional sports teams.
> 
> We’d have to believe that all these team sports players are somehow aberrant people and that their interests fall outside of the norm. Or we’d have to assume that all the people who play on sports teams are highly individualistic people who are just there for the competition but never found a solo sporting event to their liking.
> 
> Or that, somehow, this obvious alignment between Community and Competition in real world team sports suddenly stopped being true when people play digital games.




I know. I know. There goes  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] with his data science and overanalysis!


----------



## Campbell

Sadras said:


> You have not proven that my recollection was incorrect. Your response merely reflects that the PC thwarted Vecna which is not something I disputed. However we do though seem to be in disagreement over the word 'meaningful'.
> 
> For you, _meaningful consequence_ is when a deity (Epic Level, probably 25+) only destroys a PC's familiar as his revenge for actively thwarting him, which _meaningful consequence_ can be undone by a 1st level caster with the feat Arcane Familiar, which familiar may be re-summoned  after a short rest (5 minutes in 4e).
> 
> For me, said consequence is colour and certainly not meaningful.




I tend to agree that this was softballing. Not that we don't all softball from time to time.


----------



## Lwaxy

Just wow...looking at this thread I thought "50 shades... err pages of grey." 

From the original post, it has spread out like a break in a strained glass. But just taking the original post it is not railroading at all as long as players have any option and can basically attempt what they want. Even if you'd not have given them something to catch the blood in, anyone might just empty out a flask or potion to get some of it etc. I remember someone once upended his whole (magical) backpack to catch a whole lot of dragon blood.


----------



## Campbell

Lwaxy said:


> Just wow...looking at this thread I thought "50 shades... err pages of grey."
> 
> From the original post, it has spread out like a break in a strained glass. But just taking the original post it is not railroading at all as long as players have any option and can basically attempt what they want. Even if you'd not have given them something to catch the blood in, anyone might just empty out a flask or potion to get some of it etc. I remember someone once upended his whole (magical) backpack to catch a whole lot of dragon blood.




I tend to agree. There should have really been several splinter threads.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

BryonD said:


> When one side flatly states that they can't perceive the other sides position, doesn't that mean it is time to stop trying to reach a meaningful resolution?




Well, I'm not trying to reach a resolution, nor am I trying to convince [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (or anybody else, for that matter) that my position is "right."

1) I'd like to understand better how he would run a scene like that, and how the shared authoring duties work for him and others. Doesn't mean I'll switch to that approach entirely, but I can always learn something. 

2) It might benefit somebody else who's more inclined to move toward a shared authoring approach.

3) I often learn what I _don't_ want to do in discussions like these, as much as I learn what I _do_. Both are helpful in refining and evolving my own skills, which in turn I hope helps me run a better game.

4) Sometimes my (and perhaps others) thickheadedness can suddenly change after an "aha!" moment when I finally "get" it. 

5) Sometimes I (and others) like to tear apart the situation or scene to show that the same result can be had by different rule systems or DM/table approaches, and that once we recognize that, we can start discussing the components more meaningfully - like it's possible for the same Star Wars scene to play out with two seemingly opposing play styles, and that the road taken is sometimes the driving factor, rather than the destination.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] 

I forgot about one of the things that drives me absolutely crazy about Robin Laws' Player Type Model. Given such a deeply social game why does so much of its analysis minimize the impact of socialization? The only Player Type description that meaningfully discusses their relationship to the other players is The Casual Gamer. They are all descriptions of lonely fun that we do at tables filled with other people! Why is that? I have found my new pet peeve with it! It's all I have my fun! You have your fun! We take turns! Where's the fun we get to have together?

I think we might just have fallen upon the biggest cultural difference between the indie roleplaying culture and mainstream roleplaying culture! There's this big emphasis in the mainstream culture of everybody getting the highly specific things they want, not judging one another in anyway, sole ownership and protecting our own interests rather than letting the game and the other players shape our experiences. Within the indie culture there is a huge focus on the value of openness to experience, seeing what happens, vigorous collaboration and friendly competition, consent, and welcoming the uninvited.

I feel like this blog post from John Harper highlights some of the cultural differences.



			
				Trust In Me said:
			
		

> This is an old post. I didn't publish it way back when, because the situation was still very charged, and I didn't want to make it all about that one specific interaction. But, we've moved on now and I think there are some general points here worth sharing and discussing. So here it is.
> 
> A few interactions in one of the weekly games I'm in has highlighted some issues of trust in roleplaying so I figured I'd say a few words on the subject.
> 
> "As the GM, I describe the failure."
> "Right. But you can't just say anything, right? It has to suit the character and not violate the player's vision, and it has to make sense with what has come before and..."
> "Uh, that's not what the rule says. It says the GM describes the failure. Here's the actual text: 'Every so often, you’re going to lose control of your character for a moment. When you attempt to do something and fail your test, the GM gets to take over and describe something that went wrong. He can tell everyone about something you did that was misguided or even bad. Or, he can describe an unforeseen effect that your actions caused. He gets to stick it to you for a moment.'"
> "Well, sure, that's what the book says, but you still have to make sure it's okay with the player and doesn't mess up their idea of the character..."
> 
> And that's when I realized that the player -- on some deep level -- just didn't trust me, as GM, to "do it right" when it came time to take control of their character on a failure. And not just their own character, but any PC.
> 
> And it turns out that the trust issue encompasses not just PC agency, but "the story" as well. Here's another exchange between two players:
> 
> "Yeah, I could have my character really go down this dark path..."
> "But that's not great for the story, though. It's one dimensional to have a character that just spirals down like that."
> "Yeah, well, that's where I see this going."
> "I know, but it makes a weaker story that way. One-dimensional characters are boring..."
> 
> Again, the trust just isn't there. The PC going down this dark path is "doing the story wrong" (as if that was possible) or at the very least, making the story somehow worse. The objecting player has certain standards that must be honored, or his enjoyment of the game will suffer -- which is perfectly normal, of course -- but he doesn't trust the rest of us not to mess it all up for him.
> 
> As a result, we often end up debating the merits of player decisions, story points, NPC behaviors, and rules applications whenever any of them begin to diverge from the standards and preferences of this player. He's worried that we're going to weaken the story, make a critical error, do something that doesn't "make sense," or otherwise disrupt the fictional space inside his head. On some level, He just doesn't trust us to get it right.
> 
> When the trust is there, there's no need for lots of front-loaded debate and discussion before establishing the action. A fellow player does something that seems odd or the story takes a bizarre turn or a rule is applied in an unexpected way and it's okay. If you trust everyone sitting around the table, you can take a wait-and-see approach. Maybe it seems a little odd or unexpected now, but you trust that it will all work out. You give the benefit of the doubt.
> 
> When the trust is there, everyone is free to play hard, be bold, and put their stamp on the game. Their vision might be different from your vision, and that's okay. Playing with trust means coming to the table excited to hear what the other players are going to say -- whatever it may be. That's why we play these games with particular people, right? That's why we stay in groups with creative, interesting, engaging players and leave the groups that don't click for us.
> 
> Sure, sometimes you need to be firm and hold your ground. Sometimes you fight for your specific vision of the game. But when it comes from a place of trust, you're fighting with your respected peers. You're advocating for your ideas, not shooting theirs down. When it's not based in trust, you're trying to shepherd the other players -- steer them, guide them, show them the right way. You're fighting to protect yourself from their "bad ideas."
> 
> I'll say that again: You're fighting to protect yourself from the so-called bad ideas of your fellow players. If you're in this place, it's time to reassess. Do you really want to be playing with these people? Maybe play with people you trust more. Do you really want to trust this group, but find it hard to? Maybe press on and try to release the iron grip of control.
> 
> Also, consider this question: What did these people do to lose your trust? Often, the answer is "nothing." The lack of trust may be coming from past experiences or other issues. Try to give your fellow players the benefit of the doubt. Relax, and fly casual. The thing that seems so wrong or strange to you right now may turn out to be really cool if you allow your fellow players to take risks and be spontaneous.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> The "failure" on Luke's part was to purchase the wrong (right) droids and follow the one that ran away. Those were the actions that led to the massacre at the farm.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If I'm the DM of that game, the stormtroopers are hunting down the droids, and killing all they encounter to avoid witnesses
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 1) Uncle Owen (NPC) has dragged Luke along to get a droid that can help on the farm. Mission: Find droid.
> 
> 2) DM describes scene at the jawa crawler. There's a bit of role-playing in selecting a droid. It smokes, the Luke PC picks out another one that the DM (as 3PO) points out as another suitable droid.
> 
> 3) Return to home/bed/morning where the DM describes (via the NPCs) that R2 has disappeared. Luke's motivation? Find him. Could be others, but that's the only one that matters. Off he goes. (Naturally, because the adventure won't continue if he doesn't).
> 
> 4) The DM describes the terrain, following the tracks, scenes with Obi-Wan, etc. until we get to Luke realizing that the stormtroopers would be heading to his home when they find the jawa crawler.
> 
> So I guess what I really don't understand is how that would play out differently if the players were writing more of what's going on in the world.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So the player would have detailed the family and the farm. The killing of the family is an event. In my campaigns it would have been an event dictated by the course of action in the story created by the players - that is, Luke purchased the wrong (right) droids, which then put him, and his family, in the path of the Empire that is looking for the droids and killing all witnesses.
> 
> As the DM, that course of action is put into play from the goals of the Empire, the mission of the stormtroopers, and the fact that the trail of the droids leads to Luke. How Luke feels about it is irrelevant in regards to the Empire and the actions they take.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The next question is, "what do you do?" and not, "how does that make you feel?" The players handle the emotional and psychological reactions, along with their actions. Usually all three of those are fairly evident at the table).



I am not talking about _how the death of Luke's family makes him feel_. I'm talking about the "dramatic needs" (to use a semi-technical term) of Luke as a character. His motivation.

I've quoted your presentation of Star Wars as an episode of RPG play. Some key decisions taken by the GM include:

(1) The Luke has to accompany his uncle to buy some droids;

(2) That the first mech-droid purchased blows up;

(3) That the two droids that ultimately are purchased are on the run from the Empire with secret rebel/Jedi-relevant information;

(4) That the mech-droid runs away;

(5) That Obi-Wan rescues Luke from the Sand People;

(6) That the Storm Troopers track down the droids to the Jawas, and kill Luke's family.​
I've skipped some stuff (eg that the droids get picked up by the Jawas) but that might be a further item to go on the list, dependng on the details of how the imagined game unfolds.

From the point of view of the OP, asking about judgement calls vs railroading, I am moved to ask: on what basis does the GM make decisions (1) to (6)?

Here are some options:

(a) Random rolls (eg Obi-Wan is a Hermit entry on a random encounter table);

(b) Sheer fiat (eg the GM is running an "event-based" module a la Dead Gods and (1) through (6) is the prescribed sequence of events);

(c) Taking cues from Luke's player (eg Luke's player has an entry on his PC sheet that says something like "I will oppose the Empire and aid the rebellion";

(d) Adjudicating action resolution (eg Obi-Wan turns up as the result of a successful Circles-type check; the family being killed is narrated as the consequence of a failed Navigation check; etc)​
Those options don't exhaust the field, and of course some of them can be mixed and matched (eg my normal practice is to use (c) and (d) in conjunction). My view is that different sorts of procedures used to establish in game events like (1) to (6) produce _very_ different RPG experiences. The fact that the fiction itself might be identical doesn't change that.

Some of these methods (eg (a) and (b)) can be used without having any knowledge of a PC's motivation. But others (eg (c) and (d), which happen to be quite important to me) cannot. Hence my comment, upthread, about "GMing blind".



Ilbranteloth said:


> it's possible for the same Star Wars scene to play out with two seemingly opposing play styles



Absolutely. That's why I've been saying that, merely from a recount of the fiction, one can't tell anything about how the _RPGing_ took place.

This is why, whe I do session write-ups, I (as best I can) write up actual play reports, not "story hours". I don't want to talk about fiction - as [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] said, the fiction of my RPGs is nothing very special, especially for non-participants. I want to talk about RPGing!



Ilbranteloth said:


> There's no known character motivation in many published adventures. They often give several hooks to help the DM pull the characters in. Sometimes there are specific ones, but then you have to ensure somebody fits that mold. Otherwise the motivations are usually the same - kill the evil monsters, get treasure, save who/whatever.
> 
> In many campaigns, they never get past the kill monsters, get treasure (and gain levels and abilities), as the basic motivation.



It's over 30 years since I've run a campaign where "kill monsters, get treasure, gain level" was the basic motivation. (Though I did recently run a AD&D session that went more-or-less like that.)

When I use material from a module (eg Night's Dark Terror, as [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] mentioned upthread) one of the first things I do is identify a way of hooking the module elements I want to use onto established PC motivations. From my point of view, that's a basic part of GMing.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I'd like to understand better how he would run a scene like that, and how the shared authoring duties work for him and others.



My own view is that what I think you mean by "shared authoring" can often be overrated, or at least exaggerated, as an element of player-driven RPGing.

In the OP there is "shared authoring" in one sense: the player declares a Perception check, and its success results in it being true, of the fiction, that it contains a vessel in the room. But the player didn't author that by any sort of fiat: it was a part of the process of action declaration and action resolution.

4e has less of that sort of mechanic than BW; MHRP/Cortex has more of it. Rolemaster, which I GMed near-exclusively for nearly 20 years, has none of it.

At least as I approach GMing, the key to a player-driven game is not that the players get to directly author the fiction in the moment of play. Rather, what is key is (i) that the GM frames scenes having regard to the evinced concerns/interests of the players, and the dramatic needs of their PCs (these might come out in part by the players' authoring of PC backstory, which is not the same as authoring fiction in the moment of play), and (ii) that the GM, in narrating consequences of action resolution, allows player success to stand, and connects failures back to those concerns/interests/dramatic needs.

So the players are not driving in virtue of authorship (in any literal sense). Rather, they are the ones who establish the focus, the stakes, and - via their successes - at least some of the consequences.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Campbell said:


> Historically, one of my major pain points with playing most mainstream roleplaying games is the tactical overhead view it tends to give you of your character, the setting, and their situation *instead of the deeply personal view that we have of our own lives*. We tend to have far more agency over our characters in a roleplaying game than we do over our own lives. Things like the weight of social obligations, the people we care about, our cultural traditions and practices, emotional safety, limits of perspective, our natural curiosity, our personalities, and our own intuitions and emotions hold far more sway over us than they do for our characters. This often results in a sort of Uber Rational form of play where Player Characters seldom seem like authentic people. Roleplaying games often do a good job of representing physical violence and consequences, but often ignore the vast and far reaching impact of other elements of the fiction.




You've got so many things in your posts I don't even know where to start...so I'll start here. They really make me think! I don't have time to think!

But I agree with this, and it's the sort of thing that I work hard to combat in my campaigns. I tend to do it in session zero and as reminders in my rules, rather than trying to build it into the rule system itself. For example, I point out that a turn-based/round-based combat system encourages a focus on the mechanics and "not missing a turn" and things like that. The tweaks we've been making try to encourage people to think of their total action, instead of breaking it into small parts, and using the rules to adjudicate those actions.

But in reading through your posts, it struck me that the alternate game systems were, in many cases, an attempt to focus on a particular game style. On the surface, they might be trying to accomplish the same thing, but the reality is that they are addressing or focusing on a different aspect of RPGs. Some are written for players who are good actors, or like the idea of acting a part, others are tactical, with lots of rules to help you outmaneuver your opponent via game rules, others are built around a very specific setting, where the rules pull you further into the setting, like Cthulhu.

To put it a different way, D&D was invented. It took what previously would have been something a writer would do, or a group of kids playing make-believe would do, and made it into a shared experience, with a framework of rules so you could adjudicate the results of complex (and seemingly random) situations.

So we're done, right? Except that other people thought there would be better ways to do _this_, and we need to fix _that_, and I prefer to play this way, or focus on that element, etc. So either rules modifications were introduced, or new games were produced. Now I understand that historically, TSR was a game company, and part of what they did as a game company was design games. Early on it didn't occur to them that one system could be used for multiple genres of games, etc. And of course, as we've seen through later design games, sometimes one system is better than others at solving a particular gaming problem.

For me and the players that I've had through the years, we like the make-believe part. We like the idea of writing the story as this character (if we're a player), and as the DM I've come to love the idea of writing the history of this world. The shared goal being that we address the characters as if they are real people, in a real world, and have to deal with things like being stuck in the rain on a cold day in the wilderness. That the little things, the boring things, the mundane every day things, all have an impact on us as people. Those in-between things create dynamics that make the exciting things exciting. It's a TV series approach, rather than a movie, or even more, a play. We're not only interested in the meat of here, or there, but what's in between. More importantly, those in-between times are typically more focused on the important things that you mention - personal world-view, social obligations, people we care about, culture, etc. The mundane things tend to give our life the _why_. 

Even with that type of focus of our games, it's been pretty rare that PCs have developed romantic relationships, or gotten married, or retired to start a business or own a farm, for example. A great many PCs have become NPCs after the player has left, or when they've decided to focus on other characters and things like that. But it has only rarely come up in play.

But your posts make me think about those other elements in a different way. I think a part of what turns me off about shared-author approaches is that it does take some of the ownership or agency regarding the character away from the player. In return, they are trying to turn the focus of the game onto something else, to encourage, perhaps, a focus not on conflict, but on what makes it a conflict.

One of the biggest problems I've had with attempting to play those types of game, though, is that the players approach it from their own expectations and experience - that is, a D&D-like RPG experience. So the conflicts tend to be superficial, fight-the-monster type conflicts, except that instead of the DM instigating the conflict, it's one of the other players. Then, instead of letting the simply conflict play out, they are encouraged (or required) to add complications. Except they too tend to be superficial - you drop your sword, you trip, etc. So we'd end up with not only a less interesting game, but would get there with mechanics that feel contrived and "gamey," rather than reinforcing the fiction.

The reality is, we, for the most part, were trying to play D&D with DW rules. Instead, I guess, if we are going to make a point of playing DW, then we need to have a different overall goal or concept of the game. Or to put it a better way, we have to better understand the goal of the game design.

It's going to make me go back and rethink not so much how the mechanics of many of these other games work, but why. What was the "problem" they were trying to "fix" that made them write a new system, rather than use an existing one? Even if the designer didn't realize that's what they were doing. But looking at it from that perspective, I think, will help identify potential "problems" in my rules or campaign. Maybe the solution they came up with works for us. Maybe we find a different solution. 

What I find exciting, though, is that I hadn't really thought about looking to other games for better solutions for the internal process of a player interacting with their character. It's easy for the rules to address mechanical things - did you hit them with your sword? Did the armor protect them? It's harder to write rules about more nebulous things, like knowledge or social encounters. But going deeper, into the relationship between the player and their character? It has been addressed, even in 5e there's the background system, with the trait/ideal/bond/flaw approach. And alignment has been around for a long time. But we've tended to discard many of these rules, at least in part, instead of digging into them to see how we could make them better. Or perhaps replace them with something else altogether.


----------



## Maxperson

BryonD said:


> When one side flatly states that they can't perceive the other sides position, doesn't that mean it is time to stop trying to reach a meaningful resolution?




 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] often says things like, "I don't understand...", "I can't see how...", "I don't get...", etc. all the time.  Given that much of what he says that about is pretty easy to understand, and that he's a lawyer, a profession that teaches those who engage in it how to put themselves into the shoes of the opposition in order to understand and predict their strategies, I strongly suspect that it's just a tactic he's using in debate.  I doubt that he's really failing to understand most the things he says he doesn't get.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The players succeeded in a skill challenge which established that the advisor revealed himself in a way that did not undermine the PCs' standing in the eyes of the baron (and other worthies), but rather *redounded upon the advisor himself*.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I can only go by what you say here
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The success of the established challenge as you have described it was that the outing not affect the PCs.  If he mitigates things, they are still not affected and he still outed himself.
Click to expand...


I've bolded the bit that you appear to be missing or ignoring or for some reason treating as insignificant. It was not insignificant. It was _that bit_ of the success that the player (correctly) fastened on at the start of the subsequent session.



Tony Vargas said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *I started framing something that put that success into doubt*
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's the (bolded) bit I'm confused by.  We're you 'framing' things at the next session to negate the prior SC, so they'd have to out the NPC all over again?  I know you said you didn't remember the specifics, but I'm having trouble thinking of something that'd do that, rather than just being 'damage control' or 'spin' on the NPC's part.
Click to expand...


I can't remember the precise details - at the start of the following session, when the advisor, having failed socially, turned to sheer magical power to try and establish dominance over the PCs, combat ensued. The baron and other NPCs were in the room, and I think it was something that I said about them and their response to the violence. The player's point was that, as the upshot of success in the skill challenge, _it was clear to all the witnesses_ that _responsibility for the violence fell on the advisor, not the PCs_ - the advisor was the one who had been revealed as a traitor, and was now turning to magic to try and get what he wanted by force.



Tony Vargas said:


> Sudden reversals of fortune are a standard in genre, well, pulp and melodrama corners of genre, anyway.



Sure. [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] said the same thing upthread. But in the context of RPGing, at least as I prefer it, those reversals of fortune have to result from the players failing at something. The GM can't just fiat away their success.

Even in classic D&D, the reversal of fortunes comes eg from having got the treasure, but now suffering an unlucky wandering monster check. Not just from the GM fiating away the tresasure for a lark.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I've bolded the bit that you appear to be missing or ignoring or for some reason treating as insignificant. It was not insignificant. It was _that bit_ of the success that the player (correctly) fastened on at the start of the subsequent session.




It still doesn't do much.  The animosity hit the advisor and now he has to scramble to try to overcome it.  It's no different than if the party had failed and the baron had been upset with the party.  The PCs could have come up with ideas to placate the baron's wrath, too.  Think about the times you've been angry at someone over something.  Do you end up in perpetual anger with nothing that can be done by the target of your wrath to assuage the situation?  I doubt it.  

Mitigating the baron's wrath would not have negated their success.



> I can't remember the precise details - at the start of the following session, when the advisor, having failed socially, turned to sheer magical power to try and establish dominance over the PCs, combat ensued. The baron and other NPCs were in the room, and I think it was something that I said about them and their response to the violence. The player's point was that, as the upshot of success in the skill challenge, _it was clear to all the witnesses_ that _responsibility for the violence fell on the advisor, not the PCs_ - the advisor was the one who had been revealed as a traitor, and was now turning to magic to try and get what he wanted by force.




I must have missed where you said it turned to combat.  Combat certainly makes it more difficult to mitigate, but not impossible unless the advisor died.



> Sure. [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] said the same thing upthread. But in the context of RPGing, at least as I prefer it, those reversals of fortune have to result from the players failing at something. *The GM can't just fiat away their success.*
> 
> Even in classic D&D, the reversal of fortunes comes eg from having got the treasure, but now suffering an unlucky wandering monster check. *Not just from the GM fiating away the tresasure for a lark*.



The bolded portions are not what people here on my side of things are saying should have been done.  Nobody has suggested using fiat on behalf of the advisor, and nobody here has said mitigation would have been attempted for a lark.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> How do you know he's not seeing the advisor has having agency?





Maxperson said:


> NPCs do exercise that power over events.  They do it through the DM who has created the personality, desires and goals, quirks, etc. for that NPC and puts himself into the NPC's shoes to make that decision.  When I make a decision for an NPC, I am not making a decision for myself at all.  The NPC may decide to take a course that I myself would not take were I to make the same decision on my own.



Interestingly, when I suggested that [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] was making a category error, in attributing real causal power to NPCs, he (? I believe - please accept my apologies if I'm misremembering), Ovinomancer accused me (more-or-less) of engaging in ridicule, or deliberate distortion of what had been said.

But here we see Maxperson making exactly that claim!

And I will re-assert that it is a category error. NPCs do not "author themselves", and that sort of talk by authors is loose metaphor at best.

In having an NPC do X rather than Y, a GM is making a choice. In extrapolating one way rather than another from established fiction, the GM is making a choice. Every day, all over the world, real people makes choices that no one would readily foresee based on a passing familiarity with their previous history and behaviour. A RPG doesn't become less verisimilitudinous because it has NPCs with similar degrees of unpredicatability!



billd91 said:


> Have you given us any reason to believe the advisor's agendas, whatever they are, are permanently and conclusively foiled other than to say the players passed some mechanical test that exposed the advisor? For Maxperson, using one method to foil and agenda isn't necessarily the end of the matter. And that's every bit as reasonable as your assertion that their mechanical pass permanently settles the issue because either could be true based on the fiction of the event and the ultimate consequences the advisor faced. If he merely lost the trust of the baron, that trust could be repaired. If he was imprisoned, he could be released, even pardoned. If he was executed, well... let's just say that villains often have ambiguous deaths. That's what enables them to be recurring villains.
> If you've decided that the advisor's done because you won't be using him in your scene framing in the future - fine. It's final. But a similar situation in Maxperson's game, clearly, wouldn't be final.



Three things.

(1) I know perfectly well that [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] doesn't adjudicate finality in resolution the same way that I do. But that doesn't mean that Maxperson is correct to say that, in my game, using the system (4e) that I was using, I was wrong to agree with my player that - as GM - I had made a bad call, and needed to wind back and remake it.

(2) You ask _Have you given us any reason to believe the advisor's agendas, whatever they are, are permanently and conclusively foiled other than to say the players passed some mechanical test that exposed the advisor_? As I've already mentioned upthread, I find this an especially strange question from D&D players.

In D&D combat, _what reason do we have to believe that the ogre is dead_, except that a player passed some mechanical test that reduced it to zero hp? Answer: none. The health of beings in D&D combat is not determined via fictional positioning and following the logic of the fiction; it's determined via an abstract mechanical process, to which - by the rules of the game - the fiction must then conform.

The same is true of traditional encounter reaction checks: when reaction checks are being used, we don't first know the mood of the NPC/monster, and thereby determine it's reaction; rather _a mechanical test_ - the reaction roll - tells us what their mood is (hostile, indifferent or friendly being the 3 traditional options).

A skill challenge in 4e, or a Duel of Wits in BW, works the same way as these other tried-and-true D&D mechanics: the content of the fiction unfolds in a way that conforms to certain mechanical processes. If the players succeed at the challenge, the resulting fiction includes the elements that make up their success. In this case, that means the baron holds the breakdown of the situation against the advisor - revealed as a traitor - and not against the PCs.

(3) I've posted upthread about some of the circumstances in which successes might be re-opened. I see this as one application of a more general "no retries" rule. AD&D has no general prohibition on retries, but lots of particular ones: a retry is _never_ permitted when it comes to bending bars or lifting a gate, nor when it comes to finding or removing a trap; but a retry is permitted with a level gained, in the case of opening a lock.

I think it is not compatible with a game being player-driven that the GM is permitted to reopen some matter willy-nilly, regardless of previous successes at action resolution.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Interestingly, when I suggested that  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] was making a category error, in attributing real causal power to NPCs, he (? I believe - please accept my apologies if I'm misremembering), Ovinomancer accused me (more-or-less) of engaging in ridicule, or deliberate distortion of what had been said.
> 
> But here we see Maxperson making exactly that claim!
> 
> And I will re-assert that it is a category error. NPCs do not "author themselves", and that sort of talk by authors is loose metaphor at best.



 [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] was right.  I did not say they authored themselves.  I said they make that decision through the DM who makes the decision the NPC would make in that situation, not the one the DM would make in that situation.



> In having an NPC do X rather than Y, a GM is making a choice. In extrapolating one way rather than another from established fiction, the GM is making a choice. Every day, all over the world, real people makes choices that no one would readily foresee based on a passing familiarity with their previous history and behaviour. A RPG doesn't become less verisimilitudinous because it has NPCs with similar degrees of unpredicatability!




It's the DM making the choice that the NPC would make, not the one the DM would make.  I don't kill people, attempt to hurt them with traps and so on.  Were I making the decisions that I would make, there would be no villains in the game world.  Evil wouldn't exist.  There are many things that the NPCs decide to do that I would never decide to do.  They are making that decision through me. 



> (1) I know perfectly well that [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] doesn't adjudicate finality in resolution the same way that I do. But that doesn't mean that Maxperson is correct to say that, in my game, using the system (4e) that I was using, I was wrong to agree with my player that - as GM - I had made a bad call, and needed to wind back and remake it.




I didn't say any of those things.  I said the advisor would have to catch a sudden case of retarded in order not to try to mitigate the damage.  That just means that the way you adjudicate it doesn't make sense to me.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> with all that was going on there - the hour at the table, conflicting agendas all over the place, etc. - what was the rationale for basing the entire outcome on one single all-or-nothing skill challenge, rather than breaking it down into some smaller parts?



That's how the game works. That's how the situation was framed. That's how we did it.

There's no a priori reason to do it that way, I guess; but nor is there an a priori reason not to. I mean, in Vault of the Drow the final confrontation with Lolth is handled via a single event of combat resolution.

The actual play thread contains the following post:



pemerton said:


> I'm curious how long the session was in real time and exactly how many dice rolls were made.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> <snip discussion of session length>
> 
> As for number of dice rolled, I'm reconstructing that not by remembering the actual die rolls, but by thinking through how I adjudicated it. There was one Intimidate check for the cultist, plus some Arcana and History checks - maybe 2 or 3 checks for each of the arcanists. Let's say 5 or so checks in the first episode.
> 
> In the dinner, there was a group Diplomacy check upon meeting the Baron, that preceded the skill challenge. And at one other point there was a group check for something - Insight, maybe? - I can't remember now. That's 10 rolls (including rolls made by someone else for the missing player).
> 
> I made two die rolls - a Bluff check for Paldemar/Golthar at one point (I know skill challenges don't use dice for the opposition, but this was outside the context of the skill challenge - I can't remember now exactly what it was for!), and an initiative roll at the end of the session. And the players made their initiative rolls. So that's another 7 rolls there.
> 
> Then there's the skill challenge itself - 12 successes, 2 failures, plus 2 or 3 secondary checks - let's say 17 rolls there. The PC whose player was missing didn't participate in the skill challenge at all - it's one thing to roll his initiative or contribution to a group check in his absence, but there didn't seem any point trying to drag an "unplayed" PC into a social challenge.
> 
> I make that a total of 40 rolls for the session - maybe a bit less or a bit more. All d20s, of course.
Click to expand...

About half those rolls are for the skill challenge. By what measure is that not enough?


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> There's this big emphasis in the mainstream culture of everybody getting the highly specific things they want, not judging one another in anyway, sole ownership and protecting our own interests rather than letting the game and the other players shape our experiences.



Very interesting contention!



Campbell said:


> What I am emphatically not talking about when I speak about mainstream roleplaying games and why I choose not to use the traditional motif are games like Moldvay B/X, Classic Traveller, Classic RuneQuest, Stars Without Number, and Godbound. Lewis Pulsipher of  The White Dwarf is probably the most clear voice of this style of game. It's the roleplaying games as games, not stories crew that I view as traditional. To be fair what would become known as the Middle School Culture of Play that I am addressing as Mainstream Games was pretty much always there. Lewis Pulsipher was always pretty critical of what he called the California school



Did you ever read my Lewis Pulsipher thread - which even got some posts from the man himself!


----------



## pemerton

Lwaxy said:


> Even if you'd not have given them something to catch the blood in, anyone might just empty out a flask or potion to get some of it



The character in question didn't have any such vessel on him. (Just his clothes and a staff rough-hewn out of a tree branch.) The other PC, also, had very little gear.

It's quite a hard-scrabble game in that respect.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> For you, _meaningful consequence_ is when a deity (Epic Level, probably 25+) only destroys a PC's familiar as his revenge for actively thwarting him, which _meaningful consequence_ can be undone by a 1st level caster with the feat Arcane Familiar, which familiar may be re-summoned  after a short rest (5 minutes in 4e).



Two things:

(1) The PC is also epic level, 25 as it happens (I just rechecked the actual play post).

(2) You are midsescribing the consequence. The familiar was not killed, to respawn after a short rest. The familiar was shut down until the PC performed a ritual to remove Vecna's influence over his Eye, and hence over the familiar. The PC was able to do this once the PCs had defeated an Aspect of Vecna. Looking at the date stamps for the respective posts, that's about 3 months later, which would be in the neighbourhood of half-a-dozen sessions.



Campbell said:


> I tend to agree that this was softballing. Not that we don't all softball from time to time.



In the thread that   [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] is recalling this episode from, the general view of other posters (I can't remember what Sadras's particular view was) was that, so far from _softaballing_, it was unfair to impose such a consequence on a player in the context of a _success_ - ie a successful check in a skill challenge that allowed diverting the souls from Vecna to the Raven Queen.

They also thought it was unfair to impose a consequence which the rules of the game don't expressly provide for (ie there is no formally-defined  _your familiar is shut down beyond the duration of a short rest_ condition).

Whereas my view was, and remains, that at all times the player knew that by implanting the Eye into his imp the PC had made himself hostage to Vecna, at least to some extent; and that he (both PC and player) knew, when he thwarted Vecna, that he was taking a risk of retribution.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> The animosity hit the advisor and now he has to scramble to try to overcome it.  It's no different than if the party had failed and the baron had been upset with the party.  The PCs could have come up with ideas to placate the baron's wrath, too.



If the players failed, the baron is angry at them. _No retries_. They have to somehow deal with the baron's anger. They can't just keep trying to persuade him otherwise.

It's like failing an open locks check in AD&D.



Maxperson said:


> I said the advisor would have to catch a sudden case of retarded in order not to try to mitigate the damage.



And I said - multiple times now - that the advisor can do that if he wants. But, at the table, that is mere colour - like Wormtongue's sputtering after Gandalf defeats him in Theoden's hall. The matter has been resolved.

In AD&D, a player can _declare_ as many attempts to bend bars as s/he likes. But if the first attempt fails, that settles all the following ones also.

That's what _finality_, or "no retries", means. In the context of this particular skill challenge, the finality was of success rather than failure.

If the fiction changes in some significant way that is adverse to the PCs (and, thereby, the players) then old successes might be re-opened. But on this partiuclar occasion nothing had changed in the fiction - it was just a break between sessions.

When the PCs ended up killing the baron's niece, that did affect their relationship with him, at least in the sense that he had a nervous collapse. That's an example of the sort of change in the fiction that can open up a previously-settled matter.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Interestingly, when I suggested that [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] was making a category error, in attributing real causal power to NPCs, he (? I believe - please accept my apologies if I'm misremembering), Ovinomancer accused me (more-or-less) of engaging in ridicule, or deliberate distortion of what had been said.
> 
> But here we see Maxperson making exactly that claim!
> 
> And I will re-assert that it is a category error. NPCs do not "author themselves", and that sort of talk by authors is loose metaphor at best.



Well, you keep misrepresenting what I said, so, yeah, it keeps getting pointed out.  You've done it again, here, as while I did accuse you of misrepresenting my point, I also clarified what I meant, but you're still here, using the same misrepresentation as if it hadn't already been addressed.  This is the kind of thing that makes it difficult to have a discussion with you.  You misrepresent a position, though error or intent, and then refuse all attempts to clarify or correct.  If you'd acknowledged the clarification of my point -- that I thought I blatantly obvious that NPCs don't author themselves and was clearly speaking to DMs authoring the NPCs as if they had independent, pre-established agendas, then, perhaps, this confusion of yours would clear up.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> When the PCs ended up killing the baron's niece, that did affect their relationship with him, at least in the sense that he had a nervous collapse. That's an example of the sort of change in the fiction that can open up a previously-settled matter.




Ok I have to ask...why? What makes this "change in the fiction"  capable of opening up a previously-settled matter... versus the advisor utilizing resources , connections, influence and even magic to mitigate his failure? Because without an explanation it just looks like DM fiat... in other words if you feel changes meet a certain criteria well then finality isnt really final.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> I thought I blatantly obvious that NPCs don't author themselves



I know. That's what I said in the post you just replied to: "Ovinomancer accused me (more-or-less) of engaging in ridicule, or deliberate distortion of what had been said."

My point is that I was neither ridiculing you nor deliberately distorting what you said. Indeed,    [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] then went on to say exactly what I had taken you to say: "NPCs do exercise that power over events." I don't agree with this, but given that    [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] actually said it, I didn't take it as ridiculous to intepret you (having nothing to go on but your post) as also saying it (less plainly).

Eg you said "The players were successful which means you have to honor their intent going forward -- the advisor cannot mitigate the result". Read literally that seems to posit the advisor (a fictional entity) mitigating the players' success (an event in the real world). You have since clarified that you intended this as a shorthand for something like "The GM cannot undo or lessen the result - ie the players' success - by having the advisor achieve some feat or feats of mitigation". But that was not evident to me upon my initial reading of your post.

Connecting this to the topic of the thread: I think it is a significant source of distortion in discussion/analysis of RPG methods to refer to elements of the fiction as if they have causal power. Yet it happens very frequently: eg you'll see someone say that _the reason something-or-other happened at the table was [such-and-such]_, where [such-and-such] is not a description of events in the real world, but simply a recount of the fiction. And hence is incapable of being a reason that anything happened in the real world.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Ok I have to ask...why? What makes this "change in the fiction"  capable of opening up a previously-settled matter... versus the advisor utilizing resources , connections, influence and even magic to mitigate his failure? Because without an explanation it just looks like DM fiat...



If the players stake a previous success on something, and fail, then they might lose their success.


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## Ovinomancer

[MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]

You've said a number of interesting things regarding playstyle categorization, but I think you're taking a very narrow view of the Robin Law's verision in insisting that they're sole, selfish motivations and not general tendencies, and in that they cannot be addressed in simultaneous fashion by a game.  You're much more lenient in the application of your preferred model and easily grant that one can belong to multiple categories and that games can simultaneously address multiple categories at once.  I think you're creating a false dichotomy in application.

That said, you make valid points between the categorization and motivation, which are separate things.  However, I don't see how your preferred method teases out motivation, as it's categories are still things you do, not reasons why you do them.  And many of those correlations are pretty weak (r=.45 isn't a very strong correlation, frex).  Still, some of them make sense when hypothesizing motivation, like the above mentioned correlation between community and competition -- I strongly enjoy competitive games, and that makes me care about the community.  If it's full of jerks, or people that are outside of my investment range (too many casuals or too many tweakers, depending), then I dislike that community and can't enjoy the competition.  This, however, doesn't mean that if the game features both competitive and PVE play that I seek out community play in PVE.  I tend to do PVE solo or with friends, as then I focus more on my action, strategy, and exploration desires.  So the social field in that model doesn't always map correctly to motivation.  It misses me, in large part, because it's correlation fails to capture what I want from social games.  

This maps to tabletop extremely well -- I enjoy playing RPGs with friends because I enjoy sharing my exploration, action, and strategy with friends.  I rarely play with strangers, for the same reasons as computer games -- even though I often enjoy it, it's not something high on my interest lists.  I don't do social for social's sake.  On the other hand, I love community, even strangers, in competitive games, like boardgames, wargaming, and CCGs.  There, the facets of community I value are fair play, lack of jerks, and a relatively even level of available competition.  Knock one of those legs out and I don't participate.

So, any model you pick is likely going to focus on outcomes and not motivations, because motivations are hard and complex and unique to individuals.  You can stereotype a bit, like Robin does or your method does, but it still has large holes.  The real point is to be aware of what your players value, and then work to weave that into your game, not one at a time, but as a tapestry.


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## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I know. That's what I said in the post you just replied to: "Ovinomancer accused me (more-or-less) of engaging in ridicule, or deliberate distortion of what had been said."
> 
> My point is that I was neither ridiculing you nor deliberately distorting what you said. Indeed,  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] then went on to say exactly what I had taken you to say: "NPCs do exercise that power over events." I don't agree with this, but given that  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] actually said it, I didn't take it as ridiculous to intepret you (having nothing to go on but your post) as also saying it (less plainly).
> 
> As far as RPGing is concerned, I think it is a significant source of distortion in discussion/analysis of RPG methods to refer to elements of the fiction as if they have causal power. Yet it happens very frequently: eg you'll see someone say that _the reason something-or-other happened at the table was [such-and-such]_, where [such-and-such] is not a description of events in the real world, but simply a recount of the fiction. And hence is incapable of being a reason that anything happened in the real world.




You're still using semantic dodges, though.  You're focusing narrowly on the idea that someone thinks that NPC actually do things, when they don't because they don't really exist instead of using a modicum of reason to suss out the obvious fact that NPC is a stand in for a fictional positioning of the DM/GM, and, as such, can have motivations and agendas assigned to them that can be narrated in game independently of PC actions, intents, and even knowledge.

If you'd stop with the silly semantics, the conversation might progress.  As it is, it seems to be a circle of you narrowly interpreting something in the least favorable light, declaring it silly, and then ignoring the responses.  Rinse, repeat.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> NPC is a stand in for a fictional positioning of the DM/GM, and, as such, can have motivations and agendas assigned to them that can be narrated in game independently of PC actions, intents, and even knowledge.



What is the force of the _can_ here?

Do you mean "in accordance with the rules and procedures of play"? Then what you say is not true for the particular episode of play being discussed, where the players' victory precludes the GM simply going on to narrate the advisor improving his standing vis-a-vis the baron.

If the point is that, in   [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game, the same is not true - because Maxperson plays with different rules and procedures - well, yes, that is self-evident (or nearly so).

But as I posted upthread, this does not tell us about any difference in _the role played by NPCs in these games_. In both approaches, NPCs provide opposition/antagonism. Rather, it tells us something about differences in who enjoys what sort of power to change the content of the shared fiction.

I believe that   [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] and   [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] disagree with the previous paragraph (or, at least, with its first and second sentences). But they haven't stated the details of that disagreement. I also take it that you agree with them in disagreeing, but that is an inference - although I raised the issue at least once in reply to you (as a disagreement with something I took you to have said), you haven't responded to it.


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## TwoSix

Campbell said:


> I know. I know. There goes  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] with his data science and overanalysis!



Dude, your posts are awesome.  I'm eating this up.  Understanding the alignment between different play styles and which games support or stymie them is probably the biggest need to make the overall TTRPG experience better as a whole.


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## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> What is the force of the _can_ here?
> 
> Do you mean "in accordance with the rules and procedures of play"? Then what you say is not true for the particular episode of play being discussed, where the players' victory precludes the GM simply going on to narrate the advisor improving his standing vis-a-vis the baron.
> 
> If the point is that, in [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game, the same is not true - because Maxperson plays with different rules and procedures - well, yes, that is self-evident (or nearly so).
> 
> But as I posted upthread, this does not tell us about any difference in _the role played by NPCs in these games_. In both approaches, NPCs provide opposition/antagonism. Rather, it tells us something about differences in who enjoys what sort of power to change the content of the shared fiction.
> 
> I believe that [MENTION=957]BryonD[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] disagree with the previous paragraph (or, at least, with its first and second sentences). But they haven't stated what the details of that disagreement.




Better.  I actually addressed this division in the post where you first responded with ' but NPCs aren't real'.  It was the discussion about whether or not NPCs exist only to frame and oppose PC actions, or if they exist and PCs can pit themselves against them if they choose.  I get that you're missing the distinction here, and, to be fair, it's somewhat subtle.  In the former, which appears to be how you play, NPCs have no point except to act as foils to PC actions -- they only have enough form and substance to provide suitable obstacles (or perhaps allies) to PC intent.  They do nothing except act in reactions to the PCs.  An NPC in this model will never have it's own agenda that it pursues absent PC involvement -- any such agenda will only exist in the event that it's needed to oppose PC intent in a challenge.  You've indicated as much with statements about keeping NPCs vague so that future changes to them due to player declarations and need to challenge them are coherent.  

The latter concept, though, involves NPCs that are created as if they have PC level interests, motivations, and agendas.  In this version, the NPCs are acting on the world independent of the PCs, and this may be the source of conflict.  This is the proposed version Max is using, the NPC as alt-PC, not merely as foil to PCs. 

To bring this analysis to bear on your play example, in your version the advisor only has merit as a foil to the PCs.  He was framed as a challenge, and then the challenge was enacted, but the advisor is entirely bound to the results of the challenge.  He only has an agenda in so much as it exists as a challenge to the players.  In this model, it's right and proper that the advisor cannot engage in mitigation, because the advisor was only a toll to challenge PC intent, and when the PCs succeeded in implementing their intent through the challenge, the advisor was defeated.  The advisor cannot initiate a new challenge that alters this success, only the players can enact a new challenge that might alter this success.  The advisor only ever reacts to the players.

In the other method, the advisor still has independant agendas, so the player success at the challenge is now a setback, but the advisor can now plan steps to overcome the setback and act upon them, even without the players engaging in a new contest that stakes their previous victory.  In this, the advisor can force the players to react to his advances -- he can initiate a new challenge that may adjust the success of the previous one.  This is because the advisor has his own agency in the game and isn't only reactionary to the players.

You would call the second method DM driven.  I've used DM centric, largely because I believe the -driven categories are too binary.  But, regardless of terminology, I think the primary distinction between DM and player driven is the reactionary status of the gameworld -- if the world only every reacts to the players, it's player driven.  If it exists outside of the players, and acts without player input, then it's DM driven.  I'm okay with this, with the clear caveat that nothing is fully one or the other -- it's a spectrum.  My games are both -- the macro is DM driven, in that there's a plot ongoing that will continue without player involvement, and on the micro in that I break my arcs down into sandboxes that largely react to the players.


----------



## Ovinomancer

TwoSix said:


> Dude, your posts are awesome.  I'm eating this up.  Understanding the alignment between different play styles and which games support or stymie them is probably the biggest need to make the overall TTRPG experience better as a whole.




Careful, the model he presents isn't much better than Robin's.  Nor can any model really describe the motivations of players at a resolution that's both accurate and usable. However, the old saw about all models being wrong, but some being useful is applicable.  Just don't confuse the model for reality.


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## Campbell

@Ilbrenteloth

The sort of experience you describe is quite common when first playing and running most indie games, particularly when given convenient release valves like intent, stakes setting, and the ability to add your own complications. First there's the element where you are playing a game that is a lot like the games you have played before so you feel like the skillset you have developed to run and play these games should directly transfer without a hitch, but the skills involved are slightly different. It's like learning how to play a roleplaying game all over again or moving from Call of Duty to Overwatch. Euchre or Spades to Poker is another apt comparison. We don't take tricks in all our card games. Then there's the element where you are giving up the safety and security of perceived sole ownership and control over outcomes. This can be very scary at first. There's also the element where these games require taking social and creative risks we do not usually take when we play mainstream games. Finally the lack of structure can often lead to a sense of anything goes.

All this added together can create a sense of creative insecurity, emotional vulnerability and social freedom. When we feel socially free and emotionally vulnerable we often have a tendency to get silly. Some people really never get past this, but most will over the course of a couple sessions. They often just need to get it out of their systems. This is one of the reasons why I feel like most people who have tried an indie game at a convention and decided it was not for them or decided it was the best thing ever don't really understand the experience of really playing these games. They never really got to the point of vigorous collaboration and being really open to the experience.

I would really stress the importance of really giving things a shot and being principled, sensitive, and disciplined about how you use these techniques. You do not have to be exploring problematic content for these techniques to be potentially dangerous. Just the general lack of a protective shell around your character and world can be somewhat frightening to many players. It's a lot like playing Diplomacy, Liar's Dice, , or Poker for the first time with friends. Although the same could be said for playing D&D in the way it was originally played. It's also definitely not for everyone. Fair play and trust are very important.      

Here's another thing that the most adamant indie gamers probably will not tell you. You can ease into it. I would not recommend combining techniques in the same game, especially at first, but you don't have to turn on the entire fire house at once. I would recommend starting with a game that uses a group structure, provides a structure of play, supports at least broad form setting, and has mechanics you can ease into. The vigorous collaboration can come with time. You can usually safely combine elements of war gaming play with indie play, because they tend to rely on similar permission and expectation models even if the specific permissions and expectations are different. I will get to that in a different post.

My personal recommendation for anyone wanting to give indie gaming a shot would be to give Blades in the Dark a shot on some night you would otherwise get together to play a board game. It relies on a group dynamic, has a dynamic if broadly defined setting to fall back on, has a structure that focuses play, mechanics that you can opt into, and a reward structure that will build in conflicts over methods rather than over conflicts. I would start with just the general score and downtime structure and action rolls. You can build in things like progress clocks, devil's bargains, asking questions as suits the group, and things like emotional and psychological harm over time. The vice, heat, and stress mechanics will do a lot of heavy lifting for you. Right now I am playing Blades with a group of mostly mainstream gamers and they are loving it. It's taken them a bit more time to glom onto the principles, but things have never gotten silly or awkward.


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## TwoSix

Ovinomancer said:


> Careful, the model he presents isn't much better than Robin's.  Nor can any model really describe the motivations of players at a resolution that's both accurate and usable. However, the old saw about all models being wrong, but some being useful is applicable.  Just don't confuse the model for reality.



<shrug>  I'm already running and playing in games that work fine for my needs.  I don't need the model to have specific utility for me to find it interesting to read about and discuss.  Any attempt to taxonomize can provide insight even if it isn't predictive.


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## Imaro

Campbell said:


> @_*Imaro*_
> 
> I forgot about one of the things that drives me absolutely crazy about Robin Laws' Player Type Model. Given such a deeply social game why does so much of its analysis minimize the impact of socialization? The only Player Type description that meaningfully discusses their relationship to the other players is The Casual Gamer. They are all descriptions of lonely fun that we do at tables filled with other people! Why is that? I have found my new pet peeve with it! It's all I have my fun! You have your fun! We take turns! Where's the fun we get to have together?




I agree there could have been more discussion around combining the fun of the player types... but (and I'm not really clear in what context these player types were originally published) is that the purview of discussing different player types or is that the realm of more general DM'ing/GM'ing advice.  I also am not sure that the player types are meant to be exclusive but are moreso a way of categorizing the fun players of the game prefer and creating awareness in both players and GM's about these different types of preferences in the game and to what extent each is preferred by an individual.  

I have to say I find these player types more helpful in a practical way than I do much of the indie/forge essays and premises (which are often at to high a level and filled with unhelpful jargon for my players) to quickly read over and grasp.  My players were able to easily identify what was most fun for them in games as well as what was secondary, tertiary and what they didn't really care that much about by reading and using the Robin Law's model.  As a GM being aware of these preferences in my players allows me to make sure my GM generated content (which may or may not be directly relevant to their characters specific goals and motivations) is both something my players as a group don't actively dislike and it has a multitude of the preferences they do enjoy to be engaging and interesting to them as players.



Campbell said:


> I think we might just have fallen upon the biggest cultural difference between the indie roleplaying culture and mainstream roleplaying culture! There's this big emphasis in the mainstream culture of everybody getting the highly specific things they want, not judging one another in anyway, sole ownership and protecting our own interests rather than letting the game and the other players shape our experiences. Within the indie culture there is a huge focus on the value of openness to experience, seeing what happens, vigorous collaboration and friendly competition, consent, and welcoming the uninvited.




I'm not sure I see it the same way.  My impression of mainstream vs. indie is more along the lines of...

Mainstream is about fun as the first priority in whatever form the particular players find fun... while indie games IMO tend to prioritize a specific experience.  I would say mainstream games tend to be more open and accepting of different playstyles/types since they can often be run using a multitude of techniques in service of both the DM and players... indie games on the other hand are run in a specific way with specific techniques in service to the experience the game is about.  I believe for a group whose desire for fun aligns with the specific experience an indie game is trying to deliver they can be a superior choice... but for those less concerned with the specific experience as opposed to the play generate fun for a group of people diverse in their likes and dislikes... I think often indie games can fall flat. 



Campbell said:


> I feel like this blog post from John Harper highlights some of the cultural differences.




Hmmm... I'm not exactly sure what I should take away from this.  I think both mainstream and indie games benefit from trust... but with mainstream games it's a much more important facet for a fun experience.  With a mainstream game you have to be willing to communicate what is or isn't fun for you and then trust that those at the table not only respect that but drive the game to enable everyone's fun.  The downfall is that it is hard to not only advocate for your fun but to also be willing to step back and allow others to have their fun as well.

Indie games on the other hand don't, IMO, require or rely on trust... they rely on a group that wants the same experience for fun and mechanics that are focused on producing that particular type of fun.  There's really no trust involved because the mechanics are supposed to do the heavy lifting and the players and GM should alll be aligned in wanting said experience.  But yeah, I think I rambled a little here, hopefully you can parse something of worth out of my thought... lol!


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> If the players stake a previous success on something, and fail, then they might lose their success.




So only the players can change this??  I'm trying to understand the differences between what I pointed out earlier when I talked about the differences between GM driven and player driven games and this?  Why can't the advisor challenge their success on this?  Could a different NPC challenge their success on this issue or is it only if it's player initiated?


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> So only the players can change this??  I'm trying to understand the differences between what I pointed out earlier when I talked about the differences between GM driven and player driven games and this?  Why can't the advisor challenge their success on this?  Could a different NPC challenge their success on this issue or is it only if it's player initiated?



What system do you have in mind?

In 4e, there is no such thing as "the advisor challenging their success". The GM doesn't run skill challenges against him-/herself. So the question becomes, under what circumstances is it acceptable for the GM to reopen the matter of the players' success?

My view - which combines what I take to be the general tenor of the 4e GMing advice, _together with_ the particular mechanical framework of skill challenges, _together with_ the fact that 4e is - in its overall tone - a pretty "pro-the-heroes" game without much grit or grimness, _together with_ my own RPGing preferences (which are what led me to 4e in the first place) - is that the GM should not be reopening the matter that was settled by the skill challenge unless some other event in play - some sort of setback to the PCs, and thereby the players - puts it into play.

That's the meaning of _setback_, after all - the interests of the PCs and the players are set back.

Conversely, in the absence of any such setback, the PCs (and their players) get to keep the fruits of their victories.

This is the approach that I believe most D&D GMs, most of the time, take to combat. 4e generalises _finality_ to other, non-combat, situations of conflict (via the skill challenge mechanic).


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> It was the discussion about whether or not NPCs exist only to frame and oppose PC actions, or if they exist and PCs can pit themselves against them if they choose.  I get that you're missing the distinction here, and, to be fair, it's somewhat subtle.  In the former, which appears to be how you play, NPCs have no point except to act as foils to PC actions -- they only have enough form and substance to provide suitable obstacles (or perhaps allies) to PC intent.  They do nothing except act in reactions to the PCs.  An NPC in this model will never have it's own agenda that it pursues absent PC involvement -- any such agenda will only exist in the event that it's needed to oppose PC intent in a challenge.  You've indicated as much with statements about keeping NPCs vague so that future changes to them due to player declarations and need to challenge them are coherent.
> 
> The latter concept, though, involves NPCs that are created as if they have PC level interests, motivations, and agendas.  In this version, the NPCs are acting on the world independent of the PCs, and this may be the source of conflict.  This is the proposed version Max is using, the NPC as alt-PC, not merely as foil to PCs.
> 
> To bring this analysis to bear on your play example, in your version the advisor only has merit as a foil to the PCs.  He was framed as a challenge, and then the challenge was enacted, but the advisor is entirely bound to the results of the challenge.  He only has an agenda in so much as it exists as a challenge to the players.  In this model, it's right and proper that the advisor cannot engage in mitigation, because the advisor was only a toll to challenge PC intent, and when the PCs succeeded in implementing their intent through the challenge, the advisor was defeated.  The advisor cannot initiate a new challenge that alters this success, only the players can enact a new challenge that might alter this success.  The advisor only ever reacts to the players.
> 
> In the other method, the advisor still has independant agendas, so the player success at the challenge is now a setback, but the advisor can now plan steps to overcome the setback and act upon them, even without the players engaging in a new contest that stakes their previous victory.



l don't agree with this. At the risk of repetition, I think it is presenting a difference in GMing technique as if it were a difference in the fiction.

The advisor in my main 4e game had his own plan and (within the fiction) his own agency. Eg at one point the PCs discovered the cavern where, many years before, the advisor had almost succeeded in seizing the tapestry before being driven off by gelatinous cubes. The even found a piece of fabric torn from the hem of his robe. (Which then formed the subject matter of the final taunt during the skill challenge.)

When you say _the advisor still has independent agendas_, if that is taken literally then it is as true in my game as in  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s. The advisor has agendas indpendent of the PCs. It's just that they are all in tatters. But I don't think you mean it literally. What I think you mean is that _the GM has a power, independent of the outcome of action resolution, to narrate the advisor achieving certain things adverse to the interests of the PCs (and thus of the players)_.

And I'm sure that's true of  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game. My point is that it is not a difference about the fiction. It's not a difference about the point of the advisor. It's a difference about the power of participants to establish truths in the shared fiction.

EDIT: I reread the quote and was struck by _The advisor cannot initiate a new challenge that alters this success, only the players can enact a new challenge that might alter this success. The advisor only ever reacts to the players._

The advisor doesn't react to the players. The advisor does variouos things. Some of those (eg dealing with the PCs at the dinner) are reacting to the PCs. Some of those (eg forming a goblin army to help him recover the tapestry) aren't reactions to the PCs - they take place before he or the PCs have ever crossed paths or even heard of one another.

The advisor can also initiate whatever he wants. He can try this, or that. But the players' victory at the table ensures that, whatever the advisor might be trying as far as his relationship with the baron is concerned, I as GM am obliged to narrate it as failing. This is similar to how, in AD&D, a player can narrate his PC attempting to pick the lock. But if it failed once, and the PC hasn't gained a level, then the GM is obliged to narrate the attempt as failing.

The shorthand that you favour - which, upthread, I characterised as expressing a category error - seems to me to run together _stuff in the fiction_ (eg the advisor tries to win back the baron's trust) with _stuff at the table_ (it is open, at the table, to establish as true in the fiction that the advisor has won back the baron's trust). But as soon as the game has some sort of "no retries" or "let it ride" or similar rule for finality, any such running together is just going to mislead.

For instance, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] keeps saying that the advisor is "retarded" because he can't try to mitigate. Which is a product of the same sort of running together. The advisor can try whatever he wants; it's just that the fiction isn't going to change in a direction where the advisor has achieved what he wants.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> What system do you have in mind?




We are speaking to statements and posts made by you so I'm assumign we are discussing the system in your example... 4e 



pemerton said:


> In 4e, there is no such thing as "the advisor challenging their success". The GM doesn't run skill challenges against him-/herself. So the question becomes, under what circumstances is it acceptable for the GM to reopen the matter of the players' success?




Don't NPC's in 4e have skills?  Attributes? Powers? Spells? Etc.? Couldn't any or all of these be leveraged to reopen the matter of the players' success?  I mean a SC is only one possible way of resolving something in 4e there aree numerous others you seem to be ignoring or glossing over.



pemerton said:


> My view - which combines what I take to be the general tenor of the 4e GMing advice, _together with_ the particular mechanical framework of skill challenges, _together with_ the fact that 4e is - in its overall tone - a pretty "pro-the-heroes" game without much grit or grimness, _together with_ my own RPGing preferences (which are what led me to 4e in the first place) - is that the GM should not be reopening the matter that was settled by the skill challenge unless some other event in play - some sort of setback to the PCs, and thereby the players - puts it into play.
> 
> That's the meaning of _setback_, after all - the interests of the PCs and the players are set back.
> 
> Conversely, in the absence of any such setback, the PCs (and their players) get to keep the fruits of their victories.




So there is a difference even though you claimed there wasn't one earlier when I stated what I believed was one of the main differences in DM driven vs. Player driven games.  The advisor in your Player driven game doesn't have the same type of protagonism he would in a DM driven game.  And yes I know the meaning of setback the question trying to be sussed out is why are you claiming there's no difference when clearly in one playstyle the advisor could instigate said setback while in yours it's kind of nebulous (outside of the player's characters) who else could in the fiction.  You didn't answer... could another NPC instigate this setback?  Could the advisor hire or cajole other powerful NPC's to disparage and set up the PC's in the eyes of the baron?



pemerton said:


> This is the approach that I believe most D&D GMs, most of the time, take to combat. 4e generalises _finality_ to other, non-combat, situations of conflict (via the skill challenge mechanic).




I'd be interested in where in the 4e rulebooks it talks about finality and the skill challenge as well as who can initiate setbacks to said finality if you have a source.

As for combat... I don't think that's true.  In combat enemies get knocked out, healed, brought back from the dead, turned into undead, banished to other planes, charmed into temporary allies and so on.  So no even D&D combat does not have this inherent finality that can't be changed through mechanics that can be leveraged by both DM and players... there are numerous ways a DM or player can choose to make said combat finality, well not final.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> You would call the second method DM driven.  I've used DM centric, largely because I believe the -driven categories are too binary.  But, regardless of terminology, I think the primary distinction between DM and player driven is the reactionary status of the gameworld -- if the world only every reacts to the players, it's player driven.  If it exists outside of the players, and acts without player input, then it's DM driven.  I'm okay with this, with the clear caveat that nothing is fully one or the other -- it's a spectrum.  My games are both -- the macro is DM driven, in that there's a plot ongoing that will continue without player involvement, and on the micro in that I break my arcs down into sandboxes that largely react to the players.




I think that this distinction about the game world reacting to the players or to the GM is spot on. Well said.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> l don't agree with this. At the risk of repetition, I think it is presenting a difference in GMing technique as if it were a difference in the fiction.
> 
> The advisor in my main 4e game had his own plan and (within the fiction) his own agency. Eg at one point the PCs discovered the cavern where, many years before, the advisor had almost succeeded in seizing the tapestry before being driven off by gelatinous cubes. The even found a piece of fabric torn from the hem of his robe. (Which then formed the subject matter of the final taunt during the skill challenge.)
> 
> When you say _the advisor still has independent agendas_, if that is taken literally then it is as true in my game as in  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s. The advisor has agendas indpendent of the PCs. It's just that they are all in tatters. But I don't think you mean it literally. What I think you mean is that _the GM has a power, independent of the outcome of action resolution, to narrate the advisor achieving certain things adverse to the interests of the PCs (and thus of the players)_.
> 
> And I'm sure that's true of  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s game. My point is that it is not a difference about the fiction. It's not a difference about the point of the advisor. It's a difference about the power of participants to establish truths in the shared fiction.
> 
> EDIT: I reread the quote and was struck by _The advisor cannot initiate a new challenge that alters this success, only the players can enact a new challenge that might alter this success. The advisor only ever reacts to the players._
> 
> The advisor doesn't react to the players. The advisor does variouos things. Some of those (eg dealing with the PCs at the dinner) are reacting to the PCs. Some of those (eg forming a goblin army to help him recover the tapestry) aren't reactions to the PCs - they take place before he or the PCs have ever crossed paths or even heard of one another.
> 
> The advisor can also initiate whatever he wants. He can try this, or that. But the players' victory at the table ensures that, whatever the advisor might be trying as far as his relationship with the baron is concerned, I as GM am obliged to narrate it as failing. This is similar to how, in AD&D, a player can narrate his PC attempting to pick the lock. But if it failed once, and the PC hasn't gained a level, then the GM is obliged to narrate the attempt as failing.
> 
> The shorthand that you favour - which, upthread, I characterised as expressing a category error - seems to me to run together _stuff in the fiction_ (eg the advisor tries to win back the baron's trust) with _stuff at the table_ (it is open, at the table, to establish as true in the fiction that the advisor has won back the baron's trust). But as soon as the game has some sort of "no retries" or "let it ride" or similar rule for finality, any such running together is just going to mislead.
> 
> For instance, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] keeps saying that the advisor is "retarded" because he can't try to mitigate. Which is a product of the same sort of running together. The advisor can try whatever he wants; it's just that the fiction isn't going to change in a direction where the advisor has achieved what he wants.




Okay, I'll admit that you've stumped me.  You've previously said that you do not do secret backstory, but here you present an example of the advisor engaged in unknown (to the players) actions for unknown (to the players) reasons.  They have to figure this out?  What is this if not secret backstory?  I was trying to engage your example using the concept I had formed of your playstyle prior to this, but I appear to have misunderstood something important along the way.  I had assumed that there was no secret backstory to the Advisor storyline.


----------



## tomBitonti

Re: The challenge of outing the Baron.  The discussion is focused on how play continues after the scene in which the baron's nefarious schemes are revealed to the king.  In particular, what actions the Baron might take, and whether any mitigation of the revelation are possible.

A key issue is the separation of the Baron's immediate goals (to maintain influence on the king) from the Baron's longer term goals (which are unstated, but are presumed to exist, and, since the Baron still exists, will still be pursued.

To make the example more concrete, I change it to the following:

* The kingdom fell into rebellion.  Loyalists were driven to a mountain redoubt, which is under siege by forces of the Baron.

* A convoy of three airships with much needed supplies, including three arcane ballistae which are to be used to break through the walls of the redoubt, was sent to bolster the Baron's forces.

* The players undertook a challenge to prevent the airships from arriving.  They were successful in meeting the challenge.  Ultimately, the airships were crashed, leading to the destruction of nearly all of the supplies.

Within this example, _there is no "uncrashing" the airships_.  The challenge was met and the airships and supplies were destroyed.

But also within this example, the kingdom is still in rebellion, and the Baron still has the redoubt under siege.  

Yet, the balance of force has been changed.  The Baron's forces will soon come under attack by newly mustered Loyalists and is facing likely defeat.  If captured, the Baron faces a grim death after long hours of torture.

The now desperate Baron will certainly do something.  Make an unwise pact.  Flee.  Launch a risky decapitation strike against loyalist leaders (the PCs).  Something.  _One finds inconceivable that the Baron will not continue to try to reach his long range goal._

Out of this example I find two issues relating to the current discussion:

* "Railroading" would be a play by the GM to undo the effect of crashing the ships.  Say, by announcing that there was a unknown fourth ship which arrived unhindered.  Or by having a large fraction of supplies survive the crashes.

* A question of agency in regards to what happens next (with a nexus on the Baron): Will any new plot elements be introduced to the store?  (Secret demonic forces allied with the Baron.  A discovery of the Baron of the King's nephew, who is one of the few surviving heirs, as a hostage.)  _Will the introductions be driven by the players or by the GM?_

As an example of a possible continuation:

Doubling down: The Baron, driven to extremes, has one of his battalions bring a village to a desolate temple, where both the villagers and the battalion are sacrificed to a greater demon, so to summon a host of demons to attack the redoubt.  The PCs are informed of the sacrifice, but are unable to prevent it.  The PCs face new challenges: To close the gate opened for the demons.  To reveal the Baron's horrific act to his troops -- which will convert them to loyalists.  To hunt down and slay the demonic forces making their way to the redoubt.

Or:

Folding: The Baron flees to a nearby country, leaving the rebellion in disarray.  Order is restored in the kingdom.  The chapter in the PCs story ends and a new one begins.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Imaro

tomBitonti said:


> Re: The challenge of outing the Baron.  The discussion is focused on how play continues after the scene in which the baron's nefarious schemes are revealed to the king.  In particular, what actions the Baron might take, and whether any mitigation of the revelation are possible.
> 
> A key issue is the separation of the Baron's immediate goals (to maintain influence on the king) from the Baron's longer term goals (which are unstated, but are presumed to exist, and, since the Baron still exists, will still be pursued.
> 
> To make the example more concrete, I change it to the following:
> 
> * The kingdom fell into rebellion.  Loyalists were driven to a mountain redoubt, which is under siege by forces of the Baron.
> 
> * A convoy of three airships with much needed supplies, including three arcane ballistae which are to be used to break through the walls of the redoubt, was sent to bolster the Baron's forces.
> 
> * The players undertook a challenge to prevent the airships from arriving.  They were successful in meeting the challenge.  Ultimately, the airships were crashed, leading to the destruction of nearly all of the supplies.
> 
> Within this example, _there is no "uncrashing" the airships_.  The challenge was met and the airships and supplies were destroyed.
> 
> But also within this example, the kingdom is still in rebellion, and the Baron still has the redoubt under siege.
> 
> Yet, the balance of force has been changed.  The Baron's forces will soon come under attack by newly mustered Loyalists and is facing likely defeat.  If captured, the Baron faces a grim death after long hours of torture.
> 
> The now desperate Baron will certainly do something.  Make an unwise pact.  Flee.  Launch a risky decapitation strike against loyalist leaders (the PCs).  Something.  _One finds inconceivable that the Baron will not continue to try to reach his long range goal._
> 
> Out of this example I find two issues relating to the current discussion:
> 
> * "Railroading" would be a play by the GM to undo the effect of crashing the ships.  Say, by announcing that there was a unknown fourth ship which arrived unhindered.  Or by having a large fraction of supplies survive the crashes.
> 
> * A question of agency in regards to what happens next (with a nexus on the Baron): Will any new plot elements be introduced to the store?  (Secret demonic forces allied with the Baron.  A discovery of the Baron of the King's nephew, who is one of the few surviving heirs, as a hostage.)  _Will the introductions be driven by the players or by the GM?_
> 
> As an example of a possible continuation:
> 
> Doubling down: The Baron, driven to extremes, has one of his battalions bring a village to a desolate temple, where both the villagers and the battalion are sacrificed to a greater demon, so to summon a host of demons to attack the redoubt.  The PCs are informed of the sacrifice, but are unable to prevent it.  The PCs face new challenges: To close the gate opened for the demons.  To reveal the Baron's horrific act to his troops -- which will convert them to loyalists.  To hunt down and slay the demonic forces making their way to the redoubt.
> 
> Or:
> 
> Folding: The Baron flees to a nearby country, leaving the rebellion in disarray.  Order is restored in the kingdom.  The chapter in the PCs story ends and a new one begins.
> 
> Thx!
> TomB




Can the baron seek supplies from elsewhere?


----------



## tomBitonti

Imaro said:


> Can the baron seek supplies from elsewhere?




One would presume so, although, the details of whether this is possible and whether it would be in time depend on details which we don't have available.

My concern would be in adding this response in a manner which is consistent with the story details, and not blatantly added as the GM undoing the players achievement.  Then, the Baron can keep trying to bring in supplies, but that cannot have the same effect as the original supplies arriving on time.  _There must be a durable consequence to the Baron._

This seems to be an example of a slightly different problem: The GM laying out a scenario in which, no matter what the players do, a particular result will occur.  Not quite railroading, since that is more about the GM forcing the player's actions.  Say, railroading as no agency compared with forced outcomes as fictional agency?

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Imaro

tomBitonti said:


> One would presume so, although, the details of whether this is possible and whether it would be in time depend on details which we don't have available.




True and this is one of the differences in those who leverage pre-prep or randomness vs those who are building fiction off the cuff/improvising.  Especially if this conflict is central to the campaign and thus more likely to have prep done around it or random tables created for it.  I think this is a much harder question (at least as it relates to fairness) for those who primarily improvise fiction creation in the moment (as opposed to those who have already pre-prepped or who use random tables)... knowing that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] prefers this method of creating fiction content perhaps that may be why he has such a hard stance... unless a setback created by the players allows this as a consequence...



tomBitonti said:


> My concern would be in adding this response in a manner which is consistent with the story details, and not blatantly added as the GM undoing the players achievement.  Then, the Baron can keep trying to bring in supplies, but that cannot have the same effect as the original supplies arriving on time.  _There must be a durable consequence to the Baron._




Well I think anyone running the game with integrity, whatever their playstyle, would want to be consistent with the story details as well as to avoid undoing the players achievements.  I also agree with you that there should be a durable consequence for players victories.  This I think is why in the previous example it was asked if the advisor could mitigate (not undo) the ramifications of his outing by the PC's... IMO this was a key difference in how the question was presented vs. how it was answered (as if a total nullification of the players achievements was being asked for).  



tomBitonti said:


> This seems to be an example of a slightly different problem: The GM laying out a scenario in which, no matter what the players do, a particular result will occur.  Not quite railroading, since that is more about the GM forcing the player's actions.  Say, railroading as no agency compared with forced outcomes as fictional agency?
> 
> Thx!
> TomB




That could be an issue... if that's what is driving the situation but if something like that is feasible in the fiction and through the mechanics of the game and you choose not to engage it as DM then you risk a world where as [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] said you have retarded or what I'd liken to cartoon villains (as in the looney tunes villains who have good ideas but are never willing to correct or retry their plans while adjusting for previous mistakes)... these villains never fully utilize their resources or push the PC's to go above and beyond to defeat them.  Now don't get me wrong I don't think every villain should be of this caliber but I think there should be some that are made of better stuff than the rules of finality seems to allow for.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> I can't remember the precise details - at the start of the following session, when the advisor, having failed socially, turned to sheer magical power to try and establish dominance over the PCs, combat ensued. The baron and other NPCs were in the room, and I think it was something that I said about them and their response to the violence. The player's point was that, as the upshot of success in the skill challenge, _it was clear to all the witnesses_ that _responsibility for the violence fell on the advisor, not the PCs_ - the advisor was the one who had been revealed as a traitor, and was now turning to magic to try and get what he wanted by force.



 Ah.  Yeah, that clears it up.  



> But in the context of RPGing, at least as I prefer it, those reversals of fortune have to result from the players failing at something.



 Not an unreasonable preference.  I do like tapping the odd melodrama trope, precisely because it is so cliched, though.  



> Even in classic D&D, the reversal of fortunes comes eg from having got the treasure, but now suffering an unlucky wandering monster check.



 Or some of the treasure is cursed...  







> Not just from the GM fiating away the tresasure for a lark.



Well... I guess I was in some bad games back in the day.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> If it helps I'm not really shooting for Oscar or fine art novel level fiction when I play roleplaying games. I want things to be emotionally charged, but there is still plenty of bloody catharsis and action involved. As Play Passionately put it "I like to be emotionally conflicted while I punch zombies in the face." I'm really looking for the game to play out like a Netflix, HBO, AMC, Showtime, or FX Drama. Street Level Marvel and Vertigo Comics are also inspirations. I also dearly love Swords and Sorcery fiction. Common media touchstones include Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Breaking Bad, Deadwood, Sons of Anarchy, Mad Max: Fury Road, Penny Dreadful, Game of Thrones, Vikings, Hellblazer, Neil Gaiman's Sandman, American Gods, Conan, Elric, Black Company, Taboo, and The Walking Dead. Not super deep stuff, but still like compelling character focused stories. There are games that aim higher, but I generally don't play them that much.



I guess I'm somewhat lower-brow, in that if I can (often unintentionally) hit some Tolkein, Xena-Hercules, Game of Thrones, Vikings and a dash or two of Robert Jordan I'll say things are going well.



> When I talk about mainstream gaming culture



Question: I've always seen B/X, original D&D, and 1e as being bery much the same in terms of play at the table, just with varying degrees of rules complexity; yet you and others seem to see them as quite different.  How so?



> ... Walking vs. Running Towards Conflict. I like a bit more introspection and strategy in my games.



There's lots of sense in that passage you quoted.  Sometimes either one or more individual characters or the game as a whole just need to sit back and take a deep breath...take a break for a moment.  This tangentially gets at a question I had for [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] about 30 pages ago regarding whether the PCs in his game ever get any downtime or breaks in which the stress is off and they can just kick back and relax for a while.



> When it comes to resolving the apparent contradiction between vigorous collaborative agreement and the possibility for competitive play and sometimes even open conflict here's what I have to say: I view it like a friendly poker game. We are all there fundamentally for the same reasons. Connections and relationships between Player Characters need not be warm and fuzzy. They might even be overtly hostile. In the moment we might be working at cross purposes, but we all want to find out what happens more than we want to win. It's not cut throat. We are motivated more by the challenge and strategy involved than a need to win. There is a strong fair play and good sportsmanship element. Even in games like Masks and Blades in the Dark where group play is assumed there will often be a measure of competition and conflict driven in part by the rules of the game.
> 
> We want overwhelming unity of player interests with sustained in game conflict of interest just like when we play Poker. In this conception the GM is a player too for when group play is like a thing!



The players co-operate when it comes to pouring each other's beer and getting the snacks onto the table.  Once the game starts however, sometimes both player and character in-game co-operation wanders out the window, and as long as it all stays in character that's just fine.  And it can get cut-throat (literally!) sometimes - PCs killing off other PCs is not unheard of - while at other times (usually when under severe threat) they can run like a well-oiled machine.



> I know. I know. There goes  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] with his data science and overanalysis!



As long as you're not offended when I chop out lots of it when I reply, all is good. 

Lan-"sometimes a good poker face is essential"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I tend to agree. There should have really been several splinter threads.



Truth be told, I prefer it all in one...less chasing around to do.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Maxperson said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The NPC may decide to take a course that I myself would not take were I to make the same decision on my own.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In having an NPC do X rather than Y, a GM is making a choice. In extrapolating one way rather than another from established fiction, the GM is making a choice. Every day, all over the world, real people makes choices that no one would readily foresee based on a passing familiarity with their previous history and behaviour. A RPG doesn't become less verisimilitudinous because it has NPCs with similar degrees of unpredicatability!
Click to expand...


Er...aren't you two in effect saying the same thing here; that an NPC has its own personality and unpredictability just like a PC does, and might not always do the rational thing or make theperfect choice?



> (2) You ask _Have you given us any reason to believe the advisor's agendas, whatever they are, are permanently and conclusively foiled other than to say the players passed some mechanical test that exposed the advisor_? As I've already mentioned upthread, I find this an especially strange question from D&D players.
> 
> In D&D combat, _what reason do we have to believe that the ogre is dead_, except that a player passed some mechanical test that reduced it to zero hp? Answer: none. The health of beings in D&D combat is not determined via fictional positioning and following the logic of the fiction; it's determined via an abstract mechanical process, to which - by the rules of the game - the fiction must then conform.



Yes, but in the D&D I'm familiar with social encounters are not finality-based resolved the same way as combat is!  You keep trying to tell us that they are, hence the disconnect - at least on my part.

Combat almost always ends up with one participant or side rendered completely non-functional - usually dead, sometimes just knocked out or captured or whatever - or with one participant or side completely absent as they have fled.

Social interactions by themselves - i.e. that don't descend into combat - almost never end up with one participant or side rendered completely non-functional (though fleeing is still very much a possible outcome).  Thus, except in the case of someone leaving the scene, any sort of finality-based resolution system is simply the wrong tool for the job as the "losing" side or person is - within the fiction - able to keep going, try to mitigate the losses, try a different gambit, and so on.

Imagine, for example, someone trying to impose a finality-based resolution on to this thread...



> (3) I've posted upthread about some of the circumstances in which successes might be re-opened. I see this as one application of a more general "no retries" rule. AD&D has no general prohibition on retries, but lots of particular ones: a retry is _never_ permitted when it comes to bending bars or lifting a gate, nor when it comes to finding or removing a trap; but a retry is permitted with a level gained, in the case of opening a lock.



Retries are permitted in 1e when something has significantly changed - this includes a level gain - such as if someone fails a bars-gates roll then downs a potion of giant strength (a significant change) they'd be allowed to try again should they so desire.

Lan-"NPCs are people too"-efan


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Yes, but in the D&D I'm familiar with social encounters are not finality-based resolved the same way as combat is!  You keep trying to tell us that they are, hence the disconnect - at least on my part.




This is why I said (now far) upthread that many of us are talking at cross-purposes because of how system-design philosophy impacts how we view what the game does or does not do. In 4E (and Dungeon World and Burning Wheel, too, I guess, though I have only passing familiarity with those systems), social encounters _do_ have a resolution mechanic that can be utilized in such scenarios: the skill challenge, which, admittedly, is quite the departure from how social interactions are handled in many other (previous and succeeding) iterations of D&D.



> Social interactions by themselves - i.e. that don't descend into combat - almost never end up with one participant or side rendered completely non-functional (though fleeing is still very much a possible outcome).




I don't think that's an accurate characterization of what pemerton has been saying, time and time again. The advisor is not rendered "completely non-functional"; but the outcome of _this one particular contest_ between the PCs and the advisor has been locked in as a result of the resolution mechanic.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Connecting this to the topic of the thread: I think it is a significant source of distortion in discussion/analysis of RPG methods to refer to elements of the fiction as if they have causal power. Yet it happens very frequently: eg you'll see someone say that _the reason something-or-other happened at the table was [such-and-such]_, where [such-and-such] is not a description of events in the real world, but simply a recount of the fiction. And hence is incapable of being a reason that anything happened in the real world.



This one baffles me.

What happens in the game world can clearly and obviously affect what happens in the real world - the most basic example of which might be where a monster barges through a door in the game world thus causing real-world people to pick up real-world dice and roll for initiative! 

Beyond this, I'm really not sure what you're trying to say here.

Lan-"failed save vs. confusion, now wandering aimlessly"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

OK, now this (quotes below) is a lot more enlightening.  Still have some questions, however...


pemerton said:


> The advisor in my main 4e game had his own plan and (within the fiction) his own agency. Eg at one point the PCs discovered the cavern where, many years before, the advisor had almost succeeded in seizing the tapestry before being driven off by gelatinous cubes. The even found a piece of fabric torn from the hem of his robe. (Which then formed the subject matter of the final taunt during the skill challenge.)
> 
> When you say _the advisor still has independent agendas_, if that is taken literally then it is as true in my game as in  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION]'s. The advisor has agendas indpendent of the PCs. It's just that they are all in tatters. But I don't think you mean it literally. What I think you mean is that _the GM has a power, independent of the outcome of action resolution, to narrate the advisor achieving certain things adverse to the interests of the PCs (and thus of the players)_.



What I've been wondering is whether the advisor is able to* continue pursuing those tattered agendae after the defeat by the PCs?

* - or would be able to, had he not then lost a combat immediately following.  For these purposes I'm going to intentionally ignore that and go on the hypothetical premise that the combat did not occur, as having the advisor still functional gives more worth to the discussion.



> EDIT: I reread the quote and was struck by _The advisor cannot initiate a new challenge that alters this success, only the players can enact a new challenge that might alter this success. The advisor only ever reacts to the players._
> 
> The advisor doesn't react to the players. The advisor does variouos things. Some of those (eg dealing with the PCs at the dinner) are reacting to the PCs. Some of those (eg forming a goblin army to help him recover the tapestry) aren't reactions to the PCs - they take place before he or the PCs have ever crossed paths or even heard of one another.
> 
> The advisor can also initiate whatever he wants. He can try this, or that. But the players' victory at the table ensures that, whatever the advisor might be trying as far as his relationship with the baron is concerned, I as GM am obliged to narrate it as failing. This is similar to how, in AD&D, a player can narrate his PC attempting to pick the lock. But if it failed once, and the PC hasn't gained a level, then the GM is obliged to narrate the attempt as failing.



That's a system fault, in that the system is constraining you-as-DM in a diplomatic or social situation where it shouldn't.  A physical situation, such as picking a lock or bending a gate, is different - you give it your best try and you fail or succeed - and that's that.  Diplomatic/social situations are by their very nature way more fluid and - barring someone somehow being entirely removed from proceedings - are almost invariably open-ended as opposed to definitely resolvable, just like in the real world.

Here, the socially-defeated advisor (again, ignoring the combat) should still have options open to him.  He can try to change the Baron's perception of him (remember, opinions aren't always carved in stone either and can change - the Baron's just changed his view of the advisor once, what's to prevent him changing it again later?), or he can go and round up his goblin army and try the military approach, or he can let himself get captured and then foment rebellion with his fellow prisoners, or he can fade into the background and then hire some bards to spread malicious rumours and innuendoes about the PCs...or the Baron, for all that.

And we're all forgetting that in theory the Baron himself, who is another major player in the scene, might have his own agenda.  We don't know the Baron's opinion of the PCs going in, for example; or whether he's trying to pump the advisor's tires in order to make him a better match for his daughter - or his rival's daughter; or whether he thinks the advisor's in fact a bloody nuisance and will leap at anything that'll help get rid of him.



> For instance, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] keeps saying that the advisor is "retarded" because he can't try to mitigate. Which is a product of the same sort of running together. The advisor can try whatever he wants; it's just that the fiction isn't going to change in a direction where the advisor has achieved what he wants.



Not ever?  Or just not right away?  There's a fairly big difference.

Lan-"and we haven't even asked yet whether the advisor, though underhanded and scheming, is in fact the good guy trying to oust an even nastier Baron"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> This is why I said (now far) upthread that many of us are talking at cross-purposes because of how system-design philosophy impacts how we view what the game does or does not do. In 4E (and Dungeon World and Burning Wheel, too, I guess, though I have only passing familiarity with those systems), social encounters _do_ have a resolution mechanic that can be utilized in such scenarios: the skill challenge, which, admittedly, is quite the departure from how social interactions are handled in many other (previous and succeeding) iterations of D&D.



Yeah - 3e had things like Bluff and Diplomacy and so forth as well, which kind of waved in the same direction. And as far as I'm concerned those were examples of poor design.

4e skill challenges have their place (and in some circumstances are in fact a pretty neat system from what I can tell) but social interaction is most certainly not one of them.  Allowing their use for such is also poor design.

Lanefan


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> social interaction is most certainly not one of them.  Allowing their use for such is also poor design.



  If you can't resolve social challenges based on the abilities of the character, rather than solely on those of the player, /that/ is poor design. You might be able to have loads of fun playing a game that way, but it's not a good design, heck, it's not a design at all.  It's a refusal to open up the range of characters you can play.  You can play a strong character or a fast character or character with magical powers, but he's always going to be precisely as insightful and persuasive and diplomatic as /you/?  
Hard Fail.

There may be all sorts of issues with social resolution mechanics - with reaction rolls being arbitrary or with bluff checks being binary or Diplomancer builds being broken, or some characters being frozen out of a challenge because their only applicable skill is singled out for automatic failure - but they're issues with systems that at least exist, bring value, and might be fixed or improved upon no matter how little value that may be.


----------



## Maxperson

Ovinomancer said:


> Better.  I actually addressed this division in the post where you first responded with ' but NPCs aren't real'.  It was the discussion about whether or not NPCs exist only to frame and oppose PC actions, or if they exist and PCs can pit themselves against them if they choose.  I get that you're missing the distinction here, and, to be fair, it's somewhat subtle.  In the former, which appears to be how you play, NPCs have no point except to act as foils to PC actions -- they only have enough form and substance to provide suitable obstacles (or perhaps allies) to PC intent.  They do nothing except act in reactions to the PCs.  An NPC in this model will never have it's own agenda that it pursues absent PC involvement -- any such agenda will only exist in the event that it's needed to oppose PC intent in a challenge.  You've indicated as much with statements about keeping NPCs vague so that future changes to them due to player declarations and need to challenge them are coherent.
> 
> The latter concept, though, involves NPCs that are created as if they have PC level interests, motivations, and agendas.  In this version, the NPCs are acting on the world independent of the PCs, and this may be the source of conflict.  This is the proposed version Max is using, the NPC as alt-PC, not merely as foil to PCs.
> 
> To bring this analysis to bear on your play example, in your version the advisor only has merit as a foil to the PCs.  He was framed as a challenge, and then the challenge was enacted, but the advisor is entirely bound to the results of the challenge.  He only has an agenda in so much as it exists as a challenge to the players.  In this model, it's right and proper that the advisor cannot engage in mitigation, because the advisor was only a toll to challenge PC intent, and when the PCs succeeded in implementing their intent through the challenge, the advisor was defeated.  The advisor cannot initiate a new challenge that alters this success, only the players can enact a new challenge that might alter this success.  The advisor only ever reacts to the players.
> 
> In the other method, the advisor still has independant agendas, so the player success at the challenge is now a setback, but the advisor can now plan steps to overcome the setback and act upon them, even without the players engaging in a new contest that stakes their previous victory.  In this, the advisor can force the players to react to his advances -- he can initiate a new challenge that may adjust the success of the previous one.  This is because the advisor has his own agency in the game and isn't only reactionary to the players.
> 
> You would call the second method DM driven.  I've used DM centric, largely because I believe the -driven categories are too binary.  But, regardless of terminology, I think the primary distinction between DM and player driven is the reactionary status of the gameworld -- if the world only every reacts to the players, it's player driven.  If it exists outside of the players, and acts without player input, then it's DM driven.  I'm okay with this, with the clear caveat that nothing is fully one or the other -- it's a spectrum.  My games are both -- the macro is DM driven, in that there's a plot ongoing that will continue without player involvement, and on the micro in that I break my arcs down into sandboxes that largely react to the players.




At times like this, I wish I could give exp multiple times for a post.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> Three things.
> 
> (1) I know perfectly well that [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] doesn't adjudicate finality in resolution the same way that I do. But that doesn't mean that Maxperson is correct to say that, in my game, using the system (4e) that I was using, I was wrong to agree with my player that - as GM - I had made a bad call, and needed to wind back and remake it.
> 
> (2) You ask _Have you given us any reason to believe the advisor's agendas, whatever they are, are permanently and conclusively foiled other than to say the players passed some mechanical test that exposed the advisor_? As I've already mentioned upthread, I find this an especially strange question from D&D players.
> 
> In D&D combat, _what reason do we have to believe that the ogre is dead_, except that a player passed some mechanical test that reduced it to zero hp? Answer: none. The health of beings in D&D combat is not determined via fictional positioning and following the logic of the fiction; it's determined via an abstract mechanical process, to which - by the rules of the game - the fiction must then conform.
> 
> The same is true of traditional encounter reaction checks: when reaction checks are being used, we don't first know the mood of the NPC/monster, and thereby determine it's reaction; rather _a mechanical test_ - the reaction roll - tells us what their mood is (hostile, indifferent or friendly being the 3 traditional options).
> 
> A skill challenge in 4e, or a Duel of Wits in BW, works the same way as these other tried-and-true D&D mechanics: the content of the fiction unfolds in a way that conforms to certain mechanical processes. If the players succeed at the challenge, the resulting fiction includes the elements that make up their success. In this case, that means the baron holds the breakdown of the situation against the advisor - revealed as a traitor - and not against the PCs.
> 
> (3) I've posted upthread about some of the circumstances in which successes might be re-opened. I see this as one application of a more general "no retries" rule. AD&D has no general prohibition on retries, but lots of particular ones: a retry is _never_ permitted when it comes to bending bars or lifting a gate, nor when it comes to finding or removing a trap; but a retry is permitted with a level gained, in the case of opening a lock.
> 
> I think it is not compatible with a game being player-driven that the GM is permitted to reopen some matter willy-nilly, regardless of previous successes at action resolution.




On #3, why exactly are we bringing up old and outdated rules here? PCs have been able to retry picking locks for the better part of 20 years now, and though there are some instances where retries don't make sense, for the most part they're pretty contextual. We can accept that the PCs can't try the same skill challenge, but then the situation hadn't changed yet. The advisor hadn't found a way to worm his way back into the baron's good graces (and in the end, didn't try). That, however, says absolutely nothing inherent about the options available to the advisor - you went with one outcome as the GM but others could have been just as reasonable.

On #2, don't compare this to combat unless the outcomes are the same - they're not. It doesn't sound like the skill challenge was fatal to the advisor - just his current agenda. That's quite a contrast with a combat encounter that kills the ogre. The mechanical resolution in play doesn't seem to lead to the same degree of finality for the actors involved - unless the baron has the advisor executed for treason (assuming he has the authority to administer high justice) or just knifed to death in the dungeons. Devious people often have multiple gambits in play, after all...

Ultimately, the system doesn't really matter here. Whether you adjudicated by an organized skill challenge or fiat, you chose to make the result absolutely final for that NPC and you didn't have to. I don't think it was wrong to do so, but I do think it's wrong to think you *had* to do so... which is an impression I'm seriously getting from your posts.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Okay, I'll admit that you've stumped me.  You've previously said that you do not do secret backstory, but here you present an example of the advisor engaged in unknown (to the players) actions for unknown (to the players) reasons.  They have to figure this out?



When I say that I don't like "GM's secret backstory", I've been talking about the use of such secret backstory as a consideration in action resolution. I think there was quite an extended discussion of this upthread,wih [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].

An example (hypothetical only) of secret backstory operating as a consdieration in action resolution: the PCs try to out the advisor in a way that will damage his relationship with the baron, but fail because - unbeknownst to the players - the GM has decided that the advisor is holding the baron's niece hostage, and is thereby exercising leverage over the baron.

I think that sort of approach is fairly common in RPGing - judging from some posters in this thread, plus other threads that I have read over the years, plus reading published adventures. In this sort of game, the players tend to end up trying to unravel the mystery. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], upthread, has talked about a style of play that involves "finding the plot". I think it sits in the same general category as what I have just described, although I'm sure there are significant nuances across individual games and styles.

As those posts upthread discussed, it is possible to have mystery and revelation without having secret backstory operate as a constraint on action resolution. I've given at least four examples in the course of this thread:

(1) A PC searches in the ruins of the tower which once was his home, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he had been working upon when orcs attacked; instead, he finds - in the ruins of his brother's private workroom - cursed black arrows, seemingly manufactured by his brother. Later, he learns that the mace was taken from the ruin by a renegade elf.

*GM commentary*: The discovery of the arrows rather than the mace is a consequence of failure. The possession of the mace by the elf is an element of framing, weaving together two hitherto-distinct elememts in the shared fiction.

(2) The PCs spend 18 months eking out a living in the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz. Their only significant contact with the ouside world over that time is with some elven merchants who are passing through the hills travelling to distant lands. They report that the Gynarch of Hardby has announced her engagement to the head of a sorcerous cabal, who - as it happens - is also a nemesis of the PCs. The PCs wonder whether the Gynarch is under his magical influence.

*GM commentary*: The encounter with the merchants was the result of a successful Circles check by the player of the elven princess. The wedding gossip was (initially) colour, which has subsequently transmuted into an element of framing. What the utlimate reason for, and significance of, the engagement is has not yet been discovered.

(3) The baron's niece has not been seen for some days. The PCs, fearing that her fiance - the evil necromancer advisor of the baron - has done something to hurt her. They track her down to an enchanted tower in the moors (the Bloodmoors Tower from Open Grave). They enter the tower, planning to rescue her - only to discover that she herself is a Vecna-ite necromancer, trying to bring an ancient member of her order back to (un)life, and in the process instead waking Kas from a long slumber.

*GM commentary*: This was all framing. The missing niece, and her connection to her ancestor whom the PCs had helped when they travelled back in time, was initially part of the dinner skill challenge, and then became part of the framing of this subsequent episode.

(4) The PCs defend a homestead against goblin attackers. They learn (i) that the homestead contains a magical tapestry, and (ii) that the goblins are searching for it. (How they learn those things now escapes me, as it was many years of play ago; my best guess would be talking to NPCs.) When approaching a goblin fortress, they see a wizardly type wearing a yellow robe fly off on a flying carpet. They have heard other stories of a wizardly type in yellow robes hanging out suspiciously in the local area. In a tunnel beneath the fortress they find a torn scrap of yellow robe in a place that (they work out somehow - again, I can't remember the details) the tapestry had once hung. Somehow (perhaps a scrying spell of some sort?) they learn that the yellow-robed wizard was driven out by the gelatinous cubes which they just defeated.

*GM commentary*: This begins as colour: the goblins need a motivation for attacking the homestead, and the presence of the tapestry provides it. The presence of a 
 yellow-robed mastermind zooming around on a flying carpet adds to the colour. The colour becomes part of the framing of the skill challenge, however: the PCs play on it in the course of making skill checks (eg obliquely taunting the advisor about his defeat by the cubes, by boasting how easily they - the PCs - were able to defeat said cubes;
 and then taunting him about his torn robe).​
There is no secret backstory as an element of action resolution in any of the above. The resolution follows from the framing and the checks.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> What happens in the game world can clearly and obviously affect what happens in the real world - the most basic example of which might be where a monster barges through a door in the game world thus causing real-world people to pick up real-world dice and roll for initiative!



But the event in the fiction _doesn't_ cause that!

What causes that is a whole lot of stuff in the real world: the GM describes a monster entering a room in which persons A, B and C are; certain other people at the table understanding that A, B and C are their player characters; there being rules of the game that establish how to decide what happens when player characters are charged by monsters, and those rules requiring the rolling of initiative; etc.

If _every event in the fiction_ correlated uniformly to _a particular real-world event_, the conflation mightn't matter. But that isn't true in anyone's game. For instance, not every charging of a monster through a door triggers the rolling of dice at some table (eg no one rolled dice because the gelationous cubes "charged" into the room where the advisor was trying to get the tapestry).



Lanefan said:


> Retries are permitted in 1e when something has significantly changed - this includes a level gain - such as if someone fails a bars-gates roll then downs a potion of giant strength (a significant change) they'd be allowed to try again should they so desire.



There are no retries for Find/Remove Traps. Level allows a retry for opening locks. The rule about drinking a potion of Giant Strength is not found in the books, I believe, but is a reasonable rule.

Upthread I've said a bit about what might count as a significant change in the context of the advisor episode. The passage of two weeks between sessions doesn't count!



Lanefan said:


> in the D&D I'm familiar with social encounters are not finality-based resolved the same way as combat is!  You keep trying to tell us that they are, hence the disconnect - at least on my part.
> 
> Combat almost always ends up with one participant or side rendered completely non-functional - usually dead, sometimes just knocked out or captured or whatever - or with one participant or side completely absent as they have fled.
> 
> Social interactions by themselves - i.e. that don't descend into combat - almost never end up with one participant or side rendered completely non-functional (though fleeing is still very much a possible outcome).  Thus, except in the case of someone leaving the scene, any sort of finality-based resolution system is simply the wrong tool for the job as the "losing" side or person is - within the fiction - able to keep going, try to mitigate the losses, try a different gambit, and so on.



The advisor episode happened in 4e, which does have non-combat resolution with finality (namely, skill challenges).

Even in AD&D, non-functionality is not the relevant criterion for finality, however: a subdued dragon, for instance - which clearly is still _functional_ - "remains subdued for an indefinite period, but if the creature is not strongly held, well treated, given ample treasure, and allowed ample freedom, it will seek to kill its captor and/or escape" (MM p 30). UA (p 109) elaborates that a subdued creature "will not further attack the group that subdued it . . . [and] will submit, but seek the first chance to escape and, if the party that captured it is weaker than itself, turn on its captors. This subdual will last as long as the party has a clear upper hand."

As long as the party has the upper hand, and - in the case of a dragon - is treating it well with treasure and freedom, the subdual will last indefinitely. The subdued monster is not "able to keep going, trying to mitigate the losses, try a different gambit, and so on".

That's finality of resolution without requiring, in the fiction, non-functionality.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Don't NPC's in 4e have skills?  Attributes? Powers? Spells? Etc.? Couldn't any or all of these be leveraged to reopen the matter of the players' success?  I mean a SC is only one possible way of resolving something in 4e there aree numerous others you seem to be ignoring or glossing over.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'd be interested in where in the 4e rulebooks it talks about finality and the skill challenge as well as who can initiate setbacks to said finality if you have a source.



I'm not really interested in debating the rules and procedures of 4e with you. (1) This is not the thread for it. (2) My past experience tells me it is an unrewarding exercise.

Let's suppose that you are correct, and that I have misapplied the rules of 4e. Pretend, then, that instead of telling a story about the advisor being outed, I recounted this other story about how the PCs persuaded a giant chieftain to help them on their quest rather than eat them; and that, as part of that episode, the PCs had benefitted from a giant shaman advocating on their behalf (established by a player as a PC resource). That story took place in a game of Cortex+/MHRP Fantasy Hack, which does provide for finality in social resolution.

If, in framing the next scene of the game, I had opened with the shaman and chieftain plotting how to capture and eat the PCs while they sleep in their beds, the players could have made exactly the same complaint: that I was wrongly ignoring their victory in the previous episode of play. And they would be right to do so.



Imaro said:


> The advisor in your Player driven game doesn't have the same type of protagonism he would in a DM driven game.



What does it even mean for a character in a fiction to have "protagonism"? Dictionary.com gives me _protagonist_ as "the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work." That is not an in-fiction notion: it is a meta-notion. _Protagonism_ is also used by some commentators on RPGs to refer to a participant role: thus, the Forge provisional glossary says that _protagonism_ is "A problematic term with two possible meanings. (1) A characteristic of the main characters of stories, regardless of who produced the stories in whatever way. (2) A characteristic set of behaviors among people during role-playing, associated with Narrativist play, with a necessary unnamed equivalent in Gamist play and possibly another in Simulationist play. In the latter sense, coined by Paul Czege." That second sense also does not describe an in-fiction notion: it is a meta notion, about how certain RPG participants do their thing.

I don't think the adivsor can exhibit protagonism in either sense: the NPC is, as such, not the leading character, hero or heroine of the campaign. And the GM's play of the PC cannot exhibit the characteristic behaviours of narrativist RPGing (no doubt the precise description of such behaviours is contentious, but a GM imagining the advisor to him-/herself, or narrating the advisor's actions to the players, isn't engaging in them).

The difference between the player-driven and GM-driven game is _who gets to determine what happens, in the fiction, if the advisor tries to reverse his defeat_? If the GM is driving, then the GM does: the players' victory in the skill challenge doesn't establish anything final in respect of the fiction, as the GM can always take retries. If the players are driving, then their successes impose constraints on the content of the shared fiction.

The issue has nothing to do with the powers of the _advisor_. It's about the powers of the _participants at the table_.



Imaro said:


> why are you claiming there's no difference when clearly in one playstyle the advisor could instigate said setback while in yours it's kind of nebulous (outside of the player's characters) who else could in the fiction.



The difference, as I've stated over probably half-a-dozen posts now, concerns who has what sort of power to determine the content of the shared fiction. The difference is pretty clearly captured by the phrases "player-driven" and "GM-driven": each phrase describes some power (to "drive" the fiction) and describes the participant who wields it.



Imaro said:


> You didn't answer... could another NPC instigate this setback?  Could the advisor hire or cajole other powerful NPC's to disparage and set up the PC's in the eyes of the baron?



NPCs can instigate whatever they want. The advisor can blow raspberries at the PCs behind their backs, hoping that the baron will join in. The salient question is: what will become of such attempts?

My answer is: the players have their victory, and so - until something takes place in the play of the game to set that back - then they are entitled to it. Hence, however hard the advisor tries, fate has decreed that he shall not get what he wants.

Upthread, I gave one example of a "something" that might reopen matters settled by the skill challenge: the players set out to capture the baron's niece, and killed her in the process. This affected their relationship with the baron (he had a nervous collapse). As I said in the earlier post, this was a case of the players staking their PCs' relationship with the baron on their attempt to end the niece's murderous depredations. They took their chances, and it didn't turn out their way.

Whereas, by way of contrast, the GM just deciding that all the NPCs turn on the PCs, after the players have won a skill challenge to establish the exact opposite, would be like fiating all the gold pieces recovered from Against the Giants into Fool's Gold. It would be tantamount to cheating. And it wouldn't become more acceptable just because the GM can come up with some clever ingame rationale for it (GM's can always do that; it's their stock-in-trade). The GM authoring some new fiction to undo the players' victory is not something taking place _in the game_ to set the PCs back - self-evidently, it is just the GM authoring some new fiction that undoes the players' victory.

Whether or not one enjoys playing in a fashion where the GM is bound by the players' victories, I don't think it's very mysterious how it works. It's actually pretty simple: unless something happens at the table, in the game, to reopen the matter, _the GM is precluded from introducing content into the fiction that would negate the players' victories_.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The advisor can try whatever he wants; it's just that the fiction isn't going to change in a direction where the advisor has achieved what he wants.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not ever?  Or just not right away?  There's a fairly big difference.
Click to expand...


I feel that I've already posted about this at some length, most recently in my reply to   [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] just upthread of this post.

If something happens in the course of play to reopen the matter - eg, as per the example I've given, the players make choices that put their relationship with the baron to the test - then things can change.

But the GM can't just change it unilaterally. Not even if the fiction that the GM narrates to make sense of the change is really clever fiction! ("Guys, I bet you didn't see that one coming!")



Lanefan said:


> What I've been wondering is whether the advisor is able to* continue pursuing those tattered agendae after the defeat by the PCs?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the socially-defeated advisor (again, ignoring the combat) should still have options open to him.  He can try to change the Baron's perception of him (remember, opinions aren't always carved in stone either and can change - the Baron's just changed his view of the advisor once, what's to prevent him changing it again later?), or he can go and round up his goblin army and try the military approach, or he can let himself get captured and then foment rebellion with his fellow prisoners, or he can fade into the background and then hire some bards to spread malicious rumours and innuendoes about the PCs...or the Baron, for all that.



As I've posted, the advisor can do whatever he wants to try and get the baron to return to his arms and turn on the PCs. But, at the table, we know that he will fail, because the matter has been resolved. This is why, as I said, his continue (but ultimately futile) attempts would be mere colour.

The advisor trying to forment a prisoners' revolt would not be off the table, however - that does not fall within the scope of what the skill challenge settled (namely, the advisor's revelation as a traitor in a manner that redounds upon him and not the PCs). Had the advisor in fact been sent to prison, that might have been one way of framing the next challenge that confronts the PCs.

Judging what is or not permissible - what sort of framing honours rather than wrongly negates the players' victories, the established fiction, the players' commitments for their PCs, etc - is crucial to GMing in the style that I prefer. Here's an illustration of the point (from BW Gold, p 54):

We once had a character with the Belief: “I will one day restore my wife’s life.” His wife had died, and he kept her body around, trying to figure out a way to bring her back. Well, mid-way through the game, the GM magically restored his wife to the land of the living. I’ve never seen a more crushed player. He didn't know what do! He had stated that the quest and the struggle was the goal, not the end result. “One day!” he said. But the GM insisted, and the whole scenario and character were ruined for the player.​
And here's a statement of the point, rather than an illustration:

[The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . .

[O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
This also relates back to my discussion with   [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] about "GMing blind". I hope it's clear that a GM can't run a game in this sort of way without understanding, both in general and at the crunch point, what the player takes to be motivating his/her PC.



Lanefan said:


> That's a system fault, in that the system is constraining you-as-DM in a diplomatic or social situation where it shouldn't.  A physical situation, such as picking a lock or bending a gate, is different - you give it your best try and you fail or succeed - and that's that.  Diplomatic/social situations are by their very nature way more fluid and - barring someone somehow being entirely removed from proceedings - are almost invariably open-ended as opposed to definitely resolvable, just like in the real world.



Well, what you call a system fault, I call a system strength.

(I also don't see this radical difference between befriending someone and picking a lock. How do you know that you gave it your best shot? Only because the dice tell you! Yesterday I was having trouble with a stiff lock - I thought I'd given it my best shot, and didn't want to break the key in it. Then I jiggled a bit more and it opened! But there's this colleague at work whom I'd like to befriend, and whom I've tried to befriend, but for whatever reason I just think it's not going to happen between us.)

And in any event, as I posted in reply to   [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], finality in resolution is hardly a novel thing. The AD&D rules for subduing dragons (and some other, slightly vague categories of monsters) allow for finality in a social-type context.



billd91 said:


> On #3, why exactly are we bringing up old and outdated rules here?



I think the OSR doesn't agree that they're outdated - and I mention them as illustrations of the point. The original AD&D designers understood the significance of finality of resolution in game play.



billd91 said:


> On #2, don't compare this to combat unless the outcomes are the same - they're not. It doesn't sound like the skill challenge was fatal to the advisor - just his current agenda. That's quite a contrast with a combat encounter that kills the ogre.



No doubt you think that the subdual rules are old and out-dated also!



billd91 said:


> Ultimately, the system doesn't really matter here. Whether you adjudicated by an organized skill challenge or fiat, you chose to make the result absolutely final for that NPC and you didn't have to.



How do you know that I didn't have to? What rulebook are you quoting from? Where do you get the authority to establish who enjoys what permissions at my group's table?

EDIT: Also, re combat: in D&D _nothing tells you that the ogre is dead except a mechanical process of tabulation of successes_. Why, in principle, can the same procedure not be used to tell you other stuff about the ogre? What is it about _death_ that makes it uniquely suited to being established, as an element of the fiction, in such a manner? Nothing that I can see.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I think that this distinction about the game world reacting to the players or to the GM is spot on. Well said.



How can the gameworld react to the players or the GM? It can be authored by them. But (being a fictional work, that is, some sort of abstract object) it can't react to them.

I believe that [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] agrees with me on this point.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> When I say that I don't like "GM's secret backstory", I've been talking about the use of such secret backstory as a consideration in action resolution. I think there was quite an extended discussion of this upthread,wih [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].
> 
> An example (hypothetical only) of secret backstory operating as a consdieration in action resolution: the PCs try to out the advisor in a way that will damage his relationship with the baron, but fail because - unbeknownst to the players - the GM has decided that the advisor is holding the baron's niece hostage, and is thereby exercising leverage over the baron.
> 
> I think that sort of approach is fairly common in RPGing - judging from some posters in this thread, plus other threads that I have read over the years, plus reading published adventures. In this sort of game, the players tend to end up trying to unravel the mystery. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION], upthread, has talked about a style of play that involves "finding the plot". I think it sits in the same general category as what I have just described, although I'm sure there are significant nuances across individual games and styles.
> 
> As those posts upthread discussed, it is possible to have mystery and revelation without having secret backstory operate as a constraint on action resolution. I've given at least four examples in the course of this thread:
> 
> (1) A PC searches in the ruins of the tower which once was his home, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he had been working upon when orcs attacked; instead, he finds - in the ruins of his brother's private workroom - cursed black arrows, seemingly manufactured by his brother. Later, he learns that the mace was taken from the ruin by a renegade elf.
> 
> *GM commentary*: The discovery of the arrows rather than the mace is a consequence of failure. The possession of the mace by the elf is an element of framing, weaving together two hitherto-distinct elememts in the shared fiction.
> 
> (2) The PCs spend 18 months eking out a living in the ruined tower in the Abor-Alz. Their only significant contact with the ouside world over that time is with some elven merchants who are passing through the hills travelling to distant lands. They report that the Gynarch of Hardby has announced her engagement to the head of a sorcerous cabal, who - as it happens - is also a nemesis of the PCs. The PCs wonder whether the Gynarch is under his magical influence.
> 
> *GM commentary*: The encounter with the merchants was the result of a successful Circles check by the player of the elven princess. The wedding gossip was (initially) colour, which has subsequently transmuted into an element of framing. What the utlimate reason for, and significance of, the engagement is has not yet been discovered.
> 
> (3) The baron's niece has not been seen for some days. The PCs, fearing that her fiance - the evil necromancer advisor of the baron - has done something to hurt her. They track her down to an enchanted tower in the moors (the Bloodmoors Tower from Open Grave). They enter the tower, planning to rescue her - only to discover that she herself is a Vecna-ite necromancer, trying to bring an ancient member of her order back to (un)life, and in the process instead waking Kas from a long slumber.
> 
> *GM commentary*: This was all framing. The missing niece, and her connection to her ancestor whom the PCs had helped when they travelled back in time, was initially part of the dinner skill challenge, and then became part of the framing of this subsequent episode.
> 
> (4) The PCs defend a homestead against goblin attackers. They learn (i) that the homestead contains a magical tapestry, and (ii) that the goblins are searching for it. (How they learn those things now escapes me, as it was many years of play ago; my best guess would be talking to NPCs.) When approaching a goblin fortress, they see a wizardly type wearing a yellow robe fly off on a flying carpet. They have heard other stories of a wizardly type in yellow robes hanging out suspiciously in the local area. In a tunnel beneath the fortress they find a torn scrap of yellow robe in a place that (they work out somehow - again, I can't remember the details) the tapestry had once hung. Somehow (perhaps a scrying spell of some sort?) they learn that the yellow-robed wizard was driven out by the gelatinous cubes which they just defeated.
> 
> *GM commentary*: This begins as colour: the goblins need a motivation for attacking the homestead, and the presence of the tapestry provides it. The presence of a
> yellow-robed mastermind zooming around on a flying carpet adds to the colour. The colour becomes part of the framing of the skill challenge, however: the PCs play on it in the course of making skill checks (eg obliquely taunting the advisor about his defeat by the cubes, by boasting how easily they - the PCs - were able to defeat said cubes;
> and then taunting him about his torn robe).​
> There is no secret backstory as an element of action resolution in any of the above. The resolution follows from the framing and the checks.




I don't know that, though, because, as seems to be your wont, instead of providing clearly articulated points, you've provided play examples from your own games where there's 'always more to the story' than what you've chosen to present.  So, I can't tell if the Advisor/tapestry story actually does or does not have secret backstory as part of the resolution of any challenges because all you did was present the secret backstory, not the challenges.  This differs from your other examples because those present the added fiction as a direct consequence of failure, and that's what I've been assuming you do, but the Advisor story reads and seems entirely different.  

As I read it, the Advisor conflict is set as (and here I feel I have to delve into overly precise language to avoid a pedantic response) the DM, to support the authored goals of the Advisor NPC, is authoring fiction that establishes the entire premise of the conflict.  This premise isn't just framing, as you claim, because it persists through multiple conflicts -- whatever the players did in regards to the goblin attack gave them information about yellow robed wizards; whatever the players did in the tunnel under the fortress, they found more yellow wizard information; this all fed into the pinnacle scene described of trying to force the Advisor (the yellow robed wizard, I'm assuming) to out himself.  The 'framing' here, the secret information you determined in advance, actually does impact the result of the challenges because it doesn't matter what the result of the challenge is, the next breadcrumb drops.  This is exactly the kind of play you are decrying as railroading, and I'm not seen any real difference in kind between your presentation of 'framing' and what Lanefan describes as his method.

The problem with this assumption, of course, is that I fully expect the response to be some additional detail not originally presented will clearly show something different.  This, again, is my issue with the presentation of play examples from personal games for discussion:  they're never complete and the presenter is guaranteed to take offense to any sharp questioning (or sometimes any questioning at all).


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> How can the gameworld react to the players or the GM? It can be authored by them. But (being a fictional work, that is, some sort of abstract object) it can't react to them.
> 
> I believe that [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] agrees with me on this point.




Only in the most pedantic way possible.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> An example (hypothetical only) of secret backstory operating as a consdieration in action resolution: the PCs try to out the advisor in a way that will damage his relationship with the baron, but fail because - unbeknownst to the players - the GM has decided that the advisor is holding the baron's niece hostage, and is thereby exercising leverage over the baron.




See, that's the sort of thing that makes for a great game.  The PCs try something that should have worked, but didn't.  That gets them thinking, "What happened?  There must be something going on here that we don't know about.".  They then start digging for that information, find out about the niece and rescue her.  At that time the baron would be exceedingly grateful to the PCs(no damage to the rep, but rather an increase) and be out for blood against the advisor(rebounded against him nicely).  

You lose out on a ton by being so against hidden backstory.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I'm not really interested in debating the rules and procedures of 4e with you. (1) This is not the thread for it. (2) My past experience tells me it is an unrewarding exercise.
> 
> Let's suppose that you are correct, and that I have misapplied the rules of 4e. Pretend, then, that instead of telling a story about the advisor being outed, I recounted this other story about how the PCs persuaded a giant chieftain to help them on their quest rather than eat them; and that, as part of that episode, the PCs had benefitted from a giant shaman advocating on their behalf (established by a player as a PC resource). That story took place in a game of Cortex+/MHRP Fantasy Hack, which does provide for finality in social resolution.
> 
> If, in framing the next scene of the game, I had opened with the shaman and chieftain plotting how to capture and eat the PCs while they sleep in their beds, the players could have made exactly the same complaint: that I was wrongly ignoring their victory in the previous episode of play. And they would be right to do so.




Well I think anytime someone mis-characterizes something it should be pointed out.  The SC is only one of 4e's resolution systems (this can't possibly be in dispute) and thus when you infer or outright state SC's *are* 4e's resolution system I feel that should be corrected.  But fair enough let's move on...

Again you seem to be missing a subtle difference which I (as well as others) keep bringing up in my posts and you keep summarily ignoring.  None of us is talking about a blatant and total reversal of what was established... we are talking actions which could mitigate or change that result.  So using the above example... I'm not asking if they could in the very next scene decide to eat the PC's... but could the giant chieftain (if his independent motivations and goals coincide) choose to sell the PC's out to one of their enemies for profit once they are on their journey?  If they return through the giant chieftain's land could he decide then to eat them or take whatever it is they have quested for, again if his motivations and goals (as well as the general nature of giants) makes this feasible or does this one SC in effect make the giant chieftain their ally into perpetuity?

Also... how does one of the players have a giant shaman as a PC resource??  



pemerton said:


> What does it even mean for a character in a fiction to have "protagonism"? Dictionary.com gives me _protagonist_ as "the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work." That is not an in-fiction notion: it is a meta-notion. _Protagonism_ is also used by some commentators on RPGs to refer to a participant role: thus, the Forge provisional glossary says that _protagonism_ is "A problematic term with two possible meanings. (1) A characteristic of the main characters of stories, regardless of who produced the stories in whatever way. (2) A characteristic set of behaviors among people during role-playing, associated with Narrativist play, with a necessary unnamed equivalent in Gamist play and possibly another in Simulationist play. In the latter sense, coined by Paul Czege." That second sense also does not describe an in-fiction notion: it is a meta notion, about how certain RPG participants do their thing.




I feel you are being pedantic here but ok... I am referencing the following definition of protagonist when using this word in reference to NPC's, monsters, etc.

_Protagonist:an advocate or champion of a particular cause or idea..._

In other words can you as the DM use the advisor to advocate or champion for a particular cause that is independent of reacting to what the PC's do... or are they simply antagonists... their only purpose, as others have stated, being to align with or oppose what the PC's do?

EDIT: To further clarify let's take 4e as a system... I feel it really doesn't work well for the type of play where the NPC's express protagonism, Why?  Because as you commented on before the DM is not given the latitude to use the same tools as the players are.  NPC's never use SC's and don't even get to leverage their own queslities when opposing the PC's in a SC.  They instead are reduced to level appropriate DC's which must be overcome by the PC's.  In contrast a game like 5e allows one to leverage the same tools and mechanics for NPC's as are used for PC's and thus, IMO, works much better for this type of thing.



pemerton said:


> I don't think the adivsor can exhibit protagonism in either sense: the NPC is, as such, not the leading character, hero or heroine of the campaign. And the GM's play of the PC cannot exhibit the characteristic behaviours of narrativist RPGing (no doubt the precise description of such behaviours is contentious, but a GM imagining the advisor to him-/herself, or narrating the advisor's actions to the players, isn't engaging in them).




I've clarified above what I meant by using the terms... can the advisor exhibit protagonism as defined above or is he just an antagonist?



pemerton said:


> The difference between the player-driven and GM-driven game is _who gets to determine what happens, in the fiction, if the advisor tries to reverse his defeat_? If the GM is driving, then the GM does: the players' victory in the skill challenge doesn't establish anything final in respect of the fiction, as the GM can always take retries. If the players are driving, then their successes impose constraints on the content of the shared fiction.
> 
> The issue has nothing to do with the powers of the _advisor_. It's about the powers of the _participants at the table_.
> 
> The difference, as I've stated over probably half-a-dozen posts now, concerns who has what sort of power to determine the content of the shared fiction. The difference is pretty clearly captured by the phrases "player-driven" and "GM-driven": each phrase describes some power (to "drive" the fiction) and describes the participant who wields it.




And I think you're contrast is too simplistic to make a meaningful distinction.  In a GM-driven game the players can determine the content of the fiction through the actions of their PC's and the leveraging of the agreed upon mechanics of the game... and in a player driven game the GM can determine content of fiction by narration of consequences.  the only time I feel your overly broad distinction applies is at the extreme edges of the two playstyles which is kind of pointless for real discussion.



pemerton said:


> NPCs can instigate whatever they want. The advisor can blow raspberries at the PCs behind their backs, hoping that the baron will join in. The salient question is: what will become of such attempts?
> 
> My answer is: the players have their victory, and so - until something takes place in the play of the game to set that back - then they are entitled to it. Hence, however hard the advisor tries, fate has decreed that he shall not get what he wants.
> 
> Upthread, I gave one example of a "something" that might reopen matters settled by the skill challenge: the players set out to capture the baron's niece, and killed her in the process. This affected their relationship with the baron (he had a nervous collapse). As I said in the earlier post, this was a case of the players staking their PCs' relationship with the baron on their attempt to end the niece's murderous depredations. They took their chances, and it didn't turn out their way.
> 
> Whereas, by way of contrast, the GM just deciding that all the NPCs turn on the PCs, after the players have won a skill challenge to establish the exact opposite, would be like fiating all the gold pieces recovered from Against the Giants into Fool's Gold. It would be tantamount to cheating. And it wouldn't become more acceptable just because the GM can come up with some clever ingame rationale for it (GM's can always do that; it's their stock-in-trade). The GM authoring some new fiction to undo the players' victory is not something taking place _in the game_ to set the PCs back - self-evidently, it is just the GM authoring some new fiction that undoes the players' victory.




You've typed alot but still not come out and actually answered the main questrion I asked.  So I'll ask it again... is it only the players and their characters that can cause a mitigation or reversal of a resolution that has been decided?  If not under what circumstances (since in-game rationale's are not acceptable) can NPC's do such?



pemerton said:


> Whether or not one enjoys playing in a fashion where the GM is bound by the players' victories, I don't think it's very mysterious how it works. It's actually pretty simple: unless something happens at the table, in the game, to reopen the matter, _the GM is precluded from introducing content into the fiction that would negate the players' victories_.




I disagree... When you state... _"unless something happens at the table, in the game, to reopen the matter"_... actually isn't all that simple and the parameters of it (even though I've asked in multiple replies) around mitigation vs. reversal and who can institute said "something" have remained murky and nebulous...


----------



## Manbearcat

I'm going to be without Internet and phone for a bit starting in a few short minutes, so I won't be able to respond to any responses to this for 5 days, just FYI.

On closed scene resolution:

1)  Whether you like the play procedures and their impact on play is not relevant to their nature.

With that out of the way:

2)  Consider each scene a discrete mini-game and a discrete parcel of fiction. Like the results of an actual professional match/game, once one has concluded, its results are cemented into the continuity. They cannot be overturned.

3)  In RPG terms, a scene win effectively grants immunity from GM veto of the results.

4)  Each scene will have a goal and obstacles to that goal. For instance:

A) A perilous journey through hostile territory has topographical elements like terrain, hazards, weather, exposure, dangerous denizens.

B) An effort to sway the king may have obstructing chamberlains, nefarious advisors, a skeptical court, passive-aggressive nobility, a conflicted queen, a skeleton in the closet, a coup-in-waiting, etc.

Once the scene is resolved in the positive for the PCs (whatever mechanical "finish line" is crossed), they successfully navigate the hostile terrain and emerge on the other side or they win the favor of/sway the king toward their sought end.

5) Now these imaginary obstacles may still "persist" within the fiction (a mountain hasn't been sundered to rubble or a queen might still be conflicted). However, their "persistence" is now rendered irrelevant to the earned victory in the fiction. The GM doesn't get to "un-navigate the terrain" or "unsway the king" by deploying those or any new obstacles. The conflicted queen might start up different trouble, but she can't nullify the social currency won (of her own -through the will of the GM - volition).

Realism and persistence has nothing to do with it. The integrity of the game component and the principles/spirit of the RPG is the only relevant bit here (it seems the two are being conflated).


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> I'm going to be without Internet and phone for a bit starting in a few short minutes, so I won't be able to respond to any responses to this for 5 days, just FYI.
> 
> On closed scene resolution:
> 
> 1)  Whether you like the play procedures and their impact on play is not relevant to their nature.
> 
> With that out of the way:
> 
> 2)  Consider each scene a discrete mini-game and a discrete parcel of fiction. Like the results of an actual professional match/game, once one has concluded, its results are cemented into the continuity. They cannot be overturned.
> 
> 3)  In RPG terms, a scene win effectively grants immunity from GM veto of the results.
> 
> 4)  Each scene will have a goal and obstacles to that goal. For instance:
> 
> A) A perilous journey through hostile territory has topographical elements like terrain, hazards, weather, exposure, dangerous denizens.
> 
> B) An effort to sway the king may have obstructing chamberlains, nefarious advisors, a skeptical court, passive-aggressive nobility, a conflicted queen, a skeleton in the closet, a coup-in-waiting, etc.
> 
> Once the scene is resolved in the positive for the PCs (whatever mechanical "finish line" is crossed), they successfully navigate the hostile terrain and emerge on the other side or they win the favor of/sway the king toward their sought end.
> 
> 5) Now these imaginary obstacles may still "persist" within the fiction (a mountain hasn't been sundered to rubble or a queen might still be conflicted). However, their "persistence" is now rendered irrelevant to the earned victory in the fiction. The GM doesn't get to "un-navigate the terrain" or "unsway the king" by deploying those or any new obstacles. The conflicted queen might start up different trouble, but she can't nullify the social currency won (of her own -through the will of the GM - volition).
> 
> Realism and persistence has nothing to do with it. The integrity of the game component and the principles/spirit of the RPG is the only relevant bit here (it seems the two are being conflated).




Quick question... if the PC's fail, is that result also final and who decides the resulting consequence of said failure?


----------



## darkbard

Imaro said:


> EDIT: To further clarify let's take 4e as a system... I feel it really doesn't work well for the type of play where the NPC's express protagonism, Why?  Because as you commented on before the DM is not given the latitude to use the same tools as the players are.  NPC's never use SC's and don't even get to leverage their own queslities when opposing the PC's in a SC.  They instead are reduced to level appropriate DC's which must be overcome by the PC's.




This is an oversimplification and, thus, a mischaracterization of the latitude the DM has when setting skill challenges in 4E. A SC may be of any level, not just "level appropriate" (by which I take you to mean = the PCs' level), though, like with combat encounters, 4E provides guidelines for challenge levels not deviating _too far_ above or below the level of the PCs (level +3 is usually the upper limit, for example). Even more importantly, the complexity of the skill challenge sets the number of successes needed from as low as 4 to as high as 12 before 3 failures. I would hardly call the DM handcuffed with such flexible tools at her disposal. Through utilizing these tools the DM mechanically "opposes" the PCs through a game representation of the NPC's skills in such encounters.

Trying to sneak past some generic guards and into the bedroom of the burgermeister? Maybe a simple, level 1 complexity, at-level skill challenge (or even level -1 or -2) suffices. In pemerton's example, though, involving a cunning court advisor, a baron, and high stakes, unless I'm mistaken, he set the challenge at complexity 5. I don't think he specified the level comparative to the PCs, but that could have been another way he represented the NPC's "leverage" of his own qualities, as you call it.


----------



## Imaro

darkbard said:


> This is an oversimplification and, thus, a mischaracterization of the latitude the DM has when setting skill challenges in 4E. A SC may be of any level, not just "level appropriate" (by which I take you to mean = the PCs' level), though, like with combat encounters, 4E provides guidelines for challenge levels not deviating _too far_ above or below the level of the PCs (level +3 is usually the upper limit, for example). Even more importantly, the complexity of the skill challenge sets the number of successes needed from as low as 4 to as high as 12 before 3 failures. I would hardly call the DM handcuffed with such flexible tools at her disposal. Through utilizing these tools the DM mechanically "opposes" the PCs through a game representation of the NPC's skills in such encounters.
> 
> Trying to sneak past some generic guards and into the bedroom of the burgermeister? Maybe a simple, level 1 complexity, at-level skill challenge (or even level -1 or -2) suffices. In pemerton's example, though, involving a cunning court advisor, a baron, and high stakes, unless I'm mistaken, he set the challenge at complexity 5. I don't think he specified the level comparative to the PCs, but that could have been another way he represented the NPC's "leverage" of his own qualities, as you call it.




I don't really feel like you're addressing my point mainly how is this tool leveraged by the DM in order for his NPC's to proactively and with their complete capabilities represented to enact change on the fiction... and no raising a DC or adding an extra roll is not the same as bringing a specific power or ability to bear.  This is why I'm glad SC;s aren't *the* resolution system for 4e.

EDIT: I'll concede my original post was a simplification but not by much.  A SC is DM sets DC, and DM sets number of times DC must be beaten.  That in a nutshell is the skeleton of a SC.  What it doesn't do is say hey this advisor has a Charisma of 20 so set the DC based on his Charisma or the advisor has a power that causes one creature he talks to for a round to be charmed by him... allow him to use this in the SC.  That's what I mean by capabilities.


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> Only in the most pedantic way possible.




I do not view this distinction as pedantry. The way we think and talk about these things matter. In the moment of play we can disclaim decision making and make decisions *for our characters* as if we were them. We can choose to advocate for them, but that does not *absolve us from the responsibility* of the real impact those decisions have on *real players sitting at a real table playing a real game*. In my preferred mode of play we follow the fiction where it leads, but we should be cognizant that we are making that choice and respond to player inquiries with empathy and compassion - not defensiveness. I was following the fiction - not I didn't do that.

Disclaiming decision making in the moment is one thing. Disclaiming responsibility for the decisions we make is another thing altogether.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> How can the gameworld react to the players or the GM? It can be authored by them. But (being a fictional work, that is, some sort of abstract object) it can't react to them.
> 
> I believe that  @_*Ovinomancer*_ agrees with me on this point.




Well, I cannot say if @_*Ovinomancer*_ agrees with you or not, but I'll go ahead and repost the bit I quoted from him.


Ovinomancer said:


> You would call the second method DM driven.  I've used DM centric, largely because I believe the -driven categories are too binary.  But, regardless of terminology, I think the primary distinction between DM and player driven is the reactionary status of the gameworld -- if the world only every reacts to the players, it's player driven.  If it exists outside of the players, and acts without player input, then it's DM driven.  I'm okay with this, with the clear caveat that nothing is fully one or the other -- it's a spectrum.  My games are both -- the macro is DM driven, in that there's a plot ongoing that will continue without player involvement, and on the micro in that I break my arcs down into sandboxes that largely react to the players.




I imagine that this is along the lines of having to explain that as a fictional thing, of course the game world does not react to anyone, but rather what is being discussed is the GM's judgment in regards to the game world. 

So looking at his post again, would you agree or disagree with his assessment? It seems pretty relevant to the overall topic to me.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> I do not view this distinction as pedantry. The way we think and talk about these things matter. In the moment of play we can disclaim decision making and make decisions *for our characters* as if we were them. We can choose to advocate for them, but that does not *absolve us from the responsibility* of the real impact those decisions have on *real players sitting at a real table playing a real game*. In my preferred mode of play we follow the fiction where it leads, but we should be cognizant that we are making that choice and respond to player inquiries with empathy and compassion - not defensiveness. I was following the fiction - not I didn't do that.
> 
> Disclaiming decision making in the moment is one thing. Disclaiming responsibility for the decisions we make is another thing altogether.




I don't disagree with what you say above....I think what you've described is a thoughtful approach to play and to discussion of play.

But I don't think it applies to the specific example. I don't think that anyone should need to clarify that the "game world reacting to the players" actually means "the game world, as determined by the GM, reacting to the players". Pointing out that the game world, as a fictional construct, does not actually react to anyone.....what point does that serve? 

I have to agree that pointing out such a distinction is pedantic, and distracts from the discussion rather than adds to it. Now, I could be wrong and perhaps there was a compelling reason for the distinction, but none was offered....and the original point being made was never directly addressed.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> I do not view this distinction as pedantry. The way we think and talk about these things matter. In the moment of play we can disclaim decision making and make decisions *for our characters* as if we were them. We can choose to advocate for them, but that does not *absolve us from the responsibility* of the real impact those decisions have on *real players sitting at a real table playing a real game*. In my preferred mode of play we follow the fiction where it leads, but we should be cognizant that we are making that choice and respond to player inquiries with empathy and compassion - not defensiveness. I was following the fiction - not I didn't do that.
> 
> Disclaiming decision making in the moment is one thing. Disclaiming responsibility for the decisions we make is another thing altogether.



No one's avoiding responsibility, though, they're using a shorthand to define the viewpoint being used to create the fiction.  To that end, reducing the conversation to having to be explicit about this every time or having a lack of explicitness be used to dismiss your argument is pedantry.  If responsibility starts being an issue in the discussion, then, yes, that distinction will be relevant.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]

There are some fairly substantial differences in mechanics between AD&D and B/X play, but the largest differences in play according to the text come from the ethos of GMing. B/X is predicated on a spirit of fair play, only stepping outside the rules when absolutely required, and genuinely considering the impact of player decision making. Gygaxian skilled play differs quite dramatically. Your players are conniving so you need to be just as conniving.  The rules are your plaything. You should try to be somewhat fair, but if you can find an interpretation of player decision making that makes things more difficult for them go ahead and do so. It is a far more adversarial relationship. In B/X you match your wits against the Dungeon. In AD&D you match your wits against the DM.

Then there's Ravenloft and Dragonlance and they money they brought that fundamentally shaped the way AD&D modules would be presented.


----------



## darkbard

Imaro said:


> I don't really feel like you're addressing my point mainly how is this tool leveraged by the DM in order for his NPC's to proactively and with their complete capabilities represented to enact change on the fiction... and no raising a DC or adding an extra roll is not the same as bringing a specific power or ability to bear.  This is why I'm glad SC;s aren't *the* resolution system for 4e.
> 
> EDIT: I'll concede my original post was a simplification but not by much.  A SC is DM sets DC, and DM sets number of times DC must be beaten.  That in a nutshell is the skeleton of a SC.  What it doesn't do is say hey this advisor has a Charisma of 20 so set the DC based on his Charisma or the advisor has a power that causes one creature he talks to for a round to be charmed by him... allow him to use this in the SC.  That's what I mean by capabilities.




Well, of course 4E *does* have other resolution mechanics besides the SC, as you point out. But I thought we were discussing the specific context of the SC in pemerton's 4E example (or, for that matter, a similar resolution system in BW from the original example, lo those many posts ago).

But, sure, the DM could frame a scene wherein the advisor uses powers, skills, etc. against the PCs, but then we're moving into a combat encounter or some other framework.

Or the DM could model such within the framework of the SC system by, say, describing how the advisor augments his slick words with a subtle charm, thus setting that particular skill check by the PC as a hard DC (Arcana) or something similar.

In these--any many other, I'm sure--examples, the DM uses the framework of the system to represent NPC actions and adjudicate outcomes of these actions in response _to what the PCs do_ rather than relying solely upon her judgment, which, without such mechanics and to return to the original point of this post, sets up the possibility of railroading.


----------



## TwoSix

Maxperson said:


> See, that's the sort of thing that makes for a great game.  The PCs try something that should have worked, but didn't.  That gets them thinking, "What happened?  There must be something going on here that we don't know about.".  They then start digging for that information, find out about the niece and rescue her.  At that time the baron would be exceedingly grateful to the PCs(no damage to the rep, but rather an increase) and be out for blood against the advisor(rebounded against him nicely).
> 
> You lose out on a ton by being so against hidden backstory.



I'm pretty much certain that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is aware of the trade-offs involved in choosing his playstyle over your more traditional playstyle and is comfortable with his choices.


----------



## Imaro

darkbard said:


> Well, of course 4E *does* have other resolution mechanics besides the SC, as you point out. But I thought we were discussing the specific context of the SC in pemerton's 4E example (or, for that matter, a similar resolution system in BW from the original example, lo those many posts ago).




We are I was just making the point as I did earlier with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s post that SC's aren't the only way to mechanically resolve something in 4e.



darkbard said:


> But, sure, the DM could frame a scene wherein the advisor uses powers, skills, etc. against the PCs, but then we're moving into a combat encounter or some other framework.




I don't think individual skill use or the use of powers necessitates us moving into a combat encounter and of course it's another framework since it's not a SC which I agre is a very specific framework.



darkbard said:


> Or the DM could model such within the framework of the SC system by, say, describing how the advisor augments his slick words with a subtle charm, thus setting that particular skill check by the PC as a hard DC (Arcana) or something similar.




But if that's not what the power actually does the DM isn't in fact leveraging the abilities of the character... and furthermore the issue is that your typical SC's DC's are based on character level and have little if anything to do with the actual opposition they are facing.



darkbard said:


> In these--any many other, I'm sure--examples, the DM uses the framework of the system to represent NPC actions and adjudicate outcomes of these actions in response _to what the PCs do_ rather than relying solely upon her judgment, which, without such mechanics and to return to the original point of this post, sets up the possibility of railroading.




Yes but in a totally different way than the PC's do.  In other words as I said earlier the same mechanics are not being leveraged in the same way for NPC's as they are for PC's in SC's.  

An NPC never makes a single roll in SC's... the DC's of a SC aren't typically based on the NPC's abilities or scores, but instead are typically based on level of the characters with wriggle room for the DM to adjust it up or down... complexity is set based on how many successes the DM wants the PC's to have to garner but again is not tied to the NPC in any way and advantages are based on the complexity of the SC and stopping the math from resulting in an auto-failure... but again not on any abilties or qualities of the NPC.


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> I'm pretty much certain that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is aware of the trade-offs involved in choosing his playstyle over your more traditional playstyle and is comfortable with his choices.




Are you sure because when asked about the drawbacks of his "player-driven" playstyle he couldn't list any?   

Moreso then what exactly are we discussing?  If everyone is aware of the tradeoffs of their styles and are comfortable with their choices what are we discussing them for?  Unless you are suggesting only pemerton possesses this awareness for some reason, and even if that is the case couldn't pointing them out be beneficial to others reading the thread?


----------



## Tony Vargas

darkbard said:


> Well, of course 4E *does* have other resolution mechanics besides the SC, as you point out. But I thought we were discussing the specific context of the SC in pemerton's 4E example (or, for that matter, a similar resolution system in BW from the original example, lo those many posts ago).



 That's the context I recall, yes.  Just a little point-scoring going on there, I think.



> But, sure, the DM could frame a scene wherein the advisor uses powers, skills, etc. against the PCs, but then we're moving into a combat encounter or some other framework.



 Thanks to the wonder of 'exception-based design' (in context, 4e's much more constrained nod to DM Empowerment) the DM could give an NPC powers or traits that directly interact with a Skill Challenge.  There aren't precedents for that (that I recall atm, anyway), but you don't need precedents.  

I think the point is, rather, that the abilities of the NPC should figure into the skill challenge, as that paints the challenge more vividly and makes it more interesting.  The basic SC mechanism - n successes before 3 failures, at DCs determined by the _level of the Skill Challenge (not the party)_ - does not have a lot of space for an opposing NPC.   The opposition (or just involvement) of an NPC might determine the level of the challenge and influence the difficulty of checks & number of successes required.  

That's fine as far as it goes, but I've taken it further with the above option of giving an NPCs powers that directly affect a Skill Challenge.  It'd've been nice if Skill Challenges had had more than a couple of years to develop and evolve, though.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> Are you sure because when asked about the drawbacks of his "player-driven" playstyle he couldn't list any?
> 
> Moreso then what exactly are we discussing?  If everyone is aware of the tradeoffs of their styles and are comfortable with their choices what are we discussing them for?  Unless you are suggesting only pemerton possesses this awareness for some reason, and even if that is the case couldn't pointing them out be beneficial to others reading the thread?



<shrug>  Got me.  I'm mostly following along because [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has had some interesting insights.


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> I think the point is, rather, that the abilities of the NPC should figure into the skill challenge, as that paints the challenge more vividly and makes it more interesting.  The basic SC mechanism - n successes before 3 failures, *at DCs determined by the level of the Skill Challenge (not the party)* - does not have a lot of space for an opposing NPC.   The opposition (or just involvement) of an NPC might determine the level of the challenge and influence the difficulty of checks & number of successes required.




Just wanted to correct this but the last iteration of skill challenge rules, found in the Essentials rulebooks, clearly states the typical SC is based on party level.  Now no one is saying the DM can't do what he wants but it's made clear that the default standard SC will use character level as it's default for setting DC's.


----------



## darkbard

Imaro said:


> Just wanted to correct this but the last iteration of skill challenge rules, found in the Essentials rulebooks, clearly states the typical SC is based on party level.  Now no one is saying the DM can't do what he wants but it's made clear that the default standard SC will use character level as it's default for setting DC's.




That's true in the sense that the encounter level of a combat is also based on party level, but one frequently deviates from this baseline by a few "levels." Absolutely granted, most published SCs seem to be at the expected party level, but I don't think anything in the rules _mandates_ that.


----------



## Imaro

darkbard said:


> That's true in the sense that the encounter level of a combat is also based on party level, but one frequently deviates from this baseline by a few "levels." Absolutely granted, most published SCs seem to be at the expected party level, but I don't think anything in the rules _mandates_ that.




Nope, noting mandates it... but when discussing the mechanics and rules I think identifying the designers intentions for how the system should be used is important (especially when they are clearly stated).  they intended for the DC's to be based on character level with some wriggle room... this is, at least as I read it, a different intent than assigning the DC"s based on the level of the SC which from what I can garner from @_*Tony Vargas*_ post equates to anything you feel like within the fiction...


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> Nope, noting mandates it... but when discussing the mechanics and rules I think identifying the designers intentions



 While such telepathic insights would certainly be nice, I do not credit you with the supernatural ability to divine those intentions.  



Imaro said:


> Just wanted to correct this



 You can't.  I understand wanting to, but you can't correct something that is already correct, by asserting something that is wrong.  Just basic logic.



> but the last iteration of skill challenge rules, found in the Essentials rulebooks, clearly states the typical SC is based on party level.  Now no one is saying the DM can't do what he wants but it's made clear that the default standard SC will use character level as it's default for setting DC's.



 The DCs are based on the level of the skill challenge, not the level of the PCs.  It can be higher or lower than the PC's level.  The bit you're referencing is a guideline.  A reasonable one, as a much lower-level skill challenge won't be challenging and a much-higher level one probably doomed to failure, but only a guideline, not a rule.  Thus wording like 'typical.'   

It is still the level of the skill challenge that determines the DCs, not the level of the PCs.  That is what I said, it is correct, and your twisting of some guideline does not allow you to 'correct' it, no matter how much you may want to muddy the issue or score some sort of imaginary internet points.

Please don't waste my time with such nonsense again, Imaro.


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> You can't.  I understand wanting to, but you can't correct something that is already correct, by asserting something that is wrong.  Just basic logic.
> 
> The DCs are based on the level of the skill challenge, not the level of the PCs.  It can be higher or lower than the PC's level.  The bit you're referencing is a guideline.  A reasonable one, as a much lower-level skill challenge won't be challenging and a much-higher level one probably doomed to failure, but only a guideline, not a rule.  Thus wording like 'typical.'
> 
> It is still the level of the skill challenge that determines the DCs, not the level of the PCs.  That is what I said, it is correct, and your twisting of some guideline does not allow you to 'correct' it, no matter how much you may want to muddy the issue or score some sort of imaginary internet points.
> 
> Please don't waste my time with such nonsense again, Imaro.




It's not about internet points... Again as I stated earlier understanding and acknowledging designer intent is important when discussing how mechanics are intended and should work... sorry you feel that's nonsense since I think it's pretty important.

EDIT: The funny thing is you're basically saying they don't work properly if the character level isn't used as a basis but then claiming it's nonsense to point out the intention behind the design of the mechanic... that doesn't make any sense.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> understanding and acknowledging designer intent is important when discussing how mechanics are intended and should work



While such telepathic insights would certainly be nice, I do not credit you with the supernatural ability to divine those intentions.  



> ... sorry you feel that's nonsense since I think it's pretty important.



 Your willful misrepresentation of guidelines as rules was nonsense, now you're doubling down on it by claiming to read the designers' minds.

Instead, let's go by the actual content of the game in question.  As I correctly pointed out, above, the DCs in a Skill Challenge are based on the level of the Challenge, not the level of the party.  That means that a same-level challenge is likely to be a reasonable one, a lower-level challenge easier, and a higher-level one harder.  The guideline you pointed out supports that.



> EDIT: The funny thing is you're basically saying they don't work properly if the character level isn't used as a basis



 It's not funny that you would misrepresent what I said that way.  

Higher-level challenges, whether SCs or combats, being harder than lower-level ones is hardly "not working properly."  For instance, in a status-quo campaign, the DM might place monsters or other challenges of whatever level he feels represents them, those levels let him easily gauge the challenge they'd represent to the party, but the level of the party would in no way be based on them.  Status Quo a legitimate way to run 4e campaigns, discussed in the 4e DMG.



> but then claiming it's nonsense to point out the intention behind the design of the mechanic... that doesn't make any sense.



 You don't know that intention.  Speculating that the intent of a guideline was to be taken as rule that would change the meaning of the mechanics actually presented is hardly productive.   I don't feel I was unfair in characterizing that as 'nonsense.'


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> While such telepathic insights would certainly be nice, I do not credit you with the supernatural ability to divine those intentions.




Or I could just read what the designers stated is the basis for a typical skill challenge in the actual rule books... it's not that hard, really.  



Tony Vargas said:


> Your willful misrepresentation of guidelines as rules was nonsense, now you're doubling down on it by claiming to read the designers' minds.




I made no such claim only stated what is written in the books.



Tony Vargas said:


> Instead, let's go by the actual content of the game in question.  As I correctly pointed out, above, the DCs in a Skill Challenge are based on the level of the Challenge, not the level of the party.  That means that a same-level challenge is likely to be a reasonable one, a lower-level challenge easier, and a higher-level one harder.  The guideline you pointed out supports that.




And the level of the SC is typically based on the level of the characters.  It's not rocket science.  You went on to point to the level of the baron, the advisor and numerous other things.  But yeah I'm going to walk away from this because it's tangential at best to my original point.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> While such telepathic insights would certainly be nice, I do not credit you with the supernatural ability to divine those intentions.
> 
> Your willful misrepresentation of guidelines as rules was nonsense, now you're doubling down on it by claiming to read the designers' minds.
> 
> Instead, let's go by the actual content of the game in question.  As I correctly pointed out, above, the DCs in a Skill Challenge are based on the level of the Challenge, not the level of the party.  That means that a same-level challenge is likely to be a reasonable one, a lower-level challenge easier, and a higher-level one harder.  The guideline you pointed out supports that.



Hey, just a heads up, but you're the one coming off as a jerk, here.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> But yeah I'm going to walk away from this because it's tangential at best to my original point.



 Probably for the best, at this point.




darkbard said:


> the DM could frame a scene wherein the advisor uses powers, skills, etc. against the PCs, but then we're moving into a combat encounter or some other framework.



 Thanks to the wonder of 'exception-based design' (in context, 4e's much more constrained nod to DM Empowerment) the DM could give an NPC powers or traits that directly interact with a Skill Challenge.  There aren't precedents for that (that I recall atm, anyway), but you don't need precedents ('exception' based, afterall).   



> Or the DM could model such within the framework of the SC system by, say, describing how the advisor augments his slick words with a subtle charm, thus setting that particular skill check by the PC as a hard DC (Arcana) or something similar.



 One thing that's easy to lose sight of when discussing 4e, especially for those who have little experience and/or appreciation of the system (but even for those of us who have more), is that 4e got further away from the rubric of 'realism' than did other editions, and was a good deal more abstract.  Like 1e & 2e, 4e used completely different types of stat blocks for monsters, and used them for NPCs, as well, even more often than those earlier editions.  The resolution mechanics in 4e are more player-facing, too.  They play well 'above board,' rather than behind a screen, not requiring secrecy to work or maintain illusions.  

That does mean the modeling of PCs is pro-active and action-oriented, PCs do things, move the story, and are the focus of that story.  Everything else provides the back-drop and challenges of the PCs' story.  An NPC isn't ever a protagonist, even if it's an ally of the PCs, and helping it accomplish something is a focus of their story for a time.  An antagonistic NPC, like the one in pemerton's example, is, by definition an antagonist to the PC protagonists, it would be absurd, not just in the sense of silly or counter-productive, but logically nonsensical, to try to give him 'protagonism' or agency.  

I think the point is, rather, that the abilities of the NPC should figure into the skill challenge, as that paints the challenge more vividly and makes it more interesting.  The basic SC mechanism - n successes before 3 failures, at DCs determined by the _level of the Skill Challenge (not the party)_ - does not have a lot of space for an opposing NPC.   The opposition (or just involvement) of an NPC might determine the level of the challenge and influence the difficulty of checks & number of successes required.  

For instance, the level of the challenge in pemerton's example might have been based on the level of the Vizier, as the main antagonist, or on that of the Baron, as the object of both the PC's and Vizier's maneuvering.  The difficulty of individual checks might also go either way.  The active opposition of the Vizier could mean more successes required. 

That's fine as far as it goes, but I've taken it further with the above option of giving an NPCs powers that directly affect a Skill Challenge.  It'd've been nice if Skill Challenges had had more than a couple of years to develop and evolve, though.  



> In these--any many other, I'm sure--examples, the DM uses the framework of the system to represent NPC actions and adjudicate outcomes of these actions in response _to what the PCs do_ rather than relying solely upon her judgment, which, without such mechanics and to return to the original point of this post, sets up the possibility of railroading.



 I'm not too bothered by the idea of a DM favoring linear storytelling over sandboxing, but there are advantages to having a solid resolution system that the GM needn't constantly apply his judgement to (though he could still overrule it if he saw fit, and, of course, uses his judgement in deciding when/how to apply it).  One of the more apparent is that it's a common resolution system, it's the same for everyone at the table, and it can be reasonably fair (hopefully balanced, too), allowing players to share the process more readily, and to make decisions with some idea of what's at stake & their chances of success.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> How do you know that I didn't have to? What rulebook are you quoting from? Where do you get the authority to establish who enjoys what permissions at my group's table?
> 
> EDIT: Also, re combat: in D&D _nothing tells you that the ogre is dead except a mechanical process of tabulation of successes_. Why, in principle, can the same procedure not be used to tell you other stuff about the ogre? What is it about _death_ that makes it uniquely suited to being established, as an element of the fiction, in such a manner? Nothing that I can see.




You can certainly use a mechanical process to tell all sorts of things about the ogre during the course of any particular encounter, the difference between getting him to cooperate via a diplomatic overture and killing him should be pretty obvious though. The next time you encounter the ogre, his attitude toward the PCs may be different depending on the circumstances and that encounter may be because the ogre initiated it (in the game's storyline). If he's dead, there's really no next time (barring the usual genre exceptions of resurrection, zombification, and so on...).

Ultimately, the reason the ogre would be permanently dealt (barring the PCs choosing to go visit him again) with is because you, as GM, choose to leave him so rather than choose to bring him back. The rules for 4e certainly aren't mandating it.


----------



## billd91

Tony Vargas said:


> I think the point is, rather, that the abilities of the NPC should figure into the skill challenge, as that paints the challenge more vividly and makes it more interesting.  The basic SC mechanism - n successes before 3 failures, at DCs determined by the _level of the Skill Challenge (not the party)_ - does not have a lot of space for an opposing NPC.   The opposition (or just involvement) of an NPC might determine the level of the challenge and influence the difficulty of checks & number of successes required.




Honestly, this insistence that the DCs are based on the level of the skill challenge not the PCs is getting a bit obsessive, particularly when the skill challenge is probably being designed for the group of PCs and the recommended level of the skill challenge starts with the levels of the PCs. It would be pretty pointless to design a skill challenge at level 25 and throw it at a bunch of level 4 PCs, particularly if you're trying to engage in a player-driven, scene framed campaign. You'd just be railroading them into failure.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But the event in the fiction _doesn't_ cause that!
> 
> What causes that is a whole lot of stuff in the real world: the GM describes a monster entering a room in which persons A, B and C are; certain other people at the table understanding that A, B and C are their player characters; there being rules of the game that establish how to decide what happens when player characters are charged by monsters, and those rules requiring the rolling of initiative; etc.
> 
> If _every event in the fiction_ correlated uniformly to _a particular real-world event_, the conflation mightn't matter. But that isn't true in anyone's game. For instance, not every charging of a monster through a door triggers the rolling of dice at some table (eg no one rolled dice because the gelationous cubes "charged" into the room where the advisor was trying to get the tapestry).



 <trying and failing to wrap my mind around the idea of a charging gelatinous cube> 

Was this event onstage or offstage?  I ask because if onstage I just can't imagine an adventuring party not taking out the g-cubes when they had the chance...and that, as always, would involve dice.



> Upthread I've said a bit about what might count as a significant change in the context of the advisor episode. The passage of two weeks between sessions doesn't count!



The passage of two weeks in the game world, however...? (and no, I'm not assuming you use Gygax's suggestion of real-world time passing = game world time passing)



> The advisor episode happened in 4e, which does have non-combat resolution with finality (namely, skill challenges).



Every system has its bugs...



> Even in AD&D, non-functionality is not the relevant criterion for finality, however: a subdued dragon, for instance - which clearly is still _functional_ - "remains subdued for an indefinite period, but if the creature is not strongly held, well treated, given ample treasure, and allowed ample freedom, it will seek to kill its captor and/or escape" (MM p 30). UA (p 109) elaborates that a subdued creature "will not further attack the group that subdued it . . . [and] will submit, but seek the first chance to escape and, if the party that captured it is weaker than itself, turn on its captors. This subdual will last as long as the party has a clear upper hand."
> 
> As long as the party has the upper hand, and - in the case of a dragon - is treating it well with treasure and freedom, the subdual will last indefinitely. The subdued monster is not "able to keep going, trying to mitigate the losses, try a different gambit, and so on".
> 
> That's finality of resolution without requiring, in the fiction, non-functionality.



Not sure how you read it, but "seek the first chance to escape and ... turn on its captors" and "try a different gambit" seem pretty similar to me.

Also, the subdued monster is able to keep going and can try to mitigate its losses - only not at the expense of those who have subdued it.  For a dragon, its captors have to treat it well with treasure (so it continues to amass wealth) and freedom (which seems to automatically imply it'll have a chance to escape sooner rather than later...odd contradiction there) so it's a win-win for the dragon.

Yeah, not much finality there. 

Lanefan


----------



## Tony Vargas

billd91 said:


> Honestly, this insistence that the DCs are based on the level of the skill challenge not the PCs is getting a bit obsessive



 It's just a fact.



> when the skill challenge is probably being designed for the group of PCs and the recommended level of the skill challenge starts with the levels of the PCs.



 In a tailored style campaign, that'd be one way to do it.  In a status-quo style one, not so much.

4e gave players a lot of 'agency' but it was still D&D, and still pretty DM-driven in the sense that it made it easy for the DM to build an encounter or skill challenge in advance with the expectation that the PCs would, well, encounter it (not merely DM-driven, but tailored).  That was especially true in the organized-play Encounters format.  Later Encounters scenarios were less linear, that way, and some 4e adventures were outright status-quo 'sandboxes.'  FWIW.



> It would be pretty pointless to design a skill challenge at level 25 and throw it at a bunch of level 4 PCs, particularly if you're trying to engage in a player-driven, scene framed campaign. You'd just be railroading them into failure.



Hey, that's actually getting back on topic!  

If you're using player-driven techniques, you probably design challenges in general (skill or combat) in response to what the PCs are trying to do.  If they try to do something that'd be very difficult for them, it'll be higher level than if they tried to accomplish something easy.  Far from 'railroading them into failure' presenting them with a challenge that they probably can't resolve in their favor when they attempt something that is entirely beyond them arguably preserves their agency.  A system that gives you more dependable level of challenge in a mismatch as well as in an 'appropriate' one is handy in that kind of situation.

I guess the 'framing' could come into it to find a path of lesser resistance.  The classic example in status-quo design is the dragon that the party can't fight (combat challenge) successfully, but may be able to bribe/flatter (social challenge) or find an alternate route (exploration challenge) past.  The combat option might be far beyond the PC's abilities, the social challenge difficult & perhaps at a high cost, and the exploration challenge relatively easy (find a clear path around the dragon's territory) but time-consuming, for instance.  Or, they might all be non-starters.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> When I say that I don't like "GM's secret backstory", I've been talking about the use of such secret backstory as a consideration in action resolution. I think there was quite an extended discussion of this upthread,wih [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].
> 
> An example (hypothetical only) of secret backstory operating as a consdieration in action resolution: the PCs try to out the advisor in a way that will damage his relationship with the baron, but fail because - unbeknownst to the players - the GM has decided that the advisor is holding the baron's niece hostage, and is thereby exercising leverage over the baron.



Which would be an interesting twist - the PCs have unknowingly already succeeded by default at their main task (alerting the Baron to the fact that his advisor is a rat) because the Baron in fact already knows this, and their real task that they don't know about is to somehow convince the Baron they're on his side and that they are themselves aware that the advisor is bent.

So in play they succeed in outing the advisor - not to the Baron, but to the rest of his court - and the Baron dismisses them.  Later, they get a secret message from the Baron telling them how things really stand; and away things go...



> (4) The PCs defend a homestead against goblin attackers. They learn (i) that the homestead contains a magical tapestry, and (ii) that the goblins are searching for it. (How they learn those things now escapes me, as it was many years of play ago; my best guess would be talking to NPCs.) When approaching a goblin fortress, they see a wizardly type wearing a yellow robe fly off on a flying carpet. They have heard other stories of a wizardly type in yellow robes hanging out suspiciously in the local area. In a tunnel beneath the fortress they find a torn scrap of yellow robe in a place that (they work out somehow - again, I can't remember the details) the tapestry had once hung. Somehow (perhaps a scrying spell of some sort?) they learn that the yellow-robed wizard was driven out by the gelatinous cubes which they just defeated.
> 
> *GM commentary*: This begins as colour: the goblins need a motivation for attacking the homestead, and the presence of the tapestry provides it. The presence of a
> yellow-robed mastermind zooming around on a flying carpet adds to the colour. The colour becomes part of the framing of the skill challenge, however: the PCs play on it in the course of making skill checks (eg obliquely taunting the advisor about his defeat by the cubes, by boasting how easily they - the PCs - were able to defeat said cubes;
> and then taunting him about his torn robe).[/indent]
> 
> There is no secret backstory as an element of action resolution in any of the above. The resolution follows from the framing and the checks.



The example above is from Night's Dark Terror, and that thing is nothing but a whole string of mysteries and secret backstories the PCs have to wade through and figure out!  Who is this yellow-robed wizard?  Where and how does the Iron Ring crew fit in?  What's the relationship between the (three?) different goblin tribes?  How does any of this relate to what those bozoes up the valley are doing; and what *are* they doing anyway?  What's this bloody tapestry got to do with anything?  And that's just the ones I can remember off the top.

The first time I tried running it even I as DM couldn't entirely figure out what was supposed to be going on; small wonder the players couldn't either!

Lan-"sometimes the best adventures come from setting out to do one thing and - knowingly or not - in fact doing something else much more significant"


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> [The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . .
> 
> [O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
> This also relates back to my discussion with   [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] about "GMing blind". I hope it's clear that a GM can't run a game in this sort of way without understanding, both in general and at the crunch point, what the player takes to be motivating his/her PC.



Which seems to me to be a) all about the character's introspection (earlier I called this emo-gaming) and personal story rather than anything on a grander scale, and b) very closed-ended; sure the character may have resolved her own internal issues but there's still a great big world out there to go adventuring in, so why stop now?



> Well, what you call a system fault, I call a system strength.
> 
> (I also don't see this radical difference between befriending someone and picking a lock. How do you know that you gave it your best shot? Only because the dice tell you! Yesterday I was having trouble with a stiff lock - I thought I'd given it my best shot, and didn't want to break the key in it. Then I jiggled a bit more and it opened! But there's this colleague at work whom I'd like to befriend, and whom I've tried to befriend, but for whatever reason I just think it's not going to happen between us.)



There's people I've known who were friends once but are not now; while others who I once had little use for I've come around to.  This more commonly happens over the long term but I've seen it happen during the course of one evening.  Social interactions are dynamic things.



> EDIT: Also, re combat: in D&D _nothing tells you that the ogre is dead except a mechanical process of tabulation of successes_. Why, in principle, can the same procedure not be used to tell you other stuff about the ogre? What is it about _death_ that makes it uniquely suited to being established, as an element of the fiction, in such a manner? Nothing that I can see.



As I said earlier (somewhere), we can't play out the combat in real life at the table so we need a mechanical representation of it; but we can play out the social-interaction side and thus usually don't (or shouldn't) need mechanics to represent such.

Lan-"more than once I've known people who couldn't stand each other on first meeting end up happily married to each other"-efan


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> My own view is that what I think you mean by "shared authoring" can often be overrated, or at least exaggerated, as an element of player-driven RPGing.
> 
> In the OP there is "shared authoring" in one sense: the player declares a Perception check, and its success results in it being true, of the fiction, that it contains a vessel in the room. But the player didn't author that by any sort of fiat: it was a part of the process of action declaration and action resolution.
> 
> 4e has less of that sort of mechanic than BW; MHRP/Cortex has more of it. Rolemaster, which I GMed near-exclusively for nearly 20 years, has none of it.
> 
> At least as I approach GMing, the key to a player-driven game is not that the players get to directly author the fiction in the moment of play. Rather, what is key is (i) that the GM frames scenes having regard to the evinced concerns/interests of the players, and the dramatic needs of their PCs (these might come out in part by the players' authoring of PC backstory, which is not the same as authoring fiction in the moment of play), and (ii) that the GM, in narrating consequences of action resolution, allows player success to stand, and connects failures back to those concerns/interests/dramatic needs.
> 
> So the players are not driving in virtue of authorship (in any literal sense). Rather, they are the ones who establish the focus, the stakes, and - via their successes - at least some of the consequences.




OK, if that's what you're referring to, then I totally agree. I _do_ think it's very important to pull the characters into the campaign world and the adventure. Which is exactly what I mean when I say the players/characters write the story. 

Luke's motivation was to go to university. His goals didn't include joining the alliance and fighting the empire.

A separate story was occurring in the same vicinity. A droid had a message to get to Obi-Wan. This story is entirely independent of Luke's, and doesn't address his motivations at all, although it does tie into his backstory (even if the whole backstory wasn't written yet - typical of my approach too).

When the two stories intersect, though, a new motivation is given to Luke by the story when his family is killed.

A lot of the time, I'm tying into unwritten or unknown parts of the PCs backstory. For example, one player indicated his character is divorced. So I added an ex-brother-in-law, who was (not so) secretly the cause of the divorce, who also happens to be a lycanthrope and part of an evil organization, which he didn't know. What he chooses to do with that new information is up to him.

Another's ranger was "estranged" from his family, no specifics yet. As it turns out, he was sold into slavery by his older brother, after he killed their father. He later found out that his "brother" was a doppelgänger, and that his brother was very likely sold into slavery as well. In addition, he had a very disturbing encounter when he found himself battling the zombie of his father.

The druid was given the family Moonblade in part for safekeeping. She later found she (and the sword) were being hunted by a distant uncle, and following the battle between them where the uncle was killed, that he was being controlled by an evil artifact. So she made it a mission to return his body to Evereska to clear his name and give him a proper burial, along with looking for a way to destroy the artifact. I didn't have to directly address her motivations to learn how to use the Moonblade or find her way home, since she took actions to accomplish those.

Not everybody has such motivations, or hooks in their backstories, though. Just like I don't want every story to be a "save the world" epic, I don't want every character to have a dark secret, or family with ties to evil organizations, or to great power. For most of the characters, I want them to simply be normal people, working to help their family have a place to live and food to eat. 

Essentially, a Bilbo-type character. One that has no initial desire to be part of the dramatic stories of the world, that finds them drawn in by other events. Sure, Gandalf selected Bilbo for specific reasons, but in many cases it's not even a selection.

A character that's a farmer in a village, that is attacked by giants. In the process of helping to hunt down the giants, they find friends and adventure along the way. After which they decide to look for more. Deep backstories, and ties to sinister plots need not always apply. One of the reasons I really like this approach is it gives experienced RPG players and opportunity to let the story unfold for the characters in much the same way it does when you're a first time RPG player. 

So I get it, the initial hook is protecting what's important to the farmer. But it's a simple hook, and really, that's often  all you need.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> It's just a fact.
> 
> In a tailored style campaign, that'd be one way to do it.  In a status-quo style one, not so much.
> 
> 4e gave players a lot of 'agency' but it was still D&D, and still pretty DM-driven in the sense that it made it easy for the DM to build an encounter or skill challenge in advance with the expectation that the PCs would, well, encounter it (not merely DM-driven, but tailored).  That was especially true in the organized-play Encounters format.  Later Encounters scenarios were less linear, that way, and some 4e adventures were outright status-quo 'sandboxes.'  FWIW.
> 
> Hey, that's actually getting back on topic!
> 
> If you're using player-driven techniques, you probably design challenges in general (skill or combat) in response to what the PCs are trying to do.  If they try to do something that'd be very difficult for them, it'll be higher level than if they tried to accomplish something easy.  Far from 'railroading them into failure' presenting them with a challenge that they probably can't resolve in their favor when they attempt something that is entirely beyond them arguably preserves their agency.  A system that gives you more dependable level of challenge in a mismatch as well as in an 'appropriate' one is handy in that kind of situation.
> 
> I guess the 'framing' could come into it to find a path of lesser resistance.  The classic example in status-quo design is the dragon that the party can't fight (combat challenge) successfully, but may be able to bribe/flatter (social challenge) or find an alternate route (exploration challenge) past.  The combat option might be far beyond the PC's abilities, the social challenge difficult & perhaps at a high cost, and the exploration challenge relatively easy (find a clear path around the dragon's territory) but time-consuming, for instance.  Or, they might all be non-starters.




Outside of environmental challenges, how does one go about designing skill challenges in the world that player may encounter that wouldn't be railroading?  I mean, take the encounter in question: get the Advisor to out himself to the Baron.  How would one place something of similar scope, a high stakes social challenge, out in the world without preassuming the nature of the challenge and theyby fixing how players must interact with it.  It seems to be that the very concept of skill challenges have a heavy bias towards being player driven.

The caveat, as mentioned, would be things like environment challenges.  You could certainly prescript the skill challenge for climbing to the top of Very High and Dangerous Mountain, for instance, or crossing the Trackless Sea of Hot and Deadly Sand, Plus Snakes, but outside of fixed geography challenges like VHDM or TSHDSPS, I'm not seeing how you can prescript skill challenges without knowing player intent.

Note:  I played and enjoyed 4e for five years.  Skill Challenges took me awhile, but I liked them for the kludge they were.  And I say kludge because there's an attempt to use unsuited mechanics (D20 rolls and scaled bonuses) in a way that made non-combat encounters less reliant on the swinginess of the core mechanic.


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## Tony Vargas

Ovinomancer said:


> Outside of environmental challenges, how does one go about designing skill challenges in the world that player may encounter that wouldn't be railroading?



 The same way you'd design a combat or anything else.  

D&D has a bias towards combat, that way.  Most creatures have combat stats, so you place a creature, *boom*, you've created a combat challenge.  D&D, when it's had skills at all, has had a fairly simplistic skill system, generally with little more than opposed checks (which are very swingy) to handle a skill-based conflict, and mostly just individual pass/fail checks.  Skill challenges were at least something to work with.  



Ovinomancer said:


> Skill Challenges took me awhile, but I liked them for the kludge they were.  And I say kludge because there's an attempt to use unsuited mechanics (D20 rolls and scaled bonuses) in a way that made non-combat encounters less reliant on the swinginess of the core mechanic.



 Ouch. That is a very un-flattering comment on the d20 system (D&D and SRD games from 2000-present), itself, but I suppose it's not entirely undeserved.  In addition to Skill Challenges (which improved from non-functional at introduction to merely kludgy in their final form, about two years later), d20 has also used 'complex skill checks' (just repeating a binary check a certain number of times to complete a task), equally binary qualifiers like trained-only, passive scores and the somewhat more useful group skill check - as well as the afore-mentioned even-swingier opposed checks.  Skill Challenges, group checks, and secret rolls vs passive scores seem like the best of those mechanical attempts to make a go of d20 skills.


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## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> That does mean the modeling of PCs is pro-active and action-oriented, PCs do things, move the story, and are the focus of that story.  Everything else provides the back-drop and challenges of the PCs' story.  An NPC isn't ever a protagonist, even if it's an ally of the PCs, and helping it accomplish something is a focus of their story for a time.  *An antagonistic PC,* like the one in pemerton's example, is, by definition an antagonist to the PC protagonists, it would be absurd, not just in the sense of silly or counter-productive, but logically nonsensical, to try to give him 'protagonism' or agency.



 [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] - something doesn't quite parse here, at least when I read it.

Did you mean to type "An antagonistic NPC" where I've bolded?  

If yes, why is it absurd for an NPC to be protagonistic or proactive rather than simply antagonistic or reactive?

If no, then what are you trying to say?



> I think the point is, rather, that the abilities of the NPC should figure into the skill challenge, as that paints the challenge more vividly and makes it more interesting.  The basic SC mechanism - n successes before 3 failures, at DCs determined by the _level of the Skill Challenge (not the party)_ - does not have a lot of space for an opposing NPC.   The opposition (or just involvement) of an NPC might determine the level of the challenge and influence the difficulty of checks & number of successes required.



I wonder...what's stopping a DM from going one step further and in fact allowing the NPC (in this case the advisor) to run his own skill challenge against the party?  In other words, allow the NPC to make the first move and be the aggressor (proactive) rather than just sitting there waiting for the PCs to come to him (reactive).  

Or better yet, simultaneous competing skill challenges! 

Lanefan


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## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Did you mean to type "An antagonistic NPC" where I've bolded?



 Yes.  Sorry about the typo.



> If yes, why is it absurd for an NPC to be protagonistic or proactive rather than simply antagonistic or reactive?



 It's absurd for an antagonist to be protagonistic.  It's a bit absurd for an NPC to 'lack agency,' too.  The DM is running the whole setting, not just the one NPC.



> I wonder...what's stopping a DM from going one step further and in fact allowing the NPC (in this case the advisor) to run his own skill challenge against the party?



 Nothing stops a DM from doing whatever he wants, of course, but what would be the point?  The DM would make a bunch of die rolls.  Yippee.  Kinda like having two monsters fight eachother - you can go through the motions, but most of the time it doesn't add anything.



> In other words, allow the NPC to make the first move and be the aggressor (proactive) rather than just sitting there waiting for the PCs to come to him (reactive).



 It shouldn't change the mechanics, if the NPC were the aggressor in a social challenge, the Skill Challenge would still be a skill challenge - the PCs would have to get n successes before 3 failures to fend off the NPC aggressor's social gambit.  It might be more or less successes at lower or higher difficulty, depending upon how good the NPC is at that kind of thing relative to how good he is in the 'reactive' mode.



> Or better yet, simultaneous competing skill challenges!



 That's the kind of lack I was lamenting some pages back, yes.    I could imagine 'contested challenges' in which it's some number of 'net successes' (3 perhaps, for symmetry) to win, for instance.  But, I've never heard of or tried anything like that, and I'd be concerned that they'd have the same issues as contested checks - it'd take some playtesting, I suppose, just another thing that might've been had Skill Challenges been kept around a while longer (or invented a couple decades sooner, I suppose).  
What I have done is give an NPC a trait or power(s) that was applicable to a skill challenge, so they could mess with the PCs and have a more active role in its resolution.


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## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> The same way you'd design a combat or anything else.
> 
> D&D has a bias towards combat, that way.  Most creatures have combat stats, so you place a creature, *boom*, you've created a combat challenge.  D&D, when it's had skills at all, has had a fairly simplistic skill system, generally with little more than opposed checks (which are very swingy) to handle a skill-based conflict, and mostly just individual pass/fail checks.  Skill challenges were at least something to work with.



I don't follow. Combat encounters don't have fixed outcomes, but skill challenges do.  A combat encounter can end with one side defeated, one side injured, one side running away, one side surrendering, one side being captured against their will -- pick multiples.  Combat encounters have fixed entry points (usually), but not fixed exit points.  Skill challenges, on the other hand, usually have both fixed entry and exit points -- the exit points are success at the challenge or failure at the challenge.  So, to predefine a combat encounter, I just have to set where it is and what it is, but I don't have to set how it ends.  With a skill challenge I also need to set how it ends, and this means I _must _know what the challenge is about.  As I noted, things like environmental challenges are easy to guess -- you need to travel across this dangerous terrain -- but social challenges aren't possible to predict as they're very dependant on the immediate goals of the players.  Unless you're railroading, of course, and will force a particular challenge with set parameters at that particular place.

Again, skill challenges are just more suited to being reactionary events to stated player intentions.  They do not work very well being pre-scripted in a sandbox style.



> Ouch. That is a very un-flattering comment on the d20 system (D&D and SRD games from 2000-present), itself, but I suppose it's not entirely undeserved.  In addition to Skill Challenges (which improved from non-functional at introduction to merely kludgy in their final form, about two years later), d20 has also used 'complex skill checks' (just repeating a binary check a certain number of times to complete a task), equally binary qualifiers like trained-only, passive scores and the somewhat more useful group skill check - as well as the afore-mentioned even-swingier opposed checks.  Skill Challenges, group checks, and secret rolls vs passive scores seem like the best of those mechanical attempts to make a go of d20 skills.



All skill systems in D&D that have been tied to the d20 core mechanic have been kludges, and many of them have not worked well.  The swinginess of the d20 does a decent job of making combat exciting, and, since combats usually involved multiple rolls and are often a focus of D&D games, the swinginess averages out so players cans still make reasonable estimations of risk.  But the skill systems don't do well with the swingyness of the d20, and so various kludges have come up to smooth out expectations and provide players with a reasonable estimation of success.  5e's incarnation is bounded accuracy and objective DCs.  I'm meh on this as a resolution mechanic for skills, but then I've been meh on skill resolution for some time in D&D.  It's not a huge hurdle for me, else I'd find a different system, and I've grown to dislike extensive house rules.  My current set of house rules can fit on an index card and doesn't require small font.


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## Tony Vargas

Ovinomancer said:


> I don't follow. Combat encounters don't have fixed outcomes, but skill challenges do.



 Combats have a few likely outcomes - everyone on one side being defeated is the obvious one.  The analogue in a Skill Challenge would be gaining the requisite successes before any failures.  An SC that ends in success after one or two failures can have had some consequences along the way, or have have a less desirable version of the final outcome.  A failed skill challenge might also have different consequences based on the number of successes acquired before that third failure.  There's a fair range of variability in the resolution for the DM to work with if he likes.  Or, he could just ignore all that and have only one way to approach & resolve the challenge.  



> So, to predefine a combat encounter, I just have to set where it is and what it is, but I don't have to set how it ends.  With a skill challenge I also need to set how it ends, and this means I _must _know what the challenge is about.



 Sure, in that sense a combat encounter is a simpler thing to 'frame,' because the stakes are always life & death.  Of course, it could be complicated by some other objective, capturing an item guarded by the enemies encountered rather than defeating them all, for instance, and the players might, likewise, decide on an alternate objective like that.  



> As I noted, things like environmental challenges are easy to guess -- you need to travel across this dangerous terrain -- but social challenges aren't possible to predict as they're very dependant on the immediate goals of the players.



 Again, I suppose there are analogues - an officious assistant-chatelaine who's job is to keep the rif-raff from bothering the King is going to be an obstacle players seeking an audience will have to get through, and not much else.  

But, sure, I see what you're getting at.  I don't think it's a big/important difference, though.  You can use encounter-design guidelines or skill challenge guidelines (or any workable set of guidelines for making a scene 'challenging') whether you're approaching the game in a DM-directed or players-directed way.



> All skill systems in D&D that have been tied to the d20 core mechanic have been kludges, and many of them have not worked well.  The swinginess of the d20 does a decent job of making combat exciting, and, since combats usually involved multiple rolls and are often a focus of D&D games, the swinginess averages out so players cans still make reasonable estimations of risk. But the skill systems don't do well with the swingyness of the d20, and so various kludges have come up to smooth out expectations and provide players with a reasonable estimation of success. 5e's incarnation is bounded accuracy and objective DCs. I'm meh on this as a resolution mechanic for skills, but then I've been meh on skill resolution for some time in D&D.



 Quoted because it's worth reading (enjoy your XP), not because I have anything to say in response.


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## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> It's absurd for an antagonist to be protagonistic.  It's a bit absurd for an NPC to 'lack agency,' too.  The DM is running the whole setting, not just the one NPC.



I think we agree, other than the semantics around "antagonistic" (reactive) and "protagonistic" (proactive).  I don't see all NPCs as simply reactive, and I suspect neither do you.



> It shouldn't change the mechanics, if the NPC were the aggressor in a social challenge, the Skill Challenge would still be a skill challenge - the PCs would have to get n successes before 3 failures to fend off the NPC aggressor's social gambit.  It might be more or less successes at lower or higher difficulty, depending upon how good the NPC is at that kind of thing relative to how good he is in the 'reactive' mode.



Would a skill challenge work the same way, though, when it's the defenders rolling instead of the aggressors?  Particularly seeing as when the players are rolling they're basing their results on the PCs' skills (which probably gives them an unfair advantage as they can synergize) where in this case the rolls should be based on the skills of the NPC who initiated the challenge.

Lanefan


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## Aenghus

As I see it stake setting, skill challenges etc among other things allow a question to be asked and answered in a relatively short time. The referee and players have to agree what the question is and roughly what the stakes are and based on what transpires the players succeed or fail after the set number of successes or failures connected to the fiction, or whatever other methods are being used. The answer, win or lose, needs to be relatively final, no takebacks or retrys from any involved parties. This is why a genuine agreement as to stakes is the most vital step and everyone needs to accept the consequences, particularly the referee. Among other things this is a timesaving measure to try and avoid timewasting play that makes everyone frustrated.

You see, a very common failure mode I've seen in all sorts of RPGs is where the players get hugely invested in some task that the referee conscious or unconsciously believes is impossible or exceedingly difficult but is unwilling to tell them thatt. The former case is bad enough when the referee is unwilling to just come out and say they don't think something can be done, whatever it is. The latter case is worse for the game as the referee can always ask for another check and wait for someone to fail,  without necessarily realising what they are doing, and wanting the players to fail is the doom of many a game. Too much of this double jeopardy makes for gunshy players who avoid risks. 

Subduing a dragon in early D&D was difficult. If players accomplished it and treated the dragon reasonably, having the dragon break out and run away shortly afterwards is a dick move that will just ensure the players never interact with that game mechanic again under that referee. Similarly for interacting with an NPC and discovering that the players reasonable plan to affect that NPC can't ultimately work  because of reasons unknown and unknowable to them cause the referee to claw their hard won success back, again leading to wasted time and frustration in the game. 

So stake setting type mechanics put the onus on referees to own up during the stake negotiations and not agree to anything they can't live with. Once they've agreed on the terms, the terms are set. Yes, this is artificial but it keeps the game moving and forces answers to questions in a reasonable timeframe, answers that everyone has agreed to live with. The reduction in timewasting is the big potential payoff.

These methods fail if anyone negotiates in bad faith and doesn't deliver.


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## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> I think we agree, other than the semantics around "antagonistic" (reactive) and "protagonistic" (proactive).  I don't see all NPCs as simply reactive, and I suspect neither do you.



 Hmm... that's a point, I don't see protagonists as proactive and antagonists as reactive.  



> Would a skill challenge work the same way, though, when it's the defenders rolling instead of the aggressors?



 Mechanically, yes, it'd still be n successes before 3 failures.  The number of successes, difficulties, and skills in question might all be quite different, though.  



> Particularly seeing as when the players are rolling they're basing their results on the PCs' skills (which probably gives them an unfair advantage as they can synergize) where in this case the rolls should be based on the skills of the NPC who initiated the challenge.



 SCs typically have certain skills that can be used repeatedly, some that are restricted in use or become harder the more you use them, others that you must 'make a case for' or can't be used, and sometimes one that's an auto-fail.  Which skills are which could change radically in a player-initiated vs an NPC-initiated challenge.  For instance, if the party were unaware of the Vizier's evil ways in pemerton's example, they might come to the dinner, where the Vizier tries to maneuver them into committing to a quest that would take them out of his way for a long while, or insulting the Baron, or something.  Instead of using bluff and the like to trick the Vizier, they might be using Insight to figure out what's up, and Diplomacy to reach a more reasonable deal with the Baron.  

If I were running, they might also not know there's a Skill Challenge going on.  Much as I'm open about 4e being the kind of game that works best 'above board' there can be challenges where keeping more of the mechanics behind the screen can be good.  Similarly, I might run an SC where the players aren't told about the SC until they're part way into it, because part of it is figuring out what's going on.


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## Lanefan

Aenghus said:


> As I see it stake setting, skill challenges etc among other things allow a question to be asked and answered in a relatively short time. The referee and players have to agree what the question is and roughly what the stakes are and based on what transpires the players succeed or fail after the set number of successes or failures connected to the fiction, or whatever other methods are being used. The answer, win or lose, needs to be relatively final, no takebacks or retrys from any involved parties. This is why a genuine agreement as to stakes is the most vital step and everyone needs to accept the consequences, particularly the referee. Among other things this is a timesaving measure to try and avoid timewasting play that makes everyone frustrated.
> 
> You see, a very common failure mode I've seen in all sorts of RPGs is where the players get hugely invested in some task that the referee conscious or unconsciously believes is impossible or exceedingly difficult but is unwilling to tell them thatt. The former case is bad enough when the referee is unwilling to just come out and say they don't think something can be done, whatever it is. The latter case is worse for the game as the referee can always ask for another check and wait for someone to fail,  without necessarily realising what they are doing, and wanting the players to fail is the doom of many a game. Too much of this double jeopardy makes for gunshy players who avoid risks.
> 
> Subduing a dragon in early D&D was difficult. If players accomplished it and treated the dragon reasonably, having the dragon break out and run away shortly afterwards is a dick move that will just ensure the players never interact with that game mechanic again under that referee. Similarly for interacting with an NPC and discovering that the players reasonable plan to affect that NPC can't ultimately work  because of reasons unknown and unknowable to them cause the referee to claw their hard won success back, again leading to wasted time and frustration in the game.
> 
> So stake setting type mechanics put the onus on referees to own up during the stake negotiations and not agree to anything they can't live with. Once they've agreed on the terms, the terms are set. Yes, this is artificial but it keeps the game moving and forces answers to questions in a reasonable timeframe, answers that everyone has agreed to live with. The reduction in timewasting is the big potential payoff.
> 
> These methods fail if anyone negotiates in bad faith and doesn't deliver.



I guess the difference between this and how I think is that I don't put nearly as much emphasis on time spent doing something.  If a given thing takes all session to resolve, so be it...and if that resolution later turns out to be an illusion, so be that too.  The campaign length is open-ended, nobody's on a time crunch, so let things take as long as they like to play out.

And while a DM can drop hints here and there that some given task might be impossible, if the players/characters get invested in doing it and thus insist on keeping on trying the DM has no real option but to keep on narrating failure.  Been there, done that, from both sides of the screen. 

I trust the DM to run a fair and internally-consistent game.  Beyond that I've no good reason to trust anything in the game world to be as it seems, and nor should I: I'm well aware both as player and character that what I don't know far outweighs what I do know, or think I know, and that there might well be a twist introduced at any time.  The NPC mentor we've been working for all this time could turn out to have been using us as pawns, and in fact we've been working against our own interests all along.  The dragon we subdued might have merely allowed itself to be subdued (or been faking it the whole time) in order to learn more about us.  The advisor might be the good guy and the Baron possessed by a demon, and capturing the Baron's niece is the only way the advisor could keep the Baron's depravities in line.

Lan-"come on baby, let's do the twist"-efan


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## Jacob Marley

Lanefan said:


> There's people I've known who were friends once but are not now; while others who I once had little use for I've come around to.  This more commonly happens over the long term but I've seen it happen during the course of one evening.  *Social interactions are dynamic things.*




Indeed!



Lanefan said:


> As I said earlier (somewhere), we can't play out the combat in real life at the table so we need a mechanical representation of it; but we can play out the social-interaction side and thus usually don't (or shouldn't) need mechanics to represent such.




In my experience, the value mechanics add to adjudicating social interactions comes from the randomness inherent in the die roll. At least, as it pertains to D&D. I cannot speak to some of the other games referenced in this thread. As an individual, I have certain tendencies on how I'd rule a particular encounter. Adding die rolls to the adjudicating process challenges those tendencies. The die roll creates moments of surprise when it runs counter to our expectations.

Early on in this thread I posted about how small percentage chances can have a significant impact on the emerging narrative. This was in response to the earlier discussion about a vessel existing to collect blood. My point earlier is just as true with regards to social encounters. In my experience, having these small chances arise from social mechanics creates a more interesting - and dynamic! - encounter than I'd narrate under a free-form model. In a free-form model I find I often default back to my basic tendencies. YMMV

Aside: This is also why I favor old school random encounter tables to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s more deliberate framing in response to player beliefs.


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## Tony Vargas

(apologies if this is a double-post, I'm pretty sure it was eaten by  ENWorld maintenance...)



Lanefan said:


> As I said earlier (somewhere), we can't play out the combat in real life at the table so we need a mechanical representation of it; but we can play out the social-interaction side and thus usually don't (or shouldn't) need mechanics to represent such.



 You certainly can play out a combat in real life.  You could even, with a little SCA experience, gear, and prep, do so fairly safely - or you could play it out in a LARP style with boffers.  The downside to doing that is that you're no longer resolving a combat involving the PCs, you're resolving a combat involving the players.  If there's a three-time SCA King at your table, his character is going to win a lot of fights, even when he's playing a non-combatant, for instance. 

The same applies to exploration and social challenges.  Sure, you could have a player try to open a puzzle box or climb to a second story window instead of rolling his Thief's chance of disarming a trap or climbing a wall, or have the player of the wizard verbally spar with the DM to determine if he successfully negotiates with a devil.  But you're no longer modeling the PC, so you're essentially limiting your players to characters much more like themselves than if you had workable mechanical resolution systems available to model the characters.  
Of course, you could still ignore or override such mechanics in situations where you feel the PC/player and/or NPC/DM distinctions are moot, or where you want to erase those distinctions to some end, such as achieving a greater sense of immersion, maintaining a sense of mystery or discovery, or whatever.


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## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> Lan-"sometimes the best adventures come from setting out to do one thing and - knowingly or not - in fact doing something else much more significant"




Hey! Your sig here _almost_ sounds like the preference for a player-driven game over a DM-driven one!



Lanefan said:


> Which seems to me to be a) all about the character's introspection (earlier I called this emo-gaming) and personal story rather than anything on a grander scale, and b) very closed-ended; sure the character may have resolved her own internal issues but there's still a great big world out there to go adventuring in, so why stop now?




I still don't get why you feel this way. Using an example from my own Dark Sun game scenario, two of the PCs have goals at the beginning of play as follows: The Fighter, a former arena slave, desperately seeks her combat partner, who disappeared during the insurrection and slave uprising that immediately precedes play. The Druid mechanically has a theme called "Ghost of the Past," through which we flavor the theme power as a mystic connection to Athas's past--glimmers of the distant past when the world was green, before the scorching sun turned (nearly) all to desert. Her goal is to somehow use these intuitions of the past to discover a way to bring some kind of healing to the planet. 

Perhaps you might frame the Fighter's "drives" as "emo," in the sense that they are rather personal (though outwardly directed). But the Druid? How is that anything less than the grandest of scales? And note that neither of these "narratives" are DM-written. They are PC goals and the scenes that I, as DM, will frame will be interesting obstacles, etc. along the way as the PCs take actions to meet these goals.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> instead of providing clearly articulated points, you've provided play examples from your own games where there's 'always more to the story' than what you've chosen to present.



I have repeatedly stated a clear point: no secret backstory as a consideration in action resolution.

What is unclear about that?

And I've provided actual play reports: I've linked to plenty in this thread; I've given you actual play examples in the post you replied to; I can provide more links if you like - I think I have more actual play threads on these boards than any other poster.



Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not seen any real difference in kind between your presentation of 'framing' and what Lanefan describes as his method



Well,  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] clearly sees a difference, since - not very far upthread - he described me as using a "flawed system" in treating the skill challenge involving the advisor and the baron as establishing finality in respect of that matter.



Ovinomancer said:


> the Advisor conflict is set as (and here I feel I have to delve into overly precise language to avoid a pedantic response) the DM, to support the authored goals of the Advisor NPC, is authoring fiction that establishes the entire premise of the conflict.



I described the premise of the conflict in the post you replied to: the PCs are fighting goblins. The advisor comes into the game as the leader of the goblin army.

The backstory of the advisor is built up, over the course of play, initially - as I said - as colour, but then evolving into part of the framing.

Authoring backstory in the course of play, as part of establishing the colour around conflicts, the motivations of NPC actors, etc, is pretty-much the opposite of pre-authoring secret backstory and then using it to adjudicate action resolution.



Ovinomancer said:


> This premise isn't just framing, as you claim, because it persists through multiple conflicts



What does this have to do with whether or not it is framing? In an ongoing campaign, story elements persist from scene to scene, from session to session. That is part of what makes something a campaign.



Ovinomancer said:


> whatever the players did in regards to the goblin attack gave them information about yellow robed wizards; whatever the players did in the tunnel under the fortress, they found more yellow wizard information; this all fed into the pinnacle scene described of trying to force the Advisor (the yellow robed wizard, I'm assuming) to out himself.



Yes, over the course of play the PCs (and thereby the players) learn new things about the yellow-robed wizard. This is how ongoing RPG play works. The players engage situations via their PCs. Backstory develops; goals are formed, pursued, altered, sometimes achieved.

In the game, other things have been learned too. The PCs have learned more about the Rod of Seven Parts. They've learned more about Torog, Orcus, Lolth and the Queen of Chaos. They've learned more about devils, duergar and their relationship. They've learned a lot more about the Raven Queen. 

Most of my games involve this. In my MHRP campaign, the PCs learned things too: they learned that Clan Yashida was behind an attempt to steal Stark technology that was on display in the Smithsonian. This led them to break into a Clan Yashida office building in Tokyo. They also learned that Doctor Doom was behind a separate attempt to steal this technology, and furthermore that he had kidnapped Mariko Yashida. That led them to break into the Latverian embassy in Washington.

The PCs learning things is a failry standard part of RPGing. It's certainly not unique to my games, or the systems that I GM. Here, eg, is a standard player move from Dungeon World:

Spout Lore
When you consult your accumulated knowledge about something, roll+Int. ✴On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. ✴On a 7–9, the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful.​
I don't understand what you think is the issue here.

If the players, via their action declarations for their PCs and their expressions of commitment/aspiration/etc for their PCs, are focused on XYZ, then it is the GM's job to focus the game around XYZ. To quote Eero Tuovinen (again),

The standard narrativistic model
[The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .

The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
In the case of my main 4e game, the "action" - as established by the players' creation and play of their PCs - includes _the baron_, because (among other things) the dwarf fighter/cleric "paladin" PC has establishd a relationship with him, as the notional leader of the PCs; _the leader of the goblin army_, who is clearly a wizard-type, who speaks especially to the interest of the wizard/invoker PC who has already seen his own home city destroyd by humanoid armies, just as Nerath was generations ago (and the same character is carrying an ancient Nerathi artefact, the Sceptre of Law/Rod of 7 Parts); _Vecna_, again because of the wizard/invoker's subtle relationship to the god of secrets. Presenting the leader of the goblin army as the baron's advisor is a natural way of interweaving these various concerns. That's part of a GM's job, in this sort of game.



Ovinomancer said:


> The 'framing' here, the secret information you determined in advance, actually does impact the result of the challenges because it doesn't matter what the result of the challenge is, the next breadcrumb drops. This is exactly the kind of play you are decrying as railroading



What breadcrumbs are you talking about?

You seem to be assuming - and not based on anything I said - that the whole campaign was oriented towards the conflict with the advisor. That assumption is false.

As I posted in the post you replied to (and quoted), "When approaching a goblin fortress, they see a wizardly type wearing a yellow robe fly off on a flying carpet. They have heard other stories of a wizardly type in yellow robes hanging out suspiciously in the local area. . . . This begins as colour."

At a guess, the stories of the yellow-robed type hanging out suspiciously were introduced into the game in late 2009 or so, when the PCs spoke to a NPC burying dead goblins, who was able to learn the names of the dead by touching them. (This idea is from the LotFP module "Death Frost Doom".)

This "went where the action is" because many of the PCs are Raven Queen cultists. She has deliberately hidden her name to protect herself against her enemies. The ability to learn her name by touching her dead (mortal) body would therefore be very significant. The yellow-robed skulker was - as I said - a piece of colour.

Probably three or so months later - so sometime in the first hald of 2010, I would say - the PCs approached a goblin fortress (I was adapting elements of the 4e module Thunderspire Labyrinth, particularly the Chamber of Eyes). I described a yellow-robed figure flying off on a carpet as the PCs approached. I think, but am not certain after 7 years, that this was in the context of a skill challenge to approach unspotted (the only definite recollection I have of that skill challenge is that it was the first instance in our game of a successful skill check being resolved as "minionising" a NPC, so that a single hit would then take said NPC out).

This obviously drew upon the early reference to a yellow-robed skulker, and established him as the wizard leader of the goblins.  (There may also have been some prior interrogation of goblin prisoners. I don't remember now.)

A year or so of play later, the PCs - having defended a village against goblin attack, with partial success - head to the city of Threshold. My presentation of the city combines three published sources: Night's Dark Terror; the Dungeon adventure Heath, with the city of Adakmi; and the 3E module Speaker in Dreams (I can't remember what name it gives to the city). I decide that the city is ruled by a baron (taken from Speaker in Dreams) in an uneasy balance of power with a patriarch (taken from Night's Dark Terror). As best I recall the players chose, at first, to ally with the patriarch. Hence, when I describe the PCs receiving an invitation to dinner with the baron, that is already applying a degree of pressure. When the players arrive at dinner and see the advisor there, and recognise him as the goblin leader, the pressure increases.

I can't remember how many hours or days before running the baron and advisor skill challenge I decided to have the baron's advisor be the PCs' yellow-robed nemesis. I just looked at a file, dated April 21st 2011, which has notes on possible background and framing elements for Threshold, and it doesn't say anthying about the evil wizard being the baron's advisor: the only comment on him is "During Baron’s funeral (or celebration), the PCs will notice Paldemar in the crowd (with Jolenta, if she survived)". So my best guess is, at that time, I hadn't thought of using the wizard as the baron's traitorous advisor.

The actual play post is dated Thursday August 11th 2011, and refers to the session taking place "on the weekend", which would by Sunday August 7th. So some time between April 21st and August 7th - a 108 day window - I got the idea of using the wizard leader of the goblins, the PCs' nemesis, as the baron's advisor, thereby increasing the pressure of the dinner invitation.

It may be that I had that idea first, and then came up with idea of the dinner invitation to bring it into play; or it may be that I first came up with the idea of the dinner invitation - which would have been somewhere in the couple of weeks preceding August 7th - and then decided that the wizard being present, as the baron's treacherous advisor, would increase the pressure even more. I don't now recall - we are talking about stuff nearly six years ago, so I've run over a 100 RPG sessions since then.

In the OP, I characterised railroading as "the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative". I have not described - either in the post you quoted, or prior posts, or this post - any shaping of outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. I have described introducing elements of colour, which - in subsequent moments of play - become elements of framing. There is no shaping of outcomes and no preconception of outcomes.

Upthread,  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and some other posters (maybe  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]?) expresed doubt that running a game in the way I described - ie building up the backstory in response by following the players' leads, by narrating consequences of checks, by framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into conflict - could produce a coherent, rich world. I disagreed (as did some other posters, I think, eg  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]).

You appear to be assuming that, because the skill challenge involving the advisor and the baron incorporated established backstory as part of its framing, that all that backstory must have been authored _in advance, with the purpose of pushing the players towards this event_. (That is the best sense I am making of your reference to "breadcrumbs".) As I have tried to explain in this post, that (apparent) assumption is mistaken.



Ovinomancer said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> There is no secret backstory as an element of action resolution in any of the above. The resolution follows from the framing and the checks.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't know that, though
Click to expand...


You also seem to think I'm lying about how I GM. Why? Instead of accusing me of lying, you could just ask how one establishes and manages backstory without using it to adjudicate action resolution via "behind the scenes" determinations of player success or failure.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> An example (hypothetical only) of secret backstory operating as a consdieration in action resolution: the PCs try to out the advisor in a way that will damage his relationship with the baron, but fail because - unbeknownst to the players - the GM has decided that the advisor is holding the baron's niece hostage, and is thereby exercising leverage over the baron.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> See, that's the sort of thing that makes for a great game.  The PCs try something that should have worked, but didn't.  That gets them thinking, "What happened?  There must be something going on here that we don't know about.".  They then start digging for that information, find out about the niece and rescue her.  At that time the baron would be exceedingly grateful to the PCs(no damage to the rep, but rather an increase) and be out for blood against the advisor(rebounded against him nicely).
> 
> You lose out on a ton by being so against hidden backstory.
Click to expand...


As I posted upthread, I'm not that interested in RPGing as puzzle-solving. If you enjoy it, then go for it!


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> As I posted upthread, I'm not that interested in RPGing as puzzle-solving. If you enjoy it, then go for it!




It's probably a good thing that sort of thing isn't about puzzle solving then.  The hidden backstory about the kidnapped daughter provides motivation and reason for the interaction between the baron and the advisor.  The PCs may find out about it, or they may not.  If they do find out about it, they may care or they may not.  If they care they may do something about it, or they may not.  It's not something for them to solve.  It's simply part of the world for them to roleplay off of if they find out about it, and to roleplay off of via the impact it has on the baron and advisor if they do not find out about it.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> *[The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . .*
> 
> ​






This is still where I disagree. Or at least rubs me wrong.


I don't frame based on dramatic needs. The drama occurs in the course of the story the players write in the world I present. I see myself as an impartial referee in that regard.


I realize that I'm the one who populates the world, develops the schemes and plots, decides what the NPCs and monsters do, etc. But when I frame scenes, it's not really for dramatic effect. Here's the facts, do with it what you will. I think of it like walking outside your door, or walking down a busy city street. There's the physical description of the city street itself, then there are people, engaged in various activities and such. Some are friendly and say, "hi," while others keep their eyes down to avoid conversation. There might be something exciting happen - a tavern fight, or somebody chasing somebody, perhaps a thief that stole somebody's purse. Sometimes something more direct and confrontational happens, like a group of thugs wanting to remove the PCs of their valuables.


While that sort of encounter may provide a dramatic scene, it's really up to the players/PCs to do something with it. Just like if you were on the streets of NY and a group of thugs came up and confronted you. I have no specific concern for the dramatic needs, that's not inherently my job.


Sure, I also provide story arcs for the NPCs, monsters, and such, and the players intersect with those - but until the PCs do something, until they latch onto something and run with it, there really isn't any drama. And yes, that approach is perfectly valid way to handle things, but it's not the way I do. Essentially, my approach is an extension of the classic dungeon crawl. Open the door, see what's behind it. 


I do provide plot hooks, including as many as I can that connect to backstories and such. But they are still just things. I'm not writing the drama, just the facts. The players provide the drama. In my campaign, the ranger was sold into slavery by his brother, after killing their father. So sure, I provided some dramatic framing. But from there, it's all a question of what they do. They did spend time looking for clues, etc, hunting down his brother. So I got the ball rolling at the beginning. But it only had some dramatic purpose because they players decided that it was worth following.


I also don't consider it my job to "introduce complications." I get that games like BW/DW specifically work that into the rules. That's one of the reasons I don't like them. While I agree that a failed skill check can include more than just success or failure, and they can include some incidental complications or consequences, I don't like the systems that focus on the DM generating a new complication that goes beyond that.


In an earlier thread, there was a discussion about what could be included in a climb check. One of the examples was the Mission Impossible scene, hanging from a rope to disarm a trap without touching the floor. This was a LARP example, and what actually happened in real life is the guy's gun fell out of its holster, he almost caught it, but then dropped it, and it set off the trap.


I think that's a perfectly reasonable consequence of a climbing failure in that particular situation. While there are other possible consequences, the fact that they are hanging upside down specifically creates a scenario that wouldn't occur unless they were in a situation like this - the gun falling out of the holster since they are upside down. If they hadn't thought to secure the gun, then a failed check could include the gun falling. Like in real life, there's a chance to catch it (a Dexterity check or save), otherwise further consequences occur. While this could be considered a "complication" I see it as less, simply a consequence dictated by the laws of gravity and a failure to consider it.


On the other hand, when the DM is instructed to introduce a complication, I've seen all sorts of far reaching complications. For example, on the failed climb check, the DM introduces somebody starting to unlock the door to the room because they forgot something. But it doesn't seem to have a direct correlation to the failed climbing check. Or if there are guards outside, the failed climb check causes the character to sneeze.


Part of the reason is that in the framing/complication model, the check is usually not for a skill, but directed toward the goal. The goal here not being caught. So failure means that anything is possible that might prevent that goal from succeeding. For whatever reason, that approach rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps it has to do with the GM having too much freedom to alter the course of the story, where I prefer that the majority of the story to be driven by the PCs themselves.


The Star Wars example, Luke's family being killed, is pretty dramatic. I probably wouldn't ever spring a consequence like that without some pre-planning. In other words, it wouldn't be created on the fly to introduce a complication. The story arc itself is OK. The stormtroopers are following the droids, and killing witnesses. There really isn't any possibility of figuring that out, or any warning. So if Luke purchases those droids, then the direction is set, it's a question as to who is home when it happens. These types of scenes, a strongly dramatic scene from me, are usually the start of a campaign. Something that is so defining that it has a long-lasting impact on the direction of the rest of the campaign. But after that, events like that occur are almost entirely player/character driven. 


So I consider my job to simply frame the scene - not the drama, just the scene. And I'm not their to introduce complications, but to adjudicate the results of actions. The main reason I look at it this way is because I don't consider it my story to write. Because I have an entire world full of people and monsters to write about. Which is fun for me, but probably boring for everybody else. So the game is their opportunity to write the story, and bring that word alive.​


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> How can the gameworld react to the players or the GM? It can be authored by them. But (being a fictional work, that is, some sort of abstract object) it can't react to them.
> 
> I believe that [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] agrees with me on this point.




Aha! But this is the heart of a role-playing game.

Just like a character can react to the fictional world around them, by the player taking the role of the character, the world can react to the characters by the DM taking on the role that's needed within the world.

Yes, the DM can author the world. But it could also be authored by somebody else. And yes, sometimes the DM has to author things on the fly. The DM then takes the role of whatever is needed within that world. The key to authoring something on the fly to me is to be consistent with the pre-authored part of the world.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Ovinomancer said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I think the primary distinction between DM and player driven is the reactionary status of the gameworld -- if the world only every reacts to the players, it's player driven. If it exists outside of the players, and acts without player input, then it's DM driven.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> as a fictional thing, of course the game world does not react to anyone, but rather what is being discussed is the GM's judgment in regards to the game world.
> 
> So looking at his post again, would you agree or disagree with his assessment? It seems pretty relevant to the overall topic to me.
Click to expand...




hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think that anyone should need to clarify that the "game world reacting to the players" actually means "the game world, as determined by the GM, reacting to the players". Pointing out that the game world, as a fictional construct, does not actually react to anyone.....what point does that serve?
> 
> I have to agree that pointing out such a distinction is pedantic, and distracts from the discussion rather than adds to it. Now, I could be wrong and perhaps there was a compelling reason for the distinction, but none was offered....and the original point being made was never directly addressed.



I've responded to both these things in multiple posts, begining way upthread when I noted the same apparent category error in a post made by  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].

I will do so again.

Taken at face value the claim that "the gameworld only reacts to the players" makes no sense to me. Adding in the adverb "as determined by the GM" doesn't help, because it's still the case that the gameworld doesn't react to anything. Apparently it's clear to you what is meant, but unfortunately that doesn't help me! (I know that you believe that noone "should need to clarify" these things. All I can do is apologise for my difficulty in making sense of the claim. The metaphor is not working for me.)

In a post following yours  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] refers to "the viewpoint being used to create the fiction". "Viewpoint" here is itself a metaphor - my best reading of it is as a reference to _purposes_  or _considerations_ that guide the authoring of the fiction. If I am misunderstanding what was meant, Ovinomancer no doubt will let me know once again!

So anyway, with that interpretation in mind, here is the nearest true thing that I can see in the general neighbourhood:

*Player-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play, (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs (this is especially relevant when framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into challenging situations, when narrating consequences of failed checks, and the like), and (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution. It is worth noting that (iii) cuts both ways: if the players succeed, the GM is bound by that; if the players fail, the GM is bound by that - no retries is a fairly hard rule, whilr no softballing I would say is generally a softer but still important rule.

(NB  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] may disgree with my ranking of the importance of these rules - if so, I think that would reflect some of the differences in our preferences that have come out in this thread eg "scene-framing" vs "MCing".)

*GM-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld having regard to consistency with the established fiction, where this includes not only fiction already established in the course of play but also fiction authored secretly by the GM. This requirement of consistency can extend to rendering player action declarations for their PCs failures simply on the basis of fictional positioning that is _unknown_ to the players because part of this GM's secret backstory. And a fortiori there is certainly no obligation on the GM, in authoring the gameworld, to have regard to the concerns/interests of the players.​
I haven't gone back through the thread to see the first time I stated something along those lines, but I believe that it's implicit in most of my posts, and especially the discussion with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] earlier in the thread.

Is this what you and  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] mean? As I've said, it's the nearest true thing in the neighbourhood that I can think of. But because it is basically a restatement of stuff that was already established hundreds of posts ago, I feel that it probably is not what you are saying.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> TwoSix said:
> 
> 
> 
> I'm pretty much certain that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is aware of the trade-offs involved in choosing his playstyle over your more traditional playstyle and is comfortable with his choices.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Are you sure because when asked about the drawbacks of his "player-driven" playstyle he couldn't list any?
Click to expand...


_Trade-off_ is not a synonym for _drawback_. A trade-off of living in Austaralia is that I don't live in Miami. Which is not, for me, a drawback, as I have no desire to live in Miami, never have done, and don't expect ever to do so.

In other words - a trade-off is not a drawback if the thing you are missing out on is not something that you wanted.



Imaro said:


> If everyone is aware of the tradeoffs of their styles and are comfortable with their choices what are we discussing them for?



Well, I can't answer that for you or for [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]. But I can tell you why I started the thread: to discuss with other posters what connection, if any, they see between GM judgement calls and railroading.

Did you enter the thread to discuss this, or did you enter the thread so that you could enlighten me about trade-offs you thought I was ignorant of?


----------



## pemerton

TwoSix said:


> <shrug>  Got me.  I'm mostly following along because [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has had some interesting insights.



This post left me a little deflated!


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Campbell said:


> @Ilbranteloth
> 
> My personal recommendation for anyone wanting to give indie gaming a shot would be to give Blades in the Dark a shot on some night you would otherwise get together to play a board game. It relies on a group dynamic, has a dynamic if broadly defined setting to fall back on, has a structure that focuses play, mechanics that you can opt into, and a reward structure that will build in conflicts over methods rather than over conflicts. I would start with just the general score and downtime structure and action rolls. You can build in things like progress clocks, devil's bargains, asking questions as suits the group, and things like emotional and psychological harm over time. The vice, heat, and stress mechanics will do a lot of heavy lifting for you. Right now I am playing Blades with a group of mostly mainstream gamers and they are loving it. It's taken them a bit more time to glom onto the principles, but things have never gotten silly or awkward.




I'll take a look at it. While it's highly unlikely I'll make a change to another system, I do like to learn more. I barely have the time for D&D as it is.

Not because I wouldn't want to try things, just a matter of not enough time. Aside from having a family (including a disabled child), a job and a business, my other hobby/second business is a full-time endeavor as well: http://newbritainstation.com. 

Having said that, I can probably make the time to read through the system, and maybe see if I can pull together a game or two at the local store.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> *GM-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld having regard to consistency with the established fiction, where this includes not only fiction already established in the course of play but also fiction authored secretly by the GM. This requirement of consistency can extend to rendering player action declarations for their PCs failures simply on the basis of fictional positioning that is _unknown_ to the players because part of this GM's secret backstory. And a fortiori *there is certainly no obligation on the GM, in authoring the gameworld, to have regard to the concerns/interests of the players.*[/indent]




Right.  The social contract is what requires DMs to have regard to the concerns/interests of the players.  C'mon man, I know you don't like my style of play, but that doesn't mean you should incorrectly try to make it sound like we're complete A-holes.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> _Trade-off_ is not a synonym for _drawback_. A trade-off of living in Austaralia is that I don't live in Miami. Which is not, for me, a drawback, as I have no desire to live in Miami, never have done, and don't expect ever to do so.




That's not a trade-off.  A trade-off requires there to be a trade.  It's in the word.  TRADE-off.  If you lived in Miami, giving up hurricanes for a bunch of poisonous critters upon moving to Australia would be a trade-off.  You're right that it isn't necessarily a drawback, though.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> the abilities of the NPC should figure into the skill challenge, as that paints the challenge more vividly and makes it more interesting.  The basic SC mechanism - n successes before 3 failures, at DCs determined by the _level of the Skill Challenge (not the party)_ - does not have a lot of space for an opposing NPC.   The opposition (or just involvement) of an NPC might determine the level of the challenge and influence the difficulty of checks & number of successes required.
> 
> That's fine as far as it goes, but I've taken it further with the above option of giving an NPCs powers that directly affect a Skill Challenge.





darkbard said:


> the DM could frame a scene wherein the advisor uses powers, skills, etc. against the PCs, but then we're moving into a combat encounter or some other framework.
> 
> Or the DM could model such within the framework of the SC system by, say, describing how the advisor augments his slick words with a subtle charm, thus setting that particular skill check by the PC as a hard DC (Arcana) or something similar.





Imaro said:


> But if that's not what the power actually does the DM isn't in fact leveraging the abilities of the character





darkbard said:


> In these--any many other, I'm sure--examples, the DM uses the framework of the system to represent NPC actions and adjudicate outcomes of these actions in response _to what the PCs do_ rather than relying solely upon her judgment, which, without such mechanics and to return to the original point of this post, sets up the possibility of railroading.





Imaro said:


> Yes but in a totally different way than the PC's do.  In other words as I said earlier the same mechanics are not being leveraged in the same way for NPC's as they are for PC's in SC's.
> 
> An NPC never makes a single roll in SC's... the DC's of a SC aren't typically based on the NPC's abilities or scores, but instead are typically based on level of the characters with wriggle room for the DM to adjust it up or down... complexity is set based on how many successes the DM wants the PC's to have to garner but again is not tied to the NPC in any way and advantages are based on the complexity of the SC and stopping the math from resulting in an auto-failure... but again not on any abilties or qualities of the NPC.



Some thoughts on skill challenges:

(1) The 4e DMG says (on p 73):

Set a level for the challenge and DCs for the checks involved. As a starting point, set the level of the challenge to the level of the party, and use moderate DCs for the skill checks . . .

If you use easy DCs, reduce the level of the challenge by one. If you use hard DCs, increase the level of the challenge by two. You can also adjust the level of the challenge by reducing the number of failures needed to end the challenge. Cut the number of failures needed in half, and increase the level of the challenge by two. . . .​
I think this is fairly confusing (and perhaps confused), but my best guess is that when it talks about "reducing" or "increasing" the level of the challenge, it is referring to the level for XP and milestone purposes, not for DC-setting purposes (which are being set _prior_ to adjusting the level of the challenge). Personally I would regard this text as superseded by the Essentials guidelines on number of medium checks, hard checks and advantages.

I don't know if I have ever run any skill-challenges setting DCs according to a level other than the PCs' level, but I do know that if I have done that it's not for a long time.

(2) The 4e DMG also says (on p 74):

For speed and simplicity, skill challenges use only flat DCs to oppose the PCs’ skill checks. Opposing them with skill check results builds too much randomness into the system.

If you want to include opponents’ checks in your skill challenges, use their passive checks (10 + base skill check bonus). Insight and Perception are the skills most often used in this way.​
I don't recall ever having done this myself.

(3) I completely agree with [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] about how the NPCs - as crucial elements of the fiction - factor into a skill challenge. The GM uses them - their personalities, their actions, their willingness or their reticence - as part of the framing of the situation which (because it is not as the PCs want it to be) leads the players to declare checks. I think that to argue that this is not leveraging the abilities of the NPC is to miss the point - that claim assumes that a NPC's combat stat block is some sort of "true expression" of the PC, whereas clearly, given the presence of the skill challenge mechanics, it is not! (It's similar to asserting that the game is incoherent because the same NPC might be statted up as a level X solo, a level X+4/5 elite, a level X+9 standard, or a level X+17 minion.)

That's not to say that there's anything _wrong _with doing the sort of thing that Tony Vargas describes. But personally I've never felt the need for it.


----------



## Campbell

I promised that I would critique the pain points of a game like Apocalypse World. I will start with a brief look at the motives in the Gamer Motivation Model I believe are necessary to enjoy Apocalypse World play, and the motives are believe are not well served by Apocalypse World. I'll include my own ratings for the interests of this discussion. I am speaking specifically of Apocalypse World play here. Other indie games are their own thing. This analysis does not even extrapolate to other Powered By The Apocalypse games.



			
				 Campbell's Gamer Motivation Profile - Strong Positive Correlation With Enjoying Apocalypse World said:
			
		

> [h=3]The Social Components (92%)[/h]Gamers with high Social scores enjoy interacting with other players, often regardless of whether they are collaborating or competing with them. Gamers with low Social scores prefer solo gaming experiences where they can be independent.
> 
> *Competition (86%):* Gamers who score high on this component enjoy competing with other players, often in duels, matches, or team-vs-team scenarios. Competitive gameplay can be found in titles like _Starcraft_, _League of Legends_, or the PvP Battlegrounds in _World of Warcraft_. But competition isn’t always overtly combative; competitive players may care about being acknowledged as the best healer in a guild, or having a high ranking/level on a Facebook farming game relative to their friends.
> *
> Community (91%):* Gamers who score high on Community enjoy socializing and collaborating with other people while gaming. They like chatting and grouping up with other players. This might be playing _Portal 2_ with a friend, playing _Mario Kart_ at a party, or being part of a large guild/clan in an online game. They enjoy being part of a team working towards a common goal. For them, games are an integral part of maintaining their social network.
> 
> 
> [h=3]The Mastery Components (94%)[/h]
> Gamers with high Mastery scores like challenging gaming experiences with strategic depth and complexity. Gamers with low Mastery scores enjoy being spontaneous in games and prefer games that are accessible and forgiving when mistakes are made.
> 
> *Challenge (88%):* Gamers who score high on Challenge enjoy playing games that rely heavily on skill and ability. They are persistent and take the time to practice and hone their gameplay so they can take on the most difficult missions and bosses that the game can offer. These gamers play at the highest difficulty settings and don’t mind failing missions repeatedly in games like _Dark Souls_ because they know it’s the only way they’ll master the game. They want gameplay that constantly challenges them.
> *
> Strategy (93%):* Gamers who score high on this component enjoy games that require careful decision-making and planning. They like to think through their options and likely outcomes. These may be decisions related to balancing resources and competing goals, managing foreign diplomacy, or finding optimal long-term strategies. They tend to enjoy both the tactical combat in games like _XCOM or Fire Emblem, as well as seeing their carefully-devised plans come to fruition in games like Civilization, Cities: Skylines, or Europa Universalis.
> 
> _[h=3]The Immersion Components (90%)[/h]Gamers with high Immersion scores want games with interesting narratives, characters, and settings so they can be deeply immersed in the alternate worlds created by games. Gamers with low Immersion scores are more grounded in the gameplay mechanics and care less about the narrative experiences that games offer.
> 
> *Fantasy (85%):* Gamers who score high on Fantasy want their gaming experiences to allow them to become someone else, somewhere else. They enjoy the sense of being immersed in an alter ego in a believable alternate world, and enjoy exploring a game world just for the sake of exploring it. These gamers enjoy games like_ Skyrim, Fallout,_ and _Mass Effect_ for their fully imagined alternate settings.
> *
> Story (88%):* Gamers who score high on Story want games with elaborate campaign storylines and a cast of multidimensional characters with interesting backstories and personalities. They take the time to delve into the backstories of characters in games like _Dragon Age_ and _Mass Effect, _and enjoy the elaborate and thoughtful narratives in games like _The Last of Us_ and _BioShock_. Gamers who score low on Story tend to find dialogue and quest descriptions to be distracting and skip through them if possible.






			
				Campbell's Gamer Motivation Profile - Strong Negative Correlation With Enjoying Apocalypse World said:
			
		

> [h=3]The Achievement Components (29%)[/h]Gamers with high Achievement scores are driven to accrue power, rare items, and collectibles, even if this means grinding for a while. Gamers with low Achievement scores have a relaxed attitude towards in-game achievements and don’t worry too much about their scores or progress in the game.
> 
> Power (52%): Gamers who score high on this component strive for power in the context of the game world. They want to become as powerful as possible, seeking out the tools and equipment needed to make this happen. In RPGs and action games, this may mean maxing stats or acquiring the most powerful weapons or artifacts. Power and Completion often go hand in hand, but some players enjoy collecting cosmetic items without caring about power, and some players prefer attaining power through strategic optimization rather than grinding.
> 
> *Completion (13%):* Gamers with high Completion scores want to finish everything the game has to offer. They try to complete every mission, find every collectible, and discover every hidden location. For some players, this may mean completing every listed achievement or unlocking every possible character/move in a game. For gamers who score high on Design, this may mean collecting costumes and mounts in games like _World of Warcraft_.
> 
> 
> [h=3]The Creativity Components (39%)[/h]Gamers with high Creativity scores are constantly experimenting with their game worlds and tailoring them with their own designs and customizations. Gamers with low Creativity scores are more practical in their gaming style and accept their game worlds as they are.
> 
> *Discovery (25%):* Gamers who score high on Discovery are constantly asking “What if?” For them, game worlds are fascinating contraptions to open up and tinker with. In an MMO, they might swim out to the edge of the ocean to see what happens. In _MineCraft_, they might experiment with whether crafting outcomes differ by the time of day or proximity to zombies. They “play” games in the broadest sense of the word, often in ways not intended or imagined by the game’s developers.
> *
> Design (54%):* Gamers who score high on this component want to actively express their individuality in the game worlds they find themselves in. In games like _Mass Effect_, they put a lot of time and effort in the character creation process. In city-building games or space strategy games, they take the time to design and customize exactly how their city or spaceships look. To this end, they prefer games that provide the tools and assets necessary to make this possible and easy to do.






			
				Campbell's Gamer Motivation Profile - No Strong Correlations said:
			
		

> [h=3]The Action Components (67%)[/h]Gamers with high Action scores are aggressive and like to jump in the fray and be surrounded by dramatic visuals and effects. Gamers with low Action scores prefer slower-paced games with calmer settings.
> 
> *Destruction (47%):* Gamers who score high on this component are agents of chaos and destruction. They love having many tools at their disposal to blow things up and cause relentless mayhem. They enjoy games with lots of guns and explosives. They gravitate towards titles like _Call of Duty_ and _Battlefield_. And if they accidentally find themselves in games like _The Sims_, they are the ones who figure out innovative ways to get their Sims killed.
> 
> *Excitement (82%):* Gamers who score high on this component enjoy games that are fast-paced, intense, and provide a constant adrenaline rush. They want to be surprised. They want gameplay that is full of action and thrills, and rewards them for rapid reaction times. While this style of gameplay can be found in first-person shooters like _Halo_, it can also be found in games like _Street Fighter_ and _Injustice_, as well as energetic platformers like _BIT.TRIP RUNNER_.




I'll have more analysis of what this means in another post.


----------



## tomBitonti

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]: While not disagreeing overall, the definitions don't seem to have a place for systems which allow players to introduce major scene elements.  Though, I'm not sure everyone puts shared story telling type systems firmly as RPGs.  There is certainly role playing.  But there is (or seems to me) a notable loss of game elements.

Thx!
TomB


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## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Upthread, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and some other posters (maybe [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]?) expresed doubt that running a game in the way I described - ie building up the backstory in response by following the players' leads, by narrating consequences of checks, by framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into conflict - could produce a coherent, rich world. I disagreed (as did some other posters, I think, eg [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]).




I will clarify that it wasn't doubt that you specifically could or could not, and you also clarified a bit what you mean by shared-authoring. 

My doubt is based on what I understand about BW/DW and the games I've seen played, including the "how to play" games on YouTube and such, that if a group of people sit down to start playing a game, and one guy says he wants to be a dwarven cleric, and the GM then tells them, "OK, you're a dwarf, so tell us more about the dwarven lands and culture. And also, you're a cleric, so you own the Gods, or at least part of the Gods, and particularly your God. Tell us about the Gods and clerics."

Then, the focus of the game is specifically on only the parts of the world that come into play and impact the PCs at that point in time. So after a few years of playing like this, in an extended campaign, potentially with players coming and going - sure, I'm skeptical that will present a world as richly detailed or as coherent as the Forgotten Realms. Sure, there are plenty of contradictions or issues with the Realms as well, particularly as the content police have waxed and waned over time. Anytime you have a shared world, you need some sort of quality and content control to help maintain it. That's one of my roles in my campaign world.

Having said that - I also acknowledge that a consistent world of that sort of breadth and depth isn't likely a goal of their games either. It's something I enjoy, not everybody does. I certainly can't argue with the idea that developing a region such as Calimshan as fully as it has been in print, when your characters will never visit the land seems like a bit of a waste of time. On the other hand, world-building is a hobby in itself. Not to mention that the cultures, people, and products of a far-away land can have an impact on the local world too. Such as the impact trade with the orient had in medieval Europe. World-building acknowledges that these sorts of things are interconnected and have an impact on the history of the local world too, and can help explain why things are the way they are here and now.


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> The example above is from Night's Dark Terror, and that thing is nothing but a whole string of mysteries and secret backstories the PCs have to wade through and figure out!



Not as I ran it. See my post not too far upthread.

EDIT: Just to repeat one point from that earlier post: the module as written doesn't have use the skulking yellow-robed wizard as an element of colour in an encounter with a goblin-corpse burying NPC.

That's an example of the difference between running something as a puzzle, and using story elements as colour and/or framing for the situations that challenge the PCs.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Combat encounters don't have fixed outcomes, but skill challenges do.  A combat encounter can end with one side defeated, one side injured, one side running away, one side surrendering, one side being captured against their will -- pick multiples.  Combat encounters have fixed entry points (usually), but not fixed exit points.  Skill challenges, on the other hand, usually have both fixed entry and exit points -- the exit points are success at the challenge or failure at the challenge.



This does not reflect my experience at all.

A skill challenge, as I understand it, is a _method for resolving_ a _non-combat situation of adversity_ in which _the PCs find themselves_. (Some people use skill challenges for some combats also - but I'm bracketing that for the moment.)

So to frame a skill challenge, we need (i) some PCs, who (ii) find themselves in a non-combat situation of adversity. We then apply the method, which (i) requires setting a complexity, and (ii) requires settling at least some general parameters for DCs (though, as the discussion in this thread has shown, different practices are used at this point by different GMs).

Then, as per the 4e DMG (p 74), the GM "describe the environment, listen to the players' responses, let them make their skill checks, and narrate the results." As written, it is ambiguous whether the plural here takes a distributed or collective reading; and I think this was a _big_ issue in the reception and play of skill challenges, as I think many RPGers and also, perhaps, some adventure authors assumed that the plural was collective - ie the GM listens _once_ to the many player responses, let's the players all make their checks, and then (_once_, after this is all done) narrates the results. This makes the resolution of a skill challenge nothing but a "dice rolling exercise".

The DMG 2 (p 83), however, clarified that the plural is intended to take a distributed reading, ie that there are as many episodes of the GM describing the environment, listening to responses and then narrating results as there are makings of checks:

Each skill check in a challenge should accomplish one of the following goals:

* Introduce a new option that the PCs can pursue . . .

* Change the situation, such as by sending the PCs to a new location, introducing a new NPC, or adding a complication.

* Grant the players a tangible consequence . . . that influence their subsequent decisions.​
. . . [T]he same situation applies in a battle. . . . During a combat encounter, the actions taken by each character and monster set the stage for the next person's turn. In a good combat encounter, the situation constantly changes. The same thing applies to skill challenges. The best challenges are those that you can adjust as you react to the players' decisions.​
Doing this - that is to say, applying the method so as to resolve the non-combat situation of adversity in which the PCs find themselves - doesn't depend upon there being some sort of fixed exit point. I would go so far as to say that it is impossible that there should be a fixed exit point, as one can't know in advance what actions the players will declare, and hence can't know in advance what things will change as a result of those actions, and hence can't know what the situation will be for subsequent checks, and hence can't know what the outcome resulting from the final check will be.


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## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> I _do_ think it's very important to pull the characters into the campaign world and the adventure. Which is exactly what I mean when I say the players/characters write the story.



Speaking for myself, I would go further: I want the GM to be pulled by the players into the world of their PCs.

To give an example drawing on the game mentioned in the OP: I did not try and draw the player of the mage PC into a campaign world of sorcerous cabals and mage's towers and decapitated brothers.

Rather, that player created a PC who was a member of a sorcerous cabal, and who had an instinct to _always cast Falconskin if falling_. And who had a brother possessed by a balrog. And in the first session he tried to make friendly contact with the leader of the cabal, and failed; when the leader of the cabal needed a house I made it a tower because towers are high place from which someone might fall, and hence have to cast Falconskin! Another player created a PC who wanted to kill her former (sorcerous) masters, and events of play confirmed that the master fated to be decapitated, and the demon-possessed brother, were one and the same.

That's just a summary of some aspects of PC creation, plus a few events of play, but I hope it conveys what I mean when I say that _the players drew me, as GM, into the world of their characters_.

EDIT: I read a later post of yours:



Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't frame based on dramatic needs. The drama occurs in the course of the story the players write in the world I present. I see myself as an impartial referee in that regard.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> when I frame scenes, it's not really for dramatic effect.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I also provide story arcs for the NPCs, monsters, and such, and the players intersect with those - but until the PCs do something, until they latch onto something and run with it, there really isn't any drama.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I do provide plot hooks, including as many as I can that connect to backstories and such. But they are still just things.
> 
> <sniP.
> 
> I also don't consider it my job to "introduce complications."



I can see how this is "pulling the characters into the campaign world and the adventure", but I personally would probably not describe it as "the players writing the story".


----------



## Campbell

Ilbranteloth said:


> I will clarify that it wasn't doubt that you specifically could or could not, and you also clarified a bit what you mean by shared-authoring.
> 
> My doubt is based on what I understand about BW/DW and the games I've seen played, including the "how to play" games on YouTube and such, that if a group of people sit down to start playing a game, and one guy says he wants to be a dwarven cleric, and the GM then tells them, "OK, you're a dwarf, so tell us more about the dwarven lands and culture. And also, you're a cleric, so you own the Gods, or at least part of the Gods, and particularly your God. Tell us about the Gods and clerics."
> 
> Then, the focus of the game is specifically on only the parts of the world that come into play and impact the PCs at that point in time. So after a few years of playing like this, in an extended campaign, potentially with players coming and going - sure, I'm skeptical that will present a world as richly detailed or as coherent as the Forgotten Realms. Sure, there are plenty of contradictions or issues with the Realms as well, particularly as the content police have waxed and waned over time. Anytime you have a shared world, you need some sort of quality and content control to help maintain it. That's one of my roles in my campaign world.
> 
> Having said that - I also acknowledge that a consistent world of that sort of breadth and depth isn't likely a goal of their games either. It's something I enjoy, not everybody does. I certainly can't argue with the idea that developing a region such as Calimshan as fully as it has been in print, when your characters will never visit the land seems like a bit of a waste of time. On the other hand, world-building is a hobby in itself. Not to mention that the cultures, people, and products of a far-away land can have an impact on the local world too. Such as the impact trade with the orient had in medieval Europe. World-building acknowledges that these sorts of things are interconnected and have an impact on the history of the local world too, and can help explain why things are the way they are here and now.




My own experience is that over time the characters, the lives they live, and parts of the setting they touch upon can become fairly detailed and complex if the interest is there. However, the setting beyond the characters own experiences does not really get touched on much. I tend to keep these very elaborate relationship maps that are fairly rich in detail. Actual detailed maps are not so much a feature of play. These systems are not very good for kick the tires play where the greater world is what is of interest. We are far more interested in making the characters feel real.

I would note that in games like Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, and Masks because so much time is spent in essentially one place the surrounding environment and specific places like a particular bookstore, coffee shop, bar, or library often become like characters in their own right with interests, relationships, features, and rich details. It begins to feel lived in through extended play. We really get to know them on an intimate level. Where can I find Dravos? He's probably drinking with Feron at the Tattered Rose. They're there every Friday night. Where's Rose, that cute young waitress who started here last week? Oh her. She got in roe with her boyfriend and called off today.

Another note: Part of what we depend on the other players for is to act as editors when we declare something about the fiction. This is where a collaborative approach can actually lead to better consistency than we might see otherwise. Because we do not wholly own any given thing it is perfectly acceptable for another player to say stuff like  "Wait. I thought you said your character's brother was off at war while that was going on. That could not have happened." The same sort of thing can happen when GMs say stuff about the world. Normally we don't question stuff the GM says about the world because of social contract stuff, but under this model it is entirely permissible.


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . .
> 
> [O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Which seems to me to be a) all about the character's introspection (earlier I called this emo-gaming) and personal story rather than anything on a grander scale, and b) very closed-ended; sure the character may have resolved her own internal issues but there's still a great big world out there to go adventuring in, so why stop now?
Click to expand...


I don't understand your (a).

In my main 4e game, the paladin of the Raven Queen had, as his two preeminent goals, (i) to stop Torog using his Soul Abattoir to trap the souls of those who die in the Underdark and use them as a source of mystical power, and (ii) to destroy Orcus. A third motivation for the character, not so much a goal as an ethos, is the value of ordinary lives, of those whose time has not yet come to die.

Hence, _framing scenes according to dramatic need_ meant putting (i) or (ii) into play, or allowing the third motivation to express itself (eg by the sparing of lives where they might be spared). That is not about introspection or "emo-gaming". That is about the PC defeating undead, hunting down Orcus cultists, using the magical tapestry to create the map to the Soul Abattoir, destroying it with the help of his fellows, and then launching an assault on Orcus's castle in Thanatos.

Hence why I don't understand your (a).

To some extent your (b) seems to take your (a) as a premise. But treating it as an independent thing: In the course of escaping from the Abyss, this PC developed a new motivation, when he (and the rest of the PCs) learned that the Raven Queen's (mortal) mausoleum had (like all lost and/or ruined things) made its way to The Barrens, the 100th layer of the Abyss; an so with his fellows he went off to prevent anyone using her mausoleum to learn her true name and hence gain power over her.

The story of this PC will "naturally reach its end" when either (i) the Raven Queen is toppled, (ii) the Raven Queen becomes supreme ruler of the cosmos, or (iii) the Raven Queen is somehow accommodated within, and reconciled to, a new cosmological settlement. The player of this PC is angling for (ii). The player of the dwarf inclines rather strongly to (i). Two of the other PCs incline towards (iii). The invoker/wizard does not seem to have an overt commitment, but his actions in restoring the Rod of Seven Parts - at the behest, ultimately, of the Raven Queen - seem most likely to facilitate (ii).

As the previous paragraph at least hints at, the stories of these PCs are intertwined. That's not a coincidence - it's part of my job as GM to try and bring that about and sustain it over the course of play.

EDIT: Since posting this I see that I was ninja-ed by [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION]!


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## pemerton

Aenghus said:


> As I see it stake setting, skill challenges etc among other things allow a question to be asked and answered in a relatively short time. The referee and players have to agree what the question is and roughly what the stakes are and based on what transpires the players succeed or fail after the set number of successes or failures connected to the fiction, or whatever other methods are being used. The answer, win or lose, needs to be relatively final, no takebacks or retrys from any involved parties.



I enjoyed the post! The only thing where I differ a bit (and maybe not even that, give your use of _roughly_) is that I think the stakes - ie what the players are aiming to achieve for their PCs, and what they are prepared to risk to get there - can themselves evolve over the course of a skill challenge, as part of the process of the GM framing checks, and then narrating results, and using those results to feed into the framing of subsequent checks.

This is also true in Cortex+/MHRP - eg an initial condition inflicted on an opponent might be emotional stress, but the conflict might end with the opponent "stressed" out by some sort of complication (eg _Treachery Revealed_ stepped up to d12+). I see this sort of thing happen in my games quite a bit.

But in a BW Duel of Wits, the stakes do have to be set ahead of time - the main change that results from actual resolution of the situation is the terms of compromises. But because, in practice, most DoW require compromises of some sort, this stuff that is established in the course of the resolution still often ends up mattering quite a bit to how things turn out.


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## pemerton

Imaro said:


> how does one of the players have a giant shaman as a PC resource??



From the MHRP "Operations Manual" (ie the Basic Rulebook) (pp 12, 21, 97):

If a 1 comes up on any of the Watcher’s dice, [a player] can spend 1 P[lot] P[oint] to *activate the opportunity*. . . . You may use this . . . to create a resource during an Action Scene. . . .

A *resource* is a special kind of stunt linked to one of your Specialties and created by spending a PP during a Transition Scene, much as you would create a stunt die for a Specialty in an Action Scene. . . .

Resources represent people you may know through your circle of contacts, information provided by your connections, or locations you can make use of as a result of your background in the Specialty. . . .

If you activate an opportunity with a PP, you can create a resource during an Action Scene that lasts until the end of the Scene you created it in. Otherwise, resources must already exist for you to add them into a die pool during an Action Scene. . . .

You may also spend a Plot Point during a Transition Scene to invoke some kind of *beneficial contact or helpful association* with a Watcher character [= NPC] - including dirty secrets about their past or some observation about their fighting style - by spending a Plot Point to create a resource die. . . . You can also introduce a resource during an Action Scene if you activate an opportunity from the Watcher . . .​
The PC in question has the Social speciality which, in our fantasy hack, sits in the same general space as 4e Diplomacy and Insight, or MHRP Psych. (The Hacker's Guide, p 205, describes a similar Diplomacy specialty as "You have a gift for understanding sentient behavior and finding common ground with other people and cultures.")

The PCs were "negotiating" with the giant chieftain. The swordthane, having offered up his horse (an earlier-established resource, from the Riding speciality) as a gift, was trying to persuade the chieftain that the giants had the same interest in the PCs' quest as did the PCs and their people, because everyone had an interest in the land not being cursed/barren/blighted etc. The player asked whether there was a giant shaman or similar sort of figure who might back him up. I said that this would be the sort of thing one might establish as a Social resource if I rolled a 1 and the PP was then spent to activate the opportunity. When I rolled my next 1, the player duly spent his PP. Thereafter, his dice pools to persuade the chieftain included an extra d6 Shaman resource. (I did the actual talking for the shaman, expressing agreement with the argument the player (speaking as his PC) was putting to the chieftain.)

EDIT: In order to avoid being queried on my knowledge and application of these rules, I probably should also quote this, from OM p 54:

A lot of things in the story don’t have dice associated with them because they’re a part of the fiction that everyone at the table just agrees on. Lampposts, sidewalks, plate windows, random passersby, bouquets of flowers, newspapers, and other items that aren’t immediately important are just context and color. You can make them important by using your effect dice to make them assets, or use them as part of your description for stunts . . .​
The presence of a shaman in the hall of the giant chieftain is something that counts as "a part of the fiction that everyone at the table just agrees on". The player _made it important_ by turning it into a resource, which is "a special kind of stunt".



Imaro said:


> could the giant chieftain (if his independent motivations and goals coincide) choose to sell the PC's out to one of their enemies for profit once they are on their journey? If they return through the giant chieftain's land could he decide then to eat them or take whatever it is they have quested for, again if his motivations and goals (as well as the general nature of giants) makes this feasible or does this one SC in effect make the giant chieftain their ally into perpetuity?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> is it only the players and their characters that can cause a mitigation or reversal of a resolution that has been decided? If not under what circumstances (since in-game rationale's are not acceptable) can NPC's do such?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> When you state... _"unless something happens at the table, in the game, to reopen the matter"_... actually isn't all that simple and the parameters of it (even though I've asked in multiple replies) around mitigation vs. reversal and who can institute said "something" have remained murky and nebulous



PCs vs NPCs has nothing to do with it! "Let it Ride", no retries, finality, and similar principles aren't properties of the gameworld. They're rules for roleplaying, and so they operate upon the participants in the game, namely, the GM and the players.

Page 32 of BW Gold (which can be downloaded as a free preview from DriveThruRPG) describes "Let it Ride" thus:

A player shall test once against an obstacle and shall not roll again until conditions legitimately and drastically change. Neither GM nor player can call for a retest unless those conditions change. Successes from the initial roll count for all applicable situations in play.​
What counts as a "legitimate and drastic change" is not a question that can be answered in the abstract. It's obviously a matter of judgement. And until the game _has actually been played_, it can't be known what has been put back into play by the players, or by the unfolding situation, and what has been settled.

The judgement will ultimately be the GM's, but it's not unilateral. I've been called on Let it Ride in BW play plenty of times - that's part and parcel of the system, and a player reminding me that something has been settled, and that nothing has drastically changed since then, is not doing anything remotely out of order.

(The same answer applies to   [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s question "What about the passage of two weeks in game?" It depends utterly on what actually occurred in the play of the game with respect to the passage of those two weeks. In the abstract there's no saying whether the passage of two weeks is utterly trivial, or game-changingly fundamental.)



Imaro said:


> can you as the DM use the advisor to advocate or champion for a particular cause that is independent of reacting to what the PC's do... or are they simply antagonists... their only purpose, as others have stated, being to align with or oppose what the PC's do?



Haven't I already answered this? Years before the PCs and advisor had crossed paths, the advisor was building up a goblin army to try and recover the magical tapestry that would show him the way to Torog's Soul Abattoir. The advisor's motivation for doing this had nothing to do with the PCs. He was trying to help Vecna gain control of the Underdark souls.



Imaro said:


> To further clarify let's take 4e as a system... I feel it really doesn't work well for the type of play where the NPC's express protagonism, Why?  Because as you commented on before the DM is not given the latitude to use the same tools as the players are.



For the advisor to raise a goblin army, or to weasel his way into the service of the baron, or to woo the baron's neice and convert her to evil Vecna worship, doesn't require any mechanical resolution at all. I just write this stuff into the backstory of the campaign!


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## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Maxperson said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The PCs try something that should have worked, but didn't. That gets them thinking, "What happened? There must be something going on here that we don't know about.". They then start digging for that information, find out about the niece and rescue her.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> As I posted upthread, I'm not that interested in RPGing as puzzle-solving. If you enjoy it, then go for it!
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> It's probably a good thing that sort of thing isn't about puzzle solving then.  The hidden backstory about the kidnapped daughter provides motivation and reason for the interaction between the baron and the advisor.  The PCs may find out about it, or they may not.  If they do find out about it, they may care or they may not.  If they care they may do something about it, or they may not.  It's not something for them to solve.  It's simply part of the world for them to roleplay off of if they find out about it
Click to expand...


In the post I replied to, and that I have re-quoted, you said "The PCs try something that should have worked, but didn't. That gets them thinking, 'What happened? There must be something going on here that we don't know about.'. They then start digging for that information, find out about the niece and rescue her." That is a description of the PCs solving a puzzle (or, if you prefer, a mystery): the players think "what happened?", they dig for information, and gain answers.

As I said, I'm not very keen on that sort of thing as a focus of RPGing. If you are, then - as I said - go for it!


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## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> by the player taking the role of the character, the world can react to the characters by the DM taking on the role that's needed within the world.



Sure, but this is (in the fiction) the world reacting to the characters and (at the table) the GM authoring some fiction in response to what the players have declared as actions for their PCs, and in accordance with whatever rules and principles the GM in question adheres to.

In this thread I've mostly been trying to focus on _those rules and principles_. And you can't tell what they are, or how they are being applied, just by recounting what is happening in the fiction.


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## pemerton

tomBitonti said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]: While not disagreeing overall, the definitions don't seem to have a place for systems which allow players to introduce major scene elements.



I'm just trying to characterise the main focus of discussion in the thread, which has been on game with a fairly traditional GM/player divide, and hence the bulk of content-introduction is done by the GM; and trying to do that in response to a couple of particular posters.

I don't think the two characterisations are exhaustive even of the space they might cover, let alone the whole space. (Eg they don't properly describe classic dungeon-crawling either, I don't think, because that introduces constraints on the GM of various sorts that I didn't try to pick out in my post.)


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## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> Some thoughts on skill challenges:
> 
> (1) The 4e DMG says...
> I think this is fairly confusing (and perhaps confused)



 The original Skill Challenge rules were unclear and downright non-functional (SC's got /easier/ with increasing complexity!).  A rapid succession of errata's and re-published versions ended with the RC version, which was still far from perfect, but at least functional, and much clearer.


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## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> the focus of the game is specifically on only the parts of the world that come into play and impact the PCs at that point in time.



Can I ask - what would a RPG look like that was different from this?

As in, what would a game look like that was _focused on parts of the gameworld that have not come into play and have not impacted the PCs_?

The question is not rhetorical. And I could guess at possible answers, based on my own experience, but I'm wondering what you had in mind.


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## pemerton

I was building a PC, which led to me pulling out my copy of BW Gold, which led to me rereading the opening few pages. Some stuff in there seemed relevant to this thread, in so far as it sets out a particular approach to what I have been calling "player-driven" RPGing.

From the Foreword, by Jake Norwood (The Riddle of Steel designer, and HEMA guy):

So how do you play Burning Wheel? Fight for what you believe. Or, since it’s a roleplaying game: Fight for what your character believes. Everything else in the rules tells either how to craft that character’s beliefs or how to fight for them.

Burning Wheel’s character creation drips with character history. History breeds conflict. Conflict means taking a stand. What will your character stand for?

Burning Wheel’s core mechanics, advancement and Artha rules demand more-than-usual attention from the player. Skill or stat advancement isn’t an afterthought, but rather a crucial part of the game. The decision to solve a problem with cold steel or silken words isn’t just one of better numerical values - it’s a question of who you, the player, want your character to become. Every action - pass or fail - is growth. Every decision affects how your character matures, shifts, changes. Even little decisions impact the character in permanent, subtle ways. . . .

The game is meant to be played as written. Each rule has been lovingly crafted . . . to support player-driven stories of white-knuckled action, heart-rending decisions and triumph against the odds.​
And from the introduction, pp 9-11, 13:

The Burning Wheel is a roleplaying game. Its mood and feel are reminiscent of the lands created by Ursula K Le Guin, Stephen R Donaldson and JRR Tolkien in their works of fantasy fiction. It is also heavily influenced by the brilliant medieval historical accounts of Barbara Tuchman and Desmond Seward; a dirty, complicated world full of uncertainty, but not without hope or opportunity for change.

Unlike many other roleplaying games, there is no set world in which you play. Burning Wheel is an heir to a long legacy of fantasy roleplaying games, most of which contain far better worlds and settings than could be provided here. Also, it is my strong belief that players of these games are adept at manufacturing their own worlds for gameplay; my own world pales in comparison to what you will create.

In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy fiction. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. The synergy of inspiration, imagination, numbers and priorities is the most fundamental element of Burning Wheel. Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about.

Though the game has no world full of ethics and laws, the rules do contain a philosophy that implies a certain type of place. There are consequences to your choices in this game. They range from the very black and white, “If I engage in this duel, my character might die,” to the more complex, “If my character undertakes this task, he’ll be changed, and I don’t know exactly how.” Recognizing that the system enforces these choices will help you navigate play. I always encourage players to think before they test their characters. Are you prepared to accept the consequences of your actions? . . .

Burning Wheel is best played sitting around a table with your friends - face to face. It is inherently a social game. The players interact with one another to come to decisions and have the characters undertake actions.

One of you takes on the role of the game master. The GM is responsible for challenging the players. He also plays the roles of all of those characters not taken on by other players; he guides the pacing of the events of the story; and he arbitrates rules calls and interpretations so that play progresses smoothly.

Everyone else plays a protagonist in the story. Even if the players decide to take on the roles of destitute wastrels, no matter how unsavory their exploits, they are the focus of the story. The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book. . . .

Burning Wheel is very much a game. While players undertake the roles of their characters and embellish their actions with performance and description, rolling the dice determines success or failure and, hence, where the story goes.​
All the key ideas are there: the GM responding to player-established priorities; the PCs (and thereby their players) being tested in relation to both their abilities and those priorities, and potentially changed, in both respects, as a result; the setting as a venue for play, not as an end in itself; the results of checks ("rolling the dice") as binding on all participants.

One thing that makes the BW books among my favourite RPG rulebooks is how forthrightly they state the way to play the game. The 4e rulebooks could have benefitted, I think, from greater clarity along these sorts of lines.


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## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> Hey! Your sig here _almost_ sounds like the preference for a player-driven game over a DM-driven one!



Ay, marry, there's the rub!  The unknown task is in fact known by the DM ahead of time - it's part of The Grand Plot - and the hope* is that the PCs will either a) somehow stumble onto it, realize its relevance, and do it; or b) do it without ever knowing what they've done until later when the relevance becomes more clear.

* - and if they miss it completely, no problem; it'll reappear somewhere else later. 



> I still don't get why you feel this way. Using an example from my own Dark Sun game scenario, two of the PCs have goals at the beginning of play as follows: The Fighter, a former arena slave, desperately seeks her combat partner, who disappeared during the insurrection and slave uprising that immediately precedes play. The Druid mechanically has a theme called "Ghost of the Past," through which we flavor the theme power as a mystic connection to Athas's past--glimmers of the distant past when the world was green, before the scorching sun turned (nearly) all to desert. Her goal is to somehow use these intuitions of the past to discover a way to bring some kind of healing to the planet.
> 
> Perhaps you might frame the Fighter's "drives" as "emo," in the sense that they are rather personal (though outwardly directed). But the Druid? How is that anything less than the grandest of scales? And note that neither of these "narratives" are DM-written. They are PC goals and the scenes that I, as DM, will frame will be interesting obstacles, etc. along the way as the PCs take actions to meet these goals.



The Druid's goal is great - that's the sort of thing one can build a good long multi-faceted campaign around!  Excellent stuff!

The Fighter's goal doesn't give much to work with - it can easily be solved in one adventure, if that.  Then what do you do?

You know, as I type this I'm having a thought or two (alert the media, it's a rare occurrence!).  Would it be the end of the world for the player to not only come up with a goal but to give a high-level storyboard at least ten adventures long* on how that goal might be achieved in the game?  That's the player-drive side and with luck it'll force goals more like your Druid's and less like your Fighter's.  Then, once the DM gets all these storyboards she takes them and merges them together (without telling the players exactly how she's doing so) into something of a master storyboard for the campaign, while perhaps throwing in a few ideas of her own.  That's the DM-drive side.  Then she runs the game in whatever manner she likes on the day-to-day scale, and it's up to her whether she informs players which adventures tie to whose goals or whatever.

* - an example of what I mean for the Druid in your game: (I suppose you could call these chapters instead of adventures, but whatever)

GOAL: Encounter Ghost of the Past intuitions and then to somehow use these intuitions to discover a way to bring some kind of healing to the planet.
STORYBOARD:
Adventure 1 - introductory, learn about the other party members, the setting, etc., including history that says the world was once a green place. Dungeon crawl with extras?
Adventure 2 - encounter GotP intuitions at some point, maybe learn what they are (this can be mostly someone else's adventure, my bits can be a sidebar)
Adventure 3 - learn of an item that relates to these intuitions, also start discovery process as to what they mean (another dungeon crawl followed by research)
Adventure 4 - find the Green Crystal: this clarifies the GotP intuitions, tells me I still need more (the intuitions by themselves aren't enough instruction) - typical item-recovery mission
Adventure 5 - locate then recover (then decipher) the Prophecies of Athasia, in effect the rather cryptic divinely-placed instructions on what to do and what is needed - and it's not in a safe place!
Adventure 6 - the Grand Oasis - nobody knows why it's where it is or why it's always green; in fact it's all that remains of what was once a divinely-blessed forest, a piece of which is needed.  The adventure is the journey there and back and encounters in the settlements surrounding it, very dangerous.
Adventure 7 - plants need water - maritime adventure where we sail to find the fountain of youth (base the events on Pirates of Caribbean 4?) and recover some of its waters
Adventure 8 - to find the last surviving Ent on the planet, a small part of whom is necessary both to green the planet and contunie his race (dangerous forest adventure)
Adventure 9 - off-plane travel to gain direct divine blessing on parts gathered; danger is the astral journey there and back
Adventure 10 - grand finale - heal the planet and make it green once more.  Many people oppose this, so a big sprawling adventure maybe in several parts?  Civil war?  Battlesystem-type stuff?

You see what I'm after here.  Each player gives in something like this for their character, and the DM then synthesizes them into something vaguely resembling a campaign combining adventure ideas where she can.  For example, if someone else also needs a written work maybe the adventure to find that can be combined with the Prophecies of Athasia adventure (or maybe the Prophecies can do for both?).

And the "final" storyboard built by the DM will never be final at all - characters come and go, goals and ideals change, and of course nothing ever survives contact with the dice.

Thoughts?

Lanefan


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## Campbell

pemerton said:


> I've responded to both these things in multiple posts, begining way upthread when I noted the same apparent category error in a post made by  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].
> 
> I will do so again.
> 
> Taken at face value the claim that "the gameworld only reacts to the players" makes no sense to me. Adding in the adverb "as determined by the GM" doesn't help, because it's still the case that the gameworld doesn't react to anything. Apparently it's clear to you what is meant, but unfortunately that doesn't help me! (I know that you believe that no one "should need to clarify" these things. All I can do is apologise for my difficulty in making sense of the claim. The metaphor is not working for me.)
> 
> In a post following yours  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] refers to "the viewpoint being used to create the fiction". "Viewpoint" here is itself a metaphor - my best reading of it is as a reference to _purposes_  or _considerations_ that guide the authoring of the fiction. If I am misunderstanding what was meant, Ovinomancer no doubt will let me know once again!
> 
> So anyway, with that interpretation in mind, here is the nearest true thing that I can see in the general neighbourhood:
> 
> *Player-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play, (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs (this is especially relevant when framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into challenging situations, when narrating consequences of failed checks, and the like), and (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution. It is worth noting that (iii) cuts both ways: if the players succeed, the GM is bound by that; if the players fail, the GM is bound by that - no retries is a fairly hard rule, while no softballing I would say is generally a softer but still important rule.
> 
> (NB  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] may disagree with my ranking of the importance of these rules - if so, I think that would reflect some of the differences in our preferences that have come out in this thread eg "scene-framing" vs "MCing".)
> 
> *GM-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld having regard to consistency with the established fiction, where this includes not only fiction already established in the course of play but also fiction authored secretly by the GM. This requirement of consistency can extend to rendering player action declarations for their PCs failures simply on the basis of fictional positioning that is _unknown_ to the players because part of this GM's secret backstory. And a fortiori there is certainly no obligation on the GM, in authoring the gameworld, to have regard to the concerns/interests of the players.​
> I haven't gone back through the thread to see the first time I stated something along those lines, but I believe that it's implicit in most of my posts, and especially the discussion with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] earlier in the thread.
> 
> Is this what you and  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] mean? As I've said, it's the nearest true thing in the neighbourhood that I can think of. But because it is basically a restatement of stuff that was already established hundreds of posts ago, I feel that it probably is not what you are saying.




 My primary contention would be the notion of merely having regard for the established fiction. That does not dno it justice! In the sort of gaming I have been talking about our relationship with the fiction is much stronger than that. We have a great curiosity about the fiction. We actively follow it as the primary interest of play! We chase after it like a dog to a bone. We do our level best to make sure it is interesting, but we do not really drive it. Instead we let it drive us into experiences we would otherwise not have and try not to put designs on it.

Our own interests as players are also somewhat secondary to the interests of the fiction and the game as enumerated in the principles. Instead it is our curiosity about the fiction which drives us. We welcome the decidedly unwelcome into our game and believe we are better for it - that more fun is had that way. The value of the system is to make the fiction more interesting than it would be if we were left to our own devices.

Finally, I think there is some room for fiction unknown to players to impact resolution. I do not like characterizing some fiction as backstory and other fiction as fiction. It's all fiction to me regardless of when it happened. However, it must be *meaningfully knowable* through skilled play of the fiction and mechanisms provided before it impacts resolution. We must say what honesty demands and not manipulate things to our own ends. It is alright for the fact that The Baron is possessed by a demon to mean that punching him in the face is a bad idea. However, a player must have the opportunity to find out that is a bad idea before they declare their character punches him in the face!


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## pemerton

Campbell said:


> My primary contention would be the notion of merely having regard for the established fiction. That does not dno it justice! In the sort of gaming I have been talking about our relationship with the fiction is much stronger than that. We have a great curiosity about the fiction. We actively follow it as the primary interest of play! We chase after it like a dog to a bone.



Sure, no quarrel with that!

I was trying to state the constraints in a fairly anodyne way (and failed twice: [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] quarrelled with the way I stated the lack of obligation of a "GM-driven" GM to have regard to player interests/concerns in authoring the fiction).

And to take your thought in a direction slightly orthogonal to your own purposes: The idea of actively following the fiction is, I think, at the heart of the gap between the "official" BW rule for setting stakes (p 32 of Gold: "When a player sets out a task for his character and states his intent, it is the GM’s job to inform him of the consequences of failure before the dice are rolled") and the way that Luke Crane actually plays, which he describes in the Adventure Burner/Codex and which is how I also tend to play: I quoted it upthread, and don't have the book ready-to-hand at the moment, but it's along the lines of _there's no need to expressly state the consequences of failure upfront, as the fiction is sufficiently charged that they are implicit within it_.



Campbell said:


> Our own interests as players are also somewhat secondary to the interests of the fiction and the game as enumerated in the principles. Instead it is our curiosity about the fiction which drives us.



I would say that this is more true for my 4e and Cortex games than BW. I think that's not a coincidence, either: of the three systems, BW has the most formal framework for establishing clear player priorities and putting them front-and-centre at every moment of play.



Campbell said:


> I think there is some room for fiction unknown to players to impact resolution. I do not like characterizing some fiction as backstory and other fiction as fiction. It's all fiction to me regardless of when it happened. However, it must be *meaningfully knowable* through skilled play of the fiction and mechanisms provided before it impacts resolution.



To this, I would generally add: _it must be meaningfully knowable in the relevant episode of resolution_. In 4e combat, for instance, there are ways to learn the abilities of enemies; in a skill challenge there is Insight as well as knowledge skills. In BW there are Wise checks, Perception checks etc.

MHRP doesn't really have this particular sort of mechanic, and hence isn't going to have the sort of thing you describe. My first thought is that the closest it comes is the ability of the GM to establish a new Scene Distinction by spending a d8 from the Doom Pool.


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Would it be the end of the world for the player to not only come up with a goal but to give a high-level storyboard at least ten adventures long* on how that goal might be achieved in the game?



Not the end of the world! But not that appealing to me. It seems almost the opposite of _playing to find out_.

I think [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] sees FATE as being a little bit like this, though (not in literal details, but the sort of RPGing experience it provides).


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I've responded to both these things in multiple posts, begining way upthread when I noted the same apparent category error in a post made by  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].
> 
> I will do so again.



And again we'll disagree, as I simply don't see it the same way you do.



> Taken at face value the claim that "the gameworld only reacts to the players" makes no sense to me. Adding in the adverb "as determined by the GM" doesn't help, because it's still the case that the gameworld doesn't react to anything. Apparently it's clear to you what is meant, but unfortunately that doesn't help me! (I know that you believe that noone "should need to clarify" these things. All I can do is apologise for my difficulty in making sense of the claim. The metaphor is not working for me.)



If you view the gameworld as a living breathing thing, it reacts in some way or other to every little thing the players do to it; it also in its reactions to what the DM does to it sometimes proacts against the players via their characters, who then have to react.

Whether it's fictional or not is completely irrelevant.  If your first premise is to see things through the eyes of your character then it's easy to see how the action-reaction cycle has some extra steps:

Action path: DM --> gameworld --> PC --> Player
Reaction path: Player --> PC --> gameworld --> DM

Metagaming (which as we've learned some here like and some don't) usually skips the middle two steps.



> *GM-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld having regard to consistency with the established fiction, where this includes not only fiction already established in the course of play but also fiction authored secretly by the GM. This requirement of consistency can extend to rendering player action declarations for their PCs failures simply on the basis of fictional positioning that is _unknown_ to the players because part of this GM's secret backstory. And a fortiori there is certainly no obligation on the GM, in authoring the gameworld, to have regard to the concerns/interests of the players.



This last sentence is a bit extreme, and misses the mark by just a bit.  Assuming the DM wants her players to come back next week there is certainly some obligation to have regard to their concerns/interests at least on a macro scale (e.g. if everyone wants to play a low-fantasy maritime-based campaign then that's probably what the DM should try to provide), but that obligation doesn't extend nearly as far to their characters.  Players tend to stick around longer than characters do, in my experience; while characters come and go.

When I design a game world and backstory I'm doing so long before I know who will be playing in it and even longer before I know what types of characters they're going to run.  I have to do it neutrally, without reference to any of that stuff...either that, or once my players signed up and generated their first characters there'd then be a multi-month wait while I designed the gameworld around them.  No thanks.



> Is this what you and  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] mean? As I've said, it's the nearest true thing in the neighbourhood that I can think of. But because it is basically a restatement of stuff that was already established hundreds of posts ago, I feel that it probably is not what you are saying.



Established only in your eyes, not in mine (nor, I suspect, others').

Lan-"in a player-driven system how often do characters die and who gets to decide when?"-efan


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't understand your (a).
> 
> In my main 4e game, the paladin of the Raven Queen had, as his two preeminent goals, (i) to stop Torog using his Soul Abattoir to trap the souls of those who die in the Underdark and use them as a source of mystical power, and (ii) to destroy Orcus. A third motivation for the character, not so much a goal as an ethos, is the value of ordinary lives, of those whose time has not yet come to die.



Now that's more like it! 

Up till now all I've heard about the character goals in your game roughly equate to the mage trying to redeem his brother...which is pretty small-scale stuff, you have to admit.   Hence my point a).



> To some extent your (b) seems to take your (a) as a premise. But treating it as an independent thing: In the course of escaping from the Abyss, this PC developed a new motivation, when he (and the rest of the PCs) learned that the Raven Queen's (mortal) mausoleum had (like all lost and/or ruined things) made its way to The Barrens, the 100th layer of the Abyss; an so with his fellows he went off to prevent anyone using her mausoleum to learn her true name and hence gain power over her.
> 
> The story of this PC will "naturally reach its end" when either (i) the Raven Queen is toppled, (ii) the Raven Queen becomes supreme ruler of the cosmos, or (iii) the Raven Queen is somehow accommodated within, and reconciled to, a new cosmological settlement. The player of this PC is angling for (ii). The player of the dwarf inclines rather strongly to (i). Two of the other PCs incline towards (iii). The invoker/wizard does not seem to have an overt commitment, but his actions in restoring the Rod of Seven Parts - at the behest, ultimately, of the Raven Queen - seem most likely to facilitate (ii).



Again, this is bigger-scale stuff than your earlier examples.  Also, you indicate here than when a character's goals are fulfilled the game doesn't necessarily end; as she can come up with new goals.  Earlier you'd said that when the goals are done the game ends.  Big difference. 



> EDIT: Since posting this I see that I was ninja-ed by [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION]!



I replied to that a few posts upthread with an idea for player storyboards...thoughts?

Lanefan


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## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> However, it must be *meaningfully knowable* through skilled play of the fiction and mechanisms provided before it impacts resolution. We must say what honesty demands and not manipulate things to our own ends. It is alright for the fact that The Baron is possessed by a demon to mean that punching him in the face is a bad idea. However, a player must have the opportunity to find out that is a bad idea before they declare their character punches him in the face!



Why?

The best (and sometimes only) opportunity to find out something is a bad idea* is *when you actually do it*!

* - well, badder idea than usual; punching the local ruler in the face usually qualifies as a bad idea to start with...

There's no manipulation of anything to simply not tell a player something her PC has no way of knowing, and letting the consequences fall where they may should said PC blunder into finding it out the hard way.  It's simple realism.

On a larger scale, the current discussion in the 5e forum about sandbox play and what happens if a party goes straight into the deep end has some things to say that would also apply to a small-scale example like this.

Lan-"there is nothing wrong with trial-and-error adventuring"-efan


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Not the end of the world! But not that appealing to me. It seems almost the opposite of _playing to find out_.



The players are still playing to find out, only here they've got a bit more foreknowledge of where some things are likely going to go.  The DM is never playing to find out (on a macro scale) as in theory she already knows.

Lanefan


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Up till now all I've heard about the character goals in your game roughly equate to the mage trying to redeem his brother...which is pretty small-scale stuff, you have to admit.



Different systems do different sorts of things.

Default 4e (as in, using the story elements as provided in the rulebooks) is epic adventure driven by the cosmology.

BW is much grittier, more "grounded", and about more personal things. That said, I personally wouldn't describe freeing someone from possession by a balrog as small-scale stuff! It's on a par with much of the Earthsea stories.



> you indicate here than when a character's goals are fulfilled the game doesn't necessarily end; as she can come up with new goals.  Earlier you'd said that when the goals are done the game ends.



The actual quote was "Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end."

That leaves it open to what extent the play of the game generates new outstanding issues.


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## hawkeyefan

Ovinomancer said:


> ...I think the primary distinction between DM and player driven is the reactionary status of the gameworld -- if the world only every reacts to the players, it's player driven. If it exists outside of the players, and acts without player input, then it's DM driven.






pemerton said:


> Taken at face value the claim that "the gameworld only reacts to the players" makes no sense to me. Adding in the adverb "as determined by the GM" doesn't help, because it's still the case that the gameworld doesn't react to anything. Apparently it's clear to you what is meant, but unfortunately that doesn't help me! (I know that you believe that noone "should need to clarify" these things. All I can do is apologise for my difficulty in making sense of the claim. The metaphor is not working for me.)




I can only comment on my interpretation of [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s original point. I've quoted it again here, pared down to the essential bit.

The distinction that I feel he is making is that in a player driven game, the fiction of the game takes shape only around the PCs based on their decisions. If the PCs are not engaged with a particular element of the fiction, then that particular element ceases to exist for all intents and purposes. The fiction only "reacts" to the PCs. The GM is never giving thought to story elements or parts of the world with which the PCs are not currently engaged.

Where as a GM driven game would have fictional elements that "exist" whether the PCs interact with them or not. Things can grow or change independent of the PCs and their actions, as well as in response to their actions. The GM is updating the game world as things move along. 

So let's say that an assassin is going to try and kill the king. In the player driven game, this would only be introduced in response to player choice and as a result of PC action. In a GM driven game, this may be a plot element that the GM intends for the players to engage or not, depending on their choice. If they engage, then the outcome will depend on how the PCs handle the situation and how successful they are. But, if the PCs don't engage with this story element, then the GM determines what happens with the assassin and the king while the PCs are otherwise occupied. 





pemerton said:


> *Player-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play, (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs (this is especially relevant when framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into challenging situations, when narrating consequences of failed checks, and the like), and (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution. It is worth noting that (iii) cuts both ways: if the players succeed, the GM is bound by that; if the players fail, the GM is bound by that - no retries is a fairly hard rule, whilr no softballing I would say is generally a softer but still important rule.​





I don't see these three elements as being specifically related to a player driven approach. There's no reason that the most railroady of adventure paths cannot meet each of these elements.

I think examples of elements specifically tied to a player driven approach would be more along the lines of (i)players determine the events of play, or something like that. 



pemerton said:


> *GM-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld having regard to consistency with the established fiction, where this includes not only fiction already established in the course of play but also fiction authored secretly by the GM. This requirement of consistency can extend to rendering player action declarations for their PCs failures simply on the basis of fictional positioning that is _unknown_ to the players because part of this GM's secret backstory. And a fortiori there is certainly no obligation on the GM, in authoring the gameworld, to have regard to the concerns/interests of the players.



I think this is mostly right, to a point. The GM may have authored some details to be secret, but many may not need to be. Roland is the king of the realm, for instance. And the players may also contribute to authorship of the gameworld; it need not be the GM doing it all on his own. Where I think you begin to go wrong is in stating that the GM can determine outright PC failure based solely on unknown elements created as part of the GM's secret history. I do think this is a possibility, but I don't expect that many would cite that as a positive element of the approach. 

And I think the last bit about not needing to have regard for the players' concerns and interests...I don't really see that as being the case in most games, regardless of the approach used. In my experoence, there's at the very least a discussion at the start of a game about what it will be about, what system, what setting, and so forth. And I know for my game, such discussions are ongoing throughout, and I get that vibe from many othwr folks here on the board.

My take away from many of your comments throughout the thread, especially whenever you try to deacribe a more GM driven style, is that you see the GM as someone who if left to his own devoces will run amok. And so you prefer for there to be specific structured rules in place for the GM to follow. 

Because I absolutely cannot see why your description of a Player Driven game above cannot also apply to a GM Driven game, and vice versa. To me they read more like a deacription of a Good GM and a Bad GM.


----------



## darkbard

Lanefan said:


> The unknown task is in fact known by the DM ahead of time - it's part of The Grand Plot - and the hope* is that the PCs will either a) somehow stumble onto it, realize its relevance, and do it; or b) do it without ever knowing what they've done until later when the relevance becomes more clear.
> 
> * - and if they miss it completely, no problem; it'll reappear somewhere else later.




I _think_ you're being serious here, but this almost reads like a parody wherein one _mocks_ DM-driven play. I know that may sound harsh, but I genuinely don't mean it to be so; I simply wish to emphasize how far apart are the perspectives and desiderata of the two poles of this debate!

In the sort of game you're describing, the DM *never* gets to play to find out what happens, except in the limited sense of finding out how the PCs navigate from point A to point Z, where Z was already scripted at the same time as A. (And, yes, I realize there may be various paths from A to Z, but that's not the same thing as playing to find out what will happen. The DM already knows that: Z will happen!

I used to enjoy this kind of game, but I found it had become unsatisfying in ways I only recently have been able to crystallize: it leads to railroading of one sort or another (perhaps, in its less pernicious versions Illusionism, at best) and it minimizes the impulses of the player who loves to craft involved backstories and/or complex psychological personae for her PCs that she desires be relevant to what actually impacts play.




> The Druid's goal is great - that's the sort of thing one can build a good long multi-faceted campaign around!  Excellent stuff!
> 
> The Fighter's goal doesn't give much to work with - it can easily be solved in one adventure, if that.  Then what do you do?




Of course, I have deliberately chosen examples from the extreme ranges of personal and sweeping character motivations here, and so the Fighter has other, more ambitious, goals, and the Druid is far more concerned with the immediate question of how to get inside the King's Gardens right now than saving the planet. And this doesn't present the third PC and her goals at all!

The rhetorical purpose of presenting these examples, though, was to show how the player signals interests/desires/etc. for the PC and how such concerns shape the scenes the DM will frame.

If the Fighter finds her missing partner? Well, surely other goals will emerge _from actual play_ to capture the player's interests (through the PC) and drive the game forward.

As the DM, I have some possible ideas for the matter: perhaps the NPC partner is being blackmailed into service as an assassin by the city Templars, who have her young sibling in custody; or perhaps the NPC partner is a secret member of the insurrectionists who overthrew the previous king and is serving as a spy amidst the city Templars.

But the whole point is: *I, as DM, don't know how this will play out*. Perhaps neither of these possibilities will arise during play, and a third, perhaps more interesting option will emerge via actions the PCs take.



> You know, as I type this I'm having a thought or two (alert the media, it's a rare occurrence!).  Would it be the end of the world for the player to not only come up with a goal but to give a high-level storyboard at least ten adventures long* on how that goal might be achieved in the game?  That's the player-drive side and with luck it'll force goals more like your Druid's and less like your Fighter's.  Then, once the DM gets all these storyboards she takes them and merges them together (without telling the players exactly how she's doing so) into something of a master storyboard for the campaign, while perhaps throwing in a few ideas of her own.  That's the DM-drive side.  Then she runs the game in whatever manner she likes on the day-to-day scale, and it's up to her whether she informs players which adventures tie to whose goals or whatever.
> 
> * - an example of what I mean for the Druid in your game: (I suppose you could call these chapters instead of adventures, but whatever)
> 
> GOAL: Encounter Ghost of the Past intuitions and then to somehow use these intuitions to discover a way to bring some kind of healing to the planet.
> STORYBOARD:
> Adventure 1 - introductory, learn about the other party members, the setting, etc., including history that says the world was once a green place. Dungeon crawl with extras?
> Adventure 2 - encounter GotP intuitions at some point, maybe learn what they are (this can be mostly someone else's adventure, my bits can be a sidebar)
> Adventure 3 - learn of an item that relates to these intuitions, also start discovery process as to what they mean (another dungeon crawl followed by research)
> Adventure 4 - find the Green Crystal: this clarifies the GotP intuitions, tells me I still need more (the intuitions by themselves aren't enough instruction) - typical item-recovery mission
> Adventure 5 - locate then recover (then decipher) the Prophecies of Athasia, in effect the rather cryptic divinely-placed instructions on what to do and what is needed - and it's not in a safe place!
> Adventure 6 - the Grand Oasis - nobody knows why it's where it is or why it's always green; in fact it's all that remains of what was once a divinely-blessed forest, a piece of which is needed.  The adventure is the journey there and back and encounters in the settlements surrounding it, very dangerous.
> Adventure 7 - plants need water - maritime adventure where we sail to find the fountain of youth (base the events on Pirates of Caribbean 4?) and recover some of its waters
> Adventure 8 - to find the last surviving Ent on the planet, a small part of whom is necessary both to green the planet and contunie his race (dangerous forest adventure)
> Adventure 9 - off-plane travel to gain direct divine blessing on parts gathered; danger is the astral journey there and back
> Adventure 10 - grand finale - heal the planet and make it green once more.  Many people oppose this, so a big sprawling adventure maybe in several parts?  Civil war?  Battlesystem-type stuff?
> 
> You see what I'm after here.  Each player gives in something like this for their character, and the DM then synthesizes them into something vaguely resembling a campaign combining adventure ideas where she can.  For example, if someone else also needs a written work maybe the adventure to find that can be combined with the Prophecies of Athasia adventure (or maybe the Prophecies can do for both?).
> 
> And the "final" storyboard built by the DM will never be final at all - characters come and go, goals and ideals change, and of course nothing ever survives contact with the dice.
> 
> Thoughts?
> 
> Lanefan




The problem with the approach you outline is here is now *no one* is playing to find out what happens. The DM and players all have the script and are just riding along on the rails.


----------



## tomBitonti

hawkeyefan said:


> I think this is mostly right, to a point. The GM may have authored some details to be secret, but many may not need to be. Roland is the king of the realm, for instance. And the players may also contribute to authorship of the gameworld; it need not be the GM doing it all on his own. Where I think you begin to go wrong is in stating that the GM can determine outright PC failure based solely on unknown elements created as part of the GM's secret history. I do think this is a possibility, but I don't expect that many would cite that as a positive element of the approach.




An issue here seems to be when the GM establishes a story outline (the kingdom is overrun by Orcs), and the players initially set a goal which cannot be achieved within that outline.

Say:

Orcs attack a village.  The PCs drive them off, and set a goal to keep the village safe.

Either, the players gather intelligence that a much larger group of orcs is approaching.  Or they don't.

If the intelligence is gathered, the players see that they are outmatched, and gather up as many villagers as they can and flee.

Or, the players try to sneak into the orc encampment and prevent the attack, even though it is described as well beyond their abilities.

If the intelligence is not gathered, the players are rudely interrupted by the much larger force of orcs, and must gather what few supplies and villagers they can, or make a hopeless stand against the orcs.

Here, the structure dictates three most likely outcomes:

1) The players are defeated by the orcs.  For story continuation, the GM has it that the players being captured.

2) The players flee with advance warning.

3) The players flee with little warning.

There are other unusual outcomes, say, the players choose to join the orcs.

Key is that the structure imposes limits on what the PCs can do.  The GM has designed in that the players almost certainly cannot defeat the orcs.  They must either flee or be captured.

Does this story structure "railroad" the PCs?

Thx!
TomB


----------



## hawkeyefan

tomBitonti said:


> An issue here seems to be when the GM establishes a story outline (the kingdom is overrun by Orcs), and the players initially set a goal which cannot be achieved within that outline.
> 
> Say:
> 
> Orcs attack a village.  The PCs drive them off, and set a goal to keep the village safe.
> 
> Either, the players gather intelligence that a much larger group of orcs is approaching.  Or they don't.
> 
> If the intelligence is gathered, the players see that they are outmatched, and gather up as many villagers as they can and flee.
> 
> Or, the players try to sneak into the orc encampment and prevent the attack, even though it is described as well beyond their abilities.
> 
> If the intelligence is not gathered, the players are rudely interrupted by the much larger force of orcs, and must gather what few supplies and villagers they can, or make a hopeless stand against the orcs.
> 
> Here, the structure dictates three most likely outcomes:
> 
> 1) The players are defeated by the orcs.  For story continuation, the GM has it that the players being captured.
> 
> 2) The players flee with advance warning.
> 
> 3) The players flee with little warning.
> 
> There are other unusual outcomes, say, the players choose to join the orcs.
> 
> Key is that the structure imposes limits on what the PCs can do.  The GM has designed in that the players almost certainly cannot defeat the orcs.  They must either flee or be captured.
> 
> Does this story structure "railroad" the PCs?
> 
> Thx!
> TomB




I don't think the structure forces a railroad, no. There are still multiple possible outcomes. 

I think the only element that may be considered to force a railroad would be "The GM has designed that the players almost certainly cannot defeat the orcs." That seems to be the one item where the DM has decided PC success or failure by fiat. But even that I don't think really forces a railroad....because the fact that the task is unwinnable by normal methods is made clear to the PCs, or at least they are given ample opportunity to learn that's the case. 

I think @_*pemerton*_ would insist that such a decision that the fight be unwinnable only be determined by some kind of failure on the PCs part, and that if it is simply decided by DM Judgment, then it's the GM "railroading" the PCs. Perhaps that assumption is wrong, and if so @_*pemerton*_ can correct my guess work here. 

But I wouldn't categorize that as a railroad because there are still several options for the PCs to take, some of which may depend on how they approach the situation. We know the horde may not be defeated outright, but that does not mean that the PCs can't come up with a way to affect the direction of the fiction.

In addition to the outcomes you listed, what about the below:

- the PCs infiltrate the horde in some way, and target the leadership, removing the element of command from the force, which then collapses on itself with infighting
- the PCs infiltrate the horde in some way, and use misdirection and other subterfuge to issue false orders, delaying the attack long enough for the town to fully evacuate
- the PCs delay the horde per the above, while also seeking aid from allies established earlier in the game, allowing reinforcements enough time to arrive, creating a more even battle

I mean, in discussion only, it's easy to limit the outcomes to a handful of options. But most games would likely have more options based on what's happened so far in the campaign.

So ultimately, I don't think that the GM structuring the game in this way need be a railroad. Even if the GM decides that the horde cannot be defeated outright, I don't think that's a significant reduction in player agency to constitute a railroad, as long as multiple approaches to the problem and multiple possible outcomes exist.


----------



## Michael Silverbane

tomBitonti said:


> An issue here seems to be when the GM establishes a story outline (the kingdom is overrun by Orcs), and the players initially set a goal which cannot be achieved within that outline.
> 
> Say:
> 
> Orcs attack a village.  The PCs drive them off, and set a goal to keep the village safe.
> 
> Either, the players gather intelligence that a much larger group of orcs is approaching.  Or they don't.
> 
> If the intelligence is gathered, the players see that they are outmatched, and gather up as many villagers as they can and flee.
> 
> Or, the players try to sneak into the orc encampment and prevent the attack, even though it is described as well beyond their abilities.
> 
> If the intelligence is not gathered, the players are rudely interrupted by the much larger force of orcs, and must gather what few supplies and villagers they can, or make a hopeless stand against the orcs.
> 
> Here, the structure dictates three most likely outcomes:
> 
> 1) The players are defeated by the orcs.  For story continuation, the GM has it that the players being captured.
> 
> 2) The players flee with advance warning.
> 
> 3) The players flee with little warning.
> 
> There are other unusual outcomes, say, the players choose to join the orcs.
> 
> Key is that the structure imposes limits on what the PCs can do.  The GM has designed in that the players almost certainly cannot defeat the orcs.  They must either flee or be captured.
> 
> Does this story structure "railroad" the PCs?
> 
> Thx!
> TomB




For this to well and truly be a railroad, the players would have to...

4) Find a clever and unexpected way to defeat the orcs that the DM didn't think of...

...and then the DM would have to overrule, counteract, or otherwise negate the clever thing that the players did to force one of the DM's preferred / foreseen outcomes.


----------



## Lanefan

darkbard said:


> I _think_ you're being serious here, but this almost reads like a parody wherein one _mocks_ DM-driven play. I know that may sound harsh, but I genuinely don't mean it to be so; I simply wish to emphasize how far apart are the perspectives and desiderata of the two poles of this debate!
> 
> In the sort of game you're describing, the DM *never* gets to play to find out what happens,



Let's clear one thing up: the DM is not a player, in the sense that the players are.  The DM is more a living breathing reactive (and sometimes proactive) gameboard, along with being the referee when needed.



> except in the limited sense of finding out how the PCs navigate from point A to point Z, where Z was already scripted at the same time as A. (And, yes, I realize there may be various paths from A to Z, but that's not the same thing as playing to find out what will happen. The DM already knows that: Z will happen!



Well, the DM hopes that Z will happen 'cause otherwise all the planning and prep for AA to FF go out the window.  Again, though, a DM isn't playing to find out what will happen; she's (ideally) setting things up so the players through their characters can find out what will happen which may or may not be what the DM had in mind in the first place.



> I used to enjoy this kind of game, but I found it had become unsatisfying in ways I only recently have been able to crystallize: it leads to railroading of one sort or another (perhaps, in its less pernicious versions Illusionism, at best) and it minimizes the impulses of the player who loves to craft involved backstories and/or complex psychological personae for her PCs that she desires be relevant to what actually impacts play.



That's down to the player to make those things relevant, not the DM; and to realize that not everything is necessarily going to be or become relevant at all.  Someone playing a Dwarf, for example, might write pages of history of his clan and family and personal biography etc. etc., but if all the adventuring takes place hundreds or thousands of miles away from the Dwarf's home town the chances are close to unity that little to none of this will ever become relevant.  As for the complex psychological personae, that should be easy to bring out in the day to day roleplaying of the character...and here it falls to the DM to allow time for such; I've known DMs who insist on jumping from one encounter or adventure to the next with no time for anything in between such as sitting around the campfire or spending some downtime in town shopping. (and some game systems seem to encourage this jump-to-the-action in their design)



> Of course, I have deliberately chosen examples from the extreme ranges of personal and sweeping character motivations here, and so the Fighter has other, more ambitious, goals, and the Druid is far more concerned with the immediate question of how to get inside the King's Gardens right now than saving the planet.



Day-to-day stuff like getting into the King's Gardens is simply a part of the adventuring life.  It's the bigger goals that hold my interest here, in this case healing the planet.



> The rhetorical purpose of presenting these examples, though, was to show how the player signals interests/desires/etc. for the PC and how such concerns shape the scenes the DM will frame.



For my part, I know that something told to me now about a character's goals won't be remembered (likely by either me or the player) in four years when I'm trying to build a scene. 



> If the Fighter finds her missing partner? Well, surely other goals will emerge _from actual play_ to capture the player's interests (through the PC) and drive the game forward.
> 
> As the DM, I have some possible ideas for the matter: perhaps the NPC partner is being blackmailed into service as an assassin by the city Templars, who have her young sibling in custody; or perhaps the NPC partner is a secret member of the insurrectionists who overthrew the previous king and is serving as a spy amidst the city Templars.



Careful - the anti-DM-driven crowd will be on to you for this. 



> But the whole point is: *I, as DM, don't know how this will play out*. Perhaps neither of these possibilities will arise during play, and a third, perhaps more interesting option will emerge via actions the PCs take.



Where I posit that you as DM not only should have at least a vague idea of how things will go, you need to have such so as to be able to prep* for what comes afterwards.

* - as far as your prep may go, it's different for every DM.

As a player, I play to find out what happens at least in the big picture; I want to learn the overarching plot, connect the dots, and then decide what to do about it...or to it.  I don't want to do what I see as the DM's job and tell her about the NPC we just met; I expect her to tell me what I know about said NPC if anything as said NPC is a part of the setting - the DM's purview.

As a DM I'm there to help the players play to find out, and enjoy for myself what happens along the way.

And that's not to say my game is a hard railroad.  Yes I had a storyboard going in; I'm now on V.11 of said storyboard and it bears very little resemblance to what I started with and may or may not be a good indicator of what will actually get played.  That said, there's multiple parties in the campaign and one place I will sometimes put my foot down as DM is to say which one gets played next, usually so as to keep the parties vaguely parallel in game-world time.



> The problem with the approach you outline is here is now *no one* is playing to find out what happens. The DM and players all have the script and are just riding along on the rails.



Not all the players.  I'd know as a player what I put in as my own storyboard ideas but not what anyone else put in; nor would I know what the DM had done once she had all the storyboards in hand.  Obviously the DM would have an idea where things would (or might) go, but as far as I'm concerned that should be the case anyway - no problem there.

The benefits I can see of doing this would be to a) integrate the players' interests better, and b) give the DM ideas she can mine for stories or adventures that she might not have otherwise thought of.

Lan-"always willing to steal a good idea from wherever it may be found"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

hawkeyefan said:


> In addition to the outcomes you listed, what about the below:
> 
> - the PCs infiltrate the horde in some way, and target the leadership, removing the element of command from the force, which then collapses on itself with infighting
> - the PCs infiltrate the horde in some way, and use misdirection and other subterfuge to issue false orders, delaying the attack long enough for the town to fully evacuate
> - the PCs delay the horde per the above, while also seeking aid from allies established earlier in the game, allowing reinforcements enough time to arrive, creating a more even battle




And in addition to these outcomes, there's one more:

- the PCs decide to abandon their goal of protecting the villagers and just go off elsewhere, leaving the villagers to sink or swim on their own.

Lan-"where does it say adventuring parties always have to be heroic"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

*On storyboarding*

It occurs to me I should define a bit better what I mean by storyboarding for a campaign, and why I do it.

First, why do it at all?  Well, my primary goal for any campaign is that it have enough depth, breadth, and potential for adventuring that it can last for the rest of my life assuming a) there's people willing to play in it, and b) the system mechanics hold up over the long run.  I don't run these things as one-year wonders*, nor do I really want to; and the prep for a very long campaign is - I think - much different than for a short one or a single adventure path.  And I really don't like doing things twice. 

* - after a year (both as DM and player) I'm usually just nicely settling in to a campaign - can't imagine it already being over!

Another thing I have to keep firmly in mind is that in a long game there's inevitably going to be some player turnover and loads of character turnover.  No plot protection here for PCs, and no guarantee of survival.  So, not only can't I rely on basing a story around a character, I can't even rely on basing it around a player.  Thus, any plot has to be independent of such and also able to survive such.

So with that in mind I'll come up with a series of things - game world history, politics, maps, villains, deities, cultures, inspirations, etc., etc. - which I can then mine a few long-term or really-big-picture storyline possibilities out of, and figure out if or how said possibilities might interweave or where else they might lead to.

Next I'll look for what specific adventure ideas might fit with this big picture, and make notes; I'm also looking to see if a story, or part of a story, can become a mini-adventure-path within the greater campaign as those always seem to work out well.  I've also got an eye out for what levels these various adventures are suited for as I know I'll need a good spread.

Then I make a list of possible adventures that could be run as one-offs within the campaign - good fun adventures that don't really have anything to do with anything but that can be used to keep things going or even just give a chance to earn some more xp.

At this point I've got the basics for a storyboard, so I draw it up...in full awareness that it's absolutely going to change as time goes on.  The only near-certainty is what the first adventure will be.

And all this happens before I know who will be playing in the campaign, whether there will be one party or several (and how many parties per week I'll be running), what sort of characters they'll have, how much infighting will happen, how serious or not the game "vibe" will be, and so forth.  I also don't entirely know how interested the players will be in whatever story I've dreamed up or whether they'll have their own ideas (experience tells me to usually expect a combination of both).

Then during the campaign I update the storyboard now and then, to see what sort of "legs" the game has left and whether I need to come up with more ideas.  If there's two years worth spun out in front of me at any given time, all is good. 

Lan-"I'd type more but lunch is calling"-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I have repeatedly stated a clear point: no secret backstory as a consideration in action resolution.
> 
> What is unclear about that?
> 
> And I've provided actual play reports: I've linked to plenty in this thread; I've given you actual play examples in the post you replied to; I can provide more links if you like - I think I have more actual play threads on these boards than any other poster.
> 
> Well,  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] clearly sees a difference, since - not very far upthread - he described me as using a "flawed system" in treating the skill challenge involving the advisor and the baron as establishing finality in respect of that matter.
> 
> I described the premise of the conflict in the post you replied to: the PCs are fighting goblins. The advisor comes into the game as the leader of the goblin army.
> 
> The backstory of the advisor is built up, over the course of play, initially - as I said - as colour, but then evolving into part of the framing.
> 
> Authoring backstory in the course of play, as part of establishing the colour around conflicts, the motivations of NPC actors, etc, is pretty-much the opposite of pre-authoring secret backstory and then using it to adjudicate action resolution.
> 
> What does this have to do with whether or not it is framing? In an ongoing campaign, story elements persist from scene to scene, from session to session. That is part of what makes something a campaign.
> 
> Yes, over the course of play the PCs (and thereby the players) learn new things about the yellow-robed wizard. This is how ongoing RPG play works. The players engage situations via their PCs. Backstory develops; goals are formed, pursued, altered, sometimes achieved.
> 
> In the game, other things have been learned too. The PCs have learned more about the Rod of Seven Parts. They've learned more about Torog, Orcus, Lolth and the Queen of Chaos. They've learned more about devils, duergar and their relationship. They've learned a lot more about the Raven Queen.
> 
> Most of my games involve this. In my MHRP campaign, the PCs learned things too: they learned that Clan Yashida was behind an attempt to steal Stark technology that was on display in the Smithsonian. This led them to break into a Clan Yashida office building in Tokyo. They also learned that Doctor Doom was behind a separate attempt to steal this technology, and furthermore that he had kidnapped Mariko Yashida. That led them to break into the Latverian embassy in Washington.
> 
> The PCs learning things is a failry standard part of RPGing. It's certainly not unique to my games, or the systems that I GM. Here, eg, is a standard player move from Dungeon World:
> 
> Spout Lore
> When you consult your accumulated knowledge about something, roll+Int. ✴On a 10+, the GM will tell you something interesting and useful about the subject relevant to your situation. ✴On a 7–9, the GM will only tell you something interesting—it’s on you to make it useful.​
> I don't understand what you think is the issue here.
> 
> If the players, via their action declarations for their PCs and their expressions of commitment/aspiration/etc for their PCs, are focused on XYZ, then it is the GM's job to focus the game around XYZ. To quote Eero Tuovinen (again),
> 
> The standard narrativistic model
> [The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .
> 
> The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
> In the case of my main 4e game, the "action" - as established by the players' creation and play of their PCs - includes _the baron_, because (among other things) the dwarf fighter/cleric "paladin" PC has establishd a relationship with him, as the notional leader of the PCs; _the leader of the goblin army_, who is clearly a wizard-type, who speaks especially to the interest of the wizard/invoker PC who has already seen his own home city destroyd by humanoid armies, just as Nerath was generations ago (and the same character is carrying an ancient Nerathi artefact, the Sceptre of Law/Rod of 7 Parts); _Vecna_, again because of the wizard/invoker's subtle relationship to the god of secrets. Presenting the leader of the goblin army as the baron's advisor is a natural way of interweaving these various concerns. That's part of a GM's job, in this sort of game.
> 
> What breadcrumbs are you talking about?
> 
> You seem to be assuming - and not based on anything I said - that the whole campaign was oriented towards the conflict with the advisor. That assumption is false.
> 
> As I posted in the post you replied to (and quoted), "When approaching a goblin fortress, they see a wizardly type wearing a yellow robe fly off on a flying carpet. They have heard other stories of a wizardly type in yellow robes hanging out suspiciously in the local area. . . . This begins as colour."
> 
> At a guess, the stories of the yellow-robed type hanging out suspiciously were introduced into the game in late 2009 or so, when the PCs spoke to a NPC burying dead goblins, who was able to learn the names of the dead by touching them. (This idea is from the LotFP module "Death Frost Doom".)
> 
> This "went where the action is" because many of the PCs are Raven Queen cultists. She has deliberately hidden her name to protect herself against her enemies. The ability to learn her name by touching her dead (mortal) body would therefore be very significant. The yellow-robed skulker was - as I said - a piece of colour.
> 
> Probably three or so months later - so sometime in the first hald of 2010, I would say - the PCs approached a goblin fortress (I was adapting elements of the 4e module Thunderspire Labyrinth, particularly the Chamber of Eyes). I described a yellow-robed figure flying off on a carpet as the PCs approached. I think, but am not certain after 7 years, that this was in the context of a skill challenge to approach unspotted (the only definite recollection I have of that skill challenge is that it was the first instance in our game of a successful skill check being resolved as "minionising" a NPC, so that a single hit would then take said NPC out).
> 
> This obviously drew upon the early reference to a yellow-robed skulker, and established him as the wizard leader of the goblins.  (There may also have been some prior interrogation of goblin prisoners. I don't remember now.)
> 
> A year or so of play later, the PCs - having defended a village against goblin attack, with partial success - head to the city of Threshold. My presentation of the city combines three published sources: Night's Dark Terror; the Dungeon adventure Heath, with the city of Adakmi; and the 3E module Speaker in Dreams (I can't remember what name it gives to the city). I decide that the city is ruled by a baron (taken from Speaker in Dreams) in an uneasy balance of power with a patriarch (taken from Night's Dark Terror). As best I recall the players chose, at first, to ally with the patriarch. Hence, when I describe the PCs receiving an invitation to dinner with the baron, that is already applying a degree of pressure. When the players arrive at dinner and see the advisor there, and recognise him as the goblin leader, the pressure increases.
> 
> I can't remember how many hours or days before running the baron and advisor skill challenge I decided to have the baron's advisor be the PCs' yellow-robed nemesis. I just looked at a file, dated April 21st 2011, which has notes on possible background and framing elements for Threshold, and it doesn't say anthying about the evil wizard being the baron's advisor: the only comment on him is "During Baron’s funeral (or celebration), the PCs will notice Paldemar in the crowd (with Jolenta, if she survived)". So my best guess is, at that time, I hadn't thought of using the wizard as the baron's traitorous advisor.
> 
> The actual play post is dated Thursday August 11th 2011, and refers to the session taking place "on the weekend", which would by Sunday August 7th. So some time between April 21st and August 7th - a 108 day window - I got the idea of using the wizard leader of the goblins, the PCs' nemesis, as the baron's advisor, thereby increasing the pressure of the dinner invitation.
> 
> It may be that I had that idea first, and then came up with idea of the dinner invitation to bring it into play; or it may be that I first came up with the idea of the dinner invitation - which would have been somewhere in the couple of weeks preceding August 7th - and then decided that the wizard being present, as the baron's treacherous advisor, would increase the pressure even more. I don't now recall - we are talking about stuff nearly six years ago, so I've run over a 100 RPG sessions since then.
> 
> In the OP, I characterised railroading as "the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative". I have not described - either in the post you quoted, or prior posts, or this post - any shaping of outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. I have described introducing elements of colour, which - in subsequent moments of play - become elements of framing. There is no shaping of outcomes and no preconception of outcomes.
> 
> Upthread,  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and some other posters (maybe  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]?) expresed doubt that running a game in the way I described - ie building up the backstory in response by following the players' leads, by narrating consequences of checks, by framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into conflict - could produce a coherent, rich world. I disagreed (as did some other posters, I think, eg  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]).
> 
> You appear to be assuming that, because the skill challenge involving the advisor and the baron incorporated established backstory as part of its framing, that all that backstory must have been authored _in advance, with the purpose of pushing the players towards this event_. (That is the best sense I am making of your reference to "breadcrumbs".) As I have tried to explain in this post, that (apparent) assumption is mistaken.
> 
> You also seem to think I'm lying about how I GM. Why? Instead of accusing me of lying, you could just ask how one establishes and manages backstory without using it to adjudicate action resolution via "behind the scenes" determinations of player success or failure.




I'm not going to counter-fisk, so here goes.

I'm pretty sure your entire response is covered by the reasons I dislike play reports from personal games.  I did point out clearly that the example provided about the Advisor story differed distinctly from the other examples because, as a summation of story rather than a specific example of when/how a single element was introduced, it did not seem to follow the pattern of story provided only in response to player intents.  That you added that detail was also predicted by me in the post you responded to, but you elided that to stick to taking offense.  Ce la vie.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I've responded to both these things in multiple posts, begining way upthread when I noted the same apparent category error in a post made by  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].
> 
> I will do so again.
> 
> Taken at face value the claim that "the gameworld only reacts to the players" makes no sense to me. Adding in the adverb "as determined by the GM" doesn't help, because it's still the case that the gameworld doesn't react to anything. Apparently it's clear to you what is meant, but unfortunately that doesn't help me! (I know that you believe that noone "should need to clarify" these things. All I can do is apologise for my difficulty in making sense of the claim. The metaphor is not working for me.)
> 
> In a post following yours  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] refers to "the viewpoint being used to create the fiction". "Viewpoint" here is itself a metaphor - my best reading of it is as a reference to _purposes_  or _considerations_ that guide the authoring of the fiction. If I am misunderstanding what was meant, Ovinomancer no doubt will let me know once again!
> 
> So anyway, with that interpretation in mind, here is the nearest true thing that I can see in the general neighbourhood:
> 
> *Player-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play, (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs (this is especially relevant when framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into challenging situations, when narrating consequences of failed checks, and the like), and (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution. It is worth noting that (iii) cuts both ways: if the players succeed, the GM is bound by that; if the players fail, the GM is bound by that - no retries is a fairly hard rule, whilr no softballing I would say is generally a softer but still important rule.
> 
> (NB  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] may disgree with my ranking of the importance of these rules - if so, I think that would reflect some of the differences in our preferences that have come out in this thread eg "scene-framing" vs "MCing".)
> 
> *GM-driven*: The GM authors the gameworld having regard to consistency with the established fiction, where this includes not only fiction already established in the course of play but also fiction authored secretly by the GM. This requirement of consistency can extend to rendering player action declarations for their PCs failures simply on the basis of fictional positioning that is _unknown_ to the players because part of this GM's secret backstory. And a fortiori there is certainly no obligation on the GM, in authoring the gameworld, to have regard to the concerns/interests of the players.​
> I haven't gone back through the thread to see the first time I stated something along those lines, but I believe that it's implicit in most of my posts, and especially the discussion with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] earlier in the thread.
> 
> Is this what you and  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] mean? As I've said, it's the nearest true thing in the neighbourhood that I can think of. But because it is basically a restatement of stuff that was already established hundreds of posts ago, I feel that it probably is not what you are saying.




I kinda agree with the poster that said that the division you propose above is more 'good DM' vs 'poor DM'.  To me, it seems that your biggest beef with the concept of secret backstory is that you assume it's used to negate player intent and action declaration without the players knowing beforehand.  To me, that's just bad DMing -- I've failed as a DM if an element of the backstory acts in this way.  I do everything possible to prevent it -- I foreshadow these things, and limit surprises to things discovered by player actions, not their thwarting.  Or, I build in the discovery of the secret as part of the challenge so that some failures are accounted for.  This is commonly used by me when encountering an unknown enemy that has some ability that would negate a player ability.  In these cases, the setting would include strong clues and/or I would modify the difficulty to account for a 'figuring out process'.  For social encounters, rumor usually suffices, ("The Baron is accounted to be afraid of nothing.  His fearlessness is legendary!")  So, while I may engage in the practice of 'secret backstory', it doesn't function in any way like you've presented.  Instead, it gives me a way to know what I need to foreshadow, how to best plan encounters, and a lynchpin for immersive and natural storytelling.  I don't do as well with off the cuff as I do with a bit of backstory, even if it's a set of mannerisms and a motivation.  Heck, mannerism and a goal or motivation are pretty much the majority of my NPC prep.  I do it for combatants as well, so even if the players never find out, I know that this group of wandering goblins is looking for a new watering hole to camp and hunt for awhile.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> _Trade-off_ is not a synonym for _drawback_. A trade-off of living in Austaralia is that I don't live in Miami. Which is not, for me, a drawback, as I have no desire to live in Miami, never have done, and don't expect ever to do so.
> 
> In other words - a trade-off is not a drawback if the thing you are missing out on is not something that you wanted.
> 
> Well, I can't answer that for you or for [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]. But I can tell you why I started the thread: to discuss with other posters what connection, if any, they see between GM judgement calls and railroading.
> 
> Did you enter the thread to discuss this, or did you enter the thread so that you could enlighten me about trade-offs you thought I was ignorant of?




Of course it's not a synonym for drawback, but it is a compromise.  It means that you don't get everything you want, you make a concession and are now missing something that you'd prefer to have.  So, if you have no desire to live in Miami, it's not a trade-off for living in Australia.  

And, if you've given something up that's positive for something else that's positive, then it can be said of your preferred system that not having the other positive thing is a drawback -- after all, the best possible outcome is all good things, yes?


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Why?
> 
> The best (and sometimes only) opportunity to find out something is a bad idea* is *when you actually do it*!
> 
> * - well, badder idea than usual; punching the local ruler in the face usually qualifies as a bad idea to start with...
> 
> There's no manipulation of anything to simply not tell a player something her PC has no way of knowing, and letting the consequences fall where they may should said PC blunder into finding it out the hard way.  It's simple realism.
> 
> On a larger scale, the current discussion in the 5e forum about sandbox play and what happens if a party goes straight into the deep end has some things to say that would also apply to a small-scale example like this.
> 
> Lan-"there is nothing wrong with trial-and-error adventuring"-efan




It *severely* cuts against my interests.

It has *severe* impacts on skilled play of fictional positioning in order to meaningfully effect change in the game world. If I cannot trust finely honed and well developed skills at playing the fiction to have a significant impact on how things turn out than I cannot meaningfully play the game on a strategic level. If I cannot trust the GM to provide real information I can use to reward my efforts to interrogate the fiction than the entire enterprise becomes suspect. If I cannot rely upon the fiction I feel forced to rely upon the mechanisms of the game. When those mechanisms are also not reliable than I must resort to playing the GM. I don't want to play against the GM. It leads to a social environment at the table I emphatically do not care for.

I should note that I feel the same way about victory that comes out of nowhere as I do about defeat that comes out of nowhere. Nothing takes the winds out of my sails more than unearned success or winning because someone was taking it easy on me. I want my decisions and those of my fellow players to be the most significant factor in determining outcomes.

It *severely* undercuts my ability to effectively advocate for my character. While related to the above, this is slightly different. In order to play my character as hard as I want to I need to be able to reason about the situations they find themselves in an authentic way. That means reasoning about the fictional world, their place within it, relationships, their intuitions, their knowledge base, and innumerable other details I can not have direct access to.

It has a *severe* impact on the fantasy of being there in the moment and cuts across my understanding of the world we live in. Sure, we miss things all the time. Usually we should have seen things coming long before they actually reared their heads. There are also a wealth of resources out there for understanding the world in which we live. If something eludes us we can generally learn more about it. People are basically simple animals driven by basically desires, belief systems, and emotions. It's the complex relationships that make things interesting.  

It results in *severely* unsatisfying fiction. Strong narratives hang together and feel meaningfully organic, not contrived.  As an audience member when I am hit with a big reveal that was not effectively foreshadowed it feels like a narrative kidney punch. This is not a pleasant experience for me. I have thrown remotes, tossed books across the room, and walked out of movie theaters when writers pull these cheap tricks for shock value. The most effective reveals are things we should have seen coming. I can watch a movie like Fight Club that has a dramatic reveal again and again, enjoying it on new levels because it hangs together organically rather than relying on contrivance.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> It *severely* cuts against my interests.
> 
> It has *severe* impacts on skilled play of fictional positioning in order to meaningfully effect change in the game world. If I cannot trust finely honed and well developed skills at playing the fiction to have a significant impact on how things turn out than I cannot meaningfully play the game on a strategic level. If I cannot trust the GM to provide real information I can use to reward my efforts to interrogate the fiction than the entire enterprise becomes suspect. If I cannot rely upon the fiction I feel forced to rely upon the mechanisms of the game. When those mechanisms are also not reliable than I must resort to playing the GM. I don't want to play against the GM. It leads to a social environment at the table I emphatically do not care for.
> 
> I should note that I feel the same way about victory that comes out of nowhere as I do about defeat that comes out of nowhere. Nothing takes the winds out of my sails more than unearned success or winning because someone was taking it easy on me. I want my decisions and those of my fellow players to be the most significant factor in determining outcomes.



Yet sometimes those same things happen simply due to dice luck.  What then?  Sometimes you're simply going to lose - or win - no matter what you do, just because the dice have decided it that way.  I don't claim to have "finely honed and well developed skills at playing" and nor do I really want to, as mistakes are a lot of what makes it fun; in that way I suspect I qualify as more of a "casual" player type in that the more seriously I take it all the less fun it becomes.

And I favour some realism where possible, and realism tells me you're simply not always going to have all the information you really need.  Sometimes you will.  Sometimes you'll have more than you need, false rumours and so on being what they are.  If in the fiction the Baron is secretly possessed by a demon and your character has no way of knowing that until (for whatever insane reason) you walk up and hit him in the face, so be it.  Same goes in reverse: if the fiction (via rumour etc.) has it that the Baron's been possessed and you try to deal with him on that basis only to find there's no demon at all, he's just evil in his own right, so be it.



> It *severely* undercuts my ability to effectively advocate for my character. While related to the above, this is slightly different. In order to play my character as hard as I want to I need to be able to reason about the situations they find themselves in an authentic way. That means reasoning about the fictional world, their place within it, relationships, their intuitions, their knowledge base, and innumerable other details I can not have direct access to.



I just don't think this deeply about it.  I know pretty well what makes my character(s) tick, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what they have in mind as goals if anything, and if there's anything specific I need regarding game-world information I'll just ask.  I don't see my role as a player as advocating for my character so much as simply playing it according to what it would reasonably (if not always rationally  ) do.



> It has a *severe* impact on the fantasy of being there in the moment and cuts across my understanding of the world we live in. Sure, we miss things all the time. Usually we should have seen things coming long before they actually reared their heads.



Ah, now here we come to it.  If there's to be foreshadowing in any effective way that means someone (and I nominate the DM) has to know ahead of time what's coming so as to be able to drop in those hints and breadcrumbs and foreshadows.



> There are also a wealth of resources out there for understanding the world in which we live. If something eludes us we can generally learn more about it.



In this real-world age of the internet, perhaps.  Our characters, usually in a low- or no-tech medieval setting, don't have that.  Sure, some divinatory magic can compensate (though in more recent games divinatory magic seems to be a dying art) but it's not the same.  So, to play our characters we have to think like they would...largely (and wonderfully!) unburdened by the information overload we have in real life.



> It results in *severely* unsatisfying fiction. Strong narratives hang together and feel meaningfully organic, not contrived.  As an audience member when I am hit with a big reveal that was not effectively foreshadowed it feels like a narrative kidney punch. This is not a pleasant experience for me. I have thrown remotes, tossed books across the room, and walked out of movie theaters when writers pull these cheap tricks for shock value. The most effective reveals are things we should have seen coming. I can watch a movie like Fight Club that has a dramatic reveal again and again, enjoying it on new levels because it hangs together organically rather than relying on contrivance.



Funny you should mention this, as I just watched Fight Club the other night for the very first time.  Sure, thinking back over it it's easy to see the foreshadowing and breadcrumbs, but at the time they meant nothing.

But again, though, if nobody including the DM knows what the twist is it's impossible to foreshadow to it or build up to it.  With Fight Club, obviously pretty much the whole thing is building to the reveal right from the beginning and that's possible only because it has a DM (a.k.a. author) who has a specific end point in mind and has figured out an interesting way to get there.  How can you replicate that sort of long-term foreshadowing in a game where nobody knows what's coming next?

I do agree with you in that a strong reveal-based narrative shouldn't rely on contrivance.  At the same time, however, in the game setting there's far more likely going to be things one doesn't know than in the real world; and so what may on the surface appear to be contrivance may in fact be a simple inability to either gather or parse enough informaton...you can't find the breadcrumbs either because you didn't notice them (your characters had always put the rumours of the Baron being evil down as malicious gossip, as he'd always been upright with you) or couldn't notice them as they too were hidden (until going to dinner with the Baron you really knew nothing about him beyond his name, and even that was hard to learn as he lives in a shroud of reclusive secrecy).

Lan-"and sometimes what seems like a breadcrumb can in fact just be a red herring"-efan


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Can I ask - what would a RPG look like that was different from this?
> 
> As in, what would a game look like that was _focused on parts of the gameworld that have not come into play and have not impacted the PCs_?
> 
> The question is not rhetorical. And I could guess at possible answers, based on my own experience, but I'm wondering what you had in mind.




Well, the Forgotten Realms. There has been an enormous amount published, and I've never run anything in the Great Glacier, for example. Or Maztica for that matter. I haven't actually run a campaign in Calimshan either, but the region has had an indirect influence on the campaign from time to time.

One of the things that I do in my world is that there aren't really +1/2/3 magic items. They are masterwork items, although not all masterwork items have to have a bonus to hit or damage (sometimes they are just decorated with gems, precious metals, etc.). But some of those are due to exotic metals or forging techniques. It's the equivalent of Damascus Steel.

If you're running an Arthurian campaign in England, treasures brought back from the Crusades and weapons made of Damascus Steel are worth something. The tales of those that were there also play into the lore of the campaign and world. Another factor is how the history of those lands plays into the current era. The migration of humans and other races, for example, have an impact on what sort of dungeons and the contents thereof. 

The point is, there is a lot of lore and information that is detailed that may never come into play. But in some cases it might have an indirect impact. On the other hand, whatever the payers choose to follow might actually lead them to such a faraway land. In the Realms, with a large number of magical portals, it's also possible to end up there unintentionally. Having that detail available makes it easier for me.

So the intention is not to write or have material available that never comes into play. It's to have such material available in case it might come into play. The other end of the spectrum are those games (or DM advice) that recommends just-in-time authoring of such things. There's a lot of such advice that highlights adventures or supplements that have all sorts of lore and detail that is intended for the DM, but won't necessarily be provided to the players. The advice being that it's wasteful and unnecessary. I disagree, because that sort of depth helps me portray that differently. Could I do that without it? Yes. But I think I do it better when I have more of that available to me. Just the way my brain works.

Then there's the fact that I just like reading/writing about more of the world, and that it's just an enjoyable pastime on its own.


----------



## tomBitonti

Lanefan said:


> And in addition to these outcomes, there's one more:
> 
> - the PCs decide to abandon their goal of protecting the villagers and just go off elsewhere, leaving the villagers to sink or swim on their own.
> 
> Lan-"where does it say adventuring parties always have to be heroic"-efan




Which is what [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] said happened in their game.  But, which would wreck the current Pathfinder adventure path (Ironfang Invasion).  And, which would wreck a lot of tournament or organized play games.  For a lot of play, I think, there is an expectation that a number of key moments will be forced by the GM, with players expected to go along with it.  Other cases are much more open.

A problem that I have personally with totally open play is having the PC's (not the players) reasonably want to be together.  A certain amount of meta-planning seems necessary.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I was building a PC, which led to me pulling out my copy of BW Gold, which led to me rereading the opening few pages. Some stuff in there seemed relevant to this thread, in so far as it sets out a particular approach to what I have been calling "player-driven" RPGing.
> 
> From the Foreword, by Jake Norwood (The Riddle of Steel designer, and HEMA guy):
> 
> So how do you play Burning Wheel? Fight for what you believe. Or, since it’s a roleplaying game: Fight for what your character believes. Everything else in the rules tells either how to craft that character’s beliefs or how to fight for them.
> 
> Burning Wheel’s character creation drips with character history. History breeds conflict. Conflict means taking a stand. What will your character stand for?
> 
> Burning Wheel’s core mechanics, advancement and Artha rules demand more-than-usual attention from the player. Skill or stat advancement isn’t an afterthought, but rather a crucial part of the game. The decision to solve a problem with cold steel or silken words isn’t just one of better numerical values - it’s a question of who you, the player, want your character to become. Every action - pass or fail - is growth. Every decision affects how your character matures, shifts, changes. Even little decisions impact the character in permanent, subtle ways. . . .
> 
> The game is meant to be played as written. Each rule has been lovingly crafted . . . to support player-driven stories of white-knuckled action, heart-rending decisions and triumph against the odds.​
> And from the introduction, pp 9-11, 13:
> 
> The Burning Wheel is a roleplaying game. Its mood and feel are reminiscent of the lands created by Ursula K Le Guin, Stephen R Donaldson and JRR Tolkien in their works of fantasy fiction. It is also heavily influenced by the brilliant medieval historical accounts of Barbara Tuchman and Desmond Seward; a dirty, complicated world full of uncertainty, but not without hope or opportunity for change.
> 
> Unlike many other roleplaying games, there is no set world in which you play. Burning Wheel is an heir to a long legacy of fantasy roleplaying games, most of which contain far better worlds and settings than could be provided here. Also, it is my strong belief that players of these games are adept at manufacturing their own worlds for gameplay; my own world pales in comparison to what you will create.
> 
> In the game, players take on the roles of characters inspired by history and works of fantasy fiction. These characters are a list of abilities rated with numbers and a list of player-determined priorities. The synergy of inspiration, imagination, numbers and priorities is the most fundamental element of Burning Wheel. Expressing these numbers and priorities within situations presented by the game master (GM) is what the game is all about.
> 
> Though the game has no world full of ethics and laws, the rules do contain a philosophy that implies a certain type of place. There are consequences to your choices in this game. They range from the very black and white, “If I engage in this duel, my character might die,” to the more complex, “If my character undertakes this task, he’ll be changed, and I don’t know exactly how.” Recognizing that the system enforces these choices will help you navigate play. I always encourage players to think before they test their characters. Are you prepared to accept the consequences of your actions? . . .
> 
> Burning Wheel is best played sitting around a table with your friends - face to face. It is inherently a social game. The players interact with one another to come to decisions and have the characters undertake actions.
> 
> One of you takes on the role of the game master. The GM is responsible for challenging the players. He also plays the roles of all of those characters not taken on by other players; he guides the pacing of the events of the story; and he arbitrates rules calls and interpretations so that play progresses smoothly.
> 
> Everyone else plays a protagonist in the story. Even if the players decide to take on the roles of destitute wastrels, no matter how unsavory their exploits, they are the focus of the story. The GM presents the players with problems based on the players’ priorities. The players use their characters’ abilities to overcome these obstacles. To do this, dice are rolled and the results are interpreted using the rules presented in this book. . . .
> 
> Burning Wheel is very much a game. While players undertake the roles of their characters and embellish their actions with performance and description, rolling the dice determines success or failure and, hence, where the story goes.​
> All the key ideas are there: the GM responding to player-established priorities; the PCs (and thereby their players) being tested in relation to both their abilities and those priorities, and potentially changed, in both respects, as a result; the setting as a venue for play, not as an end in itself; the results of checks ("rolling the dice") as binding on all participants.
> 
> One thing that makes the BW books among my favourite RPG rulebooks is how forthrightly they state the way to play the game. The 4e rulebooks could have benefitted, I think, from greater clarity along these sorts of lines.




Which is all well and good, assuming that's the way you want to play the game. And I think that's what bothers a lot of RPG players too - they don't like somebody else telling them how to play the game.

Yes, BW benefits from its focus. If that's the style of game you want to play, then that's the starting point for that style of game. One of the main reasons that D&D suffers in that regard is that it's designed to accommodate multiple styles of play. This isn't anything new, though. There have been plenty of games over time that have picked a specific aspect of how D&D or AD&D were played and focused on that specifically. It started with both in-house releases like the articles in Dragon magazine (and really the alternate combat system in _Men and Magic_, and then 3rd party publishers like ICE with Arms Law and Spell Law before rolling it into their own RPG based on their principles.

But right from the beginning "Burning Wheel’s character creation drips with character history. History breeds conflict. Conflict means taking a stand. What will your character stand for?" is something that's not always a goal of me or my campaigns.

I absolutely _love_ the character finding themselves style of story. You start as a simple farmer, or the son of the town smith, or something else in a world where your life is pretty much known from an early age. You will work the family farm, until the farm is yours. And for many folks like this, they have no other ambitions.

Like that majority of the world. Sure, I want to have nice things for us, and make money, and give my kids the chance to follow whatever path they aspire to. But most of us think in terms of job/career, have a few hobbies, save money for the kid's college fund, and hope to be able to retire at some point. 

Luke in Star Wars is a great example of this. He had no ambitions, no aspirations to be something great. Sure, he has some history - more than the average farmer. But for Luke (and the player if an RPG), a lot of it is potentially hidden/secret history to be introduced later. He's not _dripping_ with anything, and certainly not anticipating on breeding conflict. The biggest stand he's trying to make (and failing) is that he wants to go to university.

The feel of my game is based as much on TV series like legal and police shows as Game of Thrones. The intrigue and drama isn't always based on conflict and taking a stand. There's a difference between challenges and conflict. My game is more commonly centered on challenges than conflict. Mysteries, secrets, and lost treasures and legends, etc. 

The focus is on building the stories of a group of characters that are friends, and work together to accomplish whatever their goals are. Some of them may be happenstance, like stumbling upon the ruins of a long forgotten tomb that they decide to explore. There might be conflict, but it's simply because they chose to explore a tomb where there are traps, constructs, and undead. The character growth isn't due to the conflict or taking a stand, it's between a group of friends experiencing life together.

I have had some groups that prefer that style, the more epic style, single primary story arc with the BBEG at the end. And I can do that too. But it's not our primary approach.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]

I feel like much of your analysis depends on player characters essentially being islands, that they come into the fiction with no meaningful connections to the situation. If that is your basis it makes a good deal of sense that players would often have no meaningful sense of what is going on. My preference is for players to play insiders instead of outsiders, to have a network of connections they can meaningful depend on, to have a stake in the events of play, the ability to enact meaningful change and to have to decide between conflicting priorities that push them one way or another.

This blog post by John Harper shows what I feel makes a character fit for one of my games.



			
				John Harper said:
			
		

> What makes a fit character for this game? *The Four Cs.*
> 
> *Connected:* The character has relationships (positive and negative) with other significant characters in the situation.
> 
> *Committed:* The character has a stake in the outcome of the situation, and will stay to see it through.
> 
> *Capable:* The character has the capacity to affect change in the situation by taking decisive action.
> 
> *Conflicted:* The character has beliefs and goals that are in conflict. They must make choices about which are more important, and which must be abandoned or changed.




*Quick Aside:* I do not think we need to meaningfully know how things will turn out to gain many of the same benefits that foreshadowing provides us. We simply need curiosity, a commitment to following the fiction, and an awareness of what motivates a given character. Part of the reason why I am a firm believer of Walking, Not Running Towards Conflict is that it allows us to suss out these details that give way to the raising tension and let things proceed organically. There will be plenty of mystery and revelation if we let our natural curiosity do the work.

Our greatest weapon here is simply reincorporation of elements of the fiction done organically. We let relationships ebb and flow, bring characters in and out of the fiction, and rely on the human brain's natural tendency to see the relationships that exist between disparate elements.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> The distinction that I feel he is making is that in a player driven game, the fiction of the game takes shape only around the PCs based on their decisions. If the PCs are not engaged with a particular element of the fiction, then that particular element ceases to exist for all intents and purposes.



This is not right, though. You are ignoring framing, and assuming that everything is the consequence of checks. But there can be no checks without framing - without fiction to engage. In the sort of RPGing that I prefer, it is the GM's job to provide that framing, that is, to establish the relevant fiction.

For instance, in the OP game, and as I've already posted in this thread, the PCs spent 18 months eking out a living in the Abor-Alz, living in a ruined tower. During that time, they spoke with some elven mercants who were passing through the hills. (Mechanically, this encounter resulted from a successful Circles check by the player of the elven princess.)

Speaking to the elves, the PCs learned that the Gynarch of Hardby had become engaged to marry the leader of the sorcerous cabal (in whose tower the events of the OP took place).

Another example from that game: some time in the 14 years since the mage PC and his brother left the tower (as it was being sacked by orcs - those events occurred prior to the time period of play, authored by the player of that PC), the wastrel elf of the hills entered it and stole the nickel-silver mace.

These are elemnet of the fiction that did not take shape around the PCs based on their decisions. They are independent of PC decisions.

They are not independent of _player_ decisions - the same player etablished the sorcerous cabal and the nickel-silver mace as elements of the fiction, in the course of authoring PC backstory (and PC mechanical elements, in the case of the cabal); and another player built an elven PC who has a Belief to [?i]always keep the elven ways[/i]. But that is not the same thing, because not every player decision is a PC decision.

And the decision to locate the campaign around Hardby, which has a sorcerous Gynarch, was made by me as GM - it is good for a S&S Conan-esque feel, and (as the player of the mage PC realised straight away when I described the setting) it fits well with the existence of a sorcerous cabal.



			
				1105 said:
			
		

> The GM is never giving thought to story elements or parts of the world with which the PCs are not currently engaged.



Again, this is not correct. To quote the same passage from Eero Tuovinen,

[The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . . Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character.​
_Keeping track of the backstory_ is integral to framing scenes that introduce complications and provoke choices. As a GM, I am almost always giving thought to elements of the fiction with which the PCs are not currently engaged: these (i) are constraints on permissible new fiction (because of the demands of coherence, both ingame causal consistency and gente/thematic consistency); and (ii) are the material from which scenes are framed, from which complications are drawn, which are explicitly or implicitly at stake when choices are made.

After the events of the OP, the mage PC and wizard/assassin ended up in a prison cell together. After reaching a short-term reconciliation, the wizard/assassin tried to break them out of the cell by picking the lock. To get a bonus, the lockpicking was attemptd _carefully_ - a technical notion in BW that grants a bonus die but, in the event of failure, permits the GM to introduce a serious time-based complication.

The check failed, and we ended the session on that cliffhanger. I don't know yet what the serious time-based complication will be, but it will draw upon elements of the fiction other than just the immediate framing of the two characters and the lock.

The player of the mage PC is also thinking of those other story elements - as we were packing up, he was conjecturing that the door would open right into the face of a dark naga, come to find out what happened to the mage's blood that it wanted for its sacrifice . . .



hawkeyefan said:


> let's say that an assassin is going to try and kill the king. In the player driven game, this would only be introduced in response to player choice and as a result of PC action.



Assassination of the king is no different, for present purposes, from the Gynarch becoming engaged to be married. It is simply not true to say that this would be introduced only as a result of PC action.

And to say that it would be introduced only in response to player choice is also to put things too narrowly: the presence in the fiction of the leader of the cabal is a response to a player choice (about PC story and mechanical elements, which have subsequently been deployed in play) but that is not true of the Gynarch.



hawkeyefan said:


> In a GM driven game <snippage> if the PCs don't engage with this story element, then the GM determines what happens with the assassin and the king while the PCs are otherwise occupied.



If the GM is doing this in his/her own time, and simply making notes in a folder headed "Campaign Record", then - at that point - it is not even clear what it would mean to say that it is part of the shared fiction. Who is it shared with?

If the fate of the king and/or the assassin actually emerges in the course of play - eg as some bit of background colour, to explain why the courtiers are wearing black; or as some bit of framing, as the assassin comes to the PCs seeking refuge - then, at the current level of description, we haven't got any basis for determining whether the game is GM-driven in my sense, or player-driven in my sense. It's not until you know _why the GM is framing the scene in question_, or _why it matters that the courtiers are wearing black, and hence that we need some explanation for that in the background_, that you can tell who is driving the game in my sense.

Another possibility is that the fate of the king and/or the assassin doesn't emerge in the course of play, but rather is used by the GM as an element of secret backstory to adjudicate player action declarations: for instance, the PCs reach out to the court because they are concerned about something-or-other, but are rebuffed for no evident reason - at the table, the GM simply declares the attempt a failure without reference to the action resolution mechanics. The GM's reason for this - which (it being secret) the players don't know - is that the king was recently assassinated by someone from the same hometown as the PCs, and that has put all the people of that town under a cloud.

Now we have the sort of situation [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] described above, where the players either choose for their PCs to abandon their attempt to reach out to the court, or else think of ways to try to learn why they were rebuffed, follow them up, try to remove the stain on the townsfolk, etc. _That_ sort of thing is, to me, a hallmark of GM-driven RPGing. But it is not characterised simply by _the GM determining what happens with the assassin and the king while the PCs are otherwise occupied_. It is about the use of that secret backstory as a device to resolve action declarations without reference to the mechanical procedures.



hawkeyefan said:


> Where I think you begin to go wrong is in stating that the GM can determine outright PC failure based solely on unknown elements created as part of the GM's secret history. I do think this is a possibility, but I don't expect that many would cite that as a positive element of the approach.



Well, I don't want to quibble over the definition of "many", but this thread has about a dozen active participants, and two of them have done just that:



Lanefan said:


> There's no manipulation of anything to simply not tell a player something her PC has no way of knowing, and letting the consequences fall where they may should said PC blunder into finding it out the hard way.  It's simple realism.





Maxperson said:


> See, that's the sort of thing that makes for a great game.  The PCs try something that should have worked, but didn't.  That gets them thinking, "What happened?  There must be something going on here that we don't know about.".  They then start digging for that information, find out about the niece and rescue her.  At that time the baron would be exceedingly grateful to the PCs(no damage to the rep, but rather an increase) and be out for blood against the advisor(rebounded against him nicely).
> 
> You lose out on a ton by being so against hidden backstory.



And I don't think that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] are atypical. For instance, I think nearly all adventures published since (say) the mid-1980s involve at least some elements of secret backstory that the GM is expected to use as the basis for establishing that certain action declarations fail.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think @_*pemerton*_ would insist that such a decision that the fight be unwinnable only be determined by some kind of failure on the PCs part



No. It could be an element of framing - or, rather, what could be an element of framing is something like "An army of orcs is bearing down upon you". Whether the fight is unwinnable or not is a matter of resolution, not mere stipulation.



hawkeyefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Player-driven: The GM authors the gameworld (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play, (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs (this is especially relevant when framing the PCs (and thereby the players) into challenging situations, when narrating consequences of failed checks, and the like), and (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution. It is worth noting that (iii) cuts both ways: if the players succeed, the GM is bound by that; if the players fail, the GM is bound by that - no retries is a fairly hard rule, whilr no softballing I would say is generally a softer but still important rule.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't see these three elements as being specifically related to a player driven approach. There's no reason that the most railroady of adventure paths cannot meet each of these elements.
Click to expand...


Are you able to explain this further, because at the moment I can't see it.

Every adventure path I'm familiar with violates (ii) - the gameworld, in respect of geography, past and future history, etc is pre-authored independently of any concerns/interests of the players as manifested through creation and play of their PCs. They also generally violate (iii): eg they contain advice like "If the BBEG is killed, then a lieutenant takes over the reins and continues the plot", which is a disregard of success; and they often involve softballing failure, as well, in order to keep things moving. For instance, there will be redundancies built into the storyline to ensure that the players get the clues regardless of whether their action declarations succeed or fail. These can also lead to violations of (i), if the manipulation of the fiction used to manage the unfolding of the AP requires introducing material that, while technically consistent with the established fiction, is at odds with its spirit or seeming trajectory.



hawkeyefan said:


> I absolutely cannot see why your description of a Player Driven game above cannot also apply to a GM Driven game



My response to this would be - have you tried it? That is to say, have you actually run a game in which, as a GM, (i) your role is to frame the PCs (and thereby) the players into situations that (a) engage their expressed concerns/dramatic needs, and thereby (b) force choices, which (ii) are then resolved via the mechanics (without recourse to secret backstory) in such a way as to produce outcomes in the fiction that are then binding on all participants, and (iii) that - if failures - conform in their content to framing constraints (a) and (b)?

This the template for player-driven play that I have quoted multiple times from Eero Tuovinen, and that is set out in the BW rulebook that I quoted not far upthread, and that I set out in the post that you replied to (and have requoted above).

The question is asked genuinely, not rhetorically, but I am guessing that the answer is "no", because if the answer was "yes" then I honestly don't think you would say that "the most railroady of APs" can satisfy these constraints. I think that the answer is "no" also in [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s case, because Ovinomancer keeps making assumptions about the dynamics of play that assume violation of those constraints: eg [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION], quite a way upthread, repeatedly insisted that the consequences of failure in the search of the ruined tower for the nickel-silver mace was overly harsh; and more recently assumed that, because the advisor to the baron had a backstory that had unfolded over multiple episodes of play (beginning as mere colour, and gradually emerging into framing) that it must be a case of "secret backstory" being used by the GM to force a particular outcome.

Whereas, if one considered those episodes of play assuming the player-driven approach I am describing, one would make the opposite inferences. Thus, learning of the consequence for failure in relation to the mace, rather than saying "That's too harsh as a consequence for failing to find an ordinary mace", one might ask "What goal/aspiration/need had the player established for his PC that made the discovery of the mace such a high-stakes matter?"  And from the account of the advisor's backstory and previous appearances over the life of the campaign, one might ask, "What events happened in play such that a bit of colour about a yellow-robed skulker built up into a key element in what seems to have been a pinnacle social challenge of the campaign?"



hawkeyefan said:


> My take away from many of your comments throughout the thread, especially whenever you try to deacribe a more GM driven style, is that you see the GM as someone who if left to his own devoces will run amok.



It's nothing to do with the GM running amok. In every episode of play and campaign I have referenced in this thread I've been the GM, and I'm not worried that I am going to run amok!

It's about what I want to get out of RPGing. To borrow a slogan, I want to play to find out. That is inconsistent with deciding ahead of time what can and/or does happen. And I mean that in the expansive sense that darkbard has nicely explained:



darkbard said:


> In the sort of game you're describing, the DM *never* gets to play to find out what happens, except in the limited sense of finding out how the PCs navigate from point A to point Z, where Z was already scripted at the same time as A. (And, yes, I realize there may be various paths from A to Z, but that's not the same thing as playing to find out what will happen. The DM already knows that: Z will happen!



In that sort of game, the GM is finding out how the players get from A to Z; while the players have the double-puzzle of (1) finding out what Z is (some GMs, and some published adventures, make this inordinately hard), and then (2) working out a viable path from A to Z. This is not the sort of thing I enjoy in RPGing.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> what would a game look like that was focused on parts of the gameworld that have not come into play and have not impacted the PCs?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, the Forgotten Realms. There has been an enormous amount published, and I've never run anything in the Great Glacier, for example. Or Maztica for that matter. I haven't actually run a campaign in Calimshan either, but the region has had an indirect influence on the campaign from time to time.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The point is, there is a lot of lore and information that is detailed that may never come into play. But in some cases it might have an indirect impact.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So the intention is not to write or have material available that never comes into play. It's to have such material available in case it might come into play.
Click to expand...


I just replied to a post by [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] where he posited that few would regard the use of secret backstory to resolve action declarations as a positive thing, but here (as far as I can tell), you are advocating exactly that! (And hawkeyfan has XPed your post.)

I mean, that's what "indirect impact" means, isn't it? (Eg the PCs look for Calimshani silks at the market, but can't find any - no dice being rolled - because the GM knows that, "offscreen", Calimshan is in turmoil and all the silk looms have been destroyed. Or that sort of thing.)


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Which is all well and good, assuming that's the way you want to play the game. And I think that's what bothers a lot of RPG players too - they don't like somebody else telling them how to play the game.



I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense to me at all!

The last board game I bought for my family was LotR: The Confrontation. That game with instructions that tell me how to play the game. Without the instructions, how would I know how to play it?

The first RPG I ever owned was Traveller, but it in fact doesn't have instructions for how to play the game. It has instructions for building PC, and starships, and planets; but doesn't actually explain how to play the game. Which meant that I couldn't play it. I build characters, and designed starships, and even ran the odd combat; but I didn't actually play Traveller.

The second RPG I owned was Moldvay Basic. Unlike Traveller, it _did_ have instructions on how to play the game: the players build PCs, the GM designs a dungeon, and the PCs then explore the dungeon within a space-and-time structured framework (movement rates, wandering monster checks, etc) hoping to defeat monsters and recover treasure. I was able to play that game; and was then able to take that experience and apply it, in some fashion, to playing Traveller.

Every RPGer was told by someone, somewhere, at some time, how to play the game - they didn't come into the world already in possession of that knowledge. And RPG rulebooks that don't actually say how the game is to be played assume that the player already knows.



Ilbranteloth said:


> One of the main reasons that D&D suffers in that regard is that it's designed to accommodate multiple styles of play.



I don't think so. (I mean, the publishers might _assert_ this, because they want to make sales; but the actual design of the game doesn't really bear this out.)

Moldvay Basic was designed to accommodate one style, which the rulebooks sets out in detail: classic dungeoneering. Gyagx's AD&D was designed to accommodate one style, which the rulebooks articulate intermittently, probably most clearly in the section towards the end of the PHB on "Successful Adventures".

2nd ed AD&D is a strange game: it keeps basically all the elements of Gygaxian AD&D, adds on a stat-check based skill system that is mostly mechanically inconsistent with the Gygaxian mechanics (eg chances to open doors, to find secret doors, for thieves to pick pockets, etc), and then publishes a whole series of modules that don't seem to make picking pockets, opening doors or even cooking food for that matter very significant aspects of play. To the extent that it has a design, it is (i) to enable players to build PCs that have a fair bit of colour, and (ii) to enable the GM to run a game in which the (limited because inherited from Gygaxian skilled play) mechanics play at best a modest role in determining how things pan out. It suits the late-80s/90s GM-driven approach pretty well, but not much else that I can see.

3E I can't comment on, and 5e I won't. But 4e also doesn't really set out to support multiple styles of play. It pushes back very hard against GM management of the fiction during combat, for instance, simply because of the range and depth of resources that it gives players (via PC build elements, action points, etc). [MENTION=463]S'mon[/MENTION] has posted an anecdote about his first 4e session (which I will try to get right), where he played a fighter whose first round action was a charge across the room, then an attack with a strong (daily or encounter) power, then an action point to enable a second attack with a strong (daily or encounter power - which ever one was left), as a result of which the BBEG was dead. (Without knowing the actual PC build, I will speculate that base damage was 1d8+5, so that the two powers, one 2w and one 3w, would do 5d8+10, or around 30 average damage, which with a bit of luck is enough to kill a typical 1st or 2nd level NPC/monster.) The GM got quite upset, because this wasn't what s/he had had planned for the encounter: s/he was not expecting the deployment by a player of his action resolution resources to make such a significant impact on the fiction independently of GM mediation.

Now one person's "lack of support" is another person's "look what I can do with a nudge, a wink and a few house rules" - but that is equally true of BW. Drop the Belief rules, the artha (- "fate point") rules, and the GMing principles, and what you've got is a Traveller-style lifepath PC build system with a RQ or RM-style ability/skill system and brutal combat system. I'm sure there's someone out in the world playing that game, just as there have been people (eg me) who have used RM to run a game that is closer in style to BW.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Let's clear one thing up: the DM is not a player, in the sense that the players are.



No one in this thread is confused about that with respect to your game. But you equally need to recognise that, in other games (eg  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s, and probably to a lesser extent my own) the GM _is_ a player in much that same sense. 



Lanefan said:


> The DM is more a living breathing reactive (and sometimes proactive) gameboard



That's not a remotely good description of how I GM a game.



Lanefan said:


> I know that something told to me now about a character's goals won't be remembered (likely by either me or the player) in four years when I'm trying to build a scene.



In my case, I'm not trying to remember it from 4 years ago. It infuses every moment of play.



Lanefan said:


> Yet sometimes those same things happen simply due to dice luck.  What then?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> realism tells me you're simply not always going to have all the information you really need.



It seems to me that you answer your own question here. If the dice come up bad, the reason -in the fiction - for the failure might be a lack of information.

But establishing that by way of engaging the mechanics of the game - ie _playing_ the game - is quite different from having the GM make the mechanics irrelevant by fiating a failure (or a success).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If there's to be foreshadowing in any effective way that means someone (and I nominate the DM) has to know ahead of time what's coming so as to be able to drop in those hints and breadcrumbs and foreshadows.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if nobody including the DM knows what the twist is it's impossible to foreshadow to it or build up to it.





Campbell said:


> I do not think we need to meaningfully know how things will turn out to gain many of the same benefits that foreshadowing provides us.



I agree with [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] here.

In the advisor episode, the earlier appearances of the advisor (as colour, as part of the framing of an infiltration skill challenge) turn out to have been foreshadowings of his appearance at the dinner party.

In the OP game, the fouling of the waterhole by the renegade elf foreshadows (it turns out) his theft of the mace from the tower (another bespoiling of a valued place).

Etc.

In already-authored fiction (eg a movie), foreshadowing is a device for managing audience expectations about what is to come.

In a RPG in which participants are authors and audience, the events of play at time 1 contribute to the process of establishing expectations and hopes for what _might_ occur in play at time 2; and in certain circumstances (depending on how those expectations and hopes turn out) the time 1 events turn out to have foreshadowed the time 2 events.

This also relates to my reply to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] a handful of posts upthread, where I explained why it is not true, of the GM of a player-driven game, that s/he "is never giving thought to story elements or parts of the world with which the PCs are not currently engaged." All that other material is the stuff from which future framings and consequences might be derived, and part of the skill of GMing in this manner is to draw upon that material in a way that makes expectations, hopes etc about the fiction _matter_ in the same way that foreshadowing makes them matter - ie by giving them their emotional and aesthetic due.


----------



## billd91

pemerton said:


> I mean, that's what "indirect impact" means, isn't it? (Eg the PCs look for Calimshani silks at the market, but can't find any - no dice being rolled - because the GM knows that, "offscreen", Calimshan is in turmoil and all the silk looms have been destroyed. Or that sort of thing.)




So that constitutes "secret backstory that determines the resolution of some player question"? There's some turmoil the players/PCs didn't happen to know about at the time, that the GM did, that sets the probability of finding Calimshani silks to 0 (or low if it's reasonable someone's still trading them because they have backstock).

How do you set any checks in the games you run? Why do you choose a value that yields a particular likelihood of success rather than another? Or are you basically just flipping coins? For the skill challenge with the advisor, the duke, and exposing the advisor's agenda - what skills did you choose to be relevant to the challenge and what effect did you decide they would have? Ultimately, unless you're allowing pretty much anything the PCs choose to try and set the effects in a generic manner, aren't you using some "hidden backstory" to affect the chances of success? Did you pick some skills to be more useful than others in the skill challenge at all?


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> In the post I replied to, and that I have re-quoted, you said "The PCs try something that should have worked, but didn't. That gets them thinking, 'What happened? There must be something going on here that we don't know about.'. They then start digging for that information, find out about the niece and rescue her." That is a description of the PCs solving a puzzle (or, if you prefer, a mystery): the players think "what happened?", they dig for information, and gain answers.
> 
> As I said, I'm not very keen on that sort of thing as a focus of RPGing. If you are, then - as I said - go for it!




In your game the players upon failing could have a PC that says, "That should have worked, but it didn't.  Why?", and then author the reason, "The advisor must have something on the baron.".  You or another player could go along with that and author it to be the daughter who was kidnapped by the advisor.  

The only difference between that and what I said is which side authored the "puzzle" being solved.  Since you don't like to roleplay puzzle solving, would you stop play and have them do something else?


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> And I don't think that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] are atypical. For instance, I think nearly all adventures published since (say) the mid-1980s involve at least some elements of secret backstory that the GM is expected to use as the basis for establishing that certain action declarations fail.




Speaking for myself, it's rare for such backstory to cause something to fail outright.  It's equally rare for it to cause an automatic success.  Far more commonly, it just results in a bonus or penalty to the action.


----------



## Lanefan

tomBitonti said:


> Which is what [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] said happened in their game.  But, which would wreck the current Pathfinder adventure path (Ironfang Invasion).  And, which would wreck a lot of tournament or organized play games.



Tournament play is so far removed from the type of open-ended home campaigns we're talking about here as to be nearly irrelevant to the discussion.    Organized play - by which I take you to mean AL now and RPGA stuff in the past - I would expect to be able to handle a major left turn like this and would be disappointed if it could not.  As for hard adventure paths - well, if a DM says "I'm going to run Ironfang Invasion" and I agree to play in it, I'm kind of also agreeing not to take any major left turns and to settle in for what hopefully will become a train ride rather than a train wreck. 



> A problem that I have personally with totally open play is having the PC's (not the players) reasonably want to be together.  A certain amount of meta-planning seems necessary.



Or, characters role-play their way in and out of various parties as makes sense for them (and thus players end up cycling through characters rather than always playing the same one).  I don't mind this at all, as changes to the party composition are a good way of keeping a long campaign fresh.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> The focus is on building the stories of a group of characters that are friends, and work together to accomplish whatever their goals are. Some of them may be happenstance, like stumbling upon the ruins of a long forgotten tomb that they decide to explore. There might be conflict, but it's simply because they chose to explore a tomb where there are traps, constructs, and undead. The character growth isn't due to the conflict or taking a stand, it's between a group of friends experiencing life together.



And some of the conflict can come from within - even friends fall out now and then, and who says they'll all become or end up as friends in the first place. 

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I feel like much of your analysis depends on player characters essentially being islands, that they come into the fiction with no meaningful connections to the situation.



To begin with, more or less yes; those meaningful connections - particularly to the story and fiction - become established through play as the game goes along and they either go to the action or the action comes to them.



> If that is your basis it makes a good deal of sense that players would often have no meaningful sense of what is going on. My preference is for players to play insiders instead of outsiders, to have a network of connections they can meaningful depend on,



Problem here is if they've already got good connections there's less impetus to go out and establish new ones.

It's not like they don't know anybody - a 1st-level MU or Thief had to get trained up somewhere, for example - but their contacts are by default limited at best.  And may well all be very much elsewhere, if for example your PC is a non-human in a very human-centric land.



> to have a stake in the events of play, the ability to enact meaningful change and to have to decide between conflicting priorities that push them one way or another.



If things work out right*, that all comes up as play goes along.  At very low level their stake in the events is merely to survive them; by the time that stage is over they've with any luck become involved in bigger things, and away we go from there.

* - and if they don't, I'm doing it wrong. 

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> In your game the players upon failing could have a PC that says, "That should have worked, but it didn't.  Why?", and then author the reason, "The advisor must have something on the baron."



Probably not in my case - it's the GM's job to narrate the consequences of failure, not the players'. But there are other approaches to RPGing that do encourage that sort of thing. 



Maxperson said:


> The only difference between that and what I said is which side authored the "puzzle" being solved.



Here is the principle difference: in my game, the check is framed, and resolved via the appropriate mechanics, and then if it fails some ingame reason for that might be introduced into the fiction (eg "Why couldn't I find the mace I left here 14 years ago? Oh, because the renegade elf took it.") Whereas in the case of adjudication via secret/hidden backstory, the check is seemingly framed, but then fails independently of the mechanics, and this is because there was some other secret element to the framing that only the GM knew about, and in virtue of which s/he deems the check to fail.

To say that that is _only_ a difference of authorship is like saying that the difference between the player declaring actions for his/her PC, and the GM doing so, is _only_ a difference of authorship (I mean, in the fiction the PC is acting, whoever it is that, at the table, is declaring that action). Given that RPGing is, at it's core, _a game which has as its subject matter and output an authored fiction_, who gets to author what fiction, when, and how, is pretty much all there is to it!

Or to put it another way: my objection to secret backstory isn't because I think it's _bad story_. Ie I'm not making a content-based objection. My dislike of it is that I don't like it as a way of RPGing. Ie I'm making a process-based objection. 



Maxperson said:


> Since you don't like to roleplay puzzle solving, would you stop play[/I] and have them do something else?



I didn't say "I didn't like to roleplay puzzle solving"! I said that I don't like puzzle-solving - ie _the actual solving of puzzles_ - to be the focus of my RPGing.

The action of my 4e game is centred around what is, in the fiction, a mystery: Is the Dusk War upon us? Will it mean remaking the Lattice of Heaven? What _is_ the Lattice of Heaven? But playing the game isn't about solving a mystery. There are no answers to these questions that are written down in the GM's notebook, which the players are trying to learn. For instance, the answers to the last question that have been established have been established primarily by discussion among the players, who - as their PCs - tell one another what they understand about the Lattice of Heaven (naturally, great weight is given to the views of the Sage of Ages whose Arcana and Religion bonuses enable success on Hard Level 30 checks with no need to roll).

The answer to the first question will be established via the play of the PCs, along the sorts of lines described in this actual play report:



pemerton said:


> Upon arriving at the tarrasque's location they found the tarrasque being warded by a group of maruts who explained that, in accordance with a contract made with the Raven Queen millenia ago, they were there to ensure the realisation of the end times, and to stop anyone interfering with the tarrasque as an engine of this destruction and a herald of the beginning of the end times and the arrival of the Dusk War.
> 
> (Why the Raven Queen wants the Dusk War has not fully come to light, other than that it seems part of her plan to realise her own ultimate godhood. One idea I had follows in sblocks.)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I wasn't sure exactly what the players would do here. They could try and fight the maruts, obviously, but I thought the Raven Queen devotees might be hesitant to do so. I had envisaged that the PCs might try to persuade them that the contract was invalid in some way - and this idea was mentioned at the table, together with the related idea of the various exarchs of the Raven Queen in the party trying to lay down the law. In particular I had thought that the paladin of the Raven Queen, who is a Marshall of Letherna (in effect, one of the Raven Queen's most powerful servants), might try to exercise his authority to annual or vary the contract in some fashion.
> 
> But instead the argument developed along different lines. What the players did was to persuade the maruts that the time for fulfillment of their contract had not yet arisen, because this visitation of the tarrasque was not yet a sign of the Dusk War. (Mechanically, these were social skill checks, history and religions checks, etc, in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)
> 
> The player of the Eternal Defender PC made only one action in this skill challenge - explaining that it was not the end times, because he was there to defeat the tarrasque (and got another successful intimidate check, after spending an action point to reroll his initial fail) - before launching himself from the flying tower onto the tarrasque and proceeding to whittle away around 600 of its hit points over two rounds. (There were also two successful out-of-turn attacks from the ranger and the paladin, who were spending their on-turn actions in negotiating with the maruts.)
> 
> The invoker/wizard was able to point to this PC's successful solo-ing of the tarrasque as evidence that the tarrasque, at least on this occasion, could not be the harbinger of the end times whom the maruts were contracted to protect, because it clearly lacked the capacity to ravage the world. The maruts agreed with this point - clearly they had misunderstood the timing of celestial events - and the PCs therefore had carte blanche to finish of the tarrasque. (Mechanically, this was the final success in the skill challenge: the player rolled Insight to see what final argument would sway the maruts, knowing that only one success was needed. He succeeded. I invited him to then state the relevant argument.)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> This was the first time that the players (in character) concretely articulated their commitment to a "third way", between a divine victory in the Dusk War that would reinstate the Lattice of Heaven, and a victory for the elemental chaos that would see the mortal world reduced to its constituent parts so that it might be rebuilt.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Their "reading" of certain key setting ideas (eg the Lattice of Heaven, which the players have interpreted as fascistic stasis; the nature of chaos/motion, the natural order, etc, which most of the players have seen as somehow connected to mortal life and wellbeing) is informing the way they respond to challenges and engage key NPCs; and success in these challenges is then vindicating those readings of what the setting is about. They have conceived of a "third way", and have now brought the duergar, the djinni and these maruts into alignment with it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Their play of their characters, therefore, is making it true, in the fiction, that those who seek the Dusk War are warmongers; that a god of imprisonment need not be insane (as Torog was); that elemental chaos can be accommodated within the plan for mortals of at least some of the gods (eg Corellon); etc. It also reveals new things about the gameworld, and the metaphysics and ethics of order and chaos.



That's an illustration of what I mean by "playing to find out". I'm guessing that it's at least in the same general ballpark as what [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] and [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] mean. And obviously it's quite different from GM's secret backstory, or [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s storyboarding.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> [The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . . Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character.[/indent]
> 
> _Keeping track of the backstory_ is integral to framing scenes that introduce complications and provoke choices. As a GM, I am almost always giving thought to elements of the fiction with which the PCs are not currently engaged: these (i) are constraints on permissible new fiction (because of the demands of coherence, both ingame causal consistency and gente/thematic consistency); and (ii) are the material from which scenes are framed, from which complications are drawn, which are explicitly or implicitly at stake when choices are made.



This bit actually sounds almost like what I'd expect in normal D&D.  The DM keeps track of the backstory, keeps it internally consistent and coherent, and draws from it when needed for colour and-or conflict and-or complications.

However, who sets the backstory in the first place?  The DM?  If so, we're on the same page even if just for a moment.  If not, then who? 



> Assassination of the king is no different, for present purposes, from the Gynarch becoming engaged to be married. It is simply not true to say that this would be introduced only as a result of PC action.
> 
> And to say that it would be introduced only in response to player choice is also to put things too narrowly: the presence in the fiction of the leader of the cabal is a response to a player choice (about PC story and mechanical elements, which have subsequently been deployed in play) but that is not true of the Gynarch.
> 
> If the GM is doing this in his/her own time, and simply making notes in a folder headed "Campaign Record", then - at that point - it is not even clear what it would mean to say that it is part of the shared fiction. Who is it shared with?



Nobody...yet.  But it might become relevant to play at some point, even if just as rumour fodder or news brought by a travelling minstrel.



> If the fate of the king and/or the assassin actually emerges in the course of play - eg as some bit of background colour, to explain why the courtiers are wearing black; or as some bit of framing, as the assassin comes to the PCs seeking refuge - then, at the current level of description, we haven't got any basis for determining whether the game is GM-driven in my sense, or player-driven in my sense. It's not until you know _why the GM is framing the scene in question_, or _why it matters that the courtiers are wearing black, and hence that we need some explanation for that in the background_, that you can tell who is driving the game in my sense.
> 
> Another possibility is that the fate of the king and/or the assassin doesn't emerge in the course of play, but rather is used by the GM as an element of secret backstory to adjudicate player action declarations: for instance, the PCs reach out to the court because they are concerned about something-or-other, but are rebuffed for no evident reason - at the table, the GM simply declares the attempt a failure without reference to the action resolution mechanics. The GM's reason for this - which (it being secret) the players don't know - is that the king was recently assassinated by someone from the same hometown as the PCs, and that has put all the people of that town under a cloud.
> 
> Now we have the sort of situation [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] described above, where the players either choose for their PCs to abandon their attempt to reach out to the court, or else think of ways to try to learn why they were rebuffed, follow them up, try to remove the stain on the townsfolk, etc. _That_ sort of thing is, to me, a hallmark of GM-driven RPGing. But it is not characterised simply by _the GM determining what happens with the assassin and the king while the PCs are otherwise occupied_. It is about the use of that secret backstory as a device to resolve action declarations without reference to the mechanical procedures.



What I simply cannot grasp is why you - or anyone - would think this is wrong.

Their attempt to reach out to the court fails for no obvious reason*.  OK, so look for the non-obvious reason(s).  Ask.  Dig.  Turn some rocks over and see what's under 'em.  Break a few heads.  Pay some bribes.  But - if access to the court is that important - *do something*!

* - and if someone says "fails for no obvious reason" equates to being railroaded without doing anything else, I have no sympathy whatsoever.



> Every adventure path I'm familiar with violates (ii) - the gameworld, in respect of geography, past and future history, etc is pre-authored independently of any concerns/interests of the players as manifested through creation and play of their PCs.



That's because it's a bloody adventure path, which are by their very nature quasi-railroads to begin with.  Quite different from open-ended campaigns that provide more room for meaningful choice.



> It's nothing to do with the GM running amok. In every episode of play and campaign I have referenced in this thread I've been the GM, and I'm not worried that I am going to run amok!
> 
> It's about what I want to get out of RPGing. To borrow a slogan, I want to play to find out.



Then be a player!  You can play-to-find-out all you like when someone else has the helm.



> In that sort of game, the GM is finding out how the players get from A to Z; while the players have the double-puzzle of (1) finding out what Z is (some GMs, and some published adventures, make this inordinately hard), and then (2) working out a viable path from A to Z. This is not the sort of thing I enjoy in RPGing.



Sometimes you never know what Z is.  Sometimes it waves wistfully at you as you wander by, oblivious to its existence.  Sometimes you reach Z shortly after passing C, but only realize its importance after getting to about W.  And sometimes the best you can do is get to Q, after which you left turn, start at 1, and see if you can find a way to 9 (the route to which might take you right back through J, K and L).

You like to play to find out.  I like to play to both find out and figure out...as a player.  As DM, I'm not a player at all in that sense, and nor should I be.

Lan-"and now we need a wandering letters table"-efan


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I mean, that's what "indirect impact" means, isn't it? (Eg the PCs look for Calimshani silks at the market, but can't find any - no dice being rolled - because the GM knows that, "offscreen", Calimshan is in turmoil and all the silk looms have been destroyed. Or that sort of thing.)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So that constitutes "secret backstory that determines the resolution of some player question"? There's some turmoil the players/PCs didn't happen to know about at the time, that the GM did, that sets the probability of finding Calimshani silks to 0 (or low if it's reasonable someone's still trading them because they have backstock).
Click to expand...


Yes.

Here is the action declaration: _I go out to buy some Calimshan silk_.

Here is the GM's response: _Sorry, there's none available._ Perhaps the GM adds: _You hear rumours that their's turmoil in Calimshan and all their exports have dried up._

The GM's response is not consequent upon any engaging of the mechanics (in 4e this might be a Streetwise check; in BW it would be a Resources check, potentially augmented by an appropriate knowledge check; in Cortext+/MHRP it would be a spend of a plot point to establish a Resource). It is a narration of failure based on an element of the fiction that has been authored by the GM and is hidden from the player in the framing of the check.



Maxperson said:


> Speaking for myself, it's rare for such backstory to cause something to fail outright.  It's equally rare for it to cause an automatic success.  Far more commonly, it just results in a bonus or penalty to the action.



Well, this relates to the point  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] made upthread:



Campbell said:


> I think there is some room for fiction unknown to players to impact resolution. I do not like characterizing some fiction as backstory and other fiction as fiction. It's all fiction to me regardless of when it happened. However, it must be *meaningfully knowable* through skilled play of the fiction and mechanisms provided before it impacts resolution.



Namely, is the penalty known or knowable via engaging the situation, as part of the process of resolution before the penalty that follows from the secret backstory actually makes its impact on the outcome of resolution?

I also think that Campbell's adverb _meaningful_ is carrying a fair bit of weight hear. What is _meaningful_, in the context of play, is not subject to unilateral determination by the GM. To quote Campbell again, 



Campbell said:


> If I cannot trust finely honed and well developed skills at playing the fiction to have a significant impact on how things turn out than I cannot meaningfully play the game on a strategic level. If I cannot trust the GM to provide real information I can use to reward my efforts to interrogate the fiction than the entire enterprise becomes suspect. If I cannot rely upon the fiction I feel forced to rely upon the mechanisms of the game. When those mechanisms are also not reliable than I must resort to playing the GM.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I should note that I feel the same way about victory that comes out of nowhere as I do about defeat that comes out of nowhere.



I'll come back to this below.



billd91 said:


> How do you set any checks in the games you run? Why do you choose a value that yields a particular likelihood of success rather than another?



Based on the framing. Eg, to return to the OP, "You're looking for a vessel in the room of a comatose person in a well-appointed mage's tower? Not hard to find such a thing in such a place: Easy (= Ob 1, in technical terms)."

Or, to quote from another actual play post:



pemerton said:


> It then came to the drow sorcerer's turn. In an email a few days ago the player had told me that he had a plan to seal off the Abyssal rift created by the tearing of the Demonwebs and the killing of Lolth
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The drow's turn then came around. He used his move action to fly the Tower up and out of the two zones (darkness and thunder). He then used a minor action to cast Stretch Spell - as written, a range-boosting effect but it seemed fitting, in spirit, to try to extend and compress zones to create a barrier of ultimate, impenetrable entropy. And then he got ready to make his Arcana check as a standard action.
> 
> Now INT is pretty much a dump stat for everyone in the party but the invoker/wizard. In the case of the sorcerer it is 12 - so with training and level, he has an Arcana bonus of +20. So when I stated that the DC was 41, it looked a bit challenging. (It was always going to be a Hard check - if any confirmation was needed, the Rules Compendium suggests that manipulating the energies of a magical phenomenon is a Hard Arcana improvisation.)
> 
> So he started looking around for bonuses. As a chaos mage, he asked whether he could burn healing surges for a bonus on the roll - giving of his very essence. I thought that sounded reasonable, and so allowed 4 surges for +8. Unfortunately he had only 2 surges left, so the other half of the bonus had to come from taking damage equal to his bloodied value - which was OK, as he was currently unbloodied.
> 
> He scraped another +2 from somewhere (I can't remember now), brining the roll needed down to 11. The dice was rolled - and came up 18! So he succeeded in converting his zones of darkness and thunder into a compressed, extended, physically and visually impenetrable entropic barrier, in which time doesn't pass (and hence the effects don't end), sealing off the Abyss at its 66th layer.



The framing establishes the fiction (eg there's a rift in the Abyss; I'm a chaos mage whose very essence might power up entropic effects; etc). The player engages the fiction in declaring the action. The logic of the fiction, plus the result of the check (success or failure) tells us what happens.

If key elements of the fiction are secret from, or not meaningfully knowable, to the player, then (as per Campbell's post that I quoted) s/he can't engage the fiction in the process of declaring his/her PC's action.



billd91 said:


> For the skill challenge with the advisor, the duke, and exposing the advisor's agenda - what skills did you choose to be relevant to the challenge and what effect did you decide they would have? Ultimately, unless you're allowing pretty much anything the PCs choose to try and set the effects in a generic manner, aren't you using some "hidden backstory" to affect the chances of success? Did you pick some skills to be more useful than others in the skill challenge at all?



There's an actual play thread that answers many of these questions. Here is a quote from it:



pemerton said:


> The general pattern involved - Paldemar asking the PCs about their exploits; either the paladin or the sorcerer using Bluff to defuse the question and/or evade revealing various secrets they didn't want Paldemar to know; either the paladin or the wizard then using Diplomacy to try to change the topic of conversation to something else - including the Baron's family history; and Paldemar dragging things back onto the PCs exploits and discoveries over the course of their adventures.
> 
> Following advice given by LostSoul on these boards back in the early days of 4e, my general approach to running the skill challenge was to keep pouring on the pressure, so as to give the players a reason to have their PCs do things. And one particular point of pressure was the dwarf fighter/cleric - in two senses. In story terms, he was the natural focus of the Baron's attention, because the PCs had been presenting him as their leader upon entering the town, and subsequently. And the Baron was treating him as, in effect, a noble peer, "Lord Derrik of the Dwarfholm to the East". And in mechanical terms, he has no training in social skills and a CHA of 10, so putting the pressure on him forced the players to work out how they would save the situation, and stop the Baron inadvertantly, or Paldemar deliberately, leading Derrik into saying or denying something that would give away secrets. (Up until the climax of the challenge, the only skill check that Derriks' player made in contribution to the challenge was an Athletics check - at one point the Baron described himself as a man of action rather than ideas, and Derrik agreed - I let his player make an Athletics check - a very easy check for him with a +15 bonus - to make the fact of agreement contribute mechanically to the party's success in dealing with the situation.)
> 
> Besides the standard skill checks, other strategies were used to defuse the tension at various points. About half way through, the sorcerer - feigning drunkenness with his +20 Bluff bonus - announced "Derrik, it's time to take a piss" - and then led Derrik off to the privy, and then up onto the balcony with the minstrel, so that Paldemar couldn't keep goading and trying to ensnare him. At another point, when the conversation turned to how one might fight a gelatinous cube (Paldemar having explained that he had failed in exploring one particular minotaur ruin because of some cubes, and the PCs not wanting to reveal that they had explored that same ruin after beating the cubes) the sorcerer gave an impromptu demonstration by using Bedevilling Burst to knock over the servants carrying in the jellies for desert. (I as GM had mentioned that desert was being brought in. It was the player who suggested that it should probably include jellies.) That he cast Bedevilling Burst he kept secret (another Bluff check). But he loudly made the point that jellies can be squashed at least as easily as anything else.
> 
> While fresh jellies were prepared, Derrik left the table to give a demonstration of how one might fight oozes using a halberd and fancy footwork. But he then had to return to the table for desert.
> 
> Around this time, the challenge had evolved to a point where one final roll was needed, and 2 failures had been accrued. Paldemar, once again, was badgering Derrik to try to learn the secrets of the minotaur ruins that he was sure the PCs knew. And the _player_ of Derrik was becoming more and more frustrated with the whole situation, declaring (not speaking in character, but speaking from the perspective of his PC) "I'm sick of putting up with this. I want Paldemar to come clean."
> 
> The Baron said to Derrik, "The whole evening, Lord Derrik, it has seemed to me that you are burdened by something. Will you not speak to me?" Derrik got out of his seat and went over to the Baron, knelt beside him, and whispered to him, telling him that out of decorum he would not name anyone, but there was someone close to the Baron who was not what he seemed, and was in fact a villainous leader of the hobgoblin raiders. The Baron asked how he knew this, and Derrik replied that he had seen him flying out of goblin strongholds on his flying carpet. The Baron asked him if he would swear this in Moradin's name. Derrik replied "I swear". At which point the Baron rose from the table and went upstairs to brood on the balcony, near the minstrel.
> 
> With one check still needed to resolve the situation, I had Paldemar turn to Derrik once again, saying "You must have said something very serious, to so upset the Baron." Derrik's player was talking to the other players, and trying to decide what to do. He clearly wanted to fight. I asked him whether he really wanted to provoke Paldemar into attacking him. He said that he did. So he had Derrik reply to Paldemar, 'Yes, I did, Golthar". And made an Intimidate check. Which failed by one. So the skill challenge was over, but a failure - I described Paldemar/Golthar standing up, pickup up his staff from where it leaned against the wall behind him, and walking towards the door.
> 
> Now we use a houserule (perhaps, in light of DMG2, not so much a houserule as a precisification of a suggestion in that book) that a PC can spend an action point to make a secondary check to give another PC a +2 bonus, or a reroll, to a failed check. The player of the wizard PC spent an action point, and called out "Golthar, have you fixed the tear yet in your robe?" - this was a reference to the fact that the PCs had, on a much earlier occasion, found a bit of the hem of Paldemar's robe that had torn off in the ruins when he had had to flee the gelatinous cubes. I can't remember now whether I asked for an Intimidate check, or decided that this was an automatic +2 bonus for Derrik - but in any event, it turned the failure into a success. We ended the session by noting down everyone's location on the map of the Baron's great hall, and making initiative rolls. Next session will begin with the fight against Paldemar (which may or may not evolve into a fight with a catoblepas also - the players are a bit anxious that it may do so).



You'll see that the players declared actions for their PCs: that's their job, not mine. They decide what they think is useful to engage the fiction.

On successes, they succeeded. On failures, I narrated the consequences - eg the advisor walking out rather than responding to the PC's taunt.

The maths of 4e dicatates that most checks will succeed - hence the need, as a GM in a skill challenge, to keep introducing new obstacles, or at least new dimensions to existing obstacles, to ensure that the PCs have reasons to continue to act, and hence the players have reasons to continue to declare actions for their PCs. In the quote you can see an example of that - the advisor saying to Derrik, trying to ridicule and humiliate him, "You must have said something very serious, to so upset the Baron." And you can see how that establishes framing for the final Initimidate check. There is no secret backstory at work.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Yes.
> 
> Here is the action declaration: _I go out to buy some Calimshan silk_.
> 
> Here is the GM's response: _Sorry, there's none available._ Perhaps the GM adds: _You hear rumours that their's turmoil in Calimshan and all their exports have dried up._
> 
> The GM's response is not consequent upon any engaging of the mechanics (in 4e this might be a Streetwise check; in BW it would be a Resources check, potentially augmented by an appropriate knowledge check; in Cortext+/MHRP it would be a spend of a plot point to establish a Resource). It is a narration of failure based on an element of the fiction that has been authored by the GM and is hidden from the player in the framing of the check.



Er...so what?

Every now and then I go to buy milk from the corner store and they're sold out.  I don't get a Streetwise check, or a Resources check*; all that happens is I walk in and there's no damn milk.

* - I suppose these might be analogous to phoning ahead to the store and asking if they have milk in stock before leaving the house, but who does that for something so simple?

Same thing happens with our intrepid wannabe silk-buyer.  He goes to the market looking for Calimshan silk and it's all sold out.  He can dig around and ask why, thus learning of possible upheaval in Calimshan (which as a side note might represent a possible adventure hook), or he can buy a different type of silk, or he can go without for the time being.  But it's not bad DMing in the slightest to have pre-determined there'll be a war in Calimshan starting last winter** that has really messed up their silk trade this summer.

** - and things like this would need to be pre-determined just in case the party had happened to wander over Calimshan way during that time and maybe get caught up in the war.

Lan-"sometimes knowing nothing is much more fun than knowing everything"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> This bit actually sounds almost like what I'd expect in normal D&D.  The DM keeps track of the backstory, keeps it internally consistent and coherent, and draws from it when needed for colour and-or conflict and-or complications.
> 
> However, who sets the backstory in the first place?  The DM?  If so, we're on the same page even if just for a moment.  If not, then who?



By "backstory" in that passage, Eero Tuovinen means _the gameworld_.

So bits of it are authored by the GM outside the context of play.
_I decided to set the game in Hardby, and hence decided that there is a Gynarch._​
Bits of it are colour, authored by the GM as part of the process of play.
_I decided that the merchants tell the PCs that the Gynarch is engaged to be married to Jabal of the Cabal._​
Bits of it are framing, authored by the GM as part of the process of play; some of that framing is the redeployment of past colour.
_The mage PC is at the docks hoping to meet a cleric who will cure his mummy rot. He thinks there should be clerics around, as a famous holy man is arriving to officiate at the Gynarch's wedding._ [That's framing, and it draws on the previously-established bit of colour, namely, that some important personages are to wed.] _I tell the player that, across the crowd of people waiting to greet the abbot's ship, he sees his brother, for the first time in nearly 16 years._ [That's more framing.]​
Bits of it are authored by the players outside the context of play.
_As part of the build of the mage PC, the existence of his balrog-possessed brother, and of the sorcerous cabal, are both established._​
Bits of it are authored by the players as part of the process of the play.
_In the first session, the player of the mage PC declares a Circles check: in the fiction, the mage PC puts out feelers to the cabal, hoping for gainful employment. At the table, the player establishes a few more details about the cabal, including the existence of its leader Jabal._​
Bits of it are authored by the GM as part of the process of narrating failure.
_Early in the first session, a check made to study the magic of a newly-acquired angel feather failed; in the fiction, the mage PC's examination of it revealed it to be cursed. Later on, the Circles check described above failed. So I tell the players, "As you sit waiting in the tavern for word from Jabal, a thuggish-looking figure approaches you . . ." - and go on to explain how Jabal's servitor Athog brings them a message from Jabal, that they are to leave town immediately as they are bearers of a curse._ [Note how the narration of the later failure weaves in the fiction established in the narration of the earlier failure.]​
There is no single person whose job it is to author all of the backstory. And there is no single time at which this is done: not in practice, and not in principle. *Playing the game produces new fiction, and establishes new "facts" about the gameworld*.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Another possibility is that the fate of the king and/or the assassin doesn't emerge in the course of play, but rather is used by the GM as an element of secret backstory to adjudicate player action declarations: for instance, the PCs reach out to the court because they are concerned about something-or-other, but are rebuffed for no evident reason - at the table, the GM simply declares the attempt a failure without reference to the action resolution mechanics. The GM's reason for this - which (it being secret) the players don't know - is that the king was recently assassinated by someone from the same hometown as the PCs, and that has put all the people of that town under a cloud.
> 
> Now we have the sort of situation [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] described above, where the players either choose for their PCs to abandon their attempt to reach out to the court, or else think of ways to try to learn why they were rebuffed, follow them up, try to remove the stain on the townsfolk, etc. That sort of thing is, to me, a hallmark of GM-driven RPGing. But it is not characterised simply by the GM determining what happens with the assassin and the king while the PCs are otherwise occupied. It is about the use of that secret backstory as a device to resolve action declarations without reference to the mechanical procedures.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What I simply cannot grasp is why you - or anyone - would think this is wrong.
Click to expand...


I don't think it's _wrong_. It's just that it's pretty much the opposite of what I want out of RPGin



Lanefan said:


> Their attempt to reach out to the court fails for no obvious reason*.  OK, so look for the non-obvious reason(s).  Ask.  Dig.  Turn some rocks over and see what's under 'em.  Break a few heads.  Pay some bribes.  But - if access to the court is that important - *do something*!
> 
> * - and if someone says "fails for no obvious reason" equates to being railroaded without doing anything else, I have no sympathy whatsoever.



What the players are doing here is trying to solve the mystery posed by the GM: _I have something written in my notes - a bit of fiction that explains why the court rebuffed you_. And now the players are doing stuff, and having their PCs do stuff, to try and learn that fiction. As I posted upthread in reply to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], it's puzzle-solving.

I'm not interested in it.



Lanefan said:


> Then be a player!  You can play-to-find-out all you like when someone else has the helm.



The players in the scenario just described aren't _playing to find out_ in the salient sense. Here's the relevant passage from the DungeonWorld rulebook, p 161 (note that it's addressed to GMs):

Your agenda makes up the things you aim to do at all times while GMing a game of Dungeon World:

• Portray a fantastic world
• Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
• Play to find out what happens

Everything you say and do at the table (and away from the table, too) exists to accomplish these three goals and no others. Things that aren’t on this list aren’t your goals. You’re not trying to beat the players or test their ability to solve complex traps. You’re not here to give the players a chance to explore your finely crafted setting. You’re not trying to kill the players (though monsters might be). You’re most certainly not here to tell everyone a planned-out story.

Your first agenda is to *portray a fantastic world*. . . Show the players the wonders of the world they’re in and encourage them to react to it.

*Filling the characters’ lives with adventure* means working with the players to create a world that’s engaging and dynamic. . . .

Dungeon World adventures *never *presume player actions. A Dungeon World adventure portrays a setting in motion—someplace significant with creatures big and small pursuing their own goals. As the players come into conflict with that setting and its denizens, action is inevitable. You’ll honestly portray the repercussions of that action.

This is how you *play to find out what happens*. You’re sharing in the fun of finding out how the characters react to and change the world you’re portraying. You’re all participants in a great adventure that’s unfolding. So really, don’t plan too hard. The rules of the game will fight you.​
Whereas in the scenarios that you (Lanefan) and Maxperson describe, the GM already knows what has happened. S/he hasn't worked with the players to create the world, but has authored this bit of it unilaterally. And s/he hasn't _portrayed_ that bit of the world, either. S/he's kept it secret.

As I said, it's not really something I'm interested in.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Every now and then I go to buy milk from the corner store and they're sold out.  I don't get a Streetwise check, or a Resources check*; all that happens is I walk in and there's no damn milk.



This doesn't make sense.

You're not a character in a game. Your "story" is not being authored by anyone. (Not in any literal sense, at least.)

When playing a RPG, though, how do we _know_ that the shop has no milk? One way is for the GM to stipulate. Another is for the player to make an appropriate check, and if the check fails then perhaps the narration of that failure is that the shop is out of milk.

That is why this issue has nothing to do with _realism_. "Realism" is a property of the fiction - do people sometimes fail to find the goods they're looking for? But what this discussion is about is _the process, at a table of RPG players, for determining when such an event might occur_.



Lanefan said:


> not bad DMing in the slightest to have pre-determined there'll be a war in Calimshan starting last winter**
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ** - and things like this would need to be pre-determined just in case the party had happened to wander over Calimshan way during that time and maybe get caught up in the war.



 (1) Things like this don't need to be pre-determined. It can be worked out any number of other ways:

* The GM might make something up on the spot;

* The GM might roll on a random table (AD&D used to be big on these; so is Classic Traveller);

* A player might says "Haven't I heard rumour of war in Calimshan" and then roll some appropriate skill (say, History in 4e; or Calimshan-wise or Campaign-wise in BW);

* Etc.​
(2) I have not said a single thing about *bad* GMing. That is a concept that you,  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] have used.

I am talking about various techniques, and why I do or don't like them in my RPGing.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> You are midsescribing the consequence. The familiar was not killed, to respawn after a short rest. The familiar was shut down until the PC performed a ritual to remove Vecna's influence over his Eye, and hence over the familiar. The PC was able to do this once the PCs had defeated an Aspect of Vecna. Looking at the date stamps for the respective posts, that's about 3 months later, which would be in the neighbourhood of half-a-dozen sessions.




Apologies. Re-looking at that thread, at the time you had stated that the period for which the familiar was shut down was undefined/undetermined. You really did not hint it would be as much as 3 months (refer below). 



> You really think shutting down one feat for an encounter or so (the full duration hasn't been specified, but the minimum of an encounter has been flagged) is the equivalent of draining a level or stripping a paladin of paladinhood? Within the 4e framework it's not as severe as many diseases (which can weaken until the next extended rest, for instance).





Out of interest sake, the idea of how to reactivate the familiar was something you came up with or was it an idea by the player?



> In the thread that   @_*Sadras*_ is recalling this episode from, the general view of other posters (I can't remember what Sadras's particular view was) was that, so far from _softaballing_, it was unfair to impose such a consequence on a player in the context of a _success_ - ie a successful check in a skill challenge that allowed diverting the souls from Vecna to the Raven Queen.
> 
> They also thought it was unfair to impose a consequence which the rules of the game don't expressly provide for (ie there is no formally-defined  _your familiar is shut down beyond the duration of a short rest_ condition).




To be fair, the thread in question had to do with alignment. The penalty consequence that you imposed was not so much that it was unfair but what it implied for your position and the greater topic of the conversation if it was/or was not prescribed through the RAW with regards to the skill mechanic (at least from the perspective of the posters in disagreement with you).

For those interested the thread in question is here. My link starts from page 65.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> (2) I have not said a single thing about *bad* GMing. That is a concept that you,  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] and  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] have used.
> 
> I am talking about various techniques, and why I do or don't like them in my RPGing.



Let's be honest, now.  You present techniques you dislike in the worst ways possible and always find examples to showcase it poorly, but you immediately retreat to how you used your preferred methods in an awesome way so any complaint can't be true because that's not how you used it, just look at these examples!


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Yes.
> 
> Here is the action declaration: _I go out to buy some Calimshan silk_.
> 
> Here is the GM's response: _Sorry, there's none available._ Perhaps the GM adds: _You hear rumours that their's turmoil in Calimshan and all their exports have dried up._
> 
> The GM's response is not consequent upon any engaging of the mechanics (in 4e this might be a Streetwise check; in BW it would be a Resources check, potentially augmented by an appropriate knowledge check; in Cortext+/MHRP it would be a spend of a plot point to establish a Resource). It is a narration of failure based on an element of the fiction that has been authored by the GM and is hidden from the player in the framing of the check.



What if the DM instead responded:  'As you look through the market, you do not see any Calisham silks on display.  You overhear a few merchants saying that the troubles in Calimsham have severely reduced trade out of Calmisham.  You realize that if you want some Calimsham silks, you'll have to scrounge a bit harder."  Now, instead of the player just buying some silks in the market, it's a skill challenge to negotiate some silks that a merchant is hoarding, or buying on the black market, as smugglers aren't having as much trouble getting goods out, or whatever.  You, once again, frame a technique as having only one, negative result.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> And some of the conflict can come from within - even friends fall out now and then, and who says they'll all become or end up as friends in the first place.
> 
> Lanefan




What!?! No Lan- Master of the witty catchphrase - efan signature?


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Well, this relates to the point   [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] made upthread:
> 
> Namely, is the penalty known or knowable via engaging the situation, as part of the process of resolution before the penalty that follows from the secret backstory actually makes its impact on the outcome of resolution?
> 
> I also think that Campbell's adverb _meaningful_ is carrying a fair bit of weight hear. What is _meaningful_, in the context of play, is not subject to unilateral determination by the GM. To quote Campbell again,




I don't think he meant that it was not subject to unilateral determination by the DM.  He says the bolded as well.

"*I think there is some room for fiction unknown to players to impact resolution.* I do not like characterizing some fiction as backstory and other fiction as fiction. It's all fiction to me regardless of when it happened. However, it must be meaningfully knowable through skilled play of the fiction and mechanisms provided before it impacts resolution."

To me that says that the DM can in fact unilaterally determine the result through fiction unknown to the players.  I do agree that the key to that is the phrase "meaningfully knowable.".  He goes on to describe achieving that knowledge as through skilled play and mechanisms.  

What I think he means is something along the lines of the following.  Perhaps the evil(alignment unknown) local lord is going to have a statue smashing contest in 3 days. While in town the PCs hear about villagers going missing.  If they investigate(skilled play of the fiction), they will likely come across a man who reports seeing a woman in the woods who he saw fro behind while hiding in a hunting blind.  She turned a wolf he was about to kill into a stone statue and left it there in the woods when she left.  

That skilled play would lead to the reveal of a medusa, which when put together with the missing villagers and the statue contest would let the PCs know that the statues were likely the missing villagers(hidden back story).  One of the PCs loves art and looks at the statues on the day of the contest to see if he can determine the artist and rolls quite high.  The DM tells him he failed(there's hidden back story) if they did not bother to investigate.  

In the above example, if I'm understanding [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] correctly, he would be okay with that unilateral determination, because there was ample opportunity for the players to discover that backstory prior to the check.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> By "backstory" in that passage, Eero Tuovinen means _the gameworld_.
> 
> So bits of it are authored by the GM outside the context of play.
> _I decided to set the game in Hardby, and hence decided that there is a Gynarch._​
> Bits of it are colour, authored by the GM as part of the process of play.
> _I decided that the merchants tell the PCs that the Gynarch is engaged to be married to Jabal of the Cabal._​
> Bits of it are framing, authored by the GM as part of the process of play; some of that framing is the redeployment of past colour.
> _The mage PC is at the docks hoping to meet a cleric who will cure his mummy rot. He thinks there should be clerics around, as a famous holy man is arriving to officiate at the Gynarch's wedding._ [That's framing, and it draws on the previously-established bit of colour, namely, that some important personages are to wed.] _I tell the player that, across the crowd of people waiting to greet the abbot's ship, he sees his brother, for the first time in nearly 16 years._ [That's more framing.]​
> Bits of it are authored by the players outside the context of play.
> _As part of the build of the mage PC, the existence of his balrog-possessed brother, and of the sorcerous cabal, are both established._​
> Bits of it are authored by the players as part of the process of the play.
> _In the first session, the player of the mage PC declares a Circles check: in the fiction, the mage PC puts out feelers to the cabal, hoping for gainful employment. At the table, the player establishes a few more details about the cabal, including the existence of its leader Jabal._​
> Bits of it are authored by the GM as part of the process of narrating failure.
> _Early in the first session, a check made to study the magic of a newly-acquired angel feather failed; in the fiction, the mage PC's examination of it revealed it to be cursed. Later on, the Circles check described above failed. So I tell the players, "As you sit waiting in the tavern for word from Jabal, a thuggish-looking figure approaches you . . ." - and go on to explain how Jabal's servitor Athog brings them a message from Jabal, that they are to leave town immediately as they are bearers of a curse._ [Note how the narration of the later failure weaves in the fiction established in the narration of the earlier failure.]​
> There is no single person whose job it is to author all of the backstory. And there is no single time at which this is done: not in practice, and not in principle. *Playing the game produces new fiction, and establishes new "facts" about the gameworld*.
> 
> I don't think it's _wrong_. It's just that it's pretty much the opposite of what I want out of RPGin
> 
> What the players are doing here is trying to solve the mystery posed by the GM: _I have something written in my notes - a bit of fiction that explains why the court rebuffed you_. And now the players are doing stuff, and having their PCs do stuff, to try and learn that fiction. As I posted upthread in reply to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], it's puzzle-solving.
> 
> I'm not interested in it.
> 
> The players in the scenario just described aren't _playing to find out_ in the salient sense. Here's the relevant passage from the DungeonWorld rulebook, p 161 (note that it's addressed to GMs):
> 
> Your agenda makes up the things you aim to do at all times while GMing a game of Dungeon World:
> 
> • Portray a fantastic world
> • Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
> • Play to find out what happens
> 
> Everything you say and do at the table (and away from the table, too) exists to accomplish these three goals and no others. Things that aren’t on this list aren’t your goals. You’re not trying to beat the players or test their ability to solve complex traps. You’re not here to give the players a chance to explore your finely crafted setting. You’re not trying to kill the players (though monsters might be). You’re most certainly not here to tell everyone a planned-out story.​





I think, upon reflection, that what happens here is survivor bias.  You present the method as if it always produces relevant and useful backstory because you end up with a story at the end that can clearly trace it's way through all of these bits of story created using your method, so it appears that the method itself always produces the correct outcomes:  a good, well integrated story.  But this is ignoring all of the chaff that's created and discarded or forgotten or ignored.  As you yourself said, you don't have to look up what happened in game 4 years ago because it's always been relevant and at the forefront because it's become part of the ongoing story.  But, dollars to donuts, things were authored into the fiction 4 years ago that haven't made it and you don't remember until you look at it.  The difference there is that you don't care about those tidbits -- they can be overwritten because no one recalls them as important anyway (I believe something exactly like this was presented earlier in the thread).  But, again, this leads to a false positive for your style because you aren't actually honoring ALL of the fiction created, just the bits that end up mattering because the players and/or GM latch onto them.  Therefore, those are the only tidbits that 'survive' the gameplay, and you then base your final determination only on those survivors.  In reality, lots gets thrown at the fan during play, but not all of it makes it.

So, the difference here seems that in a DM driven game, those bits are retained, but need to be teased out by reviewing old gameplay or notes, whereas in player driven games those bits are discarded and might as well never exist.  Your examples about the Elf and the watering hole, for instance.  Had a player never presented the idea that the Elf stole the mace, that was a throwaway bit that wouldn't have made it into your ongoing story.  But, since a player did add it in, the Elf becomes a survivor, and is retroactively classified as emergent foreshadowing of future gameplay.  Had the elf not, well, then, it would just be forgotten and become unimportant and never referenced.  It would never have 'survived' to be lauded as an example of great gameplay.  And, I'm sure there's lots of such examples, hence the classification of survivor bias -- judging something only by those examples that survive and succeed, and forgetting all of the bits and pieces that didn't.​


----------



## TwoSix

Ovinomancer said:


> Let's be honest, now.  You present techniques you dislike in the worst ways possible and always find examples to showcase it poorly, but you immediately retreat to how you used your preferred methods in an awesome way so any complaint can't be true because that's not how you used it, just look at these examples!



So, just so I'm clear, you're accusing [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] of being disingenuous because he doesn't choose to advocate positively for a play style he doesn't enjoy?


----------



## TwoSix

Ilbranteloth said:


> Which is all well and good, assuming that's the way you want to play the game. And I think that's what bothers a lot of RPG players too - they don't like somebody else telling them how to play the game.



I think part of the problem is that when players get introduced to a new RPG, they expect the games to exhibit a greater commonality than they actually share.  Playing BW, or Apocalypse World, or Fiasco is very different from D&D; a lot of the skills one might have learned playing D&D simply aren't going to translate.  It's like expecting your Monopoly skills to carry over to a game of Twilight Struggle, or your Call of Duty experience to make you better at Street Fighter, or expecting being skilled at golf to help you play basketball better.  

Of course, you're also correct that a lot of modern games DO explicitly tell players the best way to play them, it was a explicit design ethos in reaction to players attempting to shift classic games into different paradigms and then complaining about how difficult it was to achieve the expected play style.  (The classic example being D&D 2e's stated intent for players to focus on story and characterization, when the mechanics were still that of a dungeon-crawling player-skill based wargame.)


----------



## tomBitonti

Maxperson said:


> I don't think he meant that it was not subject to unilateral determination by the DM.  He says the bolded as well.
> 
> "*I think there is some room for fiction unknown to players to impact resolution.* I do not like characterizing some fiction as backstory and other fiction as fiction. It's all fiction to me regardless of when it happened. However, it must be meaningfully knowable through skilled play of the fiction and mechanisms provided before it impacts resolution."
> 
> To me that says that the DM can in fact unilaterally determine the result through fiction unknown to the players.  I do agree that the key to that is the phrase "meaningfully knowable.".  He goes on to describe achieving that knowledge as through skilled play and mechanisms.
> 
> What I think he means is something along the lines of the following.  Perhaps the evil(alignment unknown) local lord is going to have a statue smashing contest in 3 days. While in town the PCs hear about villagers going missing.  If they investigate(skilled play of the fiction), they will likely come across a man who reports seeing a woman in the woods who he saw fro behind while hiding in a hunting blind.  She turned a wolf he was about to kill into a stone statue and left it there in the woods when she left.
> 
> That skilled play would lead to the reveal of a medusa, which when put together with the missing villagers and the statue contest would let the PCs know that the statues were likely the missing villagers(hidden back story).  One of the PCs loves art and looks at the statues on the day of the contest to see if he can determine the artist and rolls quite high.  The DM tells him he failed(there's hidden back story) if they did not bother to investigate.
> 
> In the above example, if I'm understanding [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] correctly, he would be okay with that unilateral determination, because there was ample opportunity for the players to discover that backstory prior to the check.




I'm taking as the failure the result of the roll to determine the artist -- which must fail because there was none.  This seems more a problem of how the result was described.  If we adjust the check slightly, to "the statues are amazingly lifelike.  Of the many artists you have studied, none have produced works of this sort," then the result is no longer clearly a failure.

But, on the small scale, failures of this sort happen *all* the time.  Players have incomplete or inaccurate information.  What they attemp is often simply impossible given the true situation.

Somehow *secret backstory* has morphed into a nefarious GM device, which seems wrong given the usual information asymmetry of most RPG play.

That's not say the GM can't abuse the backstory to screw over the players.  I would say that is just bad GMing.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Let's be honest, now.  You present techniques you dislike in the worst ways possible and always find examples to showcase it poorly!



I've provided very few examples of other techniques.

But the one about the attempt to reach out to the court, and failing for reasons of secret backstory, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] embraced.

The one about the attempt to separate the baron from his advisor being foiled by an unknown fact of kidnapping was embraced by [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].

And the one about no Calimshani silk being available due to off-screen turmoil was embraced by both [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]. And you gave XP to billd91's post embracing it!

How are these presenting "secret backstory" techniques in the worst way possible? And if so, why are those who like to use secret backstory in their games embracing them?


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> So, just so I'm clear, you're accusing  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] of being disingenuous because he doesn't choose to advocate positively for a play style he doesn't enjoy?




No it's that he presents a playstyle he doesn't choose to enjoy in an almost universally negative light while presenting his chosen style in a purely positive light... for comparison and discussion purposes at least that is a disingenuous.  Now if we are debating or proselytizing our playstyles I guess it would be fine... but [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] keeps claiming that's not what he's here for.


----------



## TwoSix

Imaro said:


> No it's that he presents a playstyle he doesn't choose to enjoy in an almost universally negative light while presenting his chosen style in a purely positive light... for comparison and discussion purposes at least that is a disingenuous.  Now if we are debating or proselytizing our playstyles I guess it would be fine... but  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] keeps claiming that's not what he's here for.



Well, I think a touch of advocacy (or proselytizing) factors into it.  I mean, personally, the reason I've tried games like FATE and Fiasco and Burning Wheel, and I learned to love 4e is because of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s explanations of those play styles way back during the release of 4e.  

I mean, let's face it, D&D is still the touchstone of RPGs, and DM-driven exploration of a DM-created backstory(or sandbox) is still the default way to play D&D.  Your playstyle (and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] et al) hardly needs any advocacy!  We all know how to play that way.  It's the newer, alternate methods of RPGing that need exposure and advocacy, and simply more people to explain how they work and how trying some of those methods may make your game better.  (Or not, of course.)


----------



## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> Well, I think a touch of advocacy (or proselytizing) factors into it.  I mean, personally, the reason I've tried games like FATE and Fiasco and Burning Wheel, and I learned to love 4e is because of @_*pemerton*_'s explanations of those play styles way back during the release of 4e.




A touch is fine but when you claim your style has no drawbacks and you paint another playstyle as almost universally negative... it goes beyond a touch.  That tells me you aren't even interested in gleaning something from or trying to understand the other playstyle (which probably isn't a good thing if you want those who enjoy it to give yours a fair shake) only extol the virtues of your own. 



TwoSix said:


> I mean, let's face it, D&D is still the touchstone of RPGs, and DM-driven exploration of a DM-created backstory(or sandbox) is still the default way to play D&D.  Your playstyle (and @_*Maxperson*_, @_*Lanefan*_ et al) hardly needs any advocacy!  We all know how to play that way.  It's the newer, alternate methods of RPGing that need exposure and advocacy, and simply more people to explain how they work and how trying some of those methods may make your game better.  (Or not, of course.)




And yet by all accounts it shouldn't be since player driven has no drawbacks... so why is it that it still remains a niche within a niche?  See to me exploring both the positive and negative inherent in that question is more interesting than you lecturing me on why your style is the greatest.


----------



## Ovinomancer

TwoSix said:


> So, just so I'm clear, you're accusing [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] of being disingenuous because he doesn't choose to advocate positively for a play style he doesn't enjoy?




Just so you're clear:  no.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I've provided very few examples of other techniques.
> 
> But the one about the attempt to reach out to the court, and failing for reasons of secret backstory, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] embraced.
> 
> The one about the attempt to separate the baron from his advisor being foiled by an unknown fact of kidnapping was embraced by [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].
> 
> And the one about no Calimshani silk being available due to off-screen turmoil was embraced by both [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]. And you gave XP to billd91's post embracing it!
> 
> How are these presenting "secret backstory" techniques in the worst way possible? And if so, why are those who like to use secret backstory in their games embracing them?




No, I gave XP to billd91 for his excellent question.  You need to recalibrate what XP means -- it isn't full agreement with a post, it's a mark of appreciation for something in the post.  I give XP to people who's arguments I don't agree with if they make an excellent argument or provide an insight I hadn't considered before.  XP does not mean agreement.

But, to your first line, sure, very few, but all negative.  That someone else liked that interpretation doesn't remove the fact that you provided a negative interpretation.  Further, someone liking it (or, as I've read it, trying to provide an alternative reading) doesn't validate your presentation as authoritative or even normative.  

In example, I like "secret backstory", which is really just DM authored fiction that the players haven't uncovered yet.  But I do not use it as you suggest to negate player intent without their knowledge.  If the players wish to engage a King, then relevant information is provided, through rumor or framing.  If I've set up a King who's afraid of frogs, and the players are aware that there's a Royal decree for frogcatchers, and there's a large bounty on frogs in the city, and there are rumors of a mummer's troop arrested and jailed for playing 'the Princess and the Frog', then when the players show up for the masquerade ball in frog costumes, I don't feel it's too secret anymore when the King shrieks and orders their arrest.  In this way, preauthored backstory that isn't based on the player actions can frame a game nicely without engaging in your boogeyman of negating player intent without their knowledge.

Similarly, snap judgement in a situation about what's present is neither secret backstory nor railroading, in and of itself.  Deciding that there are no bowls in a room is just fine without a roll, so long as the DM has done so with a reason for the lack of bowls that makes sense and could be understood in the gameworld. Not based on secret backstory, but on presented and predictable information.  Personally, it would be obvious to me that some kind of container would be available in a room, from decorative vases to a washing bowl to leftover dinner trays to chamber pots.  The need to test to determine bits of framing seems odd to me, and I've played in player-centric games.  "Is there a bowl" is a question of framing for me, not an essential test.  The essential test to me would be, upon grabbing the bowl, if I can actually catch enough blood.  That makes the test about the PC doing something in line with the player intent, and not about a piece of the background.

So, then, I suppose my question here at the end, is why did you pick finding a container to be the crux of the scene instead of whether or not the PC could, with a container, actually collect sufficient blood?  It seems you made a DM judgement to "say yes" to catching blood once you finished testing for the presence of a bowl.  Would it not have been the same, and possibly even better since it's testing PC ability, to test to catch the blood after "say(ing) yes' to the presence of a bowl?

it appears that there's multiple ways to skin this cat.  The 'yes bowl, test catch' method works just fine with DM judgement and secret backstory, AND with the player-centric principles you've proposed.  The 'test bowl, yes catch' seems odd, in that it's focusing on the presence of a bowl rather than PC action.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> This is not right, though. You are ignoring framing, and assuming that everything is the consequence of checks. But there can be no checks without framing - without fiction to engage. In the sort of RPGing that I prefer, it is the GM's job to provide that framing, that is, to establish the relevant fiction.
> 
> [The GM's] job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . . Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character.​
> _Keeping track of the backstory_ is integral to framing scenes that introduce complications and provoke choices. As a GM, I am almost always giving thought to elements of the fiction with which the PCs are not currently engaged: these (i) are constraints on permissible new fiction (because of the demands of coherence, both ingame causal consistency and gente/thematic consistency); and (ii) are the material from which scenes are framed, from which complications are drawn, which are explicitly or implicitly at stake when choices are made.




I'm not trying to ignore anything. My sense of Framing is that this is where the GM places the PCs at the start of a game or session, correct? And the GM draws upon the established fiction of the game world, correct? But the GM does not have any secret backstory to draw from....so he is drawing everything from what has been established by the players' actions, right? 

Let me ask you flat out, because there seem to be contradictory elements in your descriptions and it's certainly possible I have missed something, but does the GM ever create elements of the game entirely on his own? If you've already answered this elsewhere, then my apologies, please do me the courtesy of repeating yourself rather than referring to a post upthread. 



pemerton said:


> Assassination of the king is no different, for present purposes, from the Gynarch becoming engaged to be married. It is simply not true to say that this would be introduced only as a result of PC action.
> 
> And to say that it would be introduced only in response to player choice is also to put things too narrowly: the presence in the fiction of the leader of the cabal is a response to a player choice (about PC story and mechanical elements, which have subsequently been deployed in play) but that is not true of the Gynarch.




So the GM can simply decide that an assassin is out to kill the king? Can he also establish who the assassin works for and why that person wants the king dead? 




pemerton said:


> If the GM is doing this in his/her own time, and simply making notes in a folder headed "Campaign Record", then - at that point - it is not even clear what it would mean to say that it is part of the shared fiction. Who is it shared with?




Well there are two ways this could factor in. The first would be the GM deciding, when the PCs don't pursue the assassin, "okay, here's what happens as a result....I'll make a note of it in case it matters later on". The second would be the Gm deciding later on when it does in fact come into play what had happened with the king and the assassin. 




pemerton said:


> Another possibility is that the fate of the king and/or the assassin doesn't emerge in the course of play, but rather is used by the GM as an element of secret backstory to adjudicate player action declarations: for instance, the PCs reach out to the court because they are concerned about something-or-other, but are rebuffed for no evident reason - at the table, the GM simply declares the attempt a failure without reference to the action resolution mechanics. The GM's reason for this - which (it being secret) the players don't know - is that the king was recently assassinated by someone from the same hometown as the PCs, and that has put all the people of that town under a cloud.




But why would the GM have the PCs' attempt to reach the court rebuffed without explaining why? You seem to attribute some need for secrecy here on the part of the GM, but I cannot see why. Perhaps such an attempt is rebuffed, but the PCs find out it's because the king was killed....and they then recall that time when they had learned that an assassin may have been after the king, but they did nothing.....




pemerton said:


> Are you able to explain this further, because at the moment I can't see it.
> 
> Every adventure path I'm familiar with violates (ii) - the gameworld, in respect of geography, past and future history, etc is pre-authored independently of any concerns/interests of the players as manifested through creation and play of their PCs. They also generally violate (iii): eg they contain advice like "If the BBEG is killed, then a lieutenant takes over the reins and continues the plot", which is a disregard of success; and they often involve softballing failure, as well, in order to keep things moving. For instance, there will be redundancies built into the storyline to ensure that the players get the clues regardless of whether their action declarations succeed or fail. These can also lead to violations of (i), if the manipulation of the fiction used to manage the unfolding of the AP requires introducing material that, while technically consistent with the established fiction, is at odds with its spirit or seeming trajectory.




Here are the three elements as you originally presented them:
 (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play
 (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs
 (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution

I decide I am going to run the Tyranny of Dragons Adventure Path. I discuss this with my players. Each of them creates a Forgotten Realms character for the game. Each of them creates ties to the Sword Coast region. For additional investment, I look at the ideas they come up with, and I take elements from the Adventure Path, and tie them to the characters. Then we play the game and I let things play out as they would based on the performance of the PCs. 

It seems that this game fits all the criteria you've cited. This is why I don't agree with your assessment that these elements are closely tied to a "Player Driven" technique so much as they are just sound ways to GM a game. 




pemerton said:


> My response to this would be - have you tried it? That is to say, have you actually run a game in which, as a GM, (i) your role is to frame the PCs (and thereby) the players into situations that (a) engage their expressed concerns/dramatic needs, and thereby (b) force choices, which (ii) are then resolved via the mechanics (without recourse to secret backstory) in such a way as to produce outcomes in the fiction that are then binding on all participants, and (iii) that - if failures - conform in their content to framing constraints (a) and (b)?




Have I done solely that? No. Have I done exactly that at times? Yes. 

As I said earlier in the thread, there is no reason that a GM's desires for the game cannot be in harmony with that of the players. So the presence of a "secret backstory" or metaplot does not mean that it has to be used as a cudgel to thwart PC choice and force the game in a specific direction. 




pemerton said:


> It's nothing to do with the GM running amok. In every episode of play and campaign I have referenced in this thread I've been the GM, and I'm not worried that I am going to run amok!
> 
> It's about what I want to get out of RPGing. To borrow a slogan, I want to play to find out. That is inconsistent with deciding ahead of time what can and/or does happen. And I mean that in the expansive sense that darkbard has nicely explained:
> 
> In that sort of game, the GM is finding out how the players get from A to Z; while the players have the double-puzzle of (1) finding out what Z is (some GMs, and some published adventures, make this inordinately hard), and then (2) working out a viable path from A to Z. This is not the sort of thing I enjoy in RPGing.




Sure, but that slogan in this case has a very specific definition. And I don't agree with that definition. Looking just at the words "Play to find out" and thinking of them not as a slogan with a specific meaning, but rather just as a description, I absolutely play to find out. 




pemerton said:


> I just replied to a post by [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] where he posited that few would regard the use of secret backstory to resolve action declarations as a positive thing, but here (as far as I can tell), you are advocating exactly that! (And hawkeyfan has XPed your post.)
> 
> I mean, that's what "indirect impact" means, isn't it? (Eg the PCs look for Calimshani silks at the market, but can't find any - no dice being rolled - because the GM knows that, "offscreen", Calimshan is in turmoil and all the silk looms have been destroyed. Or that sort of thing.)




First off, granting XP does not have to mean "I agree fully with this statement in all ways!"

Second, I don't think that [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]'s use of the Forgotten Realms as an example of how fictional elements can indirectly affect play is the same as your "secret backstory" point. There's no reason such information must be secret. 




TwoSix said:


> Well, I think a touch of advocacy (or proselytizing) factors into it.  I mean, personally, the reason I've tried games like FATE and Fiasco and Burning Wheel, and I learned to love 4e is because of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s explanations of those play styles way back during the release of 4e.
> 
> I mean, let's face it, D&D is still the touchstone of RPGs, and DM-driven exploration of a DM-created backstory(or sandbox) is still the default way to play D&D.  Your playstyle (and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] et al) hardly needs any advocacy!  We all know how to play that way.  It's the newer, alternate methods of RPGing that need exposure and advocacy, and simply more people to explain how they work and how trying some of those methods may make your game better.  (Or not, of course.)




I don't know that the methods are all that new. I think games designed with mechanics in mind to enforce those methods are what's new. 

And whether such mechanics or methods would make a game better or not is subjective. For people to decide if such methods would help their game or hurt it, it would also help to be able to discuss the drawbacks of those methods or mechanics, right?


----------



## pemerton

I'm not really getting the drawbacks thing.

Someone goes onto a puzzle hobbies site and posts "I really like doing crosswords!" And then some other poster says, "I prefer sudoku. What are the drawbacks of doing crosswords?"

It's a strange question. What's the answer meant to be? "Well, they invovle words, not numbers, so aren't so good if you prefer numbers to words." But presumably that's self-evident.

"It's hard to do a crossword at the same time as taking a shower." But that's true of sudoku also.

I don't really get what the question is asking. I mean, I don't regard it as a drawback of playing RPGs the way I like to that the players don't get the chance to figure out the GM's nifty plot, because _that's not something I enjoy in RPGing_.

EDITED to add:

Other posters like different things in their RPGing. And some posters (eg [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], etc) are posting about that, and giving examples that show how the techniques they prefer lead to RPGing that they've enjoyed.

Keept it up! And if anyone else wants to post about how their preferred technique has given them awesome gaming, then that's what the thread is for (to stay on topic, I guess with some reference to the role that GM judgement calls played in delivering the awesome).


----------



## pemerton

tomBitonti said:


> Somehow *secret backstory* has morphed into a nefarious GM device, which seems wrong given the usual information asymmetry of most RPG play.
> 
> That's not say the GM can't abuse the backstory to screw over the players.  I would say that is just bad GMing.



The only posters who are suggesting that it is a "nefarious device" are the ones who are defending it!

I've never said that it's a nefarious device. I'vd just said that I don't like it. It is an element in RPGing-as-puzzle-solving - in essence, the players trying to learn what is written in the GM's notes - and I don't enjoy that as a player and enjoy it even less as a GM.


----------



## tomBitonti

pemerton said:


> The only posters who are suggesting that it is a "nefarious device" are the ones who are defending it!
> 
> I've never said that it's a nefarious device. I'vd just said that I don't like it. It is an element in RPGing-as-puzzle-solving - in essence, the players trying to learn what is written in the GM's notes - and I don't enjoy that as a player and enjoy it even less as a GM.




Nefarious was too strong, then.

I am confused about where to delineate simple unknowns: the actual type of a creature that a player encounters; that a barmaid is planning to elope with the mayor's son in a fortnight; that a fellow player is planning to sneak behind some nobles to overhear their conversation -- from hidden story points: The nephew of the baron whom the PCs plan to rescue has been possessed by a demon.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> you paint another playstyle as almost universally negative



You think that GM's secret backstory is an important part of GMing, right? That sometimes it's appropriate for a GM to declaring an action declaration fails by dint of some consideration in the fiction that the players weren't aware of and couldn't be expected to know.

You also don't like resoltuion systems that deliver finality in non-combat conflicts - that came out in the discussion of the advisor example.

All I've said about these matters is that I don't share your preferences. How is that painting it as "universally negative"?


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> I'm not really getting the drawbacks thing.
> 
> Someone goes onto a puzzle hobbies site and posts "I really like doing crosswords!" And then some other poster says, "I prefer sudoku. What are the drawbacks of doing crosswords?"
> 
> It's a strange question. What's the answer meant to be? "Well, they invovle words, not numbers, so aren't so good if you prefer numbers to words." But presumably that's self-evident.
> 
> "It's hard to do a crossword at the same time as taking a shower." But that's true of sudoku also.
> 
> I don't really get what the question is asking. I mean, I don't regard it as a drawback of playing RPGs the way I like to that the players don't get the chance to figure out the GM's nifty plot, because _that's not something I enjoy in RPGing_.




This actually clarifies a great deal.  Thank you.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> You think that GM's secret backstory is an important part of GMing, right? That sometimes it's appropriate for a GM to declaring an action declaration fails by dint of some consideration in the fiction that the players weren't aware of and couldn't be expected to know.
> 
> You also don't like resoltuion systems that deliver finality in non-combat conflicts - that came out in the discussion of the advisor example.
> 
> All I've said about these matters is that I don't share your preferences. How is that painting it as "universally negative"?




The universal negative here is that you continue to conflate "secret backstory" with denying player action declarations because of things they don't know.  These are not synonymous, nor is the former sufficient for the latter.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> By "backstory" in that passage, Eero Tuovinen means _the gameworld_.
> 
> So bits of it are authored by the GM outside the context of play.
> _I decided to set the game in Hardby, and hence decided that there is a Gynarch._​
> Bits of it are colour, authored by the GM as part of the process of play.
> _I decided that the merchants tell the PCs that the Gynarch is engaged to be married to Jabal of the Cabal._​
> Bits of it are framing, authored by the GM as part of the process of play; some of that framing is the redeployment of past colour.
> _The mage PC is at the docks hoping to meet a cleric who will cure his mummy rot. He thinks there should be clerics around, as a famous holy man is arriving to officiate at the Gynarch's wedding._ [That's framing, and it draws on the previously-established bit of colour, namely, that some important personages are to wed.] _I tell the player that, across the crowd of people waiting to greet the abbot's ship, he sees his brother, for the first time in nearly 16 years._ [That's more framing.]​
> Bits of it are authored by the players outside the context of play.
> _As part of the build of the mage PC, the existence of his balrog-possessed brother, and of the sorcerous cabal, are both established._​
> Bits of it are authored by the players as part of the process of the play.
> _In the first session, the player of the mage PC declares a Circles check: in the fiction, the mage PC puts out feelers to the cabal, hoping for gainful employment. At the table, the player establishes a few more details about the cabal, including the existence of its leader Jabal._​
> Bits of it are authored by the GM as part of the process of narrating failure.
> _Early in the first session, a check made to study the magic of a newly-acquired angel feather failed; in the fiction, the mage PC's examination of it revealed it to be cursed. Later on, the Circles check described above failed. So I tell the players, "As you sit waiting in the tavern for word from Jabal, a thuggish-looking figure approaches you . . ." - and go on to explain how Jabal's servitor Athog brings them a message from Jabal, that they are to leave town immediately as they are bearers of a curse._ [Note how the narration of the later failure weaves in the fiction established in the narration of the earlier failure.]​
> There is no single person whose job it is to author all of the backstory. And there is no single time at which this is done: not in practice, and not in principle. *Playing the game produces new fiction, and establishes new "facts" about the gameworld*.
> 
> ...
> 
> What the players are doing here is trying to solve the mystery posed by the GM: _I have something written in my notes - a bit of fiction that explains why the court rebuffed you_. And now the players are doing stuff, and having their PCs do stuff, to try and learn that fiction. As I posted upthread in reply to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], it's puzzle-solving.
> 
> I'm not interested in it.




Yeah, I don't think that your examples and their examples are all that different. You objected to the idea that the fact that the king was assassinated was predetermined, so the DM didn't engage the mechanics. As a result of the king being assassinated, they players need to figure out why they were rebuffed.

In your example, Jabal told them to leave town because they are bearers of a curse. Although you could just as easily said that "Jabal says leave town now, or there will be consequences," leaving the party wondering why they were debuffed. 

Either result works for me, because either one is reasonable from the PCs point of view. Whether it was by fiat or by random determination, the king is dead, and as of yet, the PCs don't know about it. In either scenario - King or Jabal's thug, if I were one of the PCs I wouldn't expect to get a clear answer. I'd probably ask, perhaps push just a bit, but would be surprised if I actually received an answer that way.

I wouldn't characterize it entirely as puzzle solving. The death of the king probably won't remain a secret for long. On the other hand, I don't have an issue with this type of puzzle solving. On the contrary, my campaigns rely on layers upon layers of such things. 

So your objections are:

_The GM already knows what happened...and they kept it secret_: That is, they know the king has been assassinated. To the common person, that information may not have been known, and they (the NPCs) may have been keeping it a secret at that point in time for a reason. There are legitimate reasons for this to have been the case.

_The GM has authored it unilaterally_ Just as _you_ decided that the campaign would be set in Hardby, and _you_ decided the merchants would tell the PCs that the Gynarch is to be married to Jabal, which also means that _you_ decided they were to be married.

The fact is, like all RPGs, the fiction must come from people. That is, the DM/GM authors stuff, the PCs author stuff, maybe other people author stuff that the other participants use. Just about everything in the DW rulebook I agree with, other than the tone:

The players in the scenario just described aren't _playing to find out_ in the salient sense. Here's the relevant passage from the DungeonWorld rulebook, p 161 (note that it's addressed to GMs):

Your agenda makes up the things you aim to do at all times while GMing a game of Dungeon World _(DMing D&D)_:

• Portray a fantastic world
• Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
• Play to find out what happens

Everything you say and do at the table (and away from the table, too) exists to accomplish these three goals and no others. 
_OK, that's a bit much, but OK. I guess we're not interested in a social event, or having fun with our buddies, an escape from the world into a fantasy world, or imagine ourselves as a character outside of our comfort zone, or anything else other than these three things. Things that aren’t on this list aren’t your goals. _

You’re not trying to beat the players or test their ability to solve complex traps. You’re not here to give the players a chance to explore your finely crafted setting. 
_So what's wrong about a finely crafted setting? If I recall, the BW rules specifically said that they weren't providing a setting, because there are plenty of good ones out there, and that you can write a better one than us anyway. DW is based on those rules if I recall, and now they're saying, "your better setting is wrong?"

I agree in the test their ability to solve complex traps, unless that's what they like. However, if a trap ought to be there, then it should. It shouldn't be any more complicated than it needs to be to get the job done, and be built by the mechanical capability of the time. Oh wait, that's right, we used to love trying to play through Grimtooth's traps..._

You’re not trying to kill the players (though monsters might be). You’re most certainly not here to tell everyone a planned-out story.
_I kind of prefer to avoid a playing a planned-out story myself. But I know other gamers that think the Dragonlance series of modules are some of the best ever._

Your first agenda is to *portray a fantastic world*. . . Show the players the wonders of the world they’re in and encourage them to react to it.
_Check._

*Filling the characters’ lives with adventure* means working with the players to create a world that’s engaging and dynamic. . . 
_Check._

Dungeon World adventures *never *presume player actions. A Dungeon World adventure portrays a setting in motion—someplace significant with creatures big and small pursuing their own goals. As the players come into conflict with that setting and its denizens, action is inevitable. You’ll honestly portray the repercussions of that action.
_Because so many other games encourage dishonest portrayal of the repercussions of their actions. I agree with not presuming player actions - all too often a DM (and especially a published adventure) operates under a certain requirement in terms of their actions. Usually the assumed action, which is blindly accepted by the players, is to attack to kill anything put in their way. And whatever it is will, of course, fight to the death. I believe in honesty in portraying the repercussions too. To start with, most intelligent creatures won't fight to the death. Then you have to deal with that._

This is how you *play to find out what happens*. You’re sharing in the fun of finding out how the characters react to and change the world you’re portraying. You’re all participants in a great adventure that’s unfolding.
_Check._

So really, don’t plan too hard. The rules of the game will fight you.
_OK. Not sure I've ever had a game that fights me. I have visions of the pages and dice suddenly rising up to buffet me around my head.

One of the issues I have with indie games is that there's an awful lot of presumption on their part. The "Everything you say and do at the table (and away from the table, too) exists to accomplish these three goals and no others" is quite a declaration. Did I just join a cult?_​


pemerton said:


> Whereas in the scenarios that you (Lanefan) and Maxperson describe, the GM already knows what has happened. S/he hasn't worked with the players to create the world, but has authored this bit of it unilaterally. And s/he hasn't _portrayed_ that bit of the world, either. S/he's kept it secret.
> 
> As I said, it's not really something I'm interested in.




So in the scenarios I saw, the GM knows something that happened. That sets the framing, as you state. The king has been assassinated. Back to the Star Wars examples - Luke doesn't have any clue what's happened in regards to the droids, he just buys them. So are you suggesting that the players should know all of that information before Luke makes any decisions?

If the "no GM secrets" thing is one of those key mechanics that is a requirement for you to play (such as "no DM fudging" or "no hidden dice rolls" that are requirements for certain other players), I obviously don't have any objection to that. But I definitely don't think that's a universal requirement for good game design or play. 

Secrets for the sake of keeping secrets is one thing, but for events to happen in the world that the PCs don't know about, but could discover, that's pretty much a given in my world. To make an in-game secret worthwhile, it needs to be discoverable. I am curious as to where the line is, though. You have no secrets in the campaign? The GM never knows something that the players don't? I didn't get that sense with other in-game examples you've given, but I could be wrong.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I'm not really getting the drawbacks thing.
> 
> Someone goes onto a puzzle hobbies site and posts "I really like doing crosswords!" And then some other poster says, "I prefer sudoku. What are the drawbacks of doing crosswords?"
> 
> It's a strange question. What's the answer meant to be? "Well, they invovle words, not numbers, so aren't so good if you prefer numbers to words." But presumably that's self-evident.
> 
> "It's hard to do a crossword at the same time as taking a shower." But that's true of sudoku also.
> 
> I don't really get what the question is asking. I mean, I don't regard it as a drawback of playing RPGs the way I like to that the players don't get the chance to figure out the GM's nifty plot, because _that's not something I enjoy in RPGing_.




It's not hard to grasp. You have no problem explaining the drawbacks in a GM driven approach. 



pemerton said:


> EDITED to add:
> 
> Other posters like different things in their RPGing. And some posters (eg [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], etc) are posting about that, and giving examples that show how the techniques they prefer lead to RPGing that they've enjoyed.
> 
> Keept it up! And if anyone else wants to post about how their preferred technique has given them awesome gaming, then that's what the thread is for (to stay on topic, I guess with some reference to the role that GM judgement calls played in delivering the awesome).




I put forth my approach to the game as being a blend of player driven techniques and GM driven techniques. I was told that was impossible because they are mutually exclusive. I disagree with that assessment. I can certainly share examples of play from my game that would show this, but I don't feel that they will help. 



pemerton said:


> The only posters who are suggesting that it is a "nefarious device" are the ones who are defending it!
> 
> I've never said that it's a nefarious device. I'vd just said that I don't like it. It is an element in RPGing-as-puzzle-solving - in essence, the players trying to learn what is written in the GM's notes - and I don't enjoy that as a player and enjoy it even less as a GM.




No one else is suggesting it is a nefarious device. Instead, people are pointing out that you are positioning it as such. Your examples have not once shown how a secret backstory of the game can be used to enhance a game, you have only shown how it can be used to thwart player agency, which is a virtue of paramount importance to you. 

So while you are right that you've never come right out and SAID it is nefarious, you must realize that is what you have portrayed.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> The universal negative here is that you continue to conflate "secret backstory" with denying player action declarations because of things they don't know.  These are not synonymous



First, given that the phrase "GM's secret backstory" has no currency in any forum I'm aware of outside my use of it, and given my use has been made abundantly clear, I think I'm at liberty to continue using it in that way.

Second, if it only comes into play as part of framing, then _it's not secret_, and hence is not secret backstory.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

TwoSix said:


> I think part of the problem is that when players get introduced to a new RPG, they expect the games to exhibit a greater commonality than they actually share.  Playing BW, or Apocalypse World, or Fiasco is very different from D&D; a lot of the skills one might have learned playing D&D simply aren't going to translate.  It's like expecting your Monopoly skills to carry over to a game of Twilight Struggle, or your Call of Duty experience to make you better at Street Fighter, or expecting being skilled at golf to help you play basketball better.
> 
> Of course, you're also correct that a lot of modern games DO explicitly tell players the best way to play them, it was a explicit design ethos in reaction to players attempting to shift classic games into different paradigms and then complaining about how difficult it was to achieve the expected play style.  (The classic example being D&D 2e's stated intent for players to focus on story and characterization, when the mechanics were still that of a dungeon-crawling player-skill based wargame.)




I totally agree. Expectations can be a huge factor when trying something new. And I've experienced that with folks when I tried to give DW a shot. 

But it also highlighted that the game we _wanted_ to play was D&D. Not DW.

I don't recall that shift for 2e, but then we were already playing that way, and 2e was really like 1.5e in many ways. At least until the splat books.

On the other hand, if you were a regular reader of Dragon then you'd already seen a qualitative shift occurring, basically a contrast between Gygax's rules-based articles and Greenwood's lore-based articles.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> What if the DM instead responded:  'As you look through the market, you do not see any Calisham silks on display.  You overhear a few merchants saying that the troubles in Calimsham have severely reduced trade out of Calmisham.  You realize that if you want some Calimsham silks, you'll have to scrounge a bit harder."  Now, instead of the player just buying some silks in the market, it's a skill challenge to negotiate some silks that a merchant is hoarding, or buying on the black market, as smugglers aren't having as much trouble getting goods out, or whatever.  You, once again, frame a technique as having only one, negative result.



I presented an exampe of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. That happens in RPGing. And as the responses in this thread have shown, it's not even particularly controversial.

What you describe is not an example of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. It's an example of framing a challenge. But I don't think it's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] had in mind.

Ilbranteloth said "the intention is not to write or have material available that never comes into play. It's to have such material available in case it might come into play." In your example, who cares about haggling with merchants and smugglers? The player - in which case, it's an example of the GM "going where the action is". If that's how you run your game, then presumably it's not wildly different from how I run mine. But, again, I don't think that's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] meant, because when I said that I would be GMing blind without knowledge of what is motivating the players in their action declarations for their PCs (which is what one needs to know to "go where the action is"), Ilbranteloth didn't indixcate the same need.

If it's the GM deciding that it would be fun to have an episode of haggling with merchants and smugglers, then it's an example of what I would call GM-driven play (because, in introducing the fiction by way of framing, the GM is not having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as expressed through the build and play of their PCs).



Ovinomancer said:


> I think, upon reflection, that what happens here is survivor bias.  You present the method as if it always produces relevant and useful backstory because you end up with a story at the end that can clearly trace it's way through all of these bits of story created using your method, so it appears that the method itself always produces the correct outcomes:  a good, well integrated story.  But this is ignoring all of the chaff that's created and discarded or forgotten or ignored.  As you yourself said, you don't have to look up what happened in game 4 years ago because it's always been relevant and at the forefront because it's become part of the ongoing story.  But, dollars to donuts, things were authored into the fiction 4 years ago that haven't made it and you don't remember until you look at it.  The difference there is that you don't care about those tidbits -- they can be overwritten because no one recalls them as important anyway (I believe something exactly like this was presented earlier in the thread).  But, again, this leads to a false positive for your style because you aren't actually honoring ALL of the fiction created, just the bits that end up mattering because the players and/or GM latch onto them.  Therefore, those are the only tidbits that 'survive' the gameplay, and you then base your final determination only on those survivors.
> 
> So, the difference here seems that in a DM driven game, those bits are retained, but need to be teased out by reviewing old gameplay or notes, whereas in player driven games those bits are discarded and might as well never exist.  Your examples about the Elf and the watering hole, for instance.  Had a player never presented the idea that the Elf stole the mace, that was a throwaway bit that wouldn't have made it into your ongoing story.  But, since a player did add it in, the Elf becomes a survivor, and is retroactively classified as emergent foreshadowing of future gameplay.  Had the elf not, well, then, it would just be forgotten and become unimportant and never referenced.  It would never have 'survived' to be lauded as an example of great gameplay.  And, I'm sure there's lots of such examples, hence the classification of survivor bias -- judging something only by those examples that survive and succeed, and forgetting all of the bits and pieces that didn't.



A few things in response.

(1) The Forge's slogan for the sort of play that I have called "player-driven", that Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narrativistic model", and that is set out in the introductory pages of BW that I quoted upthread, is _story now_.

Ie it is not about "a good, well integrated story" in the future. It is about story _now_. Hence the injunction to the GM to "go where the action is". Hence the need, in each framing and each narration of a failed check, to have regard to the dramatic needs of the PC as established by the player through build and play.

Without having a full-fledged theory of dramatic composition, I think it's likely that a series of episode of story now, taken as a whole, will also probably exhibit "a good, well-integrated story". But that's a secondary concern.

(2) Suppose the wastrel elf never figured again, because his dramatic work - testing the reaction of the elven ronin sworn _always to keep the elven ways_ - had been done. How would that be inconsistent with anything? Or even atypical - all episodic fiction has it's one-off characters who figure prominently at some point but then fade into the background thereafter.

The good naga who helped the PCs in the Bright Desert may never figure in the game again. It was still fun at the time. And sowed the seeds for the dark naga, which has appeared in only one session but - due to its influence over the shaman PC - continues to be a significant presence in the the fiction of the game.

(3) Why would participants in a GM-driven game keep better notes, and have better memories, than participants in the sort of game that I run? Given that, as I posted, one constraint on authorship is _consistency with the established fiction,_ why would you assume that I discard it rather than retain it? You assert that it is "overwritten", but have no actual evidence for that.

(And what I said that I don't have to look up from 4 years ago is character goals. Because those infuse every moment of play. I mean, you know I have notes from 6 years ago that I can look up if I need to, because _I posted about that in a reply to you_.)



Ovinomancer said:


> In reality, lots gets thrown at the fan during play, but not all of it makes it.



And now you're just making stuff up. The "realilty" you describe here has no life outside your own imagination.

If you want to see how my game _actually _works, follow some of the links that I've provided in this thread.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> In your example, Jabal told them to leave town because they are bearers of a curse. Although you could just as easily said that "Jabal says leave town now, or there will be consequences," leaving the party wondering why they were debuffed.
> 
> Either result works for me



OK. But it's not the case that either result works for me. And when you say "I could just as easily" have used the second result, that's not actually true. Doing that would have been more-or-less breaking the rules of the game.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Back to the Star Wars examples - Luke doesn't have any clue what's happened in regards to the droids, he just buys them. So are you suggesting that the players should know all of that information before Luke makes any decisions?



No. I'm suggesting that _no one_ has that information until it emerges out of play - probably as the result of an interplay between framing (that is the most natural way to first present the message to Obi-Wan) and failed check (R2D2 running off would be a natural result of a failed repair check).

Here is an account of the first bit of action in the OP game:

I started things in the Hardby market: Jobe was looking at the wares of a peddler of trinkets and souvenirs, to see if there was anything there that might be magical or useful for enchanting for the anticipated confrontation with his brother. Given that the brother is possessed by a demon, he was looking for something angelic. The peddler pointed out an angel feather that he had for sale, brought to him from the Bright Desert. Jobe (who has, as another instinct, to always use Second Sight), used Aura Reading to study the feather for magical traits. The roll was a failure, and so he noticed that it was Resistant to Fire (potentially useful in confronting a Balrog) but also cursed. (Ancient History was involved somehow here too, maybe as a FoRK into Aura Reading (? I can't really remember), establishing something about an ancient battle between angels and demons in the desert.)

My memory of the precise sequence of events is hazy, but in the context the peddler was able to insist on proceeding with the sale, demanding 3 drachmas (Ob 1 resource check). As Jobe started haggling a strange woman (Halika) approached him and offered to help him if he would buy her lunch. Between the two of them, the haggling roll was still a failure, and also the subsequent Resources check: so Jobe got his feather but spent his last 3 drachmas, and was taxed down to Resources 0. They did get some more information about the feather from the peddler, however - he bought it from a wild-eyed man with dishevelled beard and hair, who said that it had come from one of the tombs in the Bright Desert.​
So there we have two "secrets" revealed: the feather is cursed; and there was an ancient battle in the Bright Desert between angels and demons.

The first secret was established as the result of a failed check. The second was established by the player, who had the opportunity to do so because I had framed his PC into a situation in which an angel feather reputedly from the Bright Desert was the focus of attention. (Note how that is quite different from a player just sitting up at the table and, with no apparent context to make sense of it, declaring "There was an ancient battle in the desert between angels and demons". I think this is related to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s ideas about following the fiction, though I'm not sure that it's identical.)

So at the start of the session no one knew anything about angel feathers, curses and ancient battles in the Bright Desert. But after what was probably 15 to 30 minutes of play, this stuff had been established. Through play.



Ilbranteloth said:


> If the "no GM secrets" thing is one of those key mechanics that is a requirement for you to play (such as "no DM fudging" or "no hidden dice rolls" that are requirements for certain other players), I obviously don't have any objection to that. But I definitely don't think that's a universal requirement for good game design or play.



No one in this thread has said that any particular technique is a universal requirement for good play or good game design.

From the OP:



pemerton said:


> (By railroading I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.
> 
> But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.
> 
> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.
> 
> I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!



No universal claims there. I think quite the opposite.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I am curious as to where the line is, though. You have no secrets in the campaign? The GM never knows something that the players don't? I didn't get that sense with other in-game examples you've given, but I could be wrong.



I have ideas for things that I don't tell the players. Secret plans. For instance, I didn't tell the players I had written up a wastrel renegard elf. I just brought that character into play. Likewise the dark naga. 

That's not the same thing as secret backstory. Plans to author something don't themselves establish any fiction. The fiction is established via framing, and narration of consequences.


----------



## Imaro

I guess another one of the big things I'm not grasping about your playstyle [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (and anyone else feel free to posit thoughts on this) is... what are the purpose of knowledge skills in your games.  If there is no "secret backstory" to discover and the GM knows no more than the players about the fiction of the setting and it's being created as they all go along... what exactly do knowledge skills and their ilk do in your game since there's nothing to know beyond what exists in the now and what's already been established (all of which the PC's would already be aware of right?)...


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> (and anyone else feel free to posit thoughts on this) is... what are the purpose of knowledge skills in your games.  If there is no "secret backstory" to discover and the GM knows no more than the players about the fiction of the setting and it's being created as they all go along...



 Seems obvious they'd work like the perception check in the OP.  Success doesn't determine if you know a fact already invented by the DM in the past that he then tells you about, it determines if there's a relevant fact to know and the DM creates it in the moment. 

Seems like it'd make very little difference to the player's experience of the game, though.


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> Seems obvious they'd work like the perception check in the OP.  Success doesn't determine if you know a fact already invented by the DM in the past that he then tells you about, it determines if there's a relevant fact to know and the DM creates it in the moment.
> 
> Seems like it'd make very little difference to the player's experience of the game, though.




See I thought it was only consequences of failed checks that the DM narrated... did I misunderstand that?  So if a knowledge check is successful... do the players determine what said knowledge is or does the DM?  

EDIT: And if as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] claimed earlier the DM has plans for things already created... and he is now planning for both success and failure on this check... well it would seem he does in fact know the outcome irregardless of the roll.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> No one else is suggesting it is a nefarious device. Instead, people are pointing out that you are positioning it as such. Your examples have not once shown how a secret backstory of the game can be used to enhance a game, you have only shown how it can be used to thwart player agency, which is a virtue of paramount importance to you.



I think there is some confusion over what I mean by "secret backstory".

If the GM has ideas for stuff that would be cool, or imagines things happening in other parts of the campaign world, but _they never matter to play_, then they are not part of the shared fiction. They are just things the GM is enjoying.

If the matter to play, this might be in two basic ways:

(1) The GM uses those cool ideas to inform the framing of a situation. That is backstory, but it's not secret: it's part of the framing.

(2) The GM uses those cool ideas as part of the fictional positioning according to which an action declaration is resolved, but does not make it an explicit part of the framing. That is what I mean by resolutin of action declaration by reference to GM's secret backstory.

Does (2) thwart player agency? Well, "player agency" isn't really a notion I've been using in the thread, and I'm not sure I want to start now. But (2) is clearly, I think, an instance of a GM-driven game. It is the GM's own conception of what is in the shared fiction that is determining the outcome.

Is (2) nefarious? I haven't said so. I don't like it, but not because I think it's nefarious. I don't like it as a player because I find it somewhat frustrating to have to puzzle out what the GM's conception of the fiction is. I like it less as a GM, because I find it both frustrating and tedious to referee players' attempts to puzlzle out what my conception of the fiction is.

Is (2) common? I think it's utterly ubiquitous.

Among those who don't object to (2) in general, are there particular instances of (2) that they would object to, while other instances of (2) that they would think are good uses of the technique? I'm sure that's so. But it's not my place to articulate their theory of their aesthetic preferences. I'll leave that to them.



hawkeyefan said:


> You have no problem explaining the drawbacks in a GM driven approach.



The only drawback I've identified is that I don't really like it. Presumably that's not a drawback for those who do.

I've also noted some features of it: it means that the GM is not playing to find out, and it means that some of the players' efforts are focused on figuring out stuff that the GM already knows. But presumably those who like the approach don't regard those as drawbacks. Presumably those are things that make the approach appealing to them.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Imaro said:


> See I thought it was only consequences of failed checks that the DM narrated... did I misunderstand that?



 Maybe I did.   In the OP, the player asked if there was something he could catch blood in, the check to look for it determined if there was (success) or wasn't (failure).  Sounds like either way the DM has to come up with some detail - like what the potential blood-catching vessel is, on a success.

By the same token, if a player asks "do I know of any way to counter a Ward of Uncounterability?"  The DM would supply (make up on the spot?) a way on a success, rather than narrate only on a failure.

Of course, I'm used to running in a very improvisational style, so I might just be projecting some of that.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> First, given that the phrase "GM's secret backstory" has no currency in any forum I'm aware of outside my use of it, and given my use has been made abundantly clear, I think I'm at liberty to continue using it in that way.
> 
> Second, if it only comes into play as part of framing, then _it's not secret_, and hence is not secret backstory.



Well, you use it inconsistently, so perhaps that's the confusion.  I had thought it meant 'stuff the DM made up that the players don't know' and that 'using this stuff secretly to determine the outcome of player declarations is bad' was separate.  After reading this, I think that 'secret backstory' is just 'using this stuff secretly to determine the outcome of player declarations."  

Which is a weird construct, but you're welcome to it.  And my response to 'secret backstory' as you've framed is it that I don't use secret backstory in my DM driven games.



pemerton said:


> I presented an exampe of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. That happens in RPGing. And as the responses in this thread have shown, it's not even particularly controversial.
> 
> What you describe is not an example of secret backstory being used to settle the outcome of an action declaration. It's an example of framing a challenge. But I don't think it's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] had in mind.
> 
> Ilbranteloth said "the intention is not to write or have material available that never comes into play. It's to have such material available in case it might come into play." In your example, who cares about haggling with merchants and smugglers? The player - in which case, it's an example of the GM "going where the action is". If that's how you run your game, then presumably it's not wildly different from how I run mine. But, again, I don't think that's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] meant, because when I said that I would be GMing blind without knowledge of what is motivating the players in their action declarations for their PCs (which is what one needs to know to "go where the action is"), Ilbranteloth didn't indixcate the same need.
> 
> If it's the GM deciding that it would be fun to have an episode of haggling with merchants and smugglers, then it's an example of what I would call GM-driven play (because, in introducing the fiction by way of framing, the GM is not having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as expressed through the build and play of their PCs).



Again, I'm glad we've decided that 'secret backstory' means 'using secret stuff secretly to determine the outcome of player declarations.'  Much back and forth would have been avoided had you said this, and I'm sure that many posters that have responded to you may change their responses given the newly clarified definition.





> A few things in response.
> 
> (1) The Forge's slogan for the sort of play that I have called "player-driven", that Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narrativistic model", and that is set out in the introductory pages of BW that I quoted upthread, is _story now_.



I really do not care what the Forge calls things.



> Ie it is not about "a good, well integrated story" in the future. It is about story _now_. Hence the injunction to the GM to "go where the action is". Hence the need, in each framing and each narration of a failed check, to have regard to the dramatic needs of the PC as established by the player through build and play.
> 
> Without having a full-fledged theory of dramatic composition, I think it's likely that a series of episode of story now, taken as a whole, will also probably exhibit "a good, well-integrated story". But that's a secondary concern.



My response was specifically generated by your holding out the on-the-spot generated 'foreshadowing' of the stealing of the mace by the Elf in the Elf poisoning the water-hole.  That was you trying to show how your method can generate the same outcome as a more DM driven foreshadowed reveal.  My entire point is that such 'story now' elements only create a good, well-integrated story because they're viewed through the lens of survivor bias -- the things that happened that ended up mattering are all that are considered; the things that ended up not mattering, but happened, are forgotten about.

In short, your idea of a good, well-integrated story is more akin to the anthropic principle:  the things that happen had to happen for the story that emerged, therefore it was a good, well-intergrated story.  This ignores all the things that happened that didn't matter to the story.



> (2) Suppose the wastrel elf never figured again, because his dramatic work - testing the reaction of the elven ronin sworn _always to keep the elven ways_ - had been done. How would that be inconsistent with anything? Or even atypical - all episodic fiction has it's one-off characters who figure prominently at some point but then fade into the background thereafter.
> 
> The good naga who helped the PCs in the Bright Desert may never figure in the game again. It was still fun at the time. And sowed the seeds for the dark naga, which has appeared in only one session but - due to its influence over the shaman PC - continues to be a significant presence in the the fiction of the game.



This cuts directly against your assertion that the Elf ended up as good foreshadowing, though, and goes, again, to survivor bias.  Since the Elf ended up mattering, he's been remembered.  Had a player not reintroduced the Elf as an important plot point later in the game, thereby authoring the backstory, then the Elf wouldn't have mattered and couldn't have been foreshadowing.  If your best example of how your style exhibits foreshadowing can be dismissed so easily, then I challenge that it actually does this in the first place.



> (3) Why would participants in a GM-driven game keep better notes, and have better memories, than participants in the sort of game that I run? Given that, as I posted, one constraint on authorship is _consistency with the established fiction,_ why would you assume that I discard it rather than retain it? You assert that it is "overwritten", but have no actual evidence for that.



Why would you ask me?  Did I say that?  I've looked back, and it appears your authoring of that backstory is inconsistent with established events.

That said, I strongly doubt that you or your players review the playlogs for consistency when establishing new backstory.  I'm uninterested in going through your curated logs for evidence, though, and am fully comfortable resting on the assumption that, at some point, you've all forgotten something that happened before because it was a one-off and have authored something that contravenes it.

And, to forestall the sputtering, I've done that in my more DM driven games.  Assuming people forget stuff and countermand in by accident over multiple years of gaming isn't an attempted insult -- it's unavoidable.



> (And what I said that I don't have to look up from 4 years ago is character goals. Because those infuse every moment of play. I mean, you know I have notes from 6 years ago that I can look up if I need to, because _I posted about that in a reply to you_.)



Ah, then I misread that, I recalled it as more open that just character goals.  I've never forgotten character goals, either, because, as you say, the players really don't let you.


> And now you're just making stuff up. The "realilty" you describe here has no life outside your own imagination.
> 
> If you want to see how my game _actually _works, follow some of the links that I've provided in this thread.



No, you've, once again, misunderstood a point.  This was a continuation of things that integrate into a story.  You just said that you have one-off characters, that do something in the moment and then move on, and that some are more lingering than others.  So, you've just agreed with the point I just made -- some things get thrown at the story wall to see if they stick, some do, some don't.  The Elf stuck.  The Dark Naga stuck.  The Good Naga is slithering towards the ground.  I'm sure there's things you've forgotten happened that are further towards the ground than the Good Naga.  This isn't an insult, it's an objective appraisal of how cooperative storytelling works:  not everything is a hit.

And that point tied back into my wider point about survivor bias, which again seems relevant. If you can't even admit that not everything sticks around as part of the well-integrated story, then you've obviously unwilling to examine those things that were done and moved on and had little real impact on the players or story.


----------



## TwoSix

hawkeyefan said:


> I don't know that the methods are all that new. I think games designed with mechanics in mind to enforce those methods are what's new.



I agree.  (Although new is relative, since it probably dates back a little over a decade. )



hawkeyefan said:


> And whether such mechanics or methods would make a game better or not is subjective. For people to decide if such methods would help their game or hurt it, it would also help to be able to discuss the drawbacks of those methods or mechanics, right?



Absolutely.  I just imagine it would be the role of the people who like and use such mechanics to explain their positive aspects, and the role of players who don't enjoy such mechanics to explain their negative aspects (or drawbacks, to use the term du jour).


----------



## TwoSix

Tony Vargas said:


> Maybe I did.   In the OP, the player asked if there was something he could catch blood in, the check to look for it determined if there was (success) or wasn't (failure).  Sounds like either way the DM has to come up with some detail - like what the potential blood-catching vessel is, on a success.
> 
> By the same token, if a player asks "do I know of any way to counter a Ward of Uncounterability?"  The DM would supply (make up on the spot?) a way on a success, rather than narrate only on a failure.
> 
> Of course, I'm used to running in a very improvisational style, so I might just be projecting some of that.



The player could always have more input by simply farming his question differently, as well.  For example, rather than ask "Is there something to catch the blood in?", the player could say "Well, we're in the sorcerer's bedchamber, is his chamber pot somewhere close by?"  One of the benefits of giving the players flexibility to do that kind of narration is that you give yourself, as a DM, a little break from having to improvise everything.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> What the players are doing here is trying to solve the mystery posed by the GM: _I have something written in my notes - a bit of fiction that explains why the court rebuffed you_. And now the players are doing stuff, and having their PCs do stuff, to try and learn that fiction. As I posted upthread in reply to [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], it's puzzle-solving.
> 
> I'm not interested in it.



::shrug:: Problem solving and mystery unravelling are and always have been a large - and fun - part of playing RPGs.

Your loss, I suppose.



> The players in the scenario just described aren't _playing to find out_ in the salient sense. Here's the relevant passage from the DungeonWorld rulebook, p 161 (note that it's addressed to GMs):
> 
> Your agenda makes up the things you aim to do at all times while GMing a game of Dungeon World:
> 
> • Portray a fantastic world
> • Fill the characters’ lives with adventure
> • Play to find out what happens
> 
> Everything you say and do at the table (and away from the table, too) exists to accomplish these three goals and no others. Things that aren’t on this list aren’t your goals. You’re not trying to beat the players or test their ability to solve complex traps. You’re not here to give the players a chance to explore your finely crafted setting. You’re not trying to kill the players (though monsters might be). You’re most certainly not here to tell everyone a planned-out story.​



Gads, even professional designers/writers can't get PLAYER and CHARACTER straight.  Monsters kill characters.  DMs don't kill players (no matter how tempting it may be sometimes).

That said, this looks like a deliberate attempt to remove any hint of adversarial relationship between the players and the DM; which to me is a huge mistake - just about the whole premise of the traditional RPG* is the DM (gameworld) throws challenges out there and the players (characters) deal with them; and sometimes the players (characters) throw challenges at each other.  The DM exists to be both an impartial referee and a more or less fair enemy...and note this means the DM often finds herself working against what might otherwise be seen as her own interests when the impartial referee side has to trump the provide-an-enemy side.

* - as opposed to co-operative storytelling or DM-less games, which are a different breed of animal

The game world is a dangerous place because the DM has made it so.



> Your first agenda is to *portray a fantastic world*. . . Show the players the wonders of the world they’re in and encourage them to react to it.



This is good advice, though I'd change "react to it" to "interact with it" to allow for player (character) proactivity in these interactions.



> *Filling the characters’ lives with adventure* means working with the players to create a world that’s engaging and dynamic. . . .



Most DMs can fill their characters' lives with adventure and create a world that's engaging and dynamic without having to get the players to do their heavy lifting.



> Dungeon World adventures *never *presume player actions. A Dungeon World adventure portrays a setting in motion—someplace significant with creatures big and small pursuing their own goals. As the players come into conflict with that setting and its denizens, action is inevitable. You’ll honestly portray the repercussions of that action.



Except for the first seven words, this is all great stuff.



> This is how you *play to find out what happens*. You’re sharing in the fun of finding out how the characters react to and change the world you’re portraying. You’re all participants in a great adventure that’s unfolding. So really, don’t plan too hard. The rules of the game will fight you.


Well, I'll fight back - and win - in order to ensure my game will still have enough in the tank to last a few years more regardless of what might happen right now.



> Whereas in the scenarios that you (Lanefan) and Maxperson describe, the GM already knows what has happened. S/he hasn't worked with the players to create the world, but has authored this bit of it unilaterally. And s/he hasn't _portrayed_ that bit of the world, either. S/he's kept it secret.



Of course she has, safe in the knowledge that much of the enjoyment lies in the exploration of and learning about this fantastic engaging dynamic world she's built.  The portrayal comes out in the learning process.

Seems simple enough to me.

Lan-"playing the game establishes new gameworld facts, that either change or sit on top of facts already there"-efan


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Ilbranteloth said "the intention is not to write or have material available that never comes into play. It's to have such material available in case it might come into play." In your example, who cares about haggling with merchants and smugglers? The player - in which case, it's an example of the GM "going where the action is". If that's how you run your game, then presumably it's not wildly different from how I run mine. But, again, I don't think that's what [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] meant, because when I said that I* would be GMing blind without knowledge of what is motivating the players* in their action declarations for their PCs (*which is what one needs to know to "go where the action is"*), Ilbranteloth didn't indixcate the same need.




I disagree in the bolded text. In order to go where the action is, you need to know what the PC's _action_ is. Not the PCs motivation.

If the PC attempts to haggle for some Calishite silks, I (the DM) don't need to know that he wants to purchase them for his mother. To play the NPC haggling, I need to know what the _NPC's_ motivation is. That gives me some ideas as to how likely they are to haggle, and by how much. Of course, I can get by without the NPC's motivation as well, by just using skill checks and rules to do so. But I'd rather know more, in case things go in a different direction. The NPC could go from being an incidental player to a more important part of the campaign. Regardless, the player can take care of their own motivation.

Motivation is the why. Why is the character doing this? In order for me to react to the player, though, all they need to tell me is _what_ they are doing, and possibly _how_. I don't need to know the why. 

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying the DM shouldn't know the PC's motivation. Just that they don't have to. As we've already discussed, through a combination of a shared backstory and the actions and statements throughout the game, the DM will learn quite a bit about the character. And both the player's and character's motivations and such are something the DM can leverage to great effect, and I recommend it highly. But it's not a requirement to run a game. Even a good game.

 [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] was giving an example of secret world backstory: that the problems in Calimshan are affecting the prices of silk. Until the DM divulges this information, it is a secret. In his example, the PCs overhear merchants talking. But it's just as possible that they try to purchase silk, and can't. Whether the merchant tells them why they can't purchase silk or not doesn't matter. Sure, the PCs might be curious, and continue to investigate. Or they might not care at all. Whether the DM knows that silk is in short supply and why before the session or not doesn't really matter either.

A much larger example is my use of the published APs in my campaign. Three of them are currently in progress in the campaign. Even though it's published material, being that they are active adventures that they could potentially intersect with the PCs, and they might opt to involve themselves in those APs to one degree or another, I'd prefer that they don't read the adventures. There is other material, such as the Savage Frontier guide in SKT that I have no problem with them reading at this time. After the events pass, I don't care if they read them either. There are all sorts of secrets in those three adventures.

Those secrets might have a material impact on the campaign. Obvious the BW/DW group might feel differently, but D&D players would probably universally agree that it's bad form for a player to read an adventure that they will, or might, play in as a character. I'm not sure there is such a thing as a published BW/DW adventure.


----------



## TwoSix

Ovinomancer said:


> No, you've, once again, misunderstood a point.  This was a continuation of things that integrate into a story.  You just said that you have one-off characters, that do something in the moment and then move on, and that some are more lingering than others.  So, you've just agreed with the point I just made -- some things get thrown at the story wall to see if they stick, some do, some don't.  The Elf stuck.  The Dark Naga stuck.  The Good Naga is slithering towards the ground.  I'm sure there's things you've forgotten happened that are further towards the ground than the Good Naga.  This isn't an insult, it's an objective appraisal of how cooperative storytelling works:  not everything is a hit.
> 
> And that point tied back into my wider point about survivor bias, which again seems relevant. If you can't even admit that not everything sticks around as part of the well-integrated story, then you've obviously unwilling to examine those things that were done and moved on and had little real impact on the players or story.



That seems me to be less a property of a particular gaming style, rather, that's just the natural outcome of any improvisational, episodic narrative.  Having random characters and plot arcs drop in and out of TV shows is a regular occurrence, for example, due to cast changes, poor reception by the audience, etc.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I've provided very few examples of other techniques.
> 
> But the one about the attempt to reach out to the court, and failing for reasons of secret backstory, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] embraced.
> 
> The one about the attempt to separate the baron from his advisor being foiled by an unknown fact of kidnapping was embraced by [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION].
> 
> And the one about no Calimshani silk being available due to off-screen turmoil was embraced by both [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]. And you gave XP to billd91's post embracing it!
> 
> How are these presenting "secret backstory" techniques in the worst way possible? And if so, why are those who like to use secret backstory in their games embracing them?



What I still don't (and maybe never will) understand is why, when you present them, you usually present them in the light of being the wrong way to run a game...where in fact they're perfectly valid examples of how to run a quite reasonable and enjoyable game.

Lan-"is there a hidden backstory to your preferred playstyle?"-efan


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Tony Vargas said:


> Maybe I did.   In the OP, the player asked if there was something he could catch blood in, the check to look for it determined if there was (success) or wasn't (failure).  Sounds like either way the DM has to come up with some detail - like what the potential blood-catching vessel is, on a success.
> 
> By the same token, if a player asks "do I know of any way to counter a Ward of Uncounterability?"  The DM would supply (make up on the spot?) a way on a success, rather than narrate only on a failure.
> 
> Of course, I'm used to running in a very improvisational style, so I might just be projecting some of that.




That sounds about right to me. i prefer to have multiple options in terms of mechanics and processes. Usually the player would ask, " is there something I could catch the blood in?" But if they are in a temple, and the player knows something about temples, and asks for a specific item, that's fine too. If I don't think the item is there, I might say no, but there is something else you could use. 

I think in most games there is a mix of prepared and improvised material from the DM. Some games lean heavily toward one or the other. I think they are both valid approaches and among the most useful tools the DM has. To me the art is keeping things going so there is no break in the story on the DM's side. It should be the same from the player's perspective regardless. And I have to admit that's really tough to do from time-to-time.

In my case, having prepared material is invaluable for those days when you sit down at the gaming table and you aren't on the top of your game for whatever reason. I can quickly access a lot of information quickly, whether it be NPCs, rumors, etc. I can still modify things on the fly as needed. If it's a good day, then things just flow without having to rely on too much prepared material, although I'm still aware of what is there so I can remain consistent with the lore of the area/NPCs, etc. I keep a lot of notes during the session too.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> OK. But it's not the case that either result works for me. And when you say "I could just as easily" have used the second result, that's not actually true. Doing that would have been more-or-less breaking the rules of the game.




And that's one of the places that loses me in terms of BW/DW, that an ambiguous result is somehow breaking the rules of the game. 

Or to put it a different way, it's an example of a game/rule that puts the game/rules ahead of the fiction. Despite the fact that the game is supposed to put the fiction first.

So would all of these be acceptable within BW/DW?

1) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed - because, they are told, the king has been assassinated.

2) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed. Pressing, they are told that the reasons for being rebuffed are not your concern. If the king does not wish to see you, then he will not see you.

3) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed - because, they are told, that the king is busy with important matters out of state, and the date of his return is not until next week. The reality is, the king has been assassinated, and the doppelgängers responsible for it, are still making proper preparations to secretly take control.

If not, why? But more importantly, if not, isn't that the game limiting the stories that can be told with that system. That certain story lines are prohibited?



pemerton said:


> That's not the same thing as secret backstory. Plans to author something don't themselves establish any fiction. The fiction is established via framing, and narration of consequences.




I also think your description of the fiction is narrow, or at least not inclusive of other options that are more common in D&D. Such as the fiction is established by the actions and reactions of the characters. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the terms you're using. But to me the framing of the scene (does that include, "OK, you kick in the door, and the room is a square, roughly 30 feet per side, with some discarded furniture and moldy tapestries hanging on the other three walls). Is the boxed text in a published adventure "framing the fiction?" In D&D, the narration of consequences occurs after things like the declaration of actions, and the resolution of actions as well. In many cases this also includes quite a bit of discussion and exploration. These are not "framing" or "narration of consequences" so where to they fall in the fiction?

As to secret backstory, again I go back to Star Wars. Luke has a significant backstory. It is a secret from him, although parts of it are known to people (NPCs) that come into the story very early on. That backstory has a hugely significant impact on Luke's story from the very point that Vader says, "I am your father." As I pointed out, that changed the story from rebellion to redemption. 

Would this story break the rules? Because I have no problem at all explaining how it could easily play out in D&D without bending or breaking any rules. It would run the risk of being a railroad, but it could be done in a way where the player with Luke as a character could remain control. The scenarios would be similar (caught by a tractor beam on the Death Star, so they'll have to escape, although the specific details could be anything), etc.


----------



## Lanefan

TwoSix said:


> That seems me to be less a property of a particular gaming style, rather, that's just the natural outcome of any improvisational, episodic narrative.  Having random characters and plot arcs drop in and out of TV shows is a regular occurrence, for example, due to cast changes, poor reception by the audience, etc.



Of course.

But a TV show also has the advantage of being able to foreshadow - that seemingly unimportant character who appeared for a few moments in episode 6 will in fact be the driving force behind the story arc of episodes 17 through 20.  But from the viewpoint of watching episode 12 the audience has no way of knowing this yet, and no reason to care; for all they know the equally-unimportant character who wandered through episode 4 might be the key to it all.

A DM who plans ahead can also effectively plan and use foreshadowing.  A DM whose story has no planning has to rely on the luck of foreshadowing after the fact - an odd idea, I know, but by it I mean this:

 - story element X happens organically during tonight's session, somewhat out of nowhere
 - DM and-or players look back through notes or memories and think "Cool!  I foreshadowed that perfectly five sessions ago without intending to!  Lucky me!"

Foreshadowing isn't supposed to work that way. 

Lan-"if foreshadows are at the front of the ship, would shadows near the back of the ship be called aftshadows?"-efan


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> Well, I think a touch of advocacy (or proselytizing) factors into it.  I mean, personally, the reason I've tried games like FATE and Fiasco and Burning Wheel, and I learned to love 4e is because of  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s explanations of those play styles way back during the release of 4e.
> 
> I mean, let's face it, D&D is still the touchstone of RPGs, and DM-driven exploration of a DM-created backstory(or sandbox) is still the default way to play D&D.  Your playstyle (and [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION], [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] et al) hardly needs any advocacy!  We all know how to play that way.  It's the newer, alternate methods of RPGing that need exposure and advocacy, and simply more people to explain how they work and how trying some of those methods may make your game better.  (Or not, of course.)




This isn't about advocacy.  I don't think anyone here is against someone advocating their playstyle.  It's interesting to see the other playstyles that come up.  My issue is what [MENTION=81033]Imara[/MENTION] notes.  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] often portrays my playstyle in a negative light.  See his comment upthread where he said DMs playing my playstyle don't have to take the players feelings and desires into consideration.  That's patently false statement.  All DMs need to take the players feelings and desires into consideration or they aren't DMs for very long.  This is a group game where everyone needs to be having fun, not just the DM.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> I'm not really getting the drawbacks thing.
> 
> Someone goes onto a puzzle hobbies site and posts "I really like doing crosswords!" And then some other poster says, "I prefer sudoku. What are the drawbacks of doing crosswords?"
> 
> It's a strange question. What's the answer meant to be? "Well, they invovle words, not numbers, so aren't so good if you prefer numbers to words." But presumably that's self-evident.




Some less self-evident drawbacks of crossword puzzles.  They often involve vague clues that could fit many different answers.  If you write down a word that seems to fit, often it won't and you'll have to erase it and any other words linked to it that you answered with the wrong connecting letter in mind.  That often results in a very messy, destroyed or illegible piece of crossword puzzle.


----------



## TwoSix

Lanefan said:


> Of course.
> 
> But a TV show also has the advantage of being able to foreshadow - that seemingly unimportant character who appeared for a few moments in episode 6 will in fact be the driving force behind the story arc of episodes 17 through 20.  But from the viewpoint of watching episode 12 the audience has no way of knowing this yet, and no reason to care; for all they know the equally-unimportant character who wandered through episode 4 might be the key to it all.
> 
> A DM who plans ahead can also effectively plan and use foreshadowing.  A DM whose story has no planning has to rely on the luck of foreshadowing after the fact - an odd idea, I know, but by it I mean this:
> 
> - story element X happens organically during tonight's session, somewhat out of nowhere
> - DM and-or players look back through notes or memories and think "Cool!  I foreshadowed that perfectly five sessions ago without intending to!  Lucky me!"
> 
> Foreshadowing isn't supposed to work that way.



Sure, I agree that you can't truly foreshadow unless you're doing some authoring, you need to be able to put something in the beginning when you already have the end in mind.  

But I think that's kind of the point...foreshadowing is intended to demonstrate authorial control.  It demonstrates to the viewer that the narrative *wasn't* improvised, that the author knew all along what was going to happen.  That would seem to be antithetical to the very play agenda [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] desires!  You have to sacrifice true foreshadowing in a game where the goal is for the DM to be surprised by the ending as the players.  (You could get a similar effect by simply making callbacks to earlier introduced characters or plotlines, but that's merely referential, not foreshadowing).


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> What I still don't (and maybe never will) understand is why, when you present them, you usually present them in the light of being the wrong way to run a game...where in fact they're perfectly valid examples of how to run a quite reasonable and enjoyable game.
> 
> Lan-"is there a hidden backstory to your preferred playstyle?"-efan




I think this comes from a culture that expects a very specific relationship between the GM and other players, regardless of the game in question. There's this idea that there are Good Game Masters and Bad Game Masters - also that there are Good Players and Bad Players. Basically there's this idea that skills transfer between games and play groups. I do not meaningfully agree with this notion. I think there are innumerable ways to do this thing we do that provide different experiences that may or may not suit what motivates us to play games. These are different games. They can involve meaningfully different relationships between the players, Between the players and their relationship to the mechanisms. Between what is expected from a given participant and what they are permitted to do. Some skills transfer between games, but not all. That's part of the fun. Learning new skills, having different experiences, finding new ways to have fun we would not otherwise have if left to our own devices.

I mean this is like expecting because a player has developed skill in Euchre, Spades, or Bridge that they can just step in and be good poker players. It's also assuming that they do not have to develop a sense of the particular poker table they are playing at even if the rules of the game are not different.

When I say I do not care for particular techniques or expectations of play I am really saying something like I prefer poker to spades. That I prefer card games that are not about taking tricks. I am not saying spades is a bad game that no one should have fun playing it. I am saying I would rather not play spades. 

It's not about being the wrong way to run a game. It's about being the wrong way to run a game for me to get what I want out of it. The idea that expressing strong preferences is something that should be shamed is problematic to me. I personally value diversity of play - playing different games with different people in different ways. I personally value people speaking up about the things that interest them. I personally value poker feeling like a different game than spades.


----------



## hawkeyefan

TwoSix said:


> I agree.  (Although new is relative, since it probably dates back a little over a decade. )




True.....newer would have probably been more accurate. 



TwoSix said:


> Absolutely.  I just imagine it would be the role of the people who like and use such mechanics to explain their positive aspects, and the role of players who don't enjoy such mechanics to explain their negative aspects (or drawbacks, to use the term du jour).




I would think that anyone who goes into this level of analysis and depth of discussion would not be so easily thrown by being asked to come up with a drawback for just about anything, no matter how much they may advocate for it. 

For example, I realize that when I lean toward GM driven gaming, I'm limiting player choice to some extent. When I lean toward player driven, I realize that I'm giving up some level of narrative control. 

Now, I say these as a more general rule without a specific system or game mechanics in mind. But it seems that the mechanics of Burning World and similar games actually expressly forbid a more GM driven approach to the narrative. 

D&D 5E doesn't have a lot of mechanics that foster a more player driven approach....but I think there is a lot more leeway within the system to allow for variance in approach. 



Ilbranteloth said:


> And that's one of the places that loses me in terms of BW/DW, that an ambiguous result is somehow breaking the rules of the game.
> 
> Or to put it a different way, it's an example of a game/rule that puts the game/rules ahead of the fiction. Despite the fact that the game is supposed to put the fiction first.
> 
> So would all of these be acceptable within BW/DW?
> 
> 1) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed - because, they are told, the king has been assassinated.
> 
> 2) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed. Pressing, they are told that the reasons for being rebuffed are not your concern. If the king does not wish to see you, then he will not see you.
> 
> 3) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed - because, they are told, that the king is busy with important matters out of state, and the date of his return is not until next week. The reality is, the king has been assassinated, and the doppelgängers responsible for it, are still making proper preparations to secretly take control.
> 
> If not, why? But more importantly, if not, isn't that the game limiting the stories that can be told with that system. That certain story lines are prohibited?




I agree here....it does seem to me that Burning World and similar games seem to limit how stories can be crafted. I actually like to allow for player authorship and the players having a lot of choice in how the game goes....but I would feel very constrained if I had to play the game that way at all times. Because I also like GM driven play....where there is a main story of some sort that is constantly influencing events and challenging the PCs. 

And I don't really see the players being unaware of elements as being a negative. 



Ilbranteloth said:


> I also think your description of the fiction is narrow, or at least not inclusive of other options that are more common in D&D. Such as the fiction is established by the actions and reactions of the characters. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the terms you're using. But to me the framing of the scene (does that include, "OK, you kick in the door, and the room is a square, roughly 30 feet per side, with some discarded furniture and moldy tapestries hanging on the other three walls). Is the boxed text in a published adventure "framing the fiction?" In D&D, the narration of consequences occurs after things like the declaration of actions, and the resolution of actions as well. In many cases this also includes quite a bit of discussion and exploration. These are not "framing" or "narration of consequences" so where to they fall in the fiction?
> 
> As to secret backstory, again I go back to Star Wars. Luke has a significant backstory. It is a secret from him, although parts of it are known to people (NPCs) that come into the story very early on. That backstory has a hugely significant impact on Luke's story from the very point that Vader says, "I am your father." As I pointed out, that changed the story from rebellion to redemption.
> 
> Would this story break the rules? Because I have no problem at all explaining how it could easily play out in D&D without bending or breaking any rules. It would run the risk of being a railroad, but it could be done in a way where the player with Luke as a character could remain control. The scenarios would be similar (caught by a tractor beam on the Death Star, so they'll have to escape, although the specific details could be anything), etc.




I think the problem with using Star Wars as an analogy....or any fiction, really....is that when compared to a game, there is a key element missing from the metaphor: that of the player. So while a history may be secret from Luke, it may or may not be secret from the player who is playing Luke. Maybe that player had a concept for some kind of "child of destiny" character. Maybe he left the specifics of it up to the DM to fit into the game/story he had in mind, or maybe he came up with a detailed history for the PC himself. 

But having said that, I get your point....something revealed to the character in the midst of the story became the driving force for the character thereafter. The same could happen in an RPG....if it's not something expressly forbidden by the game, at least. 

Maybe it's just me....but I think the players and the DM can both be inspired by the ideas of the other. I see no reason to create walls that prevent such inspiration from occurring. 



TwoSix said:


> Sure, I agree that you can't truly foreshadow unless you're doing some authoring, you need to be able to put something in the beginning when you already have the end in mind.
> 
> But I think that's kind of the point...foreshadowing is intended to demonstrate authorial control.  It demonstrates to the viewer that the narrative *wasn't* improvised, that the author knew all along what was going to happen.  That would seem to be antithetical to the very play agenda @_*pemerton*_ desires!  You have to sacrifice true foreshadowing in a game where the goal is for the DM to be surprised by the ending as the players.  (You could get a similar effect by simply making callbacks to earlier introduced characters or plotlines, but that's merely referential, not foreshadowing).




Well, it depends on what you're foreshadowing. I use some foreshadowing in my game a bit....but it's not based on the ending of the game. A player could be facing some kind of decision....and you can foreshadow that without knowing which way he will decide.


----------



## TwoSix

Maxperson said:


> This isn't about advocacy.  I don't think anyone here is against someone advocating their playstyle.  It's interesting to see the other playstyles that come up.  My issue is what [MENTION=81033]Imara[/MENTION] notes.   [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] often portrays my playstyle in a negative light.  See his comment upthread where he said DMs playing my playstyle don't have to take the players feelings and desires into consideration.  That's patently false statement.  All DMs need to take the players feelings and desires into consideration or they aren't DMs for very long.  This is a group game where everyone needs to be having fun, not just the DM.



But he's right!  You don't HAVE to take into account the character's needs and desires if you're running a game focused on exploration of a DM's plot and setting. (I assume you mean characters, as you have to take into account all players' desires or the game falls apart.) I mean, it certainly helps, and if you do, I think that will almost certainly help your game.  But you can just as easily play that style of game with characters with no goals other than "get stronger and find treasure" and still have an entertaining, solid game.  I know, I've done it! 

Again, I've never seen a [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] post where he has said your play style is wrong or bad (that was the other thread, I think, and better not to rehash here).  He's been pretty upfront that he doesn't like it personally, but why should that matter?  I don't see you advocating for people to try out narrative games, and I'm not offended in the slightest.  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] isn't required to act like an arbiter on these topics simply because he makes really long posts that sometimes get people riled up.

Two-"this ad space available for rent, contact us at 1-800-26GAMER" -Six


----------



## Campbell

TwoSix said:


> Sure, I agree that you can't truly foreshadow unless you're doing some authoring, you need to be able to put something in the beginning when you already have the end in mind.
> 
> But I think that's kind of the point...foreshadowing is intended to demonstrate authorial control.  It demonstrates to the viewer that the narrative *wasn't* improvised, that the author knew all along what was going to happen.  That would seem to be antithetical to the very play agenda [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] desires!  You have to sacrifice true foreshadowing in a game where the goal is for the DM to be surprised by the ending as the players.  (You could get a similar effect by simply making callbacks to earlier introduced characters or plotlines, but that's merely referential, not foreshadowing).




It also syncs with how quite a few shows are written. They do not really foreshadow. They reincorporate! They take threads left dangling from previous episodes and expand upon them. Done artfully this often feels more organic and compelling than sweeping arcs. You can often see the breakpoints in shows where writers feel compelled to force a particular character or narrative thread down the audience's throats.


----------



## Maxperson

TwoSix said:


> But he's right!  You don't HAVE to take into account the character's needs and desires if you're running a game focused on exploration of a DM's plot and setting. (I assume you mean characters, as you have to take into account all players' desires or the game falls apart.) I mean, it certainly helps, and if you do, I think that will almost certainly help your game.  But you can just as easily play that style of game with characters with no goals other than "get stronger and find treasure" and still have an entertaining, solid game.  I know, I've done it!




Don't ask me.  @_*pemerton*_ is the one who specified players, and players is what I took exception to.  When he saw that, he didn't correct himself, so presumably he meant players.



> Again, I've never seen a  @_*pemerton*_ post where he has said your play style is wrong or bad (that was the other thread, I think, and better not to rehash here).  He's been pretty upfront that he doesn't like it personally, but why should that matter?  I don't see you advocating for people to try out narrative games, and I'm not offended in the slightest.   @_*pemerton*_ isn't required to act like an arbiter on these topics simply because he makes really long posts that sometimes get people riled up.




Again, this has nothing to do with him advocating anything.


----------



## Ovinomancer

TwoSix said:


> That seems me to be less a property of a particular gaming style, rather, that's just the natural outcome of any improvisational, episodic narrative.  Having random characters and plot arcs drop in and out of TV shows is a regular occurrence, for example, due to cast changes, poor reception by the audience, etc.




The more I read this the less I understand what you're driving at -- it doesn't even touch on my main theme, it just seems to say, "hey, other things do that, too, you know."  Which is, okay, sure, obviously true, but what's your point?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> It also syncs with how quite a few shows are written. They do not really foreshadow. They reincorporate! They take threads left dangling from previous episodes and expand upon them. Done artfully this often feels more organic and compelling than sweeping arcs. You can often see the breakpoints in shows where writers feel compelled to force a particular character or narrative thread down the audience's throats.




Well stated, but the question occurs to me... isn't this just another form of illusionism?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> I think this comes from a culture that expects a very specific relationship between the GM and other players, regardless of the game in question. There's this idea that there are Good Game Masters and Bad Game Masters - also that there are Good Players and Bad Players. Basically there's this idea that skills transfer between games and play groups. I do not meaningfully agree with this notion. I think there are innumerable ways to do this thing we do that provide different experiences that may or may not suit what motivates us to play games. These are different games. They can involve meaningfully different relationships between the players, Between the players and their relationship to the mechanisms. Between what is expected from a given participant and what they are permitted to do. Some skills transfer between games, but not all. That's part of the fun. Learning new skills, having different experiences, finding new ways to have fun we would not otherwise have if left to our own devices.
> 
> I mean this is like expecting because a player has developed skill in Euchre, Spades, or Bridge that they can just step in and be good poker players. It's also assuming that they do not have to develop a sense of the particular poker table they are playing at even if the rules of the game are not different.
> 
> When I say I do not care for particular techniques or expectations of play I am really saying something like I prefer poker to spades. That I prefer card games that are not about taking tricks. I am not saying spades is a bad game that no should have fun playing. I am saying I would rather not.
> 
> It's not about being the wrong way to run a game. It's about being the wrong way to run a game for me to get what I want out of it. The idea that expressing strong preferences is something that should be shamed is problematic to me. I personally value diversity of play - playing different games with different people in different ways. I personally value people speaking up about the things that interest them. I personally value poker feeling like a different game than spades.




Some fair points, but would it not be fair to say that a player that plays a trick winning game that is bad at winning tricks is a Bad Player?  Can I not identify players that are bad at the game they choose to play without also prejudging them on other games?  In this vein, can I not identify a trait in a particular style of DMing that is generally considered to be bad without saying such a trait is universally bad in all styles or that this particular DM is bad in all styles?

I mean, at some point overgeneralization just becomes an undifferentiated blur.


----------



## TwoSix

Ovinomancer said:


> The more I read this the less I understand what you're driving at -- it doesn't even touch on my main theme, it just seems to say, "hey, other things do that, too, you know."  Which is, okay, sure, obviously true, but what's your point?




To be fair, I have no idea what your main theme is.


----------



## Ovinomancer

TwoSix said:


> To be fair, I have no idea what your main theme is.




S'okay, then.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

hawkeyefan said:


> I think the problem with using Star Wars as an analogy....or any fiction, really....is that when compared to a game, there is a key element missing from the metaphor: that of the player. So while a history may be secret from Luke, it may or may not be secret from the player who is playing Luke. Maybe that player had a concept for some kind of "child of destiny" character. Maybe he left the specifics of it up to the DM to fit into the game/story he had in mind, or maybe he came up with a detailed history for the PC himself.
> 
> But having said that, I get your point....something revealed to the character in the midst of the story became the driving force for the character thereafter. The same could happen in an RPG....if it's not something expressly forbidden by the game, at least.
> 
> Maybe it's just me....but I think the players and the DM can both be inspired by the ideas of the other. I see no reason to create walls that prevent such inspiration from occurring.




The Star Wars analogy is convenient, that's all. Like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has said as well, the story itself doesn't really tell you anything of how it occurred, so if Star Wars was a story of what occurred in an RPG, you can't really tell _how_ it occurred.

But my point isn't so much about whether it could occur one way or the other, using whatever system. My point is that the power of the story is more effective if the character Luke, and by the extension the player playing Luke, doesn't know the secret backstory until the key point.

Consider the impact if:
Luke knew it all along; or
Obi-Wan had told him at the outset; or
He had learned it during the battle between Obi-Wan and Vader; or
He learned it from the Rebellion

None of those have nearly the drama or impact as learning it from Vader himself, when you are in the midst of your first one-on-one battle to kill him. I'm not talking about the audience perspective watching the movies - I'm talking about the player experience in the game.

I totally agree that the players and DM can both be inspired by the ideas of each other. The players come up with far more interesting things to me. Usually things I don't even think of. So I steal from them liberally.


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> Well stated, but the question occurs to me... isn't this just another form of illusionism?




I'm not sure what this really has to do with illusionism as long as we are acting as curious explorers of the fiction rather than trying to push things down a certain road. I mean we tend to do this when we are establishing fiction rather than playing in it or it happens naturally when players have their characters go back to a particular place or person to use as a resource in the course of pursuing some other goal. There is some mild contrivance involved in creating interesting fiction to play in, but we are not like meaningfully playing when we establish this stuff. 

My play tends to go in a loop.

Establish interesting fiction -> Play it out by following the fiction -> Establish More Fiction -> Play It Out

I mean we all know we are doing this. We don't always bring attention to it though.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> Apologies. Re-looking at that thread, at the time you had stated that the period for which the familiar was shut down was undefined/undetermined. You really did not hint it would be as much as 3 months (refer below).



I think this would count as an example of "playing to find out".



Sadras said:


> Out of interest sake, the idea of how to reactivate the familiar was something you came up with or was it an idea by the player?



I'm the one who framed the PCs into a conflict with an Aspect of Vecna. (In accordance with the principle "go where the action is".)

The player decided to use the defeat of the Aspect of an opportunity to sever the connection between Vecna and his Eye, thereby allowing the imp to reactivate under the PC's control:



pemerton said:


> When they arrived, an Aspect of Vecna was waiting for them. It wanted to bargain to get the Eye of Vecna back from the party invoker. (Backstory to this is here.) The Eye is in the invoker's imp, placed there both to achieve a power up, and to stop Levistus (who placed the imp with the invoker) using the imp as a spy (by creating a Vecna-ish shield of secrecy). Unfortunately the party's conflict with Torog, as linked to above, had led to the invoker choosing the Raven Queen over Vecna as recipient of the souls of the Underdark's dead In retaliation, Vecna had used his control over the Eye to strike down the imp, which meant that the imp was currently lifeless (and hence the Eye inactive).
> 
> The bargaining was unsuccessful, however, as in an earlier session the invoker had already agreed to help the rest of the party try and destroy the Eye if they could find a way; and he now held to that agreement. The Aspect threatened a bit, but the PCs stood their ground and (recognising a superior force) it teleported away.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the Aspect of Vecna reappeared bringing back up (undead cultists, lich vestiges and four demons under its control).
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In the first round the invoker dominated Vecna and made him dismiss one of his summoned demons. (I had described the demon appearing by means of gate. The player had his PC order Vecna to end the summoning. The established fictional positioning made this clearly feasible, and so it happened.) And then before Vecna's turn could come around again, the cleric-ranger stunned him with a reasonably newly acquired daily power. To add insult to injury, the chaos sorcerer rolled a 1, pushing Vecna 1 square. Vecna failed his save and went tumbling 100' to the ledges below the earthmote. Then something (I guess one of the demons?) hit the paladin and pushed him over the edge. At which point an Acrobatics roll was requested, to "do a Gandalf" (from the Two Towers film) and fall down on top of Vecna. The roll was successful, and the paladin dealt damage to Vecna with a successful basic attack, as well as taking damage himself for the fall.
> 
> While the other PCs cleaned up uptop, the paladin successfully solo-ed the now-bloodied Aspect, but (at the behest of the invoker) only knocked it unconscious (and then used his Marshal of Letherna daily utility to prevent any regeneration that might let it come back to consciousness). The invoker then came down and used an Undead Ward ritual, with the Aspect as a focus, to try and sever the connection between Vecna and his Eye. This was successful (between stats, feats and Sage of Ages the character has bonuses of around +40 to most of his ritual checks), so the imp came back to life, still powered up by the Eye but no longer subject to Vecna's influence. (But therefore once again able to send information to Levistus. When I chided the player for his PC not sticking the liberated eye in his own socket, his reply was that Malstaph (the PC) is not foolish enough to think that he's a god.)



This is an example of what I think 4e is very strong at - supporting the combination of _mechanically defined story elements_ (like powers, rituals, items, etc) with _player exploitation of fictional positioning_ to perform feats that are not mechanically defined, with the GM using the DC-by-level table and the skill and skill challenge frameworks to actually manage the resolution of this at the table.

The mechanically defined story elements make it less abstract than Cortex+/MHRP, where everything is about linking abstract mechanical systems to fictional positioning, without the intermediation provided by those defined elements. But the abstract resolution system makes it more friendly to improvisation than a system like BW, RQ or Rolemaster, which have more of an expectation that every PC capacity will have its own mechanical representation on the PC sheet (so if you don't have a "Sever connection between God of Undeath and his missing Eye" ritual, then you can't easily do that thing).

The player of the invoker/wizard in my game is probably the most adventurous with this sort of thing, but I can't say whether that's a feature of him as a player, or whether that's the result of playing a PC whose build (lots of skills with high bonuses, lots of spells, lots of rituals) is very well-suited to it. When the player explains (both to the table, and in character to the other PCs) that an Undead Ward, suitably powered up using the Aspect as a focus, can sever the connection between Vecna and his Eye, I am not going to contest that statement about the fiction. (Just as, in relation to the episode I quoted upthread with the sealing off of the Abyss, I didn't question the players assertion about what would be possible in the fiction.)

My job, with the fictional possibilities established, is to manage the resolution using the processes the game offers. (Which, as I've said, are very strong for this sort of stuff.)

A question that might arise here is: What stops the player(s) just making up any old nonsense to get what they want for their PCs? The answer, I think, is one that [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has thought about harder than I have: fidelity to the fiction. 4e is good for this, too, at least in its default mode (the three tiers of play, the default cosmology, etc): the whole setting - PCs and antagonists - are infused with colour that tells you what does and doesn't make sense within the gameworld.

I'm in the early stages of a new Dark Sun 4e game. Dark Sun departs in several respects from the default 4e setting, and I'm a bit worried that it won't provide quite the same degree of seamless integration between setting colour, mechanically defined story elements, and the page 42/skill challenge resolution frameworks. If I'm lucky, though, then I'm wrong about this! (I know [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] is also running 4e Dark Sun. Any thoughts on this particular issue?)


----------



## Campbell

Ovinomancer said:


> Some fair points, but would it not be fair to say that a player that plays a trick winning game that is bad at winning tricks is a Bad Player?  Can I not identify players that are bad at the game they choose to play without also prejudging them on other games?  In this vein, can I not identify a trait in a particular style of DMing that is generally considered to be bad without saying such a trait is universally bad in all styles or that this particular DM is bad in all styles?
> 
> I mean, at some point overgeneralization just becomes an undifferentiated blur.




We can absolutely speak in terms of a particular context. We can absolutely say that someone is a poor Apocalypse World GM, or a poor B/X player, or that they are a poor fit for the way we play 5e. Saying someone is a poor GM or poor player of role playing games is very much like saying they are a bad board gamer or they suck at all video games. I mean I guess there are some universals like poor sportsmanship, having less than worthy interpersonal skills, not having much regard for the other players, refusing to buy into the social contract of the game, taking criticism too personally, and the like. Most of those apply to any game really.

There are some behaviors I consider generally toxic, but they are mostly toxic regardless of the type of game we are playing. There is some stuff based on mixing trust models I find to be somewhat socially and emotionally dangerous, but I'll get to that in another post.

Aside: My preference is to frame it in terms of a lack of skill rather than as a natural quality of the person. These are skills to be developed, nurtured, and improved upon. We all have the capacity to become meaningfully better at them. We might not have the drive or motivation, but that is another matter altogether.

Conclusion: I am calling for more specific analysis, not less.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]

I take issue with framing design trade-offs in terms of drawbacks. The framing feels overtly hostile in a way that feel leads to debate and argument about which way to play a role playing game is superior. I am far more interested in discussion, analysis, and fruitful criticism of techniques and principles. I am more than happy to speak to the specific expectations, social environment, suitability, pain points, and risks entailed in the approach I favor most of the time. I am willing to engage with that conversation. I am not really interested in having a conversation about justifying preferences.

I would also appreciate it if we could avoid bringing the popularity of various approaches into this. First, it largely ignores the particular cultural context of the greater community and geek culture in general. It also feels like an attempt to shame those who fall outside of the orthodoxy. It also does not meaningfully speak to issues of flexibility or the actual details of the experience.

I think these sorts of conversations are important. Normally our communities stay in their walled off gardens. This only serves to increase tribalism, virtue signalling, and a lack of real understanding. For instance, most of the people I know who play indie games also play mainstream games. I happen to be rather fond of The One Ring, Exalted 3e, Edge of the Empire, and Demon - The Descent. I am also rather fond of B/X, Stars Without Number, Godbound, and The Nightmares Underneath.


----------



## chaochou

Ilbranteloth said:


> The Star Wars analogy is convenient, that's all. Like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has said as well, the story itself doesn't really tell you anything of how it occurred, so if Star Wars was a story of what occurred in an RPG, you can't really tell _how_ it occurred.
> 
> But my point isn't so much about whether it could occur one way or the other, using whatever system. My point is that the power of the story is more effective if the character Luke, and by the extension the player playing Luke, doesn't know the secret backstory until the key point.
> 
> Consider the impact if:
> Luke knew it all along; or
> Obi-Wan had told him at the outset; or
> He had learned it during the battle between Obi-Wan and Vader; or
> He learned it from the Rebellion
> 
> None of those have nearly the drama or impact as learning it from Vader himself, when you are in the midst of your first one-on-one battle to kill him. I'm not talking about the audience perspective watching the movies - I'm talking about the player experience in the game.




From the point of view of the practicalities of playing an rpg the next question is when does that piece of fiction need to be _authored_?

If the GM authors it beforehand, are they then steering events with Luke to a duel and showdown with Vader for their big reveal? Isn't this undercutting the Luke player's agency in exactly the way suggested? And if they don't do that, how do they bring it into play - especially given your analysis that doing so at any other time is less satisfactory...

An alternative is to leave these details open and author as response to the action and the dice. It only gets addressed as and when it's dramatically appropriate. Then I don't need to steer the game to any point for my 'reveal'. The reveals are created to suit the events, not the other way around. And I, as GM, get to enjoy the unfolding of events as much as the players.

You may not think it's possible. But I've done it session after session. I believe Campbell has as well, Pemerton too, Manbearcat too.

Where is the confusion over this approach?


----------



## darkbard

pemerton said:


> I'm in the early stages of a new Dark Sun 4e game. Dark Sun departs in several respects from the default 4e setting, and I'm a bit worried that it won't provide quite the same degree of seamless integration between setting colour, mechanically defined story elements, and the page 42/skill challenge resolution frameworks. If I'm lucky, though, then I'm wrong about this! (I know [MENTION=1282]darkbard[/MENTION] is also running 4e Dark Sun. Any thoughts on this particular issue?)




Unfortunately, my Dark Sun 4E campaign is still in its nascent stages, having only engaged in PC creation; some discussions about PC backstory, "kickers," and beliefs/goals; and my framing, as the DM, of the initial scene. So I have nothing to add here from praxis ... yet. I hope to have more to contribute to this sooner than later, but, with my work as an academic and this being the last stretch of the semester, real life continues to intervene.

That said, I am curious as to why you think the particularities of the fiction/mechanics of a Dark Sun game might present difficulties to seamless integration in the fashion you suggest. (Though I also wonder if this is the thread for such a discussion. I would very much like to have such a conversation but perhaps as its own thread?)

EDIT: Unless I'm seriously mistaken, [MENTION=87576]Scrivener of Doom[/MENTION] is also DMing a new 4E Dark Sun game and might have interest in such a discussion.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]
> 
> I take issue with framing design trade-offs in terms of drawbacks. The framing feels overtly hostile in a way that feel leads to debate and argument about which way to play a role playing game is superior. I am far more interested in discussion, analysis, and fruitful criticism of techniques and principles. I am more than happy to speak to the specific expectations, social environment, suitability, pain points, and risks entailed in the approach I favor most of the time. I am willing to engage with that conversation. I am not really interested in having a conversation about justifying preferences.
> 
> I would also appreciate it if we could avoid bringing the popularity of various approaches into this. First, it largely ignores the particular cultural context of the greater community and geek culture in general. It also feels like an attempt to shame those who fall outside of the orthodoxy. It also does not meaningfully speak to issues of flexibility or the actual details of the experience.
> 
> I think these sorts of conversations are important. Normally our communities stay in their walled off gardens. This only serves to increase tribalism, virtue signalling, and a lack of real understanding. For instance, most of the people I know who play indie games also play mainstream games. I happen to be rather fond of The One Ring, Exalted 3e, Edge of the Empire, and Demon - The Descent. I am also rather fond of B/X, Stars Without Number, Godbound, and The Nightmares Underneath.




To your first point, drawback has less of a negative connotative than pain point or risks.  Perhaps because I'm an engineer by trade and deal with risk analysis all the time.  To me, it's entirely natural for a game style to have drawbacks.  I'm not, in the least, bother by the fact my preferred style does.  I know my style can degenerate into illusionist and railroading, both rather more pejorative terms than drawbacks, but still used.  It also has a lot of DM overhead.  And, since I mix styles a bit, there's also the drawback of uncertain expectations for the players.  These are all pretty apparent to me as drawbacks of my style.

However, since I'm aware of them, I can take pains to mitigate them.  I avoid railroading and "secret backstory".  I invite players to author fiction by leaving spaces and doing some asking questions and using answers (my players get a lot of latitude to continually author things related to their backstory, including the appearance of the Halfling Mafia from whole cloth at one point in my game).  I try to enunciate when I'm using a different mechanic or expectation for a scene.  I can do these things because I'm aware of the drawbacks of my style.

I don't confuse a drawback in my preferred style with a drawback in me, or even how I run a game.  Maybe that's a trait of my professional life; I don't take criticism of my tools as criticism of me.

As for the reference to popularity, I'll just assume that wasn't meant for me, as I don't recall that entering into an argument I've made.  I don't lend much, if any, weight to the majority.


----------



## hawkeyefan

chaochou said:


> From the point of view of the practicalities of playing an rpg the next question is when does that piece of fiction need to be _authored_?
> 
> If the GM authors it beforehand, are they then steering events with Luke to a duel and showdown with Vader for their big reveal? Isn't this undercutting the Luke player's agency in exactly the way suggested? And if they don't do that, how do they bring it into play - especially given your analysis that doing so at any other time is less satisfactory...
> 
> An alternative is to leave these details open and author as response to the action and the dice. It only gets addressed as and when it's dramatically appropriate. Then I don't need to steer the game to any point for my 'reveal'. The reveals are created to suit the events, not the other way around. And I, as GM, get to enjoy the unfolding of events as much as the players.
> 
> You may not think it's possible. But I've done it session after session. I believe Campbell has as well, Pemerton too, Manbearcat too.
> 
> Where is the confusion over this approach?




I don't think there is confusion over the approach. I think that, in the general way you've described, it's understood. The particulars of how it is acheived seem to vary pretty sognificantly among the posters you've listed, so I think some confusion may come from there.

I also think, there's some confusion about resistance to not simply discussion of potential drawbacks or failings of this approach, but the very idea that such failings could even exist.

For instance, based just on your description, I would be concerned that authoring such details along the way may not allow for as detailed a story. I would expect that, compared to a story authored beforehand, that one authored on the fly would possibly lack verisimilitude. 

This is certainly a failing I've seen in games where I have relied almost entirely upon improv rather than pre-authored details.


----------



## Lanefan

chaochou said:


> From the point of view of the practicalities of playing an rpg the next question is when does that piece of fiction need to be _authored_?
> 
> If the GM authors it beforehand, are they then steering events with Luke to a duel and showdown with Vader for their big reveal? Isn't this undercutting the Luke player's agency in exactly the way suggested? And if they don't do that, how do they bring it into play - especially given your analysis that doing so at any other time is less satisfactory...
> 
> An alternative is to leave these details open and author as response to the action and the dice. It only gets addressed as and when it's dramatically appropriate.



The worry there, of course, is that it never gets addressed at all.

If I as DM (or as player, for that matter, in a player-driven game) have this really cool idea but can't steer the game toward it, the idea ultimately goes to waste.  If I have some really cool idea in a DM-driven system, however, as the DM I can find ways to steer things toward it.  And if a player has a really cool idea - or better yet, lots of them - she can always try her hand at DMing her own game.

Lan-"the world needs more DMs"-efan


----------



## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think there is confusion over the approach. I think that, in the general way you've described, it's understood. The particulars of how it is achieved seem to vary pretty significantly among the posters you've listed, so I think some confusion may come from there.
> 
> I also think, there's some confusion about resistance to not simply discussion of potential drawbacks or failings of this approach, but the very idea that such failings could even exist.
> 
> For instance, based just on your description, I would be concerned that authoring such details along the way may not allow for as detailed a story. I would expect that, compared to a story authored beforehand, that one authored on the fly would possibly lack verisimilitude.
> 
> This is certainly a failing I've seen in games where I have relied almost entirely upon improv rather than pre-authored details.




I will try to explain my own resistance. The implication is that there is something wrong with the approach or a given game design rather than it simply not being suited to a particular set of player motivations, risk tolerances, and cultural values. I would rather not make evaluative judgments based on what I feel other people might perceive to be failings. The problem with that sort of analysis is that it involves merely guessing what other people could possibly value. I can only meaningfully speak to my own interests, values, experiences, and knowledge.

Part of the reason why I prefer to speak in terms of suitability, risks, and pain points is that there is no implication that we must do something about them. Often the specific pain points and risks involved with a given design are necessary to achieve some other result that we value. Additionally a pain point might be there by design in order to spur a player to action or act as a meaningful consequence for unskilled play. It sucks when you cannot play a particular character anymore, but you have learned lessons along the way that will result in a more rewarding experience in the future. Rewarding play is dependent on well considered risks. What happens when we mitigate risks is we remove the possibility for dramatic failure, but also the great rewards that come along with social, creative, and strategic risk taking. We can consider which pain points we are willing to experience and risks we are willing to take to get what we want out of play rather than assume some failing. 

There is also the element where I would prefer not to do anything which would push this discussion more into the realm of debate rather than the realm of analysis and criticism. I am somewhat concerned about providing rhetorical weapons that could be used to cut off discussion rather than enliven it.

Essentially we are talking about matters of perspective here.

I do not view it as a failing of my most preferred approach that active and vigorous collaboration can sometimes fall flat or result in narratives we might not be particularly pleased with. These potential pain points and the creative risks involved are necessary to experience these deeply personal stories and the experience of achieving creative success together and to learn how to best collaborate in the future. It might not be what someone who is not me wants out of their play, but that is neither here nor there.

I also do not view a tendency towards illusionism as a drawback outside the particular context of my own desires. It cuts against my particular interests, but that says nothing meaningful about the interests of the people who want to play that sort of game. Just because a given design, approach, or set of techniques happens to not coincide with my own motivations and cultural values does not mean there is something wrong with it.

Aside: I strongly disagree that a more improvisational and collaborative approach will necessarily lead to a less meaningful sense of being there in the moment and reduced coherency. That very much depends on the actual techniques and drives involved in making those decisions. I find that when I engage in copious prep of the type recommended by most mainstream texts the resulting experience is less organic, feels less genuine, depends too much on contrivance and lacks authenticity. I find when I put less emphasis on designing everything and let go, depend on the other players, and approach things with discipline during play I feel much more connected to the fiction.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> To your first point, drawback has less of a negative connotative than pain point or risks.  Perhaps because I'm an engineer by trade and deal with risk analysis all the time.  To me, it's entirely natural for a game style to have drawbacks.  I'm not, in the least, bother by the fact my preferred style does.  I know my style can degenerate into illusionist and railroading, both rather more pejorative terms than drawbacks, but still used.  It also has a lot of DM overhead.  And, since I mix styles a bit, there's also the drawback of uncertain expectations for the players.  These are all pretty apparent to me as drawbacks of my style.



Other than the engineer bit (I'm not one) and that I don't see illusionist style as a degeneration, this pretty much sums up my own thoughts as well.



> However, since I'm aware of them, I can take pains to mitigate them.



For my part, being aware of them allows me to (usually) see them coming and then make a conscious decision whether to carry on or not, based on my best educated guess as to what will make for a better game....which should really be my overarching goal as DM anyway, right?



> I don't confuse a drawback in my preferred style with a drawback in me, or even how I run a game.  Maybe that's a trait of my professional life; I don't take criticism of my tools as criticism of me.



Well, I've over time also come to recognize (and, I hope, mitigate) some of my own drawbacks as a DM that relate to me as a person; as the two are intertwined.  Sometimes what seems like a criticism of the tools is in fact better addressed as a criticism of the wielder, whether I like to admit it or not. 

Lan-"the old line of 'a good worker never blames the tools' might apply here too"-efan


----------



## chaochou

hawkeyefan said:


> I also think, there's some confusion about resistance to not simply discussion of potential drawbacks or failings of this approach, but the very idea that such failings could even exist.




Perhaps people so keen to find such failings could have the decency to have tried the approach for themselves instead of engaging in empty speculation about a playstyle they have neither used nor understand.

I have plenty of experience of many types of play - gm-led and player-led, totally improvised to heavily scripted, scenarios and sandboxes and indie. I can run [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game. I'm fairly sure I can run [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s game. Can you? I'll discuss techniques and their potential difficulties with people who can say the same, not with internet gainsayers looking to point-score.

So why are you asking about failings, exactly? What game are you playing or planning and what difficulties are you having? Or are you just parroting that guileless, point-scoring rubbish hoping for a line of attack on [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]?



hawkeyefan said:


> For instance, based just on your description, I would be concerned that authoring such details along the way may not allow for as detailed a story. I would expect that, compared to a story authored beforehand, that one authored on the fly would possibly lack verisimilitude.




Based on what experiences? None is the answer, and no plans to either. So on what basis are you saying these things? Unless you can describe a player-led game you are playing or trying to run and want to discuss actual play, in the real world, with your own experiences... don't waste my time.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> I will try to explain my own resistance. The implication is that there is something wrong with the approach or a given game design rather than it simply not being suited to a particular set of player motivations, risk tolerances, and cultural values. I would rather not make evaluative judgments based on what I feel other people might perceive to be failings. The problem with that sort of analysis is that it involves merely guessing what other people could possibly value. I can only meaningfully speak to my own interests, values, experiences, and knowledge.




Fair enough. I feel that a comparative element was baked into the thread in the sense that the premise was A vs. B. I mean, the word versus is in the title of the thread, so it seems the inent was to evaluate A against B...and doing that involves analysis of comparative stewngths and weaknesses. 

But I don't think that means that we must lose sight of te fact that ultimately, any playstyle and any mechanical rules system are fine as ling as they work for those involved in that game. 



Campbell said:


> Part of the reason why I prefer to speak in terms of suitability, risks, and pain points is that there is no implication that we must do something about them. Often the specific pain points and risks involved with a given design are necessary to achieve some other result that we value. Additionally a pain point might be there by design in order to spur a player to action or act as a meaningful consequence for unskilled play. It sucks when you cannot play a particular character anymore, but you have learned lessons along the way that will result in a more rewarding experience in the future. Rewarding play is dependent on well considered risks. What happens when we mitigate risks is we remove the possibility for dramatic failure, but also the great rewards that come along with social, creative, and strategic risk taking. We can consider which pain points we are willing to experience and risks we are willing to take to get what we want out of play rather than assume some failing.




This is precisely what I'm driving at. I used the term drawbacks instead of pain points. I get the difference...drawbacks implies a flaw with the system, where as pain points implies an issue on the part of the iser. But that distinction aside, they are the same thing.



Campbell said:


> There is also the element where I would prefer not to do anything which would push this discussion more into the realm of debate rather than the realm of analysis and criticism. I am somewhat concerned about providing rhetorical weapons that could be used to cut off discussion rather than enliven it.




Criticism was what I was hoping for. Rather than guessing at criticisms of a system like Burning World, I'd prefer togear about them from someone familiar with the game. 



Campbell said:


> Aside: I strongly disagree that a more improvisational and collaborative approach will necessarily lead to a less meaningful sense of being there in the moment and reduced coherency. That very much depends on the actual techniques and drives involved in making those decisions. I find that when I engage in copious prep of the type recommended by most mainstream texts the resulting experience is less organic, feels less genuine, depends too much on contrivance and lacks authenticity. I find when I put less emphasis on designing everything and let go, depend on the other players, and approach things with discipline during play I feel much more connected to the fiction.




Okay! I wouldn't call this an aside so much as a return to meaningful discussion. 

I think it's interestingt hat you feel that the fiction is stronger when you let go and allow the game to establish everything as you progress. My approach in my game is to have some basic skeleton or outline in place before playing, but to allow plenty of leeway for change or the introduction of new elements based on how thjngs come out in play. Doing that means I can't be married to any ideas I've thought up prior tothe start of play, but that they are there for me to lean on or to inteoduce as needed to help keep play moving. 

As I said earlier, I feel my game is a blend of GM and player driven aspects. ButI have tried games in the past where I've not prepared in any way and rrlied solely on improv and player input...and I feel the game suffered for it. 

You memtion copious amounts of prep...and I know for many, that is how they like to approach the game. They have a Silmarillion's worth of backstory and world information. My prep is much simpler...most of it is just brainstorming, having a few key ideas or characters or what have you. Actual prep isually consists of like a bullet pointed list of possibilities for the game, along with some possible outcomes for each possibility. This is usually like 5 to 10 lines on a page.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> The player of the invoker/wizard in my game is probably the most adventurous with this sort of thing, but I can't say whether that's a feature of him as a player, or whether that's the result of playing a PC whose build (lots of skills with high bonuses, lots of spells, lots of rituals) is very well-suited to it. When the player explains (both to the table, and in character to the other PCs) that an Undead Ward, suitably powered up using the Aspect as a focus, can sever the connection between Vecna and his Eye, I am not going to contest that statement about the fiction. (Just as, in relation to the episode I quoted upthread with the sealing off of the Abyss, I didn't question the players assertion about what would be possible in the fiction.)




Thanks for the that, that particular reply made it all sink in and I think I now have a better understanding of how you run your games. Would you dare to say you run shared-narration sandbox games?  



> My job, with the fictional possibilities established, is to manage the resolution using the processes the game offers. (Which, as I've said, are very strong for this sort of stuff.)




I think the primary difference between our two styles is that I wouldn't be comfortable allowing players to freely establish fictional possibilities. A player at my table can certainly come up with fictional possibilities but they still run them passed the DM who would determine whether they become established fiction or not.* Now people with similar playstyles to mine fall within quite a wide range. Personally if the idea is reasonable, to me and many times I include the table in on this discussion, then we run with the player's idea. Success or failure the narration is done by the DM.

*The reason it is run passed the DM is to ensure story integrity (for open and secret backstory) and to a lesser extent that the mechanics 'work'.



> A question that might arise here is: What stops the player(s) just making up any old nonsense to get what they want for their PCs? The answer, I think, is one that @_*Campbell*_ has thought about harder than I have: fidelity to the fiction.




Which was/is my primary concern. Now just as you do not like to make evaluative judgements on the moral/ethical actions performed by characters and thus on the player's interpretation of such actions (refer our alignment thread which I previously posted a link to), in the same way I do not like to make evaluative judgements on the narration offered by the player and thus cannot make that leap to shared narration. 



> 4e is good for this, too, at least in its default mode (the three tiers of play, the default cosmology, etc): the whole setting - PCs and antagonists - are infused with colour that tells you what does and doesn't make sense within the gameworld.




I can agree with this.



> I'm in the early stages of a new Dark Sun 4e game. Dark Sun departs in several respects from the default 4e setting, and I'm a bit worried that it won't provide quite the same degree of seamless integration between setting colour, mechanically defined story elements, and the page 42/skill challenge resolution frameworks. If I'm lucky, though, then I'm wrong about this! (I know @_*darkbard*_ is also running 4e Dark Sun. Any thoughts on this particular issue?)




I have not read enough about Dark Sun, but from the little I know, the setting certainly feels more restrictive for the type of gaming style you wish play.


----------



## hawkeyefan

chaochou said:


> Perhaps people so keen to find such failings could have the decency to have tried the approach for themselves instead of engaging in empty speculation about a playstyle they have neither used nor understand.




Well, there are two ways to look at this.

The first is that I have played in very player driven games. But I have not played specific games as others have. In order to better understand them, I ask questions. 

The second is from the other angle. For someone familiar with a playstyle or rule system in question, it makes sense that their perspective would be useful in a discussion about that topic. For me, limiting that perspective only to the positive skews the discussion. 

I don't think that anyone wants an echo chamber. 



chaochou said:


> I have plenty of experience of many types of play - gm-led and player-led, totally improvised to heavily scripted, scenarios and sandboxes and indie. I can run  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s game. I'm fairly sure I can run [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s game. Can you? I'll discuss techniques and their potential difficulties with people who can say the same, not with internet gainsayers looking to point-score.




Sure. I wouldnt expect you to be familiar with all 120 odd pages of the thread, but I feel my game does what theirs do. I incorporate elements that are player driven, and elements that are GM driven into the game. However, I don't do so using the Dungeon World or Birning Wheel system that has been discussed.

I am admittedly unfamiliar with those games (BW more so than DW). So I ask questions about them. Asking about negative elements of those games or of the aystems themselves...or pain points on the part of users of those systems, if that is a more fitting way to view it...is not an attack on [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] nor on the game he runs nor the system he chooses to use. 

When you buy a car, you want to know about the cons as much as the pros, yes? 



chaochou said:


> So why are you asking about failings, exactly? What game are you playing or planning and what difficulties are you having? Or are you just parroting that guileless, point-scoring rubbish hoping for a line of attack on  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]?




I play D&D 5th edition. I said this earlier in the thread as well...which started off in the 5E forums, I'll add. You seem to be getting involved at this point in what had been a long and meandering discussion that's had several threads of its own.

There are lots of criticisms of 5E. Depending on who you ask and what they want out of the game, you'll get a variety of answers. For me, I find the system so easy to tweak that I can address any concerns my group and I have. Our biggest area of concern is likely the skill system. It's a little too simplified, and pretty unclear in some cases. We've been dealing with it and adjusting things here and there, though.

Another area where I am kind of dealing with it very loosely is the more character traits and bonds area. I find that the system in place and the Inspiration mechanic tied to it to be pretty bland. I've been abdicating it on the fly and allowing my players a lot of leeway in how they use inspiration, so it works for us. But I wouldnt mind seeing more takes on that part of the game. I don't know if I'd want such mechanics to be as central to the game as those of BW seem to be, but it'd be cool to see some options in that area of the game. 

But all in all, my game achieves a lot of what pemerton and others have attributed to the mechanics of other games. So I'm curious about the necessity of those mechanics, and on what other complications may come alog with them. 



chaochou said:


> Based on what experiences? None is the answer, and no plans to either. So on what basis are you saying these things? Unless you can describe a player-led game you are playing or trying to run and want to discuss actual play, in the real world, with your own experiences... don't waste my time.




I can't waste your time, only you can do so. You can feel free to reply to me or not...but whichever you do, I hope you relax.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Deciding that there are no bowls in a room is just fine without a roll, so long as the DM has done so with a reason for the lack of bowls that makes sense and could be understood in the gameworld. Not based on secret backstory, but on presented and predictable information.



But isn't this an instance of exactly the phenomenon I am describing? A player declares an action for his/her PC ("I look around the room for a bowl") and the GM responds "Sorry, no bowls" without engaging the resolution mechanics, but simply by reference to backstory which the player doesn't know - because of course, if the player knew there were no bowls in the room, s/he wouldn't have declared that her PC is looking for one!

Whether the GM's fiction is authored in the moment, or is prewritten (say, in a room key) is an interesting further thing - that it be pre-authored in a room key is fairly central to classic dungeoneering, whereas spontaneous authorship is probably more the norm in what, upthread, was being described as "storyteller" style. What [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] called "free krieggspeil" allows for spontaneous authorship subject to studied fidelity to the established fiction and expert knowledge - I think in the case of a bowl in a room, though, expert knowledge and fidelity to the established ficiton probably don't answer the question, and so a Moldvay Basic-style setting of a chance and then roll of the dice might be more apporpriate.

But that further interesting thing, and the different sorts of playstyles it can feed into, doesn't really bear on my personal dislike of the technique.



Ovinomancer said:


> why did you pick finding a container to be the crux of the scene instead of whether or not the PC could, with a container, actually collect sufficient blood? Would it not have been the same, and possibly even better since it's testing PC ability, to test to catch the blood after "say(ing) yes' to the presence of a bowl?
> 
> it appears that there's multiple ways to skin this cat. The 'yes bowl, test catch' method works just fine with DM judgement and secret backstory, AND with the player-centric principles you've proposed. The 'test bowl, yes catch' seems odd, in that it's focusing on the presence of a bowl rather than PC action.



Better for whom?

A game focused on seeing how good the PC is at catching blood in bowls? Absolutely. But that wasn't the game I was GMing.

What the player put into play was the presence or absence of a bowl.. In the moment of play, that was the thing that the player cared about - "My master wants to offer the blood to the spirits, the blood is spilling out, is there anything to catch it in!" So the focus was on the presence of a bowl - that's how the check was framed. (And I don't know why that is especially odd. There is literary precedent for focusing on the presence or absence of something that will aid the protagonist, rather than the protagonist's performance as such: "My kingdom for a horse!" There is also RPGing precedent: D&D wizards need objects, like spellbooks and components, and are vulnerabl without them. But we rarely check to sre if they can successfuly cast their spells.)

An important element of GM judgement, in my preferred approach to RPGing, is to go where the action is. In the BW Adventure Burner (recapitulated in the Codex), Luke Crane has a bit where he says (I think it's a heading, or maybe an intro sentence), "Don't be a wet blanket, Mr GM." In other words, judging _where the action is_, and then recognising when the time has come to "say 'yes'", is a pretty key GMing skill.



hawkeyefan said:


> My sense of Framing is that this is where the GM places the PCs at the start of a game or session, correct?



Not really. Every time the GM narrates the ingame situation to the players, and then asks them (expressly or implicitly) "What do you do?" is a moment of framing. The response is action declaration: "OK, my guy is going to . . ."

Some of the fictional elements used in establighin a scene are just colour: eg the drow tentacle rods are a lurid purple (I think - it's been a while) rather than (say) swirling aquamarine. That is, they don't matter to resolution but just add flavour, reinforce theme, etc.

What counts as colour vs framing in the stricter sense is highly context dependent. If one of the players suddenly remembers "Don't we have a scroll of protection from purple weapons?", then what the GM may have intended only as colour suddenly becomes part of the framing more strictly construed. As I've mentioned upthread, it can also be the case that stuff that at one point of play was mere colour (a yellow-robed skulker has been seen around the place) can beomce jpart of the framing of a subsequent situation.

The relationship of the PCs to the framing fiction is _fictional positioning_. You'll have seen [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] upthread emphasising how important he finds it, in RPGing, to be able to skillfully engage the fictional positioning. This is also an important part of clasic D&D play (I don't necessarily disagree with the difference Campbell has noted between B/X and Gygaxian AD&D, but put them to one side for present purposes). For instance, in White Plume Mountain there are doors, and there are pits with super-tetanus spikes in a frictionless corridor. The pits are not mere colour: they matter to resolution of declarations of movement down the corridor. Are the doors mere colour? At first blsuh, perhaps - or, at best, the checks needed to open them play a "clock" function in generating wandering monster checks. But then a player says, "Can't we take the doors of their hinges so as to surf down the frictionless corridor over the pits?" Now the doors are part of the framing, and the PC's ability (in the fiction) to use them, has become an important element of fictional positioning.

How players can change their PCs' fictional positioning, and hence change the sorts of options open to them in action declaration, is a big difference in RPG systems. One way of stating my dislike of the use of secret backstory to adjudicate action declarations is that the players are subject to fictional positioning of their PCs that they are unaware of and can't (in any meaningful sense) control.

(What counts as meaningful obviously is highly context dependent.)



hawkeyefan said:


> But the GM does not have any secret backstory to draw from....so he is drawing everything from what has been established by the players' actions, right?



No.

For me as a GM, one of the most important things is to settle on the framing of situations. This includes determining the right mix of elements that arise from or reflect past events, plus new elements that speak to the salient player/PC concerns. In this second category there are at least two subcategorise: stuff that emerges from things the players have previously made part of the fiction (eg a new member of a secret society that is part of a PC's backstory); new stuff that the GM introduces (eg a new NPC trying to hunt down members of the secret society).

Two examples of that last sub-category from upthread: not because I'm denying you any courtesies (I hope) but because you might have seen some of the posts and so they might ring bells.

(1) The renegade wastrel elf (in BW this is called a dark elf, but is not a drow in the D&D sense - more like Maeglin and Eorl in The Silmarillion). I introduced this character into the fiction as part of the narration of consequences of failure on a check to travel safely across the Bright Desert to the Abor-Alz. The navigating PC was the elven ronin, who has a Belief to _always keep the elven ways_, and so a renegade elf who fouls waterholes seemed fitting. (And I had just been re-reading The Silmarillion.)

I hope that the above exposition makes clear the difference between this being an elf and (say) an orc. The latter - whether or not it would have been good GMing (the same PC also has an Instinct to attack orcs when he sees them) - would have carried quite different thematic weight.

And having it be a dwarf would have been bad GMing, because nothing about any of the PCs would be spoken to by having the destination waterhole be fouled by a dwarf.

(2) The yellow-robed leader of the goblin army, who - it turned out - was the advisor to the baron of the city the PCs ended up arriving at, and liberating from the threat of the goblin army, around low-to-mid paragon tier.

This character was first introduced as colour: another NPC told the PCs of a yellow-robed skulker hanging around ancient minotaur tombs. The tombs were significant for three reasons: (i) prior events had established that dwarvish culture had minotaur roots, and one of the PCs was a dwarf, with strong loyalties to the dwarvish clans and traditions; (ii) the minotaurs were the predecessor culture to the Nerathi empire, and one of the PCs was trying to restore the Nerathi civilisation; (iii) the tombs had some sort of connection to Orcus (the Raven Queen's arch-nemesis), and several PCs were Raven Queen devotees of varying degrees of fanaticism.

Dropping in the skulker sows a seed for future colour and framing: later on the PCs saw him fly off from a goblin fortress on his carpet (as I posted upthread, I think this was in the context of an infiltration skill challenge); and later on still they discovered that he was the baron's advisor, and that no one in the city new that he was actually a Vecna-cultist with various nefarious plans.



hawkeyefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If the GM is doing this in his/her own time, and simply making notes in a folder headed "Campaign Record", then - at that point - it is not even clear what it would mean to say that it is part of the shared fiction. Who is it shared with?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> there are two ways this could factor in. The first would be the GM deciding, when the PCs don't pursue the assassin, "okay, here's what happens as a result....I'll make a note of it in case it matters later on". The second would be the Gm deciding later on when it does in fact come into play what had happened with the king and the assassin.
Click to expand...


The first that you describe seems to be the same as what I said: the GM makes notes in a folder headed "Campaign Record".

The question implicit in what I've been posting is: what is the status of that GM note?

If it's ideas/plans for possible future framings, consequences etc then it is not, at present, part of the shared fiction at all, and hence not secret backstory because not any sort of backstory. An illustration of what I've got in mind: the GM might nnes "assassin escaped, head's to PCs' home village". Then, when the PCs return to their village, the GM mentions a new village resident who doesn't leave his house very often and wears a heavy cowl when he does. Depending on context, that bit of GM narration is either colour or framing. At the point of narration it becomes part of the shared fiction. And whether or not it is an instance of what I have called GM-driven or player-driven play is impossible to tell from what I've just described, because we know nothing about how the assassination of the king, the fate of the assassin, and the PCs' home village, fit into any player goals/concerns/interests expressed/manifested via PC build and play of the PCs.

But here's another possibility: the GM makes notes that the assassin is hiding out in the PCs' home village. And that various friends, family etc of the PCs, who live in that village, are cowed, murdered by the assassin, etc. Then (let's suppose) in the course of play, a player declares that his/her PC sends a message to the village, asking (say) a friend to do some small favour or other and then send a note back confirming it's been done. And the GM decides (behind the screen, as it were) that the messenger is intercepted by the assassin, the favour never performed, no return message sent, etc - and all the player knows is that, as time passes in the game and s/he asks the GM "Have I got a return message yet?", is that the GM answers "No, no return message". That would be an instance of the GM using secret backstory - ie fiction that s/he is treating as an established element of the gameworld, but that the players don't know about - as part of the framing, part of the fictional positioning, and adjudicating action declarations accordingly. That's an instance of what I don't enjoy./



hawkeyefan said:


> why would the GM have the PCs' attempt to reach the court rebuffed without explaining why? You seem to attribute some need for secrecy here on the part of the GM, but I cannot see why. Perhaps such an attempt is rebuffed, but the PCs find out it's because the king was killed....and they then recall that time when they had learned that an assassin may have been after the king, but they did nothing.....



I don't see this as fundamentally different.

When you say "the PCs find out" - well, there's many ways that can happen. Upthread, in discussing a comparable example, [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] suggested that an unexpcected rebuffing migh trigger the players (via their PCs) to start digging around. Or maybe the GM tells the players as part of the narration of the failure: "Your contact at court says sorry, but you're not welcome - something to do with the recent assassination of the king." And of course there are other possiblities as well.

It's nevertheless the case that the action declaration is failing on account of the GM treating, as part of the backstory which contributes to fictional positioning and hence factors into adjudication, something that the players don't have access to as part of the framing of the situation.

It's got the same basic structure as the message-to-the-home-village example that I just spelled out.



hawkeyefan said:


> Here are the three elements as you originally presented them:
> (i) having regard to consistency with the fiction already established in the course of play
> (ii) having regard to the concerns/interests of the players as manifested through their creation and their play of their PCs
> (iii) bound by the outcomes of action resolution
> 
> I decide I am going to run the Tyranny of Dragons Adventure Path. I discuss this with my players. Each of them creates a Forgotten Realms character for the game. Each of them creates ties to the Sword Coast region. For additional investment, I look at the ideas they come up with, and I take elements from the Adventure Path, and tie them to the characters. Then we play the game and I let things play out as they would based on the performance of the PCs.
> 
> It seems that this game fits all the criteria you've cited.



That's at such a level of abstraction I can't tell. When I am talking about (i), (ii) and (iii) I am talking about them operating as constraints _at every moment of framing_. One result of (ii) is that it shapes narration of failure, which therefore feeds into (i) and (iii) in framing new situations. I find it almost impossible to conceive of how that could operate over (say) 10 sessions of play and yet the outcomes and hence the framings still fit within the framework of a 100+ page AP.

Now, if by "running ToD" you mean taking bits from it and adapting them, shaping them etc so that, as your campaign unfolds, so that you use particular maps, NPCs etc in your game but the actual sequence, story etc is quite different - well, I can see that. But that wasn't what I took you to mean when you talked about "running an AP".

Just looking at the first half of a 30-ish page module: Bastion of Broken Souls. That has at least two encounters in it which open by saying that the NPC in question (an angel, and a banished god) fights the PCs and can't be reasoned with. In each case my players approached the encounter by reasoning with the NPC. I had to ignore those bits of instruction to the GM - which are instructions to the GM to declare action declarations unsuccessful on the basis of (silly) backstory known only to the GM. Which meant that the scenario unfolded quite differently from how the author of the module envisaged. Which meant that the second half - which assumes a certain pre-planned trajectory of events - was useless. (Which I suspected when I bought the module - it was somee of the ideas in the first half that seemed interesting to me.)

It is because this is my uniform experience with even short modules - ie there are some interesting ideas and situtaions, but the totality of the thing rests upon assumptions about frmaing, outcomes etc that are simply not compatible with player-driven RPGing - that I find it very hard to imagination a 100+ page AP unfolding differently.



hawkeyefan said:


> there is no reason that a GM's desires for the game cannot be in harmony with that of the players.



This is true, but (as far as I can see) has no implications for how action declarations should be adjudicated.

For instance, I run games where my desires are (as far as I know) in harmony with those of my players. That's why I use some techniques but not others.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I don't know that the methods are all that new.



The first published RPG I know of that set out the sorts of techniques I prefer is Maelstrom Storytelling (1997). I learned of it around 2004 from an essay on The Forge, and some years later found a second-hand copy at my local game shop. I've never run it, but its advice, plus some ideas in its resolution mechanics, were helpful for me in running skill challenges. A version of the system is downloadable for free under the name Story Bones.

I started running games in my preferred style back around 1987, but didn't have the same suite of resolution techniques that I'm now familiar with. I find it easier using those techniques (which is one reason why, though I still greatly admire it as a system, I would never run Rolemaster again).



hawkeyefan said:


> whether such mechanics or methods would make a game better or not is subjective. For people to decide if such methods would help their game or hurt it, it would also help to be able to discuss the drawbacks of those methods or mechanics, right?



Well, what do you think the drawbacks are?


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> what are the purpose of knowledge skills in your games.  If there is no "secret backstory" to discover and the GM knows no more than the players about the fiction of the setting and it's being created as they all go along... what exactly do knowledge skills and their ilk do in your game since there's nothing to know beyond what exists in the now and what's already been established (all of which the PC's would already be aware of right?)...





Tony Vargas said:


> Seems obvious they'd work like the perception check in the OP.



That's one way they're used, yep.

Another is as in my reply to   [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] upthread, referring to the examples of severing Vecna's connection to his Eye, and sealing off the Abyss: as part of the resolution process the player declares something to be true in the fiction, and declares an action based on that. One consequence of failure may be that it wasn't true after all!

A third, in 4e, can be learning monster stats. (This is a _very _narrow application of   [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s idea about secret info being implicit in the ficiton and recoverable via the right action declarations.)

A fourth, in MHRP/Cortex+, is using expertise in a field of knowledge to build a pool to achieve something where knowledge would help. (Eg when the players wanted to create a Plans of the Sewage etc Tunnels Under the Latverian Embassy assett, Bobby Drake's Business expertise, which includes knowledge of how to deal with bureaucracies, helped.)

There are probably others I'm not thinking of, or that I haven't experienced yet.



Tony Vargas said:


> In the OP, the player asked if there was something he could catch blood in, the check to look for it determined if there was (success) or wasn't (failure).  Sounds like either way the DM has to come up with some detail - like what the potential blood-catching vessel is, on a success.



Well, the player had suggested " . . . like a chamberpot?" And so when the PC spotted a vessel, it was a chamberpot. And then some time later, when the PCs were doing their runner, I said that he could have a jug-full of blood as well.

The chamberpot turned out to be an amusing option, because it then opened up the possibility of having the severed head sitting in it.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> What I still don't (and maybe never will) understand is why, when you present them, you usually present them in the light of being the wrong way to run a game



I've never said they're the wrong way to run a game. I've said that they're not how I like to run a game.

When you post things like this:



Lanefan said:


> Your loss, I suppose.



Are you telling me that I'm doing something wrong? I take it that you're expressing a preference.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> In order to go where the action is, you need to know what the PC's _action_ is. Not the PCs motivation.
> 
> If the PC attempts to haggle for some Calishite silks, I (the DM) don't need to know that he wants to purchase them for his mother.



In order to know whether or not _framing a PC into an episode of haggling with a merchant over silk_ counts as "going where the action is" (in the relevant sense), one needs to know whether or not _haggling with merchants_ is something that speaks to the player's concerns for the game (as expressed via build and play of the PC).


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> pemerton[quote=Ilbranteloth said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Jabal told them to leave town because they are bearers of a curse. Although you could just as easily said that "Jabal says leave town now, or there will be consequences," leaving the party wondering why they were debuffed.
> 
> Either result works for me
> 
> 
> 
> 
> OK. But it's not the case that either result works for me. And when you say "I could just as easily" have used the second result, that's not actually true. Doing that would have been more-or-less breaking the rules of the game.
Click to expand...


And that's one of the places that loses me in terms of BW/DW, that an ambiguous result is somehow breaking the rules of the game. 

Or to put it a different way, it's an example of a game/rule that puts the game/rules ahead of the fiction. Despite the fact that the game is supposed to put the fiction first.[/quote]How is a rule being put ahead of the fiction?

Which is to say, why is the fiction of your second option superior to the first, or true to the established fiction.

And from the point of RPGing, what benefit do you think flows from the players not understanding the motivations of hostile NPCs? Upthread, [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] called this "find the plot" RPGing. And [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] referred, in this sort of case, to the players taking steps to find out what explains the NPC's behaviour. What makes this superior to the players knowing the NPC's motivation?



Ilbranteloth said:


> 1) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed - because, they are told, the king has been assassinated.
> 
> 2) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed. Pressing, they are told that the reasons for being rebuffed are not your concern. If the king does not wish to see you, then he will not see you.
> 
> 3) The party asks for an audience with the king, and are rebuffed - because, they are told, that the king is busy with important matters out of state, and the date of his return is not until next week. The reality is, the king has been assassinated, and the doppelgängers responsible for it, are still making proper preparations to secretly take control.



There is no answering these question in the abstract. Everything depends on what the players, through build and play of their PCs, have signalled as salient matters to engage with.

It also depends on the context of narration. Are these narrations of failed action resolution? Or mechanically un-mediated GM responses to action declarations? (Which is what I have referred to as "failure consequent on application of GM secret backstory.)

In short, and as I've posted multiple times upthread, simply from a recount of some fictional episoe we can't tell how it took place at the RPG table.



Ilbranteloth said:


> isn't that the game limiting the stories that can be told with that system. That certain story lines are prohibited?



No.

The structure of (3) above is very similar to the following: The PCs look for a mace in a tower, but can't find it. In fact, this is because it has been taken from the tower by the renegade elf who has been stalking them ever since they entered the Abor-Alz from the Bright Desert. Which occurred in the OP game.

Issues of GMing technique aren't about _what stories can be told_ They're about _how stories are authored by a group of people playing a RPG together_.

In the case of the mace and the renegade elf: (i) the declaration that there is no mace (which is the structural analogue of being rebuffed by the King's court) is consequent on a failed check; (ii) the revelation that the mace is in the hands of the elf (which is the structural analogue of the reality being that the doppelgangers have taken over the court) is part of the framing of a subsequent encounter, where the elf attacks the PCs wielding the mace.



Ilbranteloth said:


> the framing of the scene (does that include, "OK, you kick in the door, and the room is a square, roughly 30 feet per side, with some discarded furniture and moldy tapestries hanging on the other three walls). Is the boxed text in a published adventure "framing the fiction?"



The boxed text would generally be part of framing a situation, yes.



Ilbranteloth said:


> In D&D, the narration of consequences occurs after things like the declaration of actions, and the resolution of actions as well. In many cases this also includes quite a bit of discussion and exploration. These are not "framing" or "narration of consequences" so where to they fall in the fiction?



That sounds like narration of consequences. If a player says (in character) "I look behind the tapestry" that is an action declaration. If the GM says "You see a blank wall" that is a narration of consequence by way of "saying 'yes'" - ie no check is called for for the players' action to succeed - and also framing (_you're faced by a blank wall - what do you do?_).



Ilbranteloth said:


> As to secret backstory, again I go back to Star Wars. Luke has a significant backstory. It is a secret from him, although parts of it are known to people (NPCs) that come into the story very early on. That backstory has a hugely significant impact on Luke's story from the very point that Vader says, "I am your father." As I pointed out, that changed the story from rebellion to redemption.
> 
> Would this story break the rules?



Who can tell, without knowing how it was established via the processes of play?

In the OP game, I fairly recently established - by way of framing - that the mage PC and his demon-possessed brother are half-brothers: the father of the brother is the abbot who arrived in Hardby to officiate at the wedding of the Gynarch and Jabal, who - decades earlier - was a young priest at the court where the brothers' mother lived.

That was consistent with the established fiction and, at the moment of play, seemed appropriate - the PC was at the docks, hoping to meet a friendly cleric in the abbot's entourage who could cure his mummy rot, and both (i) saw the abbot come off the boat, and (ii) saw his brother across the crowd, watching the abbot's arrival with a mixture of longing (filial affection) and hatred (demonic possession).

Through back-and-forth with the player about what he (in character) could see, and what he (in character) could recall of his childhood and family history, the backstory just described was established. It heightened the stakes of the scene, and led to the player rewriting a Belief, to read "Now that I've seen my brother, I pity him".

That's not identical to the Star Wars plotline, but it's comparable.

To reiterate: player-driven RPGing techniques aren't focused on _content_. The concern is with the _process_ of establishing that fiction.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> a TV show also has the advantage of being able to foreshadow - that seemingly unimportant character who appeared for a few moments in episode 6 will in fact be the driving force behind the story arc of episodes 17 through 20.  But from the viewpoint of watching episode 12 the audience has no way of knowing this yet, and no reason to care
> 
> <snip>
> 
> A DM who plans ahead can also effectively plan and use foreshadowing. A DM whose story has no planning has to rely on the luck of foreshadowing after the fact - an odd idea, I know, but by it I mean this:
> 
> - story element X happens organically during tonight's session, somewhat out of nowhere
> - DM and-or players look back through notes or memories and think "Cool! I foreshadowed that perfectly five sessions ago without intending to! Lucky me!"
> 
> Foreshadowing isn't supposed to work that way.



My first response is, Why not?

I've never written for TV or comics, but my guess would be that it's not uncommon for the writers to pick up on stuff that was written into one episode just as a bit of colour of side-plot, and then build it up in a later episode into something more significant.

My second response, then, is that this sort of thing is quite common in RPGing, at least in my experience: story element X occurs in the course of play; some time later, the GM picks upon story element X and uses it as part of the framing or other narration of some new situation. The first occurrence becomes foreshadowing of the second.

Eg in this session, the PCs in my main 4e game travelled back in time, and rescued an apprentice wizard trapped in a mirror. When, several sessions later, the PCs (back in the "present") went to dinner with the baron, they saw some paintings on the wall of his hall:



pemerton said:


> One had a young woman, who was the spitting image of a wizard's apprentice they had recently freed from a trapping mirror - except that adventure had happened 100 years in the past (under a time displacement ritual), and this painting was clearly newly painted. Another, older, painting was of a couple, a man resembling the Baron, and a woman resmembling the rescued apprentice but at an older age.



The events of the first scenario foreshadowed the PCs' encounter with the baron's family in the present, including his niece who is the spitting image of her great-grandmother, the rescued apprentice.

But no one - neither player nor GM - knew at the time of the first scneario that it would foreshadow the second, becuse the second hadn't even been conceived of yet.

EDIT: This is what  [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] calls "referential", not true foreshadowing. But the experience for the audience - in terms of connecting recurrent story elements to expectations about the fiction - is the same.

EDIT THE SECOND: And I see that I was ninja-ed by [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] in my description of how episodic fiction is authored.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> See his comment upthread where he said DMs playing my playstyle don't have to take the players feelings and desires into consideration.  That's patently false statement.



Well, what you say here is a false account of what I said.

What I said was that, in GM-driven play, the GM is permitted to author ficiton without being constrained by the concerns/interests that the players have expressed via the build and/or play of their PCs. That is to say, the _GM_ is permitted to drive the focus of play. That's the very essence of GM-driven play.

For instance, look at  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]'s example of the doppelgangers taking over the king. Ilbranteloth doesn't treat it, as a constraint on making that a part of the game, that one or more of the players have expressed - via build oer play of PC - a concern with doppelgangers taking over the kingdom.



Maxperson said:


> pemerton is the one who specified players, and players is what I took exception to.



I also said _as expressed through the build and play of their PCs_. Having said that once (for player-driven GMing), I don't think I spelled it out the second time (for GM-driven GMing) because I took it to be implicit in the drawing of a contrast between the two.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> it does seem to me that Burning World and similar games seem to limit how stories can be crafted.



Well, yes, that's the point of using technique (A) rather than techinque (B): to have the ficiton be authored/established the A-way rather than the B-way.

But  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] seemed to be arguing that this also limits the _content_ of the fiction. But I don't think that is so. (Or, if there are limits, they aren't the ones that Ilbranteloth has pointed to. There may be some limits on the extent to which an Agatha Christie-style mystery can be created, although I haven't pushed those limits to find out what, if any, they might be. There can certainly be mysteries that are uncovered: see eg this actual play report.)


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Well stated, but the question occurs to me... isn't this just another form of illusionism?



The elegance of the interweaving (assuming it is elegant) isn't illusory - it's genuine.

If the players ask "Was that planned all along?" I'll explain my methods. They're not secret. Some of my players read at least some of the posts I make on these boards.

So what's the illusion?


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> But my point isn't so much about whether it could occur one way or the other, using whatever system. My point is that the power of the story is more effective if the character Luke, and by the extension the player playing Luke, doesn't know the secret backstory until the key point.



And my point is that, as a RPGing experience, it's even more powerful if the GM doesn't know either.

So then, instead of the player discovering what it is that the GM had in mind all along, the player and GM both discover what it is that they have created together through their playing of this game.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> We can absolutely say that someone is a poor Apocalypse World GM, or a poor B/X player



I've often posted that I'm a bad B/X GM.

In the comments to this post, Luke Crane describes GMing Moldvay Basic as

a hard game to run. Not because of prep or rules mastery, but because of the role of the GM as impartial conveyer of really bad news. Since the exploration side of the game is cross between Telephone and Pictionary, I must sit impassive as the players make bad decisions. I want them to win. I want them to solve the puzzles, but if I interfere, I render the whole exercise pointless.​
I suck at impassive non-interference. When I'm GMing, I'm constantly reminding my players of what is (or might be) at stake, asking them how such-and-such relates to so-and-so's convicition about such-and-such-else, teasing and taunting them, discussing how certain moves might be made or resolved, etc.

When I ran an AD&D session not too long ago, I was using random dungeon generation and so could still mostly do the above stuff without spoiling the game. But equally, for that very reason, it wasn't an exploration game in the strictest sense of classic D&D dungeon-crawling.

(The quote is from the comments to the linked post.)


----------



## pemerton

darkbard said:


> my work as an academic



What field? (I'm law and philosophy.)



darkbard said:


> I am curious as to why you think the particularities of the fiction/mechanics of a Dark Sun game might present difficulties to seamless integration in the fashion you suggest.



Short answer (like you said, it's a bit OT): I'm not sure that's there enough overt richness and "gonzo" in the setting for the players to draw on in making action declarations.

It's more of a worry at this stage. As I said, I hope I'm wrong. (If I had to guess what will prove me wrong, it will be the magical elements of the setting: psionics, defiling and the "regrowth" idea that you pointed to in relation to the druid PC in your game. Plus the relative looseness of organisations like the Veiled Alliance and the Templars.)


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> For instance, based just on your description, I would be concerned that authoring such details along the way may not allow for as detailed a story. I would expect that, compared to a story authored beforehand, that one authored on the fly would possibly lack verisimilitude.



Well, I've provided plenty of links to, and examples of, actual play. Having had a look at them, is that concen warranted?

I mean, I feel that my campaigns have quite a bit of detail. Re-reading this account of the PCs' exploration of the Mausoleum of the Raven Queen, I don't see how pre-authoring would have yielded more detail or more verisimilitude.

Do you have examples in mind?

(I should add: I'm assuming you're not talking about details in the GM's notes. I mean, there's plenty of stuff that hasn't come out in the play of my game that might be in GM's notes for a module intended to produce the same storyline (eg the name of the mother of the Baron's niece). But that sort of detail, that never emerges in play, doesn't contribute to the play experience, does it?)


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Rather than guessing at criticisms of a system like Burning World, I'd prefer togear about them from someone familiar with the game.



I've posted some of this, upthread, before and after your initial "drawback" post, but no one responded. Here it is again:



pemerton said:


> By "drawbacks" do we mean "bad things"? In that case, I can't say I've encountered any.
> 
> If we're talking about weaknesses in particular systems, well that's a different topic. 4e has well-known issues about the interface between combat and non-combat resolution.
> 
> If we're talking about challenges for or demands on participants, that's a different thing too. MHRP/Cortex Heroic puts a lot of pressure on the GM to manage the Doom Pool effectively, which is often not easy to do at all. BW is _demanding_ on players, because (i) it asks them to give so much to the game, and (ii) a lot of the time it punches them in the gut as a reward for that giving. But I wouldn't call this a "drawback" - it's the system doing exactly what it says on the tin!


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I've often posted that I'm a bad B/X GM.
> 
> In the comments to this post, Luke Crane describes GMing Moldvay Basic as
> 
> a hard game to run. Not because of prep or rules mastery, but because of the role of the GM as impartial conveyer of really bad news. Since the exploration side of the game is cross between Telephone and Pictionary, I must sit impassive as the players make bad decisions. I want them to win. I want them to solve the puzzles, but if I interfere, I render the whole exercise pointless.​
> I suck at impassive non-interference. When I'm GMing, I'm constantly reminding my players of what is (or might be) at stake, asking them how such-and-such relates to so-and-so's convicition about such-and-such-else, teasing and taunting them, discussing how certain moves might be made or resolved, etc.



This is very enlightening, and says a lot for why we prefer different systems.

Unlike what Luke Crane says, I don't find conveying really bad news to my players about their characters that difficult at all; in part I think because they're already kind of aware that in my game bad news - just like good news - may lurk around any corner.  I'm just as content to watch them make bad decisions as good ones*, and I don't much care if they "win" as long as they're having fun not winning (which is, by the way, quite possible).  Were I to put them into a puzzle or maze and then solve it for them I'd probably get dice thrown at me; they want to solve it themselves via their characters, even if it takes all night.

* - it's when they make no decisions at all that I get bored.

And yes, I'll interfere too sometimes (usually through a party NPC)...though they've learned not to listen very hard as my interference is just as likely to be misleading as it is to be helpful. 

Lan-"sometimes bad players make fine DMs"-efan


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> my game achieves a lot of what pemerton and others have attributed to the mechanics of other games. So I'm curious about the necessity of those mechanics



Mechanics are, in my view, secondary - although not irrelevant.

In my veiw, the primary thing is the tecniques and constraints/considerations that shape authorship. And the primary thing _there_ is: who sets the agenda for the game? Does the GM hook the players, or do the players hook the GM?

The latter can be done using AD&D, although there are parts of that system that will push back if used as written (eg random encounters are not all that conducive to player-driven play, although they can perform a sort of Rorschach-blot function which needn't be totally inimical to player-driven RPGing).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Unlike what Luke Crane says, I don't find conveying really bad news to my players about their characters that difficult at all



Nor do I. Nor does Luke Crane. Running BW is a litany of bad news to the players.

It's the _impassive_ bit that I find hard, and I think that is the point Luke Crane is getting at.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> Would you dare to say you run shared-narration sandbox games?



I don't think of it as a sandbox, because to me a sandbox implies playing in something already there.

That's not to say I'm offended by that label or anything!

A tangent on shared narration: a lot of the time (including in this thread), "shared narration" gets talked about in terms of players narrating in elements of a scene, framing their own challenges, etc.

But for me, it mostly occurs in the sorts of examples I gave - ie as an assumed premise in some other action declaration. To me that's often much more "organic", and it relates to a discussion upthread about the PCs feeling like aliens or feeling like they belong in the world.

When the player of the epic-tier wizard can say, "Well, if I use this ritual with this divine entity as a focus, I can achieve such-and-such mystical effect" and then we just move to the stage of setting a DC and resolving it, it feels like the player _is_ this PC who knows everything there is to know about the arcana of the world.

As opposed to having to ask me, as GM, how such-and-such might be done, or having to go on a quest to find the recipe that I make up (and if the NPC at the end of the quest can know it, then why not the PC in the first place?).

It shifts the focus from _learning_ to _doing_. Which I personally feel makes for a better game experience.


----------



## darkbard

pemerton said:


> What field? (I'm law and philosophy.)




That most capacious field we in the States call "English." Specifically, my research interests are in ecocriticism and 19th c. American literature.



> Short answer (like you said, it's a bit OT): I'm not sure that's there enough overt richness and "gonzo" in the setting for the players to draw on in making action declarations.
> 
> It's more of a worry at this stage. As I said, I hope I'm wrong. (If I had to guess what will prove me wrong, it will be the magical elements of the setting: psionics, defiling and the "regrowth" idea that you pointed to in relation to the druid PC in your game. Plus the relative looseness of organisations like the Veiled Alliance and the Templars.)




I tend to reframe Dark Sun in my mind as a mash-up of Dune/Mad Max: Fury Road/Robert E. Howard, with, perhaps, a dash of Steven Erikson, but, then, I don't have a long history with the setting, in fact, having only delved into it at all with 4E and recently at that. At least this is the kind of game my players and I wish to run with it!

I would add that Dark Sun also greatly expands the mechanical possibilities for terrain presented in the game and that optional rules like weapon breakage and desert survival can place atypical pressure (for a D&D, especially 4E game) on the PCs to respond with unusual action declarations in kind.

But I suppose more play in the setting will let us both know. Certainly, the actual play posts of your first session seem like things are off to a good start!


----------



## Campbell

I think there's a level of projection going on when most people who only play mainstream games analyze the appeal of indie games. They see these finely honed games that are crafted to deliver a specific experience or deal with a specific sort of fiction and assume exacting standards and lack of flexibility on the part of players, a search for the perfect game. That is almost the opposite of what I personally am after.

The reason why I value games that have focus and clarity is not because I want one specific experience. I want many specific experiences that allow me to have fun in different ways. I am not looking to play poker and only poker for the rest of my life. Instead I want to play poker, spades, euchre, and bridge. I just would like to know what game I am playing when I am playing it so I can play it fully and authentically. I want to play hard. I also want to play it with other people who want to play that particular game with me so I can play off of them.

Like I said up thread it is all about expectations and permissions. When everything is permitted nothing can be meaningfully expected. With no meaningful expectations in place it is supremely difficult to develop skill in playing the game and to effectively collaborate creatively.


----------



## Campbell

Aside: The idea that indie games are less about fun is troublesome to me. It's just not about the fun we design or create. It's about a form of fun we get to experience in the moment and not like try to control. It involves risk taking, collaboration, authentic experiences, and can be somewhat messy at times.

One of the big cultural rifts we are dealing with here comes down to Authenticity. On the indie side of things authentic experiences are deeply important. In most discussions you might see me say "really" or "real" a lot. I want real tension. I want to really play to find out. I want my decisions to make a real impact on the fiction. I want to really feel a measure of what my character does. I want us all to experience this authentic experience together. Perception is not reality here. It is not enough to feel like I'm doing something or say we're doing something. I want to really do it.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I think there's a level of projection going on when most people who only play mainstream games analyze the appeal of indie games.



I agree with that.



Campbell said:


> Aside: The idea that indie games are less about fun is troublesome to me.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> On the indie side of things authentic experiences are deeply important. In most discussions you might see me say "really" or "real" a lot. I want real tension. I want to really play to find out. I want my decisions to make a real impact on the fiction. I want to really feel a measure of what my character does. I want us all to experience this authentic experience together. Perception is not reality here. It is not enough to feel like I'm doing something or say we're doing something. I want to really do it.



I think this is interesting.

Because I'm on the GM side so much, my experience of authenticity is to some extent more as witnessing it than living it. One thing I enjoy, and I'm sure have already mentioned upthread, is when a player declares an action not because it's _optimal_, and not because it's _what my guy would do_, but because of _how things are in the ficiton_. The poster child for this, because of the contrast between mechanical optimality and the action declaration, is the fighter/cleric player declaring actions that, mechanically, amount to Intimidate or Diplomacy checks _because he doesn't like where the more charismatic members of the party are taking things_. Or _because he's frustrated with an NPC_, and wants to get back at them (eg the advisor, or the debate with Yan-C-Bin and the djinni).

A more subtle version is the invoker/wizard player, who holds off on trying to bring back his imp _until what he takes to be the right moment in the fiction_ - now he has an Aspect of Vecna under his control, he can do what he wants to do.

That's the sort of thing that makes me feel like we've done something that had at least this little bit of worth to it: someone cared enough about this fiction to engage it in that way as part of playing the game.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> I think there's a level of projection going on when most people who only play mainstream games analyze the appeal of indie games.



 Not to harp on terminology, but when I read 'mainstream games' I have to think of things people were playing in the suburbs in the '50s.    Arguably, even more sophisticated boardgames are mainstreaming, right now.

D&D is the 500 lb gorilla in the tiny RPG pond, and I suppose it and other longer-lived RPGs could be called 'traditional' or even 'successful' or 'name' or something.  But they're just slightly less niche games in a niche hobby.  Indie games, OTOH, are decidedly niche.  But they're all RPGs.  

Sorry to get all pedantic, but 'mainstream games' really does bring me up short every time.  



Campbell said:


> Aside: The idea that indie games are less about fun is troublesome to me.
> 
> One of the big cultural rifts we are dealing with here comes down to Authenticity. On the indie side of things authentic experiences are deeply important.



 So it's troublesome some folks find the games you're advocating for un-fun, while it's OK that you find the games they're advocating for fake (un-Authentic)?

For all that were a small hobby and would benefit from sticking together, once you get outside of the attempted 'big tent' of D&D (and often, even within it), things seem to get pretty catty.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Nor do I. Nor does Luke Crane. Running BW is a litany of bad news to the players.
> 
> It's the _impassive_ bit that I find hard, and I think that is the point Luke Crane is getting at.



The impassive bit doesn't bother me either. 

Where I find impassive more difficult is if-when I'm providing really good news.

Lan-"and for tonight's session the cliffhanger from last session is all hands roll saving throws...failure on which will put my impassive ability to deliver bad news to the test"-efan


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]

When I address mainstream games I am speaking in terms of a particular cultural context. I am specifically speaking of the dominant culture within our greater community. I choose not to frame it in terms of the traditional culture because it does not represent the roots of the game (the war gaming culture), but instead a transformation of what these games were assumed to be about. It also nicely dovetails into the relationship between indie and mainstream movements in other media. That includes elements like authenticity vs. mass appeal, the role of social cohesion in the culture, and openness to experience vs. assumed tropes and structures. I am not claiming cultural superiority here. I am merely trying to explain my perspective.

I was also not saying that anyone has to find any particular game fun. I was responding to an argument [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] made up thread where he claimed indie gamers had a narrow specific definition of fun and were seeking some refined perfect thing. I was trying to explain what I think the appeal of these games are in the cultural context they were born out of rather than what those who are not part of the culture assume their appeal must be. I want a more varied and dynamic experience, not less of one. I want more creative risks. I want more collaboration and less individual design.

When it comes to authenticity I was speaking to a specific cultural and aesthetic value that I hold that I believe is less important in the mainstream culture than things like social cohesion, protecting the experience from perceived negative outcomes, getting exactly what you want out of play, and fidelity to individual creative vision of characters and settings. Things like character and story arcs, detailed world building built on a GM's specific creative vision, adherence to character concept, overt manipulation of mechanics and fiction, story advocacy over character advocacy, over processing of play through mechanics or GM design in the moment, and avoidance of creative risks lead to an experience that feels less organic and authentic to me.

Within this thread there have been innumerable occasions where posters have claimed that player perception is what matters, not what actually happens at the table. They have disputed a need for transparency, organic storytelling, authentic communication, and authentic experiences. I have stated my preferences for these things in the context of where and how GM judgment calls can be used to enhance play as long as they are made in a disciplined way.

Is it your contention that I should not hold a distinction between these things?
Is it your contention that I value authenticity too much?
Is it your contention that the mainstream culture values authenticity *just as much* as I do?
Is it your contention that I should not speak on these distinctions?
Is it your contention that I should take on the values of the dominant culture in the interests of unity?
Do you have a less contentious framing that I should use that still gets to the heart of my concerns?

I am not trying to start a fight here. I do not want to have a debate over what set of approaches are strictly better. I also do not think we should avoid discussion of our differences. If unity means conformity to the values of the dominant culture I have little interest in it. If unity means celebrating the diversity of perspectives, approaches, and games within the hobby while discussing our differences with respect for each other I am all for it. It might get contentious at times and sometimes the way we frame things might get overly aggressive and fail to adequately reflect the situation. When we do this we should be called on our . I have tried to do this throughout my involvement in this thread.

This thread has resulted in some of the best discussions I have had on this site in a long time, specifically because we have been able to speak to the distinctions between the ways we prefer to play and run role playing games. I think it is a good thing when our cultures engage in a meeting of the minds, even when it is difficult, especially when it is difficult. It does no one any good to only discuss things with those who agree with them. At the very least we gain a better understanding of each other.


----------



## TwoSix

Campbell said:


> When it comes to authenticity I was speaking to a specific cultural and aesthetic value that I hold that I believe is less important in the mainstream culture than things like social cohesion, protecting the experience from perceived negative outcomes, getting exactly what you want out of play, and fidelity to individual creative vision of characters and settings. Things like character and story arcs, detailed world building built on a GM's specific creative vision, adherence to character concept, overt manipulation of mechanics and fiction, story advocacy over character advocacy, over processing of play through mechanics or GM design in the moment, and avoidance of creative risks lead to an experience that feels less organic and authentic to me.



While I understand what you're getting at, I feel it's pretty much impossible to tag anyone's game as "less authentic" or "inauthentic" without coming across as pejorative, which I don't believe aids open communication.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ilbranteloth said:


> I disagree in the bolded text. In order to go where the action is, you need to know what the PC's _action_ is. Not the PCs motivation.
> 
> If the PC attempts to haggle for some Calishite silks, I (the DM) don't need to know that he wants to purchase them for his mother. To play the NPC haggling, I need to know what the _NPC's_ motivation is.




I've been out of the conversation for a stretch, so I'm just commenting on a few bits here that I've seen with a quick scan.

On this above, when  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] invokes the principle of "go to the action", he is referring to one (or both) of two specific types of action:

a)  System agency:  The premise that the game itself is fundamentally built around.  If you are a PC in Dogs in the Vineyard, being a player means you have already bought into the play paradigm of being a flawed, vulnerable-but-stalwart, gun-toting Paladin in a Wild West that never was, meting out justice and keeping the peace in towns shot through with sin.  If you decide that your Dog has lost faith, has had enough of this impossible life of service and wants to hit the trail for a Boom Town.  Alright then, retire him and briefly memorialize him for all of us with that story.  But make a new Dog that is embedded into that premise.  Because this game isn't called Lost Dogs and Boom Towns where we follow your fallen Paladin through his pursuit of fortune.

b)  Player agency:  The premise, themes, and tropes that the player has signaled they are interested in via the PC build mechanics.


Its not enough to have NPCs with impulses and drives of their own.  Well, its enough if "the action" is *"whatever spills out of an honest, premise-neutral, organic-outgrowth* (but cognitive bias afflicted...this we cannot do away with no matter how much we feel our model bears fidelity to an impartial, properly parameterized fantasy world simulation)* rendering of a person/place/thing in accordance with those animating factors."*

But that isn't "the action" that pemerton is alluding to.  He's alluding to the centrality to every moment of play of (a), (b), or (often) both.  You could call this "premise logic", "genre logic", "drama logic"...what-have-you.  Regardless, it is the prioritization of that (as "the action") over and above the prioritization of what I have bolded above (as "the action") that is fundamental here.  

So when you're framing scenes or dynamically changing a situation post-resolution or tallying up the fallout after the dust has settled, that prioritization is the driving factor behind your GMing.  Now the typical response to this by folks whose RPG mental frameworks are steeped in Sim priorities is incredulity like; "well, nonsensical, irrational NPCs or an incoherent setting seems inevitable with that prioritization."   I promise you, games that feature "drama logic" (let's just go with that) don't eschew sense or coherency.



Just one other bit right quick.

A Star Wars game could trivially emerge in a "play to find out" fashion through either (a) or (b) above:

(a)  The system's premise itself (and the machinery, resolution mechanics/PC build mechanics/reward cycles, therein) is about discovering the legacy if your heritage and either redeeming it...or falling prey to it.

(b)  The player has a Relationship statement about his father that offers both a d4 (which creates complications) and a d8 (which pushes toward success) to dice pools:

"My aunt and uncle always say 'I have too much of my father in me.'  They don't speak of him beyond that.  I sense a strange pull to discover his fate that goes well beyond curiosity."

Boom.  Off we go.  We can easily "play to find out" how a scrubby water farmer can get to Jedi Knight or Seduced By the Dark Side or (hell) killed by Sand People/Hoth Yeti from that.


----------



## Manbearcat

TwoSix said:


> Sure, I agree that you can't truly foreshadow unless you're doing some authoring, you need to be able to put something in the beginning when you already have the end in mind.
> 
> But I think that's kind of the point...foreshadowing is intended to demonstrate authorial control.  It demonstrates to the viewer that the narrative *wasn't* improvised, that the author knew all along what was going to happen.  That would seem to be antithetical to the very play agenda @_*pemerton*_ desires!  You have to sacrifice true foreshadowing in a game where the goal is for the DM to be surprised by the ending as the players.  (You could get a similar effect by simply making callbacks to earlier introduced characters or plotlines, but that's merely referential, not foreshadowing).




Just a quick drive-by on foreshadowing.  This won't tickle  @_*Lanefan*_ 's fancy or others with his play priorities, but foreshadowing can happen at both the micro and macro level of games of the type we're discussing.

*MICRO*

Two of the two most versatile of GM moves in Dungeon World are:



> *Show signs of an approaching threat*
> 
> “Threat” means anything bad that’s on the way. With this move, you just show them that something’s going to happen unless they do something about it.
> 
> *Reveal an unwelcome truth*
> 
> An unwelcome truth is a fact the players wish wasn’t true: that the room’s been trapped, maybe, or that the helpful goblin is actually a spy. Reveal to the players just how much trouble they’re in.




You're going to use these a lot as a soft move either in initial situation framing or as a response to a 7-9 move (and sometimes a 6- move).  This could be monstrous tracks leading directly toward a steading, an ominous fog moving...against the wind (?), a storm of the century bearing down on your flank, a wink of acknowledgement by the art thief you're hunting right before she disappears into the gallery's masses, an eerie stranger appears briefly on a haunted night demanding a first born in exchange for delivery from a promised misery.

*MACRO* 

In Apocalypse World and Dungeon World, the GM bears the weight of the principle to "think offscreen."  But this doesn't mean that the players are to not be privy of that offscreen.  The GM is encouraged to show how the Impulses of those Fronts and their Impending Dooms are coming to fruition offscreen.  Further still, using 6- triggered, principled Hard Moves, which make manifest those offscreen dangers and dooms right out in front of the players (but not the PCs), is encouraged.

Finally, Apocalypse World (and now Blades in the Dark) explicitly advises to use overt (player-facing) clocks to "tick down" those threats until they reach "zero hour" or the PCs intervene (I don't know why DW didn't port this technique directly over, but I use it).  Blades formalizes it even further with further system tech.



So foreshadowing is absolutely "a thing" in these kinds of systems...its just probably not palatable to certain folks (although I find the machinery deployed significantly enhances the sense of foreboding and urgency).


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Quick question... if the PC's fail, is that result also final and who decides the resulting consequence of said failure?




I assume we're not trying to reduce the complex down to the simple here, because the answer isn't "the GM has mandate to do as they please" (if the above is angling toward the rhetorical device of "begging the question").

The answer is:

1) The System has its say.

2) The GM has their say.

3) The Players get their say (which comes in the form of (a) engaging this bit of fiction and the goals therein in the first place, (b) deploying resources which provide the trajectory for the scene's evolution, (c) having PC build resources that bind GM framing - eg Instincts in Burning Wheel - and (d) deciding how many "stops to pull out" to prevent the consequences of failure in the first place.)

4)  The Players may have more say (such as the deployment of PC build resources or meta resources to constrain/forbid/rewrite scene outcomes).


In Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic Exploration Scenes, you're talking:

1) The System has its say: 

This is a "Go To the Action" system which expects the GM to manage the Doom Pool and the fiction to escalate genre-related danger and optimize drama.  The general procedure is the GM frames the scene and then the resolution mechanics have the players declaring their actions and building their dice pools.  The GM deploys the Doom Pool, Scene Distinctions, and any Complications.

2) The GM has their say:  

If the players lose?  Something goes wrong for the PCs and the GM is obliged to cause trouble.  They get to immediately frame them into a scene of their choice (which follows from the fiction - this could be a Combat, Social, or another Exploration Scene).  They also get to either (a) use their Effect die to inflict any type of Stress on a hero, (b) create a Complication that persists into this post-failure follow-on scene, or (c) add trouble to the follow-on scene (in the form of stepping up scene/NPC traits or splitting up the PCs and running multiple scenes).



Is Cortex+ good enough for this question about Exploration/Social Closed Scene Resolution?  If this was meant to be a conversation about 4e rather than System/GM/Player say in closed scene resolution failure generally, I can gladly break that down.  Let me know.


----------



## Campbell

TwoSix said:


> While I understand what you're getting at, I feel it's pretty much impossible to tag anyone's game as "less authentic" or "inauthentic" without coming across as pejorative, which I don't believe aids open communication.




I get it. I know saying contentious and provocative things can make communication more difficult. I just really do not know a better way to meaningfully talk about these concerns while retaining the full context of what I mean. I have tried to approach this conversation as thoughtfully as I can because I know criticism can be tenuous and problematic at times. If there is a better way of framing my concerns that still speaks to their weight please let me know!

All I really know how to do is to say what I think in as thoughtful a way as I possibly can. I am not really interested in telling people what they should think or how they should play. I just want to express my own preferences, clarify what I feel are cultural and factual misconceptions, and discuss this thing we all do. I really do value everyone's perspective here. Part of respecting those perspectives is saying what I fully mean and expecting others to do the same in a genuine meeting of the minds. I do not feel like using weasel words would really aid in real open conversation. It might lead to a less confrontational dialog, but we would just be dancing around the actual subject matter - not really addressing it in a genuine way.

Throughout this conversation I have attempted to assume good faith from all participants, engage with what I see as posters' full meaning, and take everything said in the best possible light - especially when I disagreed with the poster. I tend to be more overtly critical of posters who share my general preferences. I have probably been slightly unfair to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] at times.      

At times I have been somewhat wary of having this conversation in the open. It has sometimes been difficult for me to engage in thoughtful analysis of something I am so passionate about. Cultural issues have also made this discussion somewhat difficult. I know how to talk about this stuff in the context of other indie gamers, people I introduce to gaming and the people I know personally. I do not really know how to talk about this stuff with the level of detailed analysis I am attempting in this thread with gamers that are steeped so deeply in the mainstream gaming culture. I have been more provocative than I should have been at times, but I feel like actively avoiding being contentious can often be just as harmful to meaningful discussion as purposefully pushing people's buttons. When we actively avoid conflict in service to social cohesion we lose much of the difference of perspective that makes this sorts of dialog worth having.

My approach to this conversation has been a willingness to engage in other posters' problematic content with the expectation that they will engage mine. I try not to overreact when other posters say things I consider contentious, but like still meaningfully address their points. I appreciate it when other posters do the same. This matches with my general approach to running games and most social interactions with people I trust. In terms of trust models it is *I Will Not Abandon You* rather than *Nobody Gets Hurt*. I feel like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has approached things in terms of *Go To The Pain* where you deliberately push people's buttons with the expectation that they will push back in the form of rigorous debate. That is to be expected of a Burning Wheel GM and academic lawyer!

I'll have more on trust models and their impact on gaming in my next post.


----------



## pemerton

TwoSix said:


> While I understand what you're getting at, I feel it's pretty much impossible to tag anyone's game as "less authentic" or "inauthentic" without coming across as pejorative, which I don't believe aids open communication.



_Authenticity _is a strange phenomenon - in general, and also in contemporary times, when mass producers aim to sell people stuff by way of mass marketing with the pitch that buying the stuff will make the individual authentic/give the individual an authentic experience.

That said, I think there is some sort of difference between (say) attending a life performance and listening to a recording of one. Or between being served a really nice home-made cake and being served a really nice store-bought cake. Whether or not the notion of "authenticity" is the best way to capture this, I think there is something there to be captured.

I think what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is trying to do with the notion is very challenging to articulate well, and naturally very contentious, but (I believe) he is trying to get at the difference between a "curated" experience and one that is not mediated by any such curation. That makes sense to me as something to try to get at.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I have probably been slightly unfair to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] at times.



Not really - or if you have been, it's lost in the mists of last week!



Campbell said:


> I feel like [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has approached things in terms of *Go To The Pain* where you deliberately push people's buttons with the expectation that they will push back in the form of rigorous debate. That is to be expected of a Burning Wheel GM and academic lawyer!



When I reflect on my posting, I sometimes think it also reflects a certain sort of approach to teaching: one's trying to cover a fair bit of introductory ground fairly quickly to get to the interesting bits, and so one locates/points out a few landmarks, describes the lay of the land in general terms, and then gets into things. If there are questions about the details of the initial signposting, those can absolutely be pursued and resolved in due course. But they're not to be taken as a reason not to engage with the interesting bits!


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

That is very much the sort of distinction I am trying to make. It might be equally contentious to speak in terms of curation and dynamism. I think my upcoming post on trust models might get at it this issue in a less contentious way while still being somewhat fraught. I value social experiences where we take some risks that might broaden our perspectives and help to get to know each other a bit better. 

In the context of role playing games I value organic social, creative, and game play risk taking. I also value things being less refined and a bit messy without deliberate provocation of the sort you find in most scene framing or more overt conflict resolution systems. Despite my interests in analysis and design I do not favor overly processing play whether it comes from the mechanisms of play or overt GM actions to modify the play space to ensure everyone gets their individual kicks satisfied. I want to let the game be the game and experience things as they naturally come.

I think this speaks to my preference for the principled approach of games like Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Stars Without Number, Fiasco, Chronicles of Darkness, Exalted 3e, and Sorcerer that is very much subject to individual creative and aesthetic judgment over the more rigorous process oriented approach of games like Fate, Burning Wheel, Cortex+, Night's Black Agents, Trollbabes and the like. I am not a proponent of the Game Design is Mind Control school of thought where we make the attempt to resolve player conflicts of interest through game design so we can play with just about anyone. I am just as skeptical of GM techniques that attempt to resolve player conflicts of interest through the game layer rather than the social layer. Instead I favor more brittle designs that make it socially obvious when there are conflicts of interest at the table so we can talk it out. I favor rules that fight you when you are acting outside the interests of the game rather than force you to act in the interests of the game.

I feel like this post from Playing Passionately might lay my points bare.



			
				Overly Processing Play Through The Rules said:
			
		

> If you asked me ten years ago what I wanted out of an RPG I would have said this: “I want a game that when played optimally by computers will produce a compelling narrative.” I’m not joking. I was a firm believer that a system more or less has to compel players to do interesting things, otherwise they won’t.
> 
> That may sound absurd but I still see variations of that attitude taken to different extremes lingering in the hobby. I see people who interpret the fact that you get a bonus from applying a trait in a game like Primetime Adventures means traits are about getting people to “act like” those traits. Or indeed I see people stretching (quite painfully) in every scene to try and make their traits relevant.
> 
> Basically what I’m seeing here is a system foremost (rather than a system matters) attitude. I see attempts to engage the system directly and see what it “wants” the person to do fictionally. This article is about how that process is backwards.
> 
> Some games are robust enough to handle a system foremost approach. Dogs in the Vineyard is an example. You can pretty much grind out the rules of that game in a semi-mechanized manner and something interesting will likely result. I think this is because Dogs in the Vineyard puts in so many other social constraints that a mechanistic approach to system works. Everyone knows they are Dogs. Everyone knows a Dog’s job is to solve the problems of the town. Everyone knows the four major moral “break” points of conflict are Talking, Physical, Violence and Guns.
> 
> So if you basically go into every conflict starting at Talking and the GM always pushes and pushes as hard as he can and the player constantly assesses at each break point, “Is this worth the next step?” then you get a fairly straightforward narrative. I mean, after all, that’s what the system clearly “wants” you to do, right? Well, the game doesn’t disintegrate if you play it that way but it makes for a fairly boring game. It also misses on some fairly nuanced and exciting application of the rules.
> 
> One of the things some people are quick to point out is that you don’t need to go all the way to Gun Fighting to get all your dice. So if I mechanically don’t NEED to go to gun fighting doesn’t that weaken the temptation? The fact that you don’t need to go to gun fighting to get all your dice makes the decision to start shooting more powerful. It turns the spotlight AWAY from the dice and firmly back on the player as an emotional entity. There are enough dark circles and bold underlines around guns in the game that their relevance as a component of the fiction is loud and clear. Does your engagement with your character and the fiction warrant shooting?
> 
> Another thing to take note of is that escalation is not a linear progression. You can start in of the four arenas and “escalate” to any of the four other arenas and even return to arenas you’ve already been to. From that perspective “escalating” is really more about unifying different conflict methodologies (by keeping their application consistent via the Raise system while changing their severity through different size fallout dice) than “temptation.” Considering shooting, then talking, then shooting some more then dropping your gun and throwing a punch makes for a much more dynamic conflict landscape.
> 
> Finally, my personal favorite emotional tool is Giving. You don’t have to Give only at the “break” points. You can Give anytime you want and that includes the GM. When Giving is on the table at every point it becomes one of the most powerful thematic markers in the entire game. It allows the “target” of a Raise to socially acknowledge that they’ve been emotionally defeated. The chance to say that what’s been said, fictionally, is compelling enough, to them, that there’s no point in going on.
> 
> Applying these nuances requires a fiction first approach to the game. Instead of looking at the system as what shapes the fiction look at how to express the fiction through the system. That’s why system matters. It’s not because systems constrain player behavior to an “appropriate” set of fictional input. It’s because they shape how your fictional input gets mechanically expressed. The commitment to quality fictional input has to come first. This approach requires thinking, feeling and doing what feels emotionally right to you as audience and author and then reaching out and applying the tools given to you to express that commitment.
> 
> As I said earlier Dogs in the Vineyard is fairly robust as to not disintegrate if you play it in the mechanistic manner. However there are some games that will disintegrate if you don’t treat them in a fiction first manner. Sorcerer is an example. From a fiction first approach it’s fairly clear to see that Demon Needs and Desires, Humanity, Kickers, Price and Descriptors all work in a fairly sophisticated concert even though there is no mathematically connection between them. They are rules and design but require artistry and skill to apply. Sorcerer would not be better served by giving demon’s Need points that fuel their Abilities and when the demon runs out of Need points you can recharge them by transferring your Humanity points and narrating some awful thing you do to justify the transfer.
> 
> Dirty Secrets is similar. That game is fueled almost entirely by the player’s opinions of the characters and their willingness to express them. The grid is less about generating a surprising random outcome and more about voting. Because the grid is used for all the crimes you’re voting for a given character to be guilty of something. It’s the height of being judgmental. The scary thing about Dirty Secrets is that the only thing you are given to form your *initial* opinion is demographics. That’s by design. But if you don’t put your feelings at the forefront of the application of the rules then the game falls flat.
> 
> My point here is that viewing rules and design as a “story sausage grinder” that so perfectly limits the player’s input and so perfectly processes that input to be “thematically acceptable” ultimately leads to predictable and flat play. When it gets discussed it appears to be a well meaning effort to eliminate the possibility of creative failure or perhaps an attempt to “unify” players such that “anyone” can play successfully (together) as long as they follow the rules. To all that I can only say without emotional and creative risk there is rarely as great an emotional and creative reward.




I will note that I think this article is somewhat unfair to the amount of weight that games like Burning Wheel apply to GM judgement. I just think the process involved can serve to obscure fictional concerns, conflicts of interest, and reduce creative risk somewhat. However, I think that might be somewhat necessary in a game that so adamantly goes for the player's throats. It is something I have the capacity to enjoy - it just reduces the impact of the social layer on play.

*Aside:* I am a deeply social gamer. Outside of role playing games my favorite sort of games often involve a very strong social layer where you have to consider the impact your decisions will have on other players' decisions. I love Poker, Liar's Dice, Diplomacy, Game of Thrones, Cards Against Humanity, Pandemic, and The Game of Things. Just because you can do something does not mean you should.

Aside For [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]: I did not assume you would think I was unfair, but I still regard some of the times where I deliberately provoked you or used one of your posts to make a point as somewhat unfair. I do not generally engage in deliberate provocation and it usually bothers me when I am provoked or my words are used to further some point outside of the context I meant them in so it tends to ignite my sense of justice.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=42582]I still regard some of the times where I deliberately provoked you or used one of your posts to make a point as somewhat unfair. I do not generally engage in deliberate provocation and it usually bothers me when I am provoked or my words are used to further some point outside of the context I meant them in so it tends to ignite my sense of justice.



I hope you won't take my response to this as in any way dismissive - it's been, and continues to be, a good thread.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> Despite my interests in analysis and design I do not favor overly processing play whether it comes from the mechanisms of play or overt GM actions to modify the play space to ensure everyone gets their individual kicks satisfied.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think this speaks to my preference for the principled approach of games like Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark, Stars Without Number, Fiasco, Chronicles of Darkness, Exalted 3e, and Sorcerer that is very much subject to individual creative and aesthetic judgment over the more rigorous process oriented approach of games like Fate, Burning Wheel, Cortex+, Night's Black Agents, Trollbabes and the like. I am not a proponent of the Game Design is Mind Control school of thought where we make the attempt to resolve player conflicts of interest through game design so we can play with just about anyone.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I will note that I think this article is somewhat unfair to the amount of weight that games like Burning Wheel apply to GM judgement. I just think the process involved can serve to obscure fictional concerns, conflicts of interest, and reduce creative risk somewhat. However, I think that might be somewhat necessary in a game that so adamantly goes for the player's throats. It is something I have the capacity to enjoy - it just reduces the impact of the social layer on play.



I think the "design as mind control" idea probably applies more to MHRP/Cortex+ than to BW.

Even for the former, though, you often don't earn XP simply by following the mechanics: you have to actually engage the fiction as your character and makes calls that might have mechanical repercussions, or require mechanical expression, but that playing the mechanics won't, per se, take you to.

When it comes to BW, I think that players have to be prepared to put their ideas on the line in certain ways. And even moreso, there is the creative element of offering something up that you need others to be prepared to engage with and take seriously. Otherwise your Beliefs will be less of a focus of play, you'll earn less artha, you won't get the tests you need for advancement, etc. I find it hard to imagine picking up BW and playing it with "anybody". 

All that said, though, I nevertheless suspect - on the basis of this thread! - that my approach to RPGing is less laden with social/creative "risk" than yours.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

I did not mean to imply that playing a game like Burning Wheel involves no meaningful creative and social risks or that you are not meaningfully engaging the fiction when you play. I just think there is a danger when you have such a process oriented design of enabling mechanics first rather than fiction first play. It's another one of those convenient release valves that players can escape to in order to create emotional distance between them and their character. It's not like something you have to take. Based on your accounts of play I do not think your players often do so. I also think Burning Wheel has other features that cut against this. The *Go To The Pain* trust model or *Poke The Bear* GM style is definitely more intense and involves more significant emotional risks than my preferred *I Will Not Abandon You* trust model. 

I feel like in a typical game of Burning Wheel you will have more moments that are intense, but in a typical game of Apocalypse World or Monsterhearts the intense moments will be more intense if that makes any sense. There's also an element of risk that there will not be enough moments that are intense in Apocalypse World. There is also the subject matter to consider. Masks entails much less risk because the subject matter is less emotionally intense than most Burning Wheel games. I am not sure I would want to play a game like Burning Wheel with a less process oriented approach.

One of the reasons I credit Burning Wheel with this sort of design approach is because Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen have given talks on Game Design is Mind Control. I will also say that it is my general impression is that it is almost impossible to control behavior through design. You can create a market for certain behaviors, but in any market the participants decide their own level of involvement. I also believe that mechanical incentives have much less impact than social incentives on player behavior. Design can help shape behavior, but it will seldom control it.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Within this thread there have been innumerable occasions where posters have claimed that player perception is what matters, not what actually happens at the table.



Well, yeah; because from the player side what they perceive as happening at the table *is* what happens at the table as far as they're concerned; and that's what matters.



> They have disputed a need for transparency, organic storytelling, authentic communication, and authentic experiences.



I'll dispute the need for transparency, in that (both as player and DM) I don't care how the end-result fun game came to be, I just care that it happened.

This is the same view I take of most things mechanical (e.g. cars) or electronic (e.g. computers) - I don't really give a damn *how* they work and am not very interested in learning; I care only *that* they work and do what I want them to do when I want them to do it, and that I can trust them to consistently do so.

As a player, when I sit down to a game I'm not that concerned with what the DM is doing to generate the story-gameworld-setting etc., I'm only concerned that she in fact generates something we can play in and that we have fun doing so.  As a DM I know my players feel pretty much the same way - in fact one of my players just this evening was very emphatic in saying so!  The DM trusts the players, and they trust the DM.

If that trust isn't there, however, it's easy to envision a call for transparency to replace it.

Organic storytelling probably means something different to every one of us posting here, so I'll not wade in to that one.

Authentic communication - this sounds like another way of saying transparency.  See above.

Authentic experiences - I as a player have an authentic experience every session; in that I was in fact there and played the game.  If you're by this referring instead to character experiences, those are authentic too.  Finding out later that the Baron you've been working for is in fact an agent of the enemy and that all this time you've been working for the wrong side doesn't make any of the previous play experiences any less authentic *at the time they were played*, which is the only time that matters.



> I have stated my preferences for these things in the context of where and how GM judgment calls can be used to enhance play as long as they are made in a disciplined way.
> 
> Is it your contention that I should not hold a distinction between these things?
> Is it your contention that I value authenticity too much?
> Is it your contention that the mainstream culture values authenticity *just as much* as I do?
> Is it your contention that I should not speak on these distinctions?
> Is it your contention that I should take on the values of the dominant culture in the interests of unity?
> Do you have a less contentious framing that I should use that still gets to the heart of my concerns?



I guess my main contentions are

a) that this all simply doesn't matter as much as some here seem to think it does...we've long since passed the threshold of way overthinking this stuff
b) that authenticity (the way the term is used here) and transparency may be being sought largely due to lack of trust in one's DM (or, if DM, lack of trust in one's players and-or oneself)
c) that player enjoyment matters most and if such can be best achieved by illusionism (which is my own view, based on experience) then I'll happily be an illusionist
d) that DM enjoyment largely stems from player enjoyment, making points c) and d) here somewhat symbiotic



> I do not want to have a debate over what set of approaches are strictly better. I also do not think we should avoid discussion of our differences.



I agree we should not avoid discussion of our differences but I'm also quite happy to debate or argue the merits (or demerits) of various approaches.



> This thread has resulted in some of the best discussions I have had on this site in a long time, specifically because we have been able to speak to the distinctions between the ways we prefer to play and run role playing games. I think it is a good thing when our cultures engage in a meeting of the minds, even when it is difficult, especially when it is difficult. It does no one any good to only discuss things with those who agree with them. At the very least we gain a better understanding of each other.



With this I completely agree.  There's little point in echo chambers.

Lan-"I retain the right to at any time argue with the echoes"-efan


----------



## Campbell

I think it is very important to talk in terms of typical games because if the right social incentives are in place you can play a game with just as much emotional intensity using any game and you might not experience much intensity in a game of Monsterhearts if the players actively avoid it due to social incentives. Just because you have release valves provided to you by the game does not mean you have to use them. Also, just because incentives for a particular sort of play exist it does not mean you have to embrace them. You have to actually want what the game is selling and work for it. That's why playing with the right people is so important, but that does not mean that the game has no value. It can make certain behaviors a more compelling choice and by agreeing to the expectations it sets for the players you can move social incentives towards an environment that is more likely to lead to compelling play, but it does not just happen. You have to work for it still - system helps, it does not transform.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I feel like  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has approached things in terms of *Go To The Pain* ...



 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - look at the bright side: if you get nothing else out of this thread you'll at least walk away with your new DMing motto: 

*GO TO THE PAIN!*

Lan-"that's actually not a bad title for a metal song, come to think of it"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]
> 
> I did not mean to imply that playing a game like Burning Wheel involves no meaningful creative and social risks or that you are not meaningfully engaging the fiction when you play. I just think there is a danger when you have such a process oriented design of enabling mechanics first rather than fiction first play.



I find this very hard to judge, as I am hesitant to generalise from my own experience.

One thing which I think fits into your concerns is about establishing consequences of failure in advance. As I've posted I often don't; as Luke Crane has written, he often doesn't either; but the rules say you should. I suspect this makes a difference.



Campbell said:


> There is also the subject matter to consider. Masks entails much less risk because the subject matter is less emotionally intense than most Burning Wheel games. I am not sure I would want to play a game like Burning Wheel with a less process oriented approach.



Our BW game is intense compared to MHRP, but I suspect not as intense as a lot of your play (judging from your accounts).

Some of my most intense play ever was in Rolemaster, in the context of the sorcerer who became addicted to a sorcery-enhancing drug, lost his home and city, somewhat redeemed himself via a relationship that then ended when his (NPC) lover was cut down by a demon summoned by the (PC) mage who had been using and manipulating him all along. And also some of those 4e moments when the player of the dwarf, frustrated by some social situation, suddenly unloads _and then rolls the dice_!

In BW, I think the most intense moment to date was the confrontation between the two brothers. But I am hoping to start _playing_ BW soon - GMed by the player of the mage PC (who has never GMed before) - and I am hoping to generate some intense moments. I am going to reprise Thurgon, in a BW 5LP variation - so I'm already vulnerable because of my attachment to that character and that archetype!


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> I assume we're not trying to reduce the complex down to the simple here, because the answer isn't "the GM has mandate to do as they please" (if the above is angling toward the rhetorical device of "begging the question").




Honestly I almost wish that was the answer.  I am looking for the part of the game where the GM gets to unleash his unbridled creativity and it just seems lacking in this department compared to more traditional roleplaying games.  One of my main purposes in stepping up to run game is that as DM/GM I get to express my creativity on a broader palette than that of a player but in these games it seems my palette is just as limited (and maybe even moreso) than that of the players.  For one of my primary interests in choosing to run a game these indie games strike me as overly restrictive and underwhelming.  i don't thiunk I'd have any interest in running them though I'd be interested in giving them a whirl as a player.



Manbearcat said:


> The answer is:
> 
> 1) The System has its say.
> 
> 2) The GM has their say.
> 
> 3) The Players get their say (which comes in the form of (a) engaging this bit of fiction and the goals therein in the first place, (b) deploying resources which provide the trajectory for the scene's evolution, (c) having PC build resources that bind GM framing - eg Instincts in Burning Wheel - and (d) deciding how many "stops to pull out" to prevent the consequences of failure in the first place.)
> 
> 4)  The Players may have more say (such as the deployment of PC build resources or meta resources to constrain/forbid/rewrite scene outcomes).




I'd be interested in understanding better if these are all supposed to be of equal weight?  My impressions from this thread has been that during a success... players having their say, through the successful achievement of their goals, is pretty much the driving force with the system providing the mechanisms for that success to come about (or fail) and the GM seemingly providing mostly color (unless they fail).  Yet there seems to be no point where the DM gets to be the driving force... if I am mistaken about this then tell me in what situation are the GM's desires (independent of the players) ever the primary driving force or even able to be expressed in this type of game.  If they can't be then this identifies one of the major problems I would have with running games like this. 




Manbearcat said:


> In Cortex+ Fantasy Heroic Exploration Scenes, you're talking:
> 
> 1) The System has its say:
> 
> This is a "Go To the Action" system which expects the GM to manage the Doom Pool and the fiction to escalate genre-related danger and optimize drama.  The general procedure is the GM frames the scene and then the resolution mechanics have the players declaring their actions and building their dice pools.  The GM deploys the Doom Pool, Scene Distinctions, and any Complications.
> 
> 2) The GM has their say:
> 
> If the players lose?  Something goes wrong for the PCs and the GM is obliged to cause trouble.  They get to immediately frame them into a scene of their choice (which follows from the fiction - this could be a Combat, Social, or another Exploration Scene).  They also get to either (a) use their Effect die to inflict any type of Stress on a hero, (b) create a Complication that persists into this post-failure follow-on scene, or (c) add trouble to the follow-on scene (in the form of stepping up scene/NPC traits or splitting up the PCs and running multiple scenes).
> 
> 
> 
> Is Cortex+ good enough for this question about Exploration/Social Closed Scene Resolution?  If this was meant to be a conversation about 4e rather than System/GM/Player say in closed scene resolution failure generally, I can gladly break that down.  Let me know.





Wait so on a failure the DM is given primary control for driving the fiction (which is what I was getting at with the initial question).  The mechanics and players are prominent in the resolution (just as they would be in a traditional system) but seem, at least from this example, to have little or no power in determination of the fiction and effect of a consequence of failure... is this correct?  And if so are these consequences the DM then inflicts upon the players constrained in any way other then having to logically follow from the fiction (which again seems to be the same as in a traditional game)?


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> Aside: The idea that indie games are less about fun is troublesome to me. It's just not about the fun we design or create. It's about a form of fun we get to experience in the moment and not like try to control. It involves risk taking, collaboration, authentic experiences, and can be somewhat messy at times.




I'm sorry but you are choosing to control the fun by agreeing to go along with the correct play procedures, principles, mechanics, etc of said game... which are all focused on creating a specific experience.  It doesn't matter that it involves risk taking, collaboration, authentic experiences, and can be messy... the purpose of said game is to create parameters that produce a very specific and narrow play range that in turn produces a specific experience.  General fun is secondary (or even lower) as a design goal of the game... those who want the experience it offers can find it fun but the game is designed first and foremost to produce a specific experience.



Campbell said:


> One of the big cultural rifts we are dealing with here comes down to Authenticity. On the indie side of things authentic experiences are deeply important. In most discussions you might see me say "really" or "real" a lot. I want real tension. I want to really play to find out. I want my decisions to make a real impact on the fiction. I want to really feel a measure of what my character does. I want us all to experience this authentic experience together. Perception is not reality here. It is not enough to feel like I'm doing something or say we're doing something. I want to really do it.




I'm having a hard time grasping what you mean by authentic?  Even our real world experiences aren't "authentic" in a pure sense of the word they are colored by our perceptions, mind state, upbringing, etc.  So when you say "authentic" what exactly do you mean.  

Furthermore it's all well and good to claim your game generates authentic experiences (again I think what you mean by using this word as well as why you believe your game in particular facilitates this state needs to be clarified) but by implication you seem to be hinting that traditional games provide in-authentic experiences... again I'm unclear what that means since it is a fiction we are constructing and everyone at the table is experiencing what they experience... how can that be in-authentic?  They may not experience what you do in an rpg... but that has nothing to do with whether their experience is authentic or not, it's just a different experience.


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> I think it is very important to talk in terms of typical games because if the right social incentives are in place you can play a game with just as much emotional intensity using any game and you might not experience much intensity in a game of Monsterhearts if the players actively avoid it due to social incentives. Just because you have release valves provided to you by the game does not mean you have to use them. Also, just because incentives for a particular sort of play exist it does not mean you have to embrace them. You have to actually want what the game is selling and work for it. *That's why playing with the right people is so important, but that does not mean that the game has no value.* It can make certain behaviors a more compelling choice and by agreeing to the expectations it sets for the players you can move social incentives towards an environment that is more likely to lead to compelling play, but it does not just happen. You have to work for it still - system helps, it does not transform.




Emphasis mine: I just wanted to comment on this part right here for a second.  The fact that "playing with the right people" is a requirement is why IMO these games will always be a niche within a niche.  The fact that this is necessary means the game has all the value... it's literally forcing you to only choose certain people to play it with otherwise it doesn't provide the experience it claims to.  For me at least that's a non-starter.  My main priority for playing rpg's is not to have some deep, meaningful experience (though it does happen in game quite often) but to have fun with my friends and family while we throw back some brews (or soda for the kids) and enjoy creating a story together.  I would never trade out my group or specific memebers of it because I wanted to play a specific game that wasn't a good fit for some or all of them (and honestly Monsterhearts is one of those games my group is not well suited to, especially with younger children).  This circles back to the whole experience vs. fun dichotomy I see with these games vs. a game like D&D that can be drifted towards certain experiences in the moment.  A game like D&D allows me to tailor the goals, emotional resonance and maturity level for a game where only the grown-ups show up one week vs a game where younger children and adults are playing the following week.  it also allows me to drift what the fun focus is at any particular moment to accommodate what my group is looking for.  I just don't feel indie games offer that flexibility because the experience they are trying to provide is hardcoded.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

You are unlikely to see much in the form of unbridled creative expression from either side of the screen. That is very much by design. No one gets exactly what they want exactly as they want it. Everyone is supposed to get a say (Players and GM) in everything that goes on they are taking a part in. They favor active and vigorous collaboration over individual creative expression. There is no individual ownership of things. We entrust certain things to your care, but you do not own them creatively. This applies to the fictional world, but it also applies just as strongly to individual characters in play. In terms of the *Gamer Motivation Model* it favors the *Social Component (Community and Competition)* over the *Creativity Component (Discovery and Design)*. It's about group creativity over individual creativity and its exploration. The GM is not supposed to come to play armed with a detailed setting, a vision for play, detailed adventures with a path players should follow in the play of their characters, or overt designs on the events of play, but neither is a player supposed to come to play with a detailed character with a lengthy backstory, strong character concept they are committed to, any designs on character arcs, or expectations of what the overall story should be. You are expected to bring hopes and desires, but no real expectations over the end result. We need to let the creative process of play do its work.

This is probably something you would consider a drawback and I would consider a possible pain point of the design. I am going to go out on a limb and guess you generally favor individual creativity over group creativity. That you favor the *Creativity Component* over the *Social Component*. I am not saying that you do not value collaboration here, just that you probably value it noticeably less than most indie gamers. Being a creative lead might be more appealing to you than being a creative peer. That's a fine thing. It might just mean these games are less suited to your desires and more suited to mine. That's not like a problem in the design though. Just like it is not a problem in the design of most mainstream games that they favor your desires over mine.

Ideally I think what a GM has to say, what the system has to say, and what other players have to say should be given fairly equal weight with a slight nod towards the things we are advocating for. I do not characterize my play as particularly player or GM driven though. The GM gets their say in the framing of scenes or situation, and by advocating for the fictional world and characters under their control, players get their say by virtue of advocating for their characters, and the system gets it say by saying what happens when these things meet and by virtue of its reward structures. We all do this with regard for the interests of the other players, including the GM.

The consequences of failure are generally only constrained by the fiction, your regard for the other players interests, and your principles. I think part of what you may be missing are the features where you are not constrained in the same general ways in these consequences like you are in a mainstream game. You are not limited to physical consequences and consequences within the fictional world. Despair can be a consequence. Insecurity can be a consequence. This character your character cares about now hates you can be a consequence. You are also somewhat culturally free to engage in *Conceptual Violence*. Shared ownership cuts both ways.

Trust is important in these games because you need to trust other players to not do undue violence to the things you care about. You need to trust other players to consider your interests as well as their own. You need to trust the system to deliver a compelling shared experience. You need to trust that other players will contribute to the creative process of play without attempting to run roughshod over it or control it. This sort of play involves not protecting or guarding your own interests or the game from undue influence. The game is not fragile.


----------



## Sadras

The core items which stand out for me in this discussion which persons on the other side might not be grasping are: 

*DM enjoyment* which @_*Imaro*_ and others have spoken about directly or indirectly and which Campbell referred to below.



			
				 Campbell said:
			
		

> Being a creative lead might be more appealing to you than being a creative peer.




I feel this is absolutely true to me as DM.

*Trust *



			
				 Campbell said:
			
		

> Trust is important in these games because you need to trust other players to not do undue violence to the things you care about. You need to trust other players to consider your interests as well as their own. You need to trust the system to deliver a compelling shared experience. You need to trust that other players will contribute to the creative process of play without attempting to run roughshod over it or control it. This sort of play involves not protecting or guarding your own interests or the game from undue influence.




As I have spoken about before in this thread, my table is a mix of players which must be factored in to what gaming style is best suit for the table as a whole. Sure some could easily integrate into @_*pemerton*_'s games, but others not so much.
We all know about min/maxing PCs and it I find it only natural that some players might (min/max) exploit the narrative to suit their needs in the same way they min/max their character sheets. Of course it would be all allowable under the system rules, but might not be fun for others at the table. Factor in mine or @_*Lanefan*_'s 'adversarial players' and you might have a recipe for disaster. 
Cambell's above comment rings very true.
Some players require the boundary/limitations to be imposed to ensure integrity of the fiction for the table hence the group's preferred gaming style.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> How players can change their PCs' fictional positioning, and hence change the sorts of options open to them in action declaration, is a big difference in RPG systems. One way of stating my dislike of the use of secret backstory to adjudicate action declarations is that the players are subject to fictional positioning of their PCs that they are unaware of and can't (in any meaningful sense) control.
> 
> (What counts as meaningful obviously is highly context dependent.)




I can understand that. I just think that your use of the term "secret backstory" tends to include the idea that it is being used to thwart the players, but for many of us that may not be the case. It's more a case of campaign or world information that the players do not know, which is something that every game has. So how that information is put to use by the GM is the thing in question, more than simply the existence of such information. 



pemerton said:


> No.
> 
> For me as a GM, one of the most important things is to settle on the framing of situations. This includes determining the right mix of elements that arise from or reflect past events, plus new elements that speak to the salient player/PC concerns. In this second category there are at least two subcategorise: stuff that emerges from things the players have previously made part of the fiction (eg a new member of a secret society that is part of a PC's backstory); new stuff that the GM introduces (eg a new NPC trying to hunt down members of the secret society).
> 
> 
> (1) The renegade wastrel elf (in BW this is called a dark elf, but is not a drow in the D&D sense - more like Maeglin and Eorl in The Silmarillion). I introduced this character into the fiction as part of the narration of consequences of failure on a check to travel safely across the Bright Desert to the Abor-Alz. The navigating PC was the elven ronin, who has a Belief to _always keep the elven ways_, and so a renegade elf who fouls waterholes seemed fitting. (And I had just been re-reading The Silmarillion.)
> 
> I hope that the above exposition makes clear the difference between this being an elf and (say) an orc. The latter - whether or not it would have been good GMing (the same PC also has an Instinct to attack orcs when he sees them) - would have carried quite different thematic weight.
> 
> And having it be a dwarf would have been bad GMing, because nothing about any of the PCs would be spoken to by having the destination waterhole be fouled by a dwarf.




Okay, understood. Thanks for clarifying that. 

I think putting meaningful choices before the PCs based on the players' stated desires for the character and for the game is important. I don't disagree with you in this regard; it's something I try to do in my games at almost every step. 



pemerton said:


> (2) The yellow-robed leader of the goblin army, who - it turned out - was the advisor to the baron of the city the PCs ended up arriving at, and liberating from the threat of the goblin army, around low-to-mid paragon tier.
> 
> This character was first introduced as colour: another NPC told the PCs of a yellow-robed skulker hanging around ancient minotaur tombs. The tombs were significant for three reasons: (i) prior events had established that dwarvish culture had minotaur roots, and one of the PCs was a dwarf, with strong loyalties to the dwarvish clans and traditions; (ii) the minotaurs were the predecessor culture to the Nerathi empire, and one of the PCs was trying to restore the Nerathi civilisation; (iii) the tombs had some sort of connection to Orcus (the Raven Queen's arch-nemesis), and several PCs were Raven Queen devotees of varying degrees of fanaticism.
> 
> Dropping in the skulker sows a seed for future colour and framing: later on the PCs saw him fly off from a goblin fortress on his carpet (as I posted upthread, I think this was in the context of an infiltration skill challenge); and later on still they discovered that he was the baron's advisor, and that no one in the city new that he was actually a Vecna-cultist with various nefarious plans.




So when did you decide this yellow-clad skulker was a Vecna cultist? Was that the intention all along? Or did that arise because of the way the fiction took shape? So that when you first had him show up, you were not entirely sure who he was or what he was up to, but then later on, you decided (in response to the fiction) that a Vecna cultist would be the best option to go with? 

This kind of goes with my idea of not being married to any ideas if a better one (that doesn't contradict what's been established) comes along. In a case like this, if it were my game, I'd probably have a good idea of who the skulker in yellow was when he was introduced, but I wouldn't commit too strongly to that so that if a better idea came along, I'd be free to go with that. 



pemerton said:


> It's nevertheless the case that the action declaration is failing on account of the GM treating, as part of the backstory which contributes to fictional positioning and hence factors into adjudication, something that the players don't have access to as part of the framing of the situation.




I can understand your aversion to this....but I don't think I share the opinion that it is always bad. I think there are instances where it is perfectly acceptable. I do think that it can easily be abused, and that if the sole reason the GM uses it is to thwart the players or to force things to go a specific way, I'd consider that some poor GMing. 



pemerton said:


> That's at such a level of abstraction I can't tell. When I am talking about (i), (ii) and (iii) I am talking about them operating as constraints _at every moment of framing_. One result of (ii) is that it shapes narration of failure, which therefore feeds into (i) and (iii) in framing new situations. I find it almost impossible to conceive of how that could operate over (say) 10 sessions of play and yet the outcomes and hence the framings still fit within the framework of a 100+ page AP.




I'd say that there are two ways that this can come about. 

The first is that most APs, even ones that lean strongly toward the Railroad end of the spectrum, allow for some variance in player action, and they offer how to handle instances of this. Usually they only address this at times where such a thing is most possible, and then they usually only cover the most obvious of alternate paths (i.e. "if the PCs lose this fight, they are taken captive" or something similar). So it is possible for the players to pretty much stay within the constraints of the AP, or at least reasonably close enough to them for their game to be considered a straightforward exampled of "Tyranny of Dragons" or whatever AP it may be. 

The second is that it's possible that the players don't have any desire for their characters other than to play the adventure presented to them. That they don't create personal goals for their PCs beyond the kind of traditional D&D type goals of accumulating experience and wealth. I think this one depends highly on the players and the style of play that they are used to. But even if they do throw in some basic motivations beyond the traditional ones...."I want to find my brother's killer" and stuff like that....the DM can easily incorporate these into the AP. "Turns out your brother was killed by the Wearers of Purple" or what have you. 



pemerton said:


> Now, if by "running ToD" you mean taking bits from it and adapting them, shaping them etc so that, as your campaign unfolds, so that you use particular maps, NPCs etc in your game but the actual sequence, story etc is quite different - well, I can see that.




Just for the record, this is similar to elements of my campaign. I take bits and pieces....some small, some large...from published modules or products and incorporate them into my game. Usually they are very modified to fit with what our game has established and our style of play. 




pemerton said:


> This is true, but (as far as I can see) has no implications for how action declarations should be adjudicated.
> 
> For instance, I run games where my desires are (as far as I know) in harmony with those of my players. That's why I use some techniques but not others.




Sure, I agree. That's kind of my point....that I feel you can largely achieve what you say you strive for without the mechanics having to support that goal. That's not to say it's simple, or that you don't have to tweak a few things in a game like 5E to achieve it. I'd also expect that having mechanics that feed into that goal certainly helps. 

I was just kind of saying that, ultimately, there is perhaps more of a division of play style and play mechanics than may be obvious. 



pemerton said:


> The first published RPG I know of that set out the sorts of techniques I prefer is Maelstrom Storytelling (1997). I learned of it around 2004 from an essay on The Forge, and some years later found a second-hand copy at my local game shop. I've never run it, but its advice, plus some ideas in its resolution mechanics, were helpful for me in running skill challenges. A version of the system is downloadable for free under the name Story Bones.
> 
> I started running games in my preferred style back around 1987, but didn't have the same suite of resolution techniques that I'm now familiar with. I find it easier using those techniques (which is one reason why, though I still greatly admire it as a system, I would never run Rolemaster again).




That's more what I meant.....not so much mechanical game systems designed with this intent, so much as general GMing techniques that are aimed at player authorship and a less GM driven style. 



pemerton said:


> Well, what do you think the drawbacks are?




I won't comment too much on BW or its mechanics, because my knowledge of the pretty much consists of what you've explained to me!

But I think that with a more player driven game, there are some trade offs that are made. I think that a story may lose cohesion. That need not be the case, and I am approaching this topic from my perspective of having a game with both GM driven material and player driven material. When I say lack of cohesion, I don't necessarily just mean the GM giving up control...although that certainly happens. But there can be a "too many cooks in the kitchen" effect. If each player is trying to drive the game toward their characters' wants and desires, then it could become a bit jumbled. Things can get pulled in many directions. This can be mitigated by both the GM helping to focus things a bit, and by players who are willing to share the spotlight and understand that the story will work best if some sense of narrative integrity is maintained. But then we're kind of attributing success of this approach to the GM and players being reasonable people willing to play together more so than any mechanical aspect of the game. 

Also, we briefly touched on player buy in earlier....I don't recall if it was you or [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] who said that they didn't feel that a player driven game required any more or less buy in than other game types. And I don't really disagree with that...I get the point of it....but I do think that for many players, there is a real learning curve for this if they are already used to a more traditional method. 

This is something I've faced in my game over the years. When I've tried to let the players have more control over the game, they didn't really know what to do. It's taken a lot of time to hone the game to where we are at these days...where they're comfortable with the approach, and I'm mostly comfortable in how I balance the two elements. 

The one comment I will make on the BW game mechanics you've endeavored to explain to me is that they seem more focused on the fiction than the game, if that makes sense. Hence, the check being made to determine the presence of the vessel to catch the blood rather than some challenge to the character in question. And I can see the usefulness of that....I can understand the appeal of that. However, I don't know if the appeal of it is strong enough that I would want the entire game to play that way. 

I'm sure that's an opinion that is limited by my knowledge of the game, but it's something I've experienced in other games.


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]
> 
> You are unlikely to see much in the form of unbridled creative expression from either side of the screen. That is very much by design.




I find that off putting since it was exactly this characteristic... you can create/do whatever you can imagine that was one of the major selling points of role-playing games to me as a kid.



Campbell said:


> No one gets exactly what they want exactly as they want it.




Well that's not a tagline that's going to go over well with me and my group...lol!  But more seriously why don't we want an experience where that is possible vs. one where it is accepted that it is not possible?



Campbell said:


> Everyone is supposed to get a say (Players and GM) in everything that goes on they are taking a part in. They favor active and vigorous collaboration over individual creative expression. There is no individual ownership of things. We entrust certain things to your care, but you do not own them creatively. This applies to the fictional world, but it also applies just as strongly to individual characters in play. In terms of the *Gamer Motivation Model* it favors the *Social Component (Community and Competition)* over the *Creativity Component (Discovery and Design)*. It's about group creativity over individual creativity and its exploration. The GM is not supposed to come to play armed with a detailed setting, a vision for play, detailed adventures with a path players should follow in the play of their characters, or overt designs on the events of play, but neither is a player supposed to come to play with a detailed character with a lengthy backstory, strong character concept they are committed to, any designs on character arcs, or expectations of what the overall story should be. You are expected to bring hopes and desires, but no real expectations over the end result. We need to let the creative process of play do its work.




I'm not really speaking to creative ownership, I don't think a well run traditional game can happen if there is total creative ownership of setting or characters.  I don't think the GM coming to play with a vision of play, a detailed setting and/or created adventures or a player coming to the game with a strong character concept, expectations for the hopes and dreams of his character or even for an overall story for his character precludes letting the creative process of play do it's work.  What precludes the creative process of play doing it's work is the inability to allow for those things to be changed through gameplay and that in and of itself is not inherent to individual creativity or traditional play.  

If anything I think as a player or DM I would have an issue caring enough to enjoy a game where the setting is ill-defined, there is a lack of defined adventures, the characters have little to no concept and the players themselves have no expectations (and thus IMO no drive to advocate) for their characters.  This isn't a value judgement on whether it serves the purpose you have stated it does since I wouldn't know from actual play but a statement of my initial reactions to the description of what comprises this type of play.  It doesn't seem to offer much that I find appealing... and I'd wager pitching it like that wouldn't elicit much excitement with the average person.



Campbell said:


> This is probably something you would consider a drawback and I would consider a possible pain point of the design. I am going to go out on a limb and guess you generally favor individual creativity over group creativity. That you favor the *Creativity Component* over the *Social Component*. I am not saying that you do not value collaboration here, just that you probably value it noticeably less than most indie gamers. Being a creative lead might be more appealing to you than being a creative peer. That's a fine thing. It might just mean these games are less suited to your desires and more suited to mine. That's not like a problem in the design though. Just like it is not a problem in the design of most mainstream games that they favor your desires over mine.




Again I think you are mistaking preference for certain results and preference for certain methods as one and the same when they aren't.  We always collaborate and create when we play the game the question is in how we go about doing it. In my traditional D&D game we collaborate and create through play using the traditional tools afforded to us... the players use their characters to affect and change the world and the DM/GM in turn uses the world to affect and change the characters.  I think this differs from your method in that players and GM's are afforded different and distinct tools (I won't try to go into depth here as I am still unclear on what the dividing line between GM/player would actually be in your playstyle if it's totally collaborative and no one owns anything).



Campbell said:


> Ideally I think what a GM has to say, what the system has to say, and what other players have to say should be given fairly equal weight with a slight nod towards the things we are advocating for. I do not characterize my play as particularly player or GM driven though. The GM gets their say in the framing of scenes or situation, and by advocating for the fictional world and characters under their control, players get their say by virtue of advocating for their characters, and the system gets it say by saying what happens when these things meet and by virtue of its reward structures. We all do this with regard for the interests of the other players, including the GM.




I agree with the first statement... but I don't agree that in order for it to be achieved we must all have access to the same tools in equal measure.  This example of advocacy is, after your earlier statements, a little confusing though... if no one owns anything why does it still seem that advocacy splits exactly where it does in traditional gaming (i.e. GM= NPC's and world while players= characters)?  And that the system is a means for resolution... just like in a traditional game?  I'm trying to get a grasp on what the practical as opposed to philisophical differences in play styles are but I'm not getting a clear picture here.  



Campbell said:


> The consequences of failure are generally only constrained by the fiction, your regard for the other players interests, and your principles.




Again I am failing to see the difference here vs. traditional games...



Campbell said:


> I think part of what you may be missing are the features where you are not constrained in the same general ways in these consequences like you are in a mainstream game. You are not limited to physical consequences and consequences within the fictional world. Despair can be a consequence. Insecurity can be a consequence. This character your character cares about now hates you can be a consequence. You are also somewhat culturally free to engage in *Conceptual Violence*. Shared ownership cuts both ways.




Ok now I'm more lost... D&D allows for more that physical consequences.  Conditions can be imposed... NPC attitudes can be changed...and well I'm not sure what "conceptual violence" entails but I think my point that you are not regulated to physical damage in the biggest traditional game out there stands at this point.



Campbell said:


> Trust is important in these games because you need to trust other players to not do undue violence to the things you care about. You need to trust other players to consider your interests as well as their own. You need to trust the system to deliver a compelling shared experience. You need to trust that other players will contribute to the creative process of play without attempting to run roughshod over it or control it. This sort of play involves not protecting or guarding your own interests or the game from undue influence. The game is not fragile.




But players can, through their characters enact these same things in a traditional game... with the possible exception of trusting the system to deliver a compelling shared experience (of course the system needs the right people and the rigt type of GM to run it in order for the game to function... very similar though admittedly not identical to having the right GM for the right group of people).


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Mechanics are, in my view, secondary - although not irrelevant.
> 
> In my veiw, the primary thing is the tecniques and constraints/considerations that shape authorship. And the primary thing _there_ is: who sets the agenda for the game? Does the GM hook the players, or do the players hook the GM?
> 
> The latter can be done using AD&D, although there are parts of that system that will push back if used as written (eg random encounters are not all that conducive to player-driven play, although they can perform a sort of Rorschach-blot function which needn't be totally inimical to player-driven RPGing).




I think that the players can hook the GM in any game. It really boils down to the game in question, and how the group has decided to handle what goes into it, more so than the rules system being used. 

So much of my group's game world has been shaped by the players' ideas, and by their characters' actions in the game. Most of the major factions that are in play were chosen due to players incorporating them into their characters' backstory or goals in some way, most of the meaningful locations have strong ties not only to characters, but are tied to past campaigns that we have played.  



Campbell said:


> I think there's a level of projection going on when most people who only play mainstream games analyze the appeal of indie games. They see these finely honed games that are crafted to deliver a specific experience or deal with a specific sort of fiction and assume exacting standards and lack of flexibility on the part of players, a search for the perfect game. That is almost the opposite of what I personally am after.




I don't think attributin gsuch motivations to a group helps all that much. And although there are some folks who would likely identify as "only playing mainstream games" in the sense that you mean, it may not be everyone you think it is. 

It is possible that someone familiar with both "mainstream games" and "indie games" could actually prefer the mainstream ones. Such a person would not fit into the paradigm you've described. 



Campbell said:


> The reason why I value games that have focus and clarity is not because I want one specific experience. I want many specific experiences that allow me to have fun in different ways. I am not looking to play poker and only poker for the rest of my life. Instead I want to play poker, spades, euchre, and bridge. I just would like to know what game I am playing when I am playing it so I can play it fully and authentically. I want to play hard. I also want to play it with other people who want to play that particular game with me so I can play off of them.
> 
> Like I said up thread it is all about expectations and permissions. When everything is permitted nothing can be meaningfully expected. With no meaningful expectations in place it is supremely difficult to develop skill in playing the game and to effectively collaborate creatively.




As much as I may advocate for GM empowerment, I don't disagree with this part of your post at all. Setting expectations is key....even if one of those expectations is a level of flexibility being involved.


----------



## Campbell

When it comes down to playing with the right people indie games are no more rigorous than any highly social game. First and foremost they require a measure of empathy, compassion and understanding. Secondly they require an interest in what the other players have to say and a desire to actively contribute to the play space in a mostly collaborative way, but there can also be a measure of competition without there being conflict. We have social interactions all the time without meaningful conflicts of interest. These are games best played among friends and people you trust. They can bring you closer together and don't necessarily have to be like deep man. Dungeon World is generally not that deep. Apocalypse World can be deep or shallow.

There are multiple mainstream games I would not play with just anybody.

I would not play *Poker* with just anybody.
I would not play *Cards Against Humanity* with just anybody.
I would not play *Diplomacy* with just anyone.
I would not play *Basketball* with just anyone.
I would not play *Game of Thrones* with just anyone.
I would not raid in *World of Warcraft* with just anyone.
I would not play *Overwatch* with just anyone.

Despite their best efforts to protect the experience I would not play most mainstream role playing games with just anyone. I think efforts to resolve player conflicts of interest through game design largely fail to do so and has the social risk of possibly leading to toxic environments because without the weight of meaningful social expectations play can sometimes become degenerative. Because I am not allowed to judge you in light of social expectations you can do anything that is not actively quashed by the GM. Because there is no social transparency it becomes socially difficult to speak up when my desires and unspoken expectations are not being met.

I am not saying it *will* lead to degenerative play - only that it is possible. I have experienced it sometimes and not experienced it other times. I have experienced it far more frequently in video games that attempt to mitigate social risks. I would much rather raid in a high pressure environment with people I trust and value than play casual content with those I do not.

 [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], I am not a fan of how aggressively you are framing your arguments. I have made it clear I am only interested in speaking to my own experiences. I feel like I have approached this discussion with openness and empathy. If you feel I have not done so please let me know. However, I would appreciate it if you would approach my analysis with the same sort of charity I have tried to approach other posters with in this thread. If you will not I do not feel like I can continue to directly address your posts.

I also am no fan of what feels like attempts to shame posters who do not share your mainstream values. I hope I am wrong in my reading of this. The continued broad appeals to popularity, social cohesion, and traditional authority structures does not seem like an attempt to reach understanding or celebrate diversity. It feels like you are trying to tell me what I should value and not engaging with me from the perspective of what I do value. I guess I am asking what your motivation is here.

Do you want me and others like me to not take part in the hobby?
Do you want us to share your values?
Is sharing the values of the dominant culture a requirement for participation?
Should I not speak up for my own desires and interests?
Should we go back to our own respective corners and only discuss things with people who share our cultural values?


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION], I am not a fan of how aggressively you are framing your arguments. I have made it clear I am only interested in speaking to my own experiences. I feel like I have approached this discussion with openness and empathy. If you feel I have not done so please let me know. However, I would appreciate it if you would approach my analysis with the same sort of charity I have tried to approach other posters with in this thread. If you will not I do not feel like I can continue to directly address your posts.




Okay I'm a little lost here... how am I framing my arguments aggressively??  I am contrasting and critiquing (and have even invited those that prefer the indie playstyle to critique them from their perspective as well, and basically was told those who don't prefer them should critique) but where have I been aggressive?  



Campbell said:


> I also am no fan of what feels like attempts to shame posters who do not share your mainstream values. I hope I am wrong in my reading of this. The continued broad appeals to popularity, social cohesion, and traditional authority structures does not seem like an attempt to reach understanding or celebrate diversity. It feels like you are trying to tell me what I should value and not engaging with me from the perspective of what I do value. I guess I am asking what your motivation is here.




I am speaking to what I feel are the strengths and advantages of my playstyle while also speaking to what I feel are the disadvanatages of the indie playstyle(s) being presented... in the same way you have.  Should I take offense you implied traditional playstyles are in-authentic?  I didn't... just asked for an explanation on what exactly the claim means.  Who am I trying to shame and where is an example of this because again I'm lost as to where this is coming from?  



Campbell said:


> Do you want me and others like me to not take part in the hobby?
> Do you want us to share your values?
> Is sharing the values of the dominant culture a requirement for participation?
> Should I not speak up for my own desires and interests?
> Should we go back to our own respective corners and only discuss things with people who share our cultural values?




1. It doesn't matter to me, I don't play with you.  If you enjoy it by all means yes, if you don't then I'd recommend stopping but it doesn't have a practical effect on me or my gaming

2. Again it doesn't matter to me.  

3. Huh?  When did I assert anything like this?  Apparently not since people with various playstyles have been participating...

4.  Shouldn't I as well... this is all about preferences, right?

5. I'm getting the impression it's only ok if we discuss it as long as you can critique my playstyle but I can't give my own critiques as far as your playstyle is concerned.  Is that the case?


----------



## Tony Vargas

Campbell said:


> When I address mainstream games I am speaking in terms of a particular cultural context. I am specifically speaking of the dominant culture within our greater community.



 I get that, but it's such a niche little sub-culture of the nerd sub-culture, that even thinking of it having a 'dominant' sub-sub-sub-culture against which a discriminated-against even nichier sub-sub-sub-culture is valiantly struggling just doesn't resonate with me - and does confuse me, just a bit, every time.



> I choose not to frame it in terms of the traditional culture because it does not represent the roots of the game (the war gaming culture)



 It seems to be centered around D&D, and D&D was the first RPG to emerge from wargaming.  Wargaming is different now than it was then, of course.  

But, yeah, the paradigm around D&D and other RPGs that have stuck around since the 70s & 80s could be reasonably termed 'traditional,' in the context of a hobby that only goes back to 1974.



> It also nicely dovetails into the relationship between indie and mainstream movements in other media. That includes elements like authenticity vs. mass appeal, the role of social cohesion in the culture, and openness to experience vs. assumed tropes and structures. I am not claiming cultural superiority here.



 Maybe that's part of the issue.  An indie movie really is an upstart little thing with few resources, maybe shot on a weekened or a years-long labor of love, with a budget of 5 figures down to nuthin', while a mainstream blockbuster might have a budget in the hundreds of millions.  You really are talking a vast gulf in resources and in mass appeal.  

The difference between an indie game and the relative 500lb gorilla of D&D is one guy's labor of love, vs one guy's day job who can outsource some of the work.  It's just not a vast gulf.  Indie RPGs are not the little guy vs d20 RPGs' evil corporate mass-market empire - RPGs, even the biggest of 'em, are the little guy. 



> I was responding to an argument [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] made up thread where he claimed indie gamers had a narrow specific definition of fun and were seeking some refined perfect thing... I want a more varied and dynamic experience, not less of one. I want more creative risks. I want more collaboration and less individual design.



 Nod.  Indie games aren't niche because they try to have limited appeal, but because they're nipping at the fringes of a very small market.  There might be millions of people out there who would love the next new indie game, but they'll never hear of it, never try it, and that game will languish in obscurity.  That's just a market reality, it has nothing to do with how good a hypothetical game might be.



> Is it your contention that I should not hold a distinction between these things?



 Maybe that the mainstream-media vs indie-media is not the best metaphor for the distinction.



> Is it your contention that I should not speak on these distinctions?



 Yeah, sorta.  I think our little hobby is too intent on sub-dividing itself for various reasons that would be better served by finding common ground and appreciating any such distinctions rather than drawing stark lines based on them and sorting ourselves into camps. 
My experiences with the edition war may have something to do with my attitude, there.



> Do you have a less contentious framing that I should use that still gets to the heart of my concerns?



 I suggested several alternatives to 'mainstream.'  
But the whole topic is all about contentious framing.  The Role v Roll flamewars of UseNet led to the Threefold Theory, led to the Forge and GNS and the big model, and it was all about being contentious, and putting other TTRPGers in boxes.  
I can't imagine I can undo 20 years of that with a couple of more-considerate labels - they'll just take on the same kind of connotations in a little while, anyway.



> I do not want to have a debate over what set of approaches are strictly better. I also do not think we should avoid discussion of our differences.



 Seems like that's a fine line.



> If unity means celebrating the diversity of perspectives, approaches, and games within the hobby while discussing our differences with respect for each other I am all for it.



 Cool with that, hope to see it happen some day...    I get that you're trying and not being met very close to half-way for the most part, and it can't seem fair that I'd take issue with something as trivial seeming as labels with you, and not with the other side.  

I just had that reaction to 'mainstream' the first time you used it, and it's not going away.

RPGs aren't mainstream.  I don't feel like there can be said to be a mainstream within the tiny outsider hobby, there's a top-seller with mainstream recognition, but that's more to do with business realities than with the hobby.


----------



## Lanefan

Sadras said:


> Factor in mine or @_*Lanefan*_'s 'adversarial players' and you might have a recipe for disaster.



Calling my crew 'adversarial' paints us in a slightly misleading light, though it has its moments of truth. 

In general, I'd say as players:

- we enjoy the game having mystery to it, both in its play* and in how it is run**; and while we generally subscribe to the idea that the DM's word is law we also trust those DMs to be open to fair criticism and good ideas.  
- we see the game world as something to be - each to a greater or lesser extent - explored, changed, conquered, immersed in, and full of potential for adventure and derring-do; while also realizing it is a living breathing thing that existed long before our PCs ever got to it and will continue to go on existing long after we leave (unless we break it; it's happened).
- we see our characters as small fish in a very big pond and no matter how big we eventually get there's always going to be bigger fish, and some of them will try to defeat us.  We are not special snowflakes.  We do not have plot protection, or immunity from death, or from level loss or any other disaster.  The game world is filled with dangers and we either have to fight those dangers (PCs vs. the world, hence players vs. DM) or succumb to them.
- while we're aware that some aspects of realism must be sacrificed in order for the game to be and remain playable, in situations where there's a choice between realism and "gamism" we usually prefer (or choose) the more realistic approach for reasons of believability, consistency (with the real world), and immersion.
- we recognize that first and foremost it's the DM's game, if for no other reason than while a game can usually survive the departure of a player no game can survive the departure of its DM.  That said, we also trust the DM to be both willing and able to hit whatever curveballs we can pitch; and on the flip side we also accept that now and then the DM is likely going to railroad us as we trust that such is being done in the good faith intention of producing a better play experience.

* - some may frown on secret backstory but we'd think there's something very wrong if there wasn't any; part of the long-term fun lies in uncovering the secret backstory and then trying to integrate ourselves into it should we so desire
** - were I not a DM myself I probably wouldn't want to know *anything* about what goes on behind the screen or what's involved in "producing" the table experience.

I hope this puts some context around some of what I've been posting in here.

Lan-"where's my beer?  where's my dice?  there's orcs to be killin'!"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> _Authenticity _is a strange phenomenon - in general, and also in contemporary times, when mass producers aim to sell people stuff by way of mass marketing with the pitch that buying the stuff will make the individual authentic/give the individual an authentic experience.



OK, I'm with you so far.



> That said, I think there is some sort of difference between (say) attending a life performance and listening to a recording of one.



This one's quite simple - there are numerous clear differences, not least of which is that one doesn't usually get live performances played in one's own home (you have to go to where the performance is) but one can easily stay at home for a recorded performance (it comes to you).


> Or between being served a really nice home-made cake and being served a really nice store-bought cake.



But this one is an absolutely perfect analogy to what we're talking about here with regards to illusionism.

If I'm sitting at a dinner table and someone puts a piece of cake in front of me that turns out to be the best cake I've ever had, does it really matter in that moment of enjoyment where it came from or who made it?  Of course it doesn't.  I'm just enjoying eating the cake, end of story. 

Sure, I might ask afterwards in hopes of getting some more in the days that follow; but at the time It. Just. Doesn't. Matter.

And the same is true if I'm sitting at a table playing an excellent and fun D&D game.  Does it matter in that moment how everything came together to produce that game, or that the DM's casting illusions all over the place?  Not in the slightest!  I'll just enjoy it in that moment, for at that moment what matters is that moment and little to nothing more.  The in-the-moment experience is authentic.

Lan-"there's probably some corny song lyrics in there somewhere...sorry 'bout that"-efan


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]

Absolutely. Game mechanics and formal principles are not strictly necessary to achieve similar results. You can get there in D&D. The games I have been talking about are based on principles, techniques, and processes used in running games like D&D. It just that the game will not help you and in some cases will actively fight you. More importantly without the formalized principles on a social level the other players might fight you, particularly if there is a lack of social transparency. You have to work harder at it.

I mean you can absolutely get there on a pure role playing level through vigorous creative agreement with unspoken principles, no mechanisms or reward structures besides the social ones, and no defined player roles. It won't really be a role playing game, but it will be deeply collaborative. Social transparency and formal principles definitely help. In many ways this sort of principled free form role playing is much more flexible than any role playing game.  We're just having a conversation with no constraints besides the ones you naturally impose. There are bunches of people who do this stuff online who never play role playing games. 

One possible pain point with this approach is that in the face of so much unity of player interests it becomes meaningfully difficult to sustain character level conflicts of interest. It can also be socially fraught. We like these characters. We do not want to see bad stuff happen to them. In order for the fiction to be interesting it must. It can be hard to do this fairly and players can become protective of the characters they play. With no one dedicated to put pressure on the characters and sustain conflict players have a convenient release valve on the social layer to ensure tension does not become overly intense.

Another possible pain point is that this approach has a natural inclination towards story advocacy over character advocacy. When advocacy for the fictional world is distributed too much it can lead to internal conflicts of interest that create emotional distance between player and character. This is another convenient release valve.

I feel like principled free form involves somewhat less work than a game that does not help you or fights you. The game will have its own interests that tend to take priority and require more effort to fight against. It is easier to build the right sort of social environment and principles in an environment that already has a good deal of social transparency and shared player interests than in one where that might not be the case. It's also easier to build system through iteration on top of nothing than to twist and contort procedures that are already serving other interests. 

This was how Apocalypse World was designed, one move at a time over a principled free form structure to only include the rules that actively serve the interests of play. Vincent Baker's home group is full of free form role players who are deeply skeptical about the need for rules. They played a lengthy Ars Magica game where they scrapped rules altogether.

There's also the bit where we value games as games, something to challenge and test ourselves against, to struggle against and provoke us to do things we would not naturally do. One of the things I want is a social environment that encourages risk taking, real tension, and reward structures that align my interests with my character's interest and the interests of the fiction we are after to make it less hard to immerse while still getting my *Mastery (Challenge and Strategy)* on.

Even with the right game and right principles it is still not guaranteed. It's just far less effort. There is no panacea that will lead to a compelling experience sans a functioning social layer. You can like try, but that can sometimes lead to unintended consequences and cause some damage to the social layer. In my opinion designs that attempt to resolve player conflicts tend to mask social pain points rather than meaningfully address them.  

So you can get there with a game not particularly suited to it, but it is harder.
You can get there with no game at all, but it is also harder. Less hard than an ill suited game in my opinion.
You can get there with a game uniquely designed for it, but you still have to work for it.


----------



## Aenghus

Lanefan said:


> OK, I'm with you so far.
> 
> But this one is an absolutely perfect analogy to what we're talking about here with regards to illusionism.
> 
> If I'm sitting at a dinner table and someone puts a piece of cake in front of me that turns out to be the best cake I've ever had, does it really matter in that moment of enjoyment where it came from or who made it?  Of course it doesn't.  I'm just enjoying eating the cake, end of story.
> 
> Sure, I might ask afterwards in hopes of getting some more in the days that follow; but at the time It. Just. Doesn't. Matter.
> 
> And the same is true if I'm sitting at a table playing an excellent and fun D&D game.  Does it matter in that moment how everything came together to produce that game, or that the DM's casting illusions all over the place?  Not in the slightest!  I'll just enjoy it in that moment, for at that moment what matters is that moment and little to nothing more.  The in-the-moment experience is authentic.




This may well work for you and your players, but it wouldn't necessarily work for me, for instance. I'm highly risk adverse as a player and it matters hugely to me how adjudication in a game is actually being carried out, as opposed to how the DM says it is being carried out. I don't want to waste time with my PC attempting tasks that should be reasonable on paper but in effect are impossible because the fix is in and the game is being run on illusionism rather than the ostensible system the referee originally claimed they were using. 

Is this the case for me all the time. Hell, no! But it is some of the time, for me, the feeling the gameworld is being run by unknown rules or the unsupported  whim of the DM bugs the heck out of me. I'm pretty good at spotting sustained disparities between DM claims and the actuality at this point.


----------



## hawkeyefan

@_*Campbell*_
I agree with a lot of your last post, for sure. I think the social angle is a big factor, and as we previously discussed, the expectations of all those involved.

You mentioned something that kind of plays into something I mentioned in a reply to pemerton, so I quoted it below. 



Campbell said:


> There's also the bit where we value games as games, something to challenge and test ourselves against, to struggle against and provoke us to do things we would not naturally do. One of the things I want is a social environment that encourages risk taking, real tension, and reward structures that align my interests with my character's interest and the interests of the fiction we are after to make it less hard to immerse while still getting my *Mastery (Challenge and Strategy)* on.
> 
> Even with the right game and right principles it is still not guaranteed. It's just far less effort. There is no panacea that will lead to a compelling experience sans a functioning social layer. You can like try, but that can sometimes lead to unintended consequences and cause some damage to the social layer. In my opinion designs that attempt to resolve player conflicts tend to mask social pain points rather than meaningfully address them.




I occasionally play a game called Microscope. It'd probabyl be considered about as indie as possible. It falls into the category of an RPG, and there is indeed roleplaying that goes on, but its play experience is so far removed from typical tabletop RPG play that I hesitate to use the term.

It's more a collaborative world-building game. There are rules, but not mechanics, and there is no GM and no dice and no prep required to play. There are not PCs in the standard sense, though at times players will adopt the roles of characters in the game. 

Without going into too great of detail, play revolves around each player adding a fictional element to a world that they are creating. So they start with a basic premise, and then each player can add or bar an element. Play then goes into turns and each player adds to the world, building on what others have added or coming up with something totally new. Players are free to move forward or backward in the timeline on their turn, zooming in to a very micro level or remaining at the macro if they like. So sometimes play consists of establishing eras along the lines of "the industrial revolution" or they can zoom in to an event like "the conversation between the king and his son that changed everything". It's quite open, and allows for some really creative collaboration.

My description is probably not doing it justice....but it is very fun. However, it's a purely collaborative storytelling experience....so I hesitate to classify it as a game in the sense that we commonly think of them. Your comments of games as games....the element of challenge, or opposition of some sort. To me, that is a valued part of any RPG. 

So perhaps it's my experience with Microscope....which I kind of view as player-driven at its absolute, which influences my opinion on games that lean that way. There is no competitive angle that I want in my games...or at least, that's my concern. From descriptions of your game and @_*pemerton*_'s, it sounds like they're brimming with conflict. But if the collaborative angle overcomes the competitive angle, does that change things?


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]

I tend to value collaboration and cooperation over competition, but I think in the right setup they do not have to be opposing forces. One can enhance the other. Competition over ideas, paths to take the game, to make creative contributions, to come up with strategies, and to build compelling fiction can enhance the collaborative experience. I want to be careful not to conflate conflict between players with competition. I value conflict between characters, but not between players (including the GM). I want conflict in the fiction, but never really at the table. 

The sort of competition I am referring to happens internally within teams in sports, World of Warcraft, Overwatch, and also in many free form groups. It's more who can bring the best stuff and showcase their skills than a need to win. I score extremely low on the *Achievement Component (Completion, Power)* and extremely high on the *Mastery Component (Challenge, Strategy)*. I am deeply social, value both competition and cooperation, value fair play, and skilled play. For me it is all about how you play the game. I don't really care about winning and losing.

I am personally not all that interested in conch passing games like Microscope. I think it's a cool way to build a setting, but does not really feel like a game to me. I also would much rather advocate for a character as my primary interest. I play indie role playing games, but not really those story advocacy games. The closest I came is Fiasco which is still very much about character advocacy in the way we play it. Of course Fiasco is not so much a game without a Game Master as a game with many Game Masters, meaning that we all pretty much take turns being a GM in some way. I like games that have a GM. I just favor the role more as being about advocating for the fictional world and creating interesting fiction to play in than active designer of the game in progress and story advocate.


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## Campbell

I am actually more of a fan of tension than conflict. Those moments where characters meet for the first time and we are not sure if there is going to be a fight, tense exchange of words, or if they will find common ground are what I tend to play for. Whether there will be a conflict or not is often just as interesting as the actual conflict. I also highly value ways around conflict. I absolutely hate There Must Be A Fight moments. I want to decide how and when to engage in conflicts as a player. I also highly enjoy those moments of lateral decision making when running games. 

My favorite moment in The Blades in the Dark game I am a player in was when we were able to pull off some social maneuvering through adept fictional positioning to make two of our enemies fight each other with a third enemy in between while making one of the first two factions believe we were on their side. We were able to pull in some cool relationship stuff, tension between the player characters, connections to the setting, and cool fiction happened along the way.


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## hawkeyefan

[MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]

I agree that collaboration and competetive gaming don't meed to be at odds. I try to keep both elements in my game. But I do think that too much of one or the other can shift the game too much in one direction.

I feel like a game that's too player driven starts to become more like Microscope. Which I enjoy, but given a choice I'll play D&D every time. I feel that a GM is different than a player....fundamentally so, or else the role becomes purely that of referee. 

So I suppose that given that fundamental difference, I embrace it. The GM has a different role than that of the players. I don't think that's a bad thing. A pitcher is going to have a different experience during a baseball game than a left fielder will have. But they are atill both playing baseball, and can both enjoy it. And I think the GM can still play to find out...it's just that what he is playing to find out is a bit different than the players.

The GM is there to challenge the players and to make the game interesting and to help make the story compelling. So I think that it makes sense for the GM to be the primary storyteller of the group.


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## hawkeyefan

Double post


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## Campbell

I know I keep repeating myself here, but I do not really view my play as particularly player driven or GM driven. I think agency is more complex than that and cannot meaningfully be described without talking about over what various players have agency. In the games I prefer to run most often I have primary agency over the fiction not attached to their characters, and they have agency over their characters and the parts of the fiction that help define their place within it, but these are not hard and fast rules. I have a measure of agency over their characters that their characters would not have complete control of including attached NPCs, emotions, social pressures and the like. In return they have agency to meaningfully affect parts of the setting it makes sense their characters would be able to in accordance with their fictional positioning meaning they can invoke emotional responses, know the stuff they should know, know the people they should know, see the stuff they should see, apply social pressure and invoke emotional responses in NPCs without anyone getting particularly precious about the things they advocate for. We are all responsible for keeping the fiction interesting and making sure it fits the themes of the game, but I have a special responsibility here.

The way I view it is that we are all players. I play with the other players, not against them. I just have a different set of expectations than the other players and have a different set of rules that apply to me which leave a bit more room for judgment calls. I take an active role in the play of the game, but under different constraints. I am no passive observer. The only reward structure I have is the social one so I have to get all my enjoyment there. My relationship to the characters I advocate for is meaningfully different. I have many characters. They have one. I guess what I am getting at is that it's a different sort of play, but I take an active role and am not socially privileged in any meaningful sense. I expect things out of them and they expect different things out of me.

Here are my responsibilities as I see them:

Convey the fictional world honestly in accordance with their fictional positioning.
Advocate for the fictional world with integrity.
Take efforts to ensure the fiction stays interesting.
Follow my rules. Make sure they follow theirs.

I do not view it as my responsibility to advocate for any particular story or outcome. I just strive to ensure we all have an interesting space to play in and the other players are challenged both creatively and gameplay wise. I mean I guess you could call the content generation part of my role storytelling, but I very much prefer not to. I already have enough on my plate, and knowing what is going to happen would play less interesting for me   [MENTION=6688277]Sadras[/MENTION] called this sort of play a dynamic narrative sandbox and I think it is a pretty apt description. Storytelling is just not something I am comfortable doing or want to do.


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> when did you decide this yellow-clad skulker was a Vecna cultist?



I don't know. As in, I can't remember.

But I do want to reiterate that there is a significant difference between _the thought that the skulker might be a Vecna cultist_ - which I think I probably had at the time of first mentioning him - and _it being the case,  in the shard fiction, that the skulker is a Vecna cultists_. It is when the latter occurred that I don't know.

This difference - between _ideas for what might become part of the fiction_ and _the shared fiction per se_ - is what gives significance to Paul Czege's description of the following technique:

I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​
"Unfixed" doesn't mean "no ideas". It means _establishing the fiction as part of framing and resolution_, not prior to it.

I think most RPGers recognise that, _on the player side_, there's a very big difference between having an idea, and establishing something in the shared fiction. Thus, when a player declares an attack by his/her PC, the player has something in mind for the fiction, along the lines of _his/her PC has struck and killed the opponent_. But that idea doesn't become part of the shared fiction until mediated via the appropriate procedures, which could be anything ranging from initiative rules and action economy, to system combat mechanics, to table practices about how action declarations are handled, to another player saying "No, don't attack - we want to talk to this NPC!" in which case the player might take back the action declaration and abandons the idea.

What I am trying to convey is that the same thing can be true on the GM side. So, to relate back to an example I mentioned upthread, just because I have notes that say that such-and-such might happen at the baron's funeral (or celebration) that doesn't mean that the shared fiction does, or will, include any such thing. As it happened there was no funeral (the PCs saved the baron from the catoblepas come to kill him) nor any celebration (instead the baron collapsed upon learning of his niece's death at the hands of the PCs). 

Notice how very different this is from (say) the map and GM's key that Gygax and Moldvay talk about in their DMG/ch 8 respectively: in these cases, the key and map aren't a list of ideas about elements to be introduced into the fiction if appropriate in some future context; they actually establish the content of the fiction, and provide a basis on which to adjudicate action declarations by reference to fictional positioning that is secret from the players (and deliberately so - the whole point of those games includes the players learning the GM's secrets). Notice how different it is, also, from a standard event-based adventure path (I regard Dead Gods as a paradigm of this): the notes on the sequence of events are not presented as ideas about what might happen (eg they're not the same as, say, tactical advice that might be given to a GM about possibilities for handling a particular encounter). They're presented as things that will unfold in the shared fiction (it's something like a four-dimensionalist application of the Gygax/Moldvay dungeon-mapping idea).



hawkeyefan said:


> your use of the term "secret backstory" tends to include the idea that it is being used to thwart the players, but for many of us that may not be the case. It's more a case of campaign or world information that the players do not know, which is something that every game has. So how that information is put to use by the GM is the thing in question, more than simply the existence of such information.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I can understand your aversion to this....but I don't think I share the opinion that it is always bad.



Your use of the word "thwart" is itself tendentious, though. It's not a word I've used - I've talked about _determining that an action declaration fails by reference to elements of the fiction (ie fictional positioning) that the player is not aware of_, rather than via the action resolution mechanics. Nor have I used the word "bad". And that's deliberate. I don't think it's _bad_. Rather, it's not something I really care for in RPGing.

As I said above, though, you can't play classic dungeon crawling D&D without doing it. Eg a player declares "I search the southern wall for secret doors". If the GM's map indicates that there are no secret doors there, then that's that - whether or not the GM fakes a die roll, the answer is going to be "You don't find any secret doors". That's an instance of _determining that an action declaration fails by reference to fictional positioning of which the player is unaware_. Whether or not you would call that "thwarting the player" I will leave up to you, but it is an instance of application of GM's secret backstor. Hence it's not something I'm really into (and, as I posted upthread, it's not something I'm particularly good at either).

But contrast, say, the Cortex+ Hacker's Guide, which gives as an example of an asset in Fantasy gaming, "Hey, there’s a Secret Door Here!" (p 220), and gives as an example of a Scene Distinction (ie something the GM establishes at the start of the scene as a highly-salient and mechanically-exploitable aspect of the fictional situation) "Secret Doors" (p 52).

An actual play example that illustrates the same thing: when a player in my Cortex Fantasy/MHRP game wanted his ranger-ish PC to look for an ox in the barn of the giant steading, the procedure was not (i) roll a Perception-type check, then (ii) I check my notes for an account of what is in the barn. Rather, he made a check (opposed by the Doom Pool - all checks in MHRP are opposed) and, when it succeeded, established a Giant Ox asset. This is the same procedure the book contemplates being used to establish a Secret Door asset. (When he wanted wolves to help with a later action, though, he didn't need to establish a Wolves in the Great Hall asset, as I had already stipulated a Scene Distinction along those very lines.)

This also seems an appropriate context to respond to this:



Imaro said:


> I think as a player or DM I would have an issue caring enough to enjoy a game where the setting is ill-defined



The setting is not ill-defined. In fact, I would say that a setting which is generated via the methods I prefer tends to be quite rich. This is in part because it is more likely to contain content contributed by multiple authors (eg I don't think it would ever have occurred to me to narrate the giant ox; or - to allude back to another episode of play that I posted about upthread - an ancient battle between angels and demons in the Bright Desert); and it is in part, I think, because the connection between the setting and the dramatic trajectory of play is normally very transparent.



hawkeyefan said:


> it's possible that the players don't have any desire for their characters other than to play the adventure presented to them



In that case, I would say that the idea of the GM _being constrained by player concerns/interests as expressed by the build and play of their PCs_ has no work to do. Likewise in these circumstances it would make no sense for the GM to "go where the action is", as there is no action in the relevant sense.



hawkeyefan said:


> even if they do throw in some basic motivations beyond the traditional ones...."I want to find my brother's killer" and stuff like that....the DM can easily incorporate these into the AP. "Turns out your brother was killed by the Wearers of Purple" or what have you.



That doesn't sound, though, like a GM being constrained, at every moment of framing and narration, by the concerns and interests of the player as expressed by build and play of the PC. It sounds like a nod to the PC backstory as a passing event in some other trajectory of play.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think that the players can hook the GM in any game. It really boils down to the game in question, and how the group has decided to handle what goes into it, more so than the rules system being used.



I don't fully agree with this.

There are some systems (eg Classic Traveller, at least some versions of RuneQuest, Moldvay Basic) where PC generation is almost totally random, and so building a PC gives the player almost no chance to "hook" the GM. And in some games (eg Moldvay Basic again, Tunnels and Trolls, many 1st level AD&D PCs), PCs - especially at the start of a campaign - are so _thin_ that they don't contain any hooks.

Although RM and RQ are both ultra-simulationist games, they have important differences, and it's not a coincidence that I fell in love with RM whereas - while I have long admired the austere beauty of RQ - I have never fallen in love with it. RM allows the player to make choices at PC build that send signals - eg choosing to give your PC skill in Cooking and Lie Detection, or in Etiquette and Seduction, tells me as GM something about what you want to do with your PC. RM also, in action resolution for melee and spell casting (not so much archery, which is a bit of a weakness0, allows choices to be made - roughly, trade offs of risk vs potential reward - which (again) allow a player to express an attitude towards the ingame situation and set stakes in a fashion; whereas in RM everything is just percentage skill checks without the same scope for player stake-setting.

It's not a coincidence that I discovered the way I like to run games in two D&D campaigns in 1987 or thereabouts: one using Oriental Adventures, where PC build - despite a strong random element - is able to send much richer signals than default AD&D (because of the way PCs end up embedded in a social environment), and where the game (via its encounter rules, its Honour rules, etc) provides much richer resources for framing situations that speak to those signals; and one involving an all-thief game, thieves being the standouts of the traditional AD&D classes for bringing built-in thematic heft and providing players (via their thief abilities) with a rich capacity to send signals in action declaration and mode of engaging the gameworld. (Only paladins, monks and druids are comparable, I think, but are (i) harder to build and (ii) perhaps more distorted by the demands of conformity to the baseline mechanics.)


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If I'm sitting at a dinner table and someone puts a piece of cake in front of me that turns out to be the best cake I've ever had, does it really matter in that moment of enjoyment where it came from or who made it?  Of course it doesn't.



Suppose you learn that the cake was made by your partner. Or your child. For some people that _does_ change the experience. It overlays it with a different significance.

That's why I have pictures on my office door that have little aesthetic value in themselves, but were drawn by my children.

The origin of things - particularly if that origin has some very intimate connection to oneself - is not always irrelevant to the experience of them. But it doesn't even have to be intimate: part of what I find so dramatic about the train-derailment scene in Lawrence of Arabia is that it was filmed by _derailing a train[/io] (and they only had one go at it, and so had to get it right the first time). The same scene in CGI wouldn't have the same force.

(One of the great literary treatments of this sort of thing is Brave New World. The famous philosophical example is Nozick's "pleasure machine". They both raise the same issue: is the origin of pleasure really irrelevant to its significance as a human experience?)



Lanefan said:



			authenticity (the way the term is used here) and transparency may be being sought largely due to lack of trust in one's DM (or, if DM, lack of trust in one's players and-or oneself)
		
Click to expand...


This is flat-out wrong, and I'm actually becoming a little frustrated that it keeps recurring in this (and other) threads.

Sometimes I sit down and listen to a CD. Sometimes I sit down and get out my guitar and play a song. My reasons for doing the second aren't that I don't trust my CDs or my sound system. It's because I want something different.

Because I want to have the experience of discovering a story, a gameworld, a fiction, and because I want the dramatic and thematic potential to be there at every moment of play, and because I know the people I play with are up for this, therefore I run a game which is not driven by GM pre-authorship and pre-conception (of setting, of events, of alliances between characters, of choices that players will make for their PCs).

The only role that trust plays in the above is that it is present; not that it is absent.

As I've already posted in this thread (I think), the reason I was able to recruit players to my game, back in university days, is that they were looking for an alternative to GM-driven, follow-the-breadcrumbs-to-find-the-plot RPGing. Only one member of my group started RPGing in our group, and he took it for granted from the outset that, as a player, he would be contributing (via backstory, via action declarations and their resolution) to the creation of the fiction and (thereby) the story.

Trust has nothing to do with it. It's about aspirations for the experience of RPGing.



Imaro said:



			by implication you seem to be hinting that traditional games provide in-authentic experiences
		
Click to expand...


As I said in my post upthread, and in response to which  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] replied "that is very much the sort of distinction I am trying to make", the contrast is between a "curated" experience and what might (by way of contrast) be called a "spontaneous" or "unprepared" experience - an experience unmediated by curation.

What are the benefits of curation? The experience is ordered. The curator structures it in such a way as to try to ensure that the experience will have a certain, intended, character. Perhaps something becomes available to an audience who wouldn't otherwise know how to find it, or how to make sense of it.

What does curation preclude? It precludes spontaneity. It puts a burden on a certain sort of discovery.

What is Duchamp doing with his "Fountain"? One thing he's doing is mocking curation, and the sorts of expectations it creates. Why were the early twentieth century avant-garde European artists so fascinated by African masks and other "tribal" artefacts? Because (rightly or wrongly) they saw in them a certain sort of authenticity, or unmediated character, that they felt was absent from the received traditions of European visual art.

The political and aesthetic questions raised by this desire for authenticity are challenging. The political ones, obviously, are off-limits for this board. The aesthetic ones aren't, but naturally they're going to be matters of contention.

But I don't think we can easily ignore them. Look at the OSR, and its rejection of the Dragonlance/AP-model of adventure design, and its self-described "DIY" ethos. Look at The Forge, and its animating mantra of designer-published games as an alternative to RPG publication as the business of selling "supplements" that are barely-disguised works of fiction. What are these but expressions of the desire for a certain sort of authenticity?_


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## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I'm sorry but you are choosing to control the fun by agreeing to go along with the correct play procedures, principles, mechanics, etc of said game
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the purpose of said game is to create parameters that produce a very specific and narrow play range that in turn produces a specific experience.  General fun is secondary



What is "general fun"?

I enjoy five hundred more than bridge, because it is lighter, has a degree of randomness, and you only need to count trumps and high cards in off-suits. I have friends who are more serious card players than me who enjoy bridge more than five hundred, because in bridge skill counts for more. Which one of these games is generating "general fun"?

I enjoy backgammon more than chess for much the same reasons I enjoy five hundred more than bridge. Again, I have friends (and family members) who prefer chess. And others who prefer go to either. I don't find the notion of "general fun" very helpful here.

Are you saying that you enjoy D&D more than (say) Burning Wheel because it is less demanding to play (somewhat like five hundred being less demanding than bridge) and hence better as an accompaniment to a non-focused social gathering? That would be plausible. But the notion of "general fun" still doesn't have any work to do.



Imaro said:


> This circles back to the whole experience vs. fun dichotomy I see with these games vs. a game like D&D that can be drifted towards certain experiences in the moment. A game like D&D allows me to tailor the goals, emotional resonance and maturity level for a game where only the grown-ups show up one week vs a game where younger children and adults are playing the following week.



The tailoring you describe can be done with MHRP. Or HeroQuest revised. Or PbtA. None of these has a built-in theme or level of seriousness.

As for drifting to certain experiences in the moment: the one thing the GM can't do (by definition, as it were) is choose to drift towards a player-driven experience! More generally, there are some experiences that aren't amenable to being chosen - they emerge only as by-products of other things.



Imaro said:


> I would never trade out my group or specific members of it because I wanted to play a specific game



I don't see how this in any way contradicts a claim that playing with the right people is important. It seems to be an instance of such a claim.


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## pemerton

As I posted in reply to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] upthread, I am hoping to soon start playing a BW game.

Here are the Beliefs, Instincts, Traits (character traits are mostly colour; die traits are like D&D feats), Relationships, Affiliations and Reputation for my character, Thurgon. All but three Beliefs and three Instincts have been purchased as part of the process of PC building (and one of those three Beliefs has to be about my faith, due to being Faithful; normally a character has only three Beliefs, but being Sworn to the Order gives me a fourth):

[sblock]Beliefs
The Lord of Battle will lead me to glory		
I am a Knight of the Iron Tower: by devotion and example I will lead the righteous to glorious victory		
Harm and infamy will befall Auxol - my ancestral estate - no more!		
Aramina will need my protection		

Instincts
When entering battle, always speak a prayer to the Lord of Battle		
If an innocent is threatened, interpose myself		
When camping, always ensure that the campfire is burning

Character Traits
Disciplined
Fanatical Devotion

Die Traits
Faithful (May perform miracles of the faithful; this trait is lost if one Belief is not a statement of faith)
Tonsured (Initiate of the Order of the Iron Tower: may officiate its rituals; 1D Affiliation")
Sworn to the Order (4th Belief, dictated by membership of the Order of the Iron Tower)
Mark of Privilege (Gain a 1D affiliation with the nobility; suffer +1 Ob penalty to Inconspicuous or Falsehood test if masquerading as someone of lower station)
Hard (-1 hestitation due to pain)

Relationships
Xanthippe (Mother, on family estate)
Aramina (sorceress companion)

Reputation
+1D, last Knight of the Iron Tower

Affiliations
+1D, von Pfizer family
+1D, Order of the Iron Tower
+1D, nobility[/sblock]Another thing to note is this character has Cooking skill, and - when it comes to fighting - has Brawling, Cudgel and Mace skill. Also, I had to determine Thurgon's starting Faith by way of the following process:

[sblock]When a character acquires the Faithful trait, s/he opens a Faith attribute with an exponent of 3. The character must then answer each of the following questions, based on his/her Beliefs and the situation at hand:

Whom do you trust most?
When in danger, whom do you consult for aid?
Ultimately, how can you best serve your allies?​
Each answer of “God” adds +1D to starting Faith

I answered _The Lord of Battle_, _The Lord of Battle_, and _My strength_, respectively: I think that is honest to the character, and particularly his Beliefs and Traits. And so starting Faith is 5.[/sblock]Here are the Beliefs, Instincts etc for Aramina, plus her spells (in PC-build terms, she is a "henchman"-type character that I have paid for; Thurgon is a 5 life path PC, and so when I pay for a companion character that character has 3 life paths, and so mechanically is a bit less powerful and a bit more narrowly-focused):

[sblock]Beliefs
I'm not going to _finish_ my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!
I don't need Thurgon's pity
If in doubt, burn it!

Instincts
Never catch the glance or gaze of a stranger
Always wear my cloak
Always Assess before casting a spell

Character Traits
Fiery Temper
Extremely Respectful of Her Betters

Die Traits
Gifted (may use Sorcery)

Relationships
Thurgon (knight companion)

Spells
Rain of Fire (streams of fire erupt from smoky red sky - somewhere between Fireball in damage potential and Meteor Swarm in AoE)
Sparkshower (fire leaps and sparks from targeted blaze - in damage potential, a bit like Burning Hands)
Call of Iron (grab a metal object)
Touch Not Sublime Flesh (a defensive spell)[/sblock]Thurgon's equpiment includes armour, weapons, a riding horse, clothes and shoes, but no other travelling gear (and so no cloak or hood). (I couldn't afford travelling gear after paying for the other stuff I needed.)

Aramina's equipment includes clothes, shoes, and travelling gear (rope, candles, matches, flint and steel, pocket knife, skillet, warm coat, rain cloak and hood, a thick leather belt, money purse).

What sorts of signals does that send to the GM?

Well, for one thing there should be camping. With a fire. Which Aramina might use to activate Sparkshower. With a skillet, in which Thurgon might be cooking and which Aramina might want to grab via Call of Iron and which might be used (by one or both) for brawling.

I'm expecting there to be travel: because a riding horse is for travelling, and camps come with travel. If there's travel there'll probably be rain, because Thurgon doesn't have a cloak, but is Disciplined and so isn't going to be stopped by a bit of rain.

I would expect there to be strangers. Whose gaze Aramina probably will not meet. Who might be innocent, and threatened! (Or who might be Medusae.)

And I expect there will be choices: do I (as Thurgon) protect Aramina, or the innocent strangers? Is Fanatical Devotion really consistent with leading the righteous to glorious victory? If victory is even possible, will it be by way of arms (which is what the character is good at)? Or by way of cooking (which is one of the character's weakest trained skills)? And if by way of arms, what if Thurgon dies? Who, then, will protect Aramina? Or free Auxol, Thurgon's ancestral estate, from harm and infamy?

I don't know how any of this will play out. I don't even know how much of the above will _occur_, because those are my thoughts about the sorts of things I would do as GM when looking at these two characters. The GM will have his own thoughts. But those thoughts will be working with the same material: that's where the action is.​


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## pemerton

A sequel to the post above: I've been reading the Dungeon World rulebook (I've played a bit of it, but never read the book closely). I really liked this bit (pp 49-54):

Making Dungeon World characters is quick and easy. You should all create your first characters together at the beginning of your first session. Character creation is, just like play, a kind of conversation—everyone should be there for it. . . .

[12 steps of PC creation]

13. Get Ready to Play
Take a little break: grab a drink, stretch your legs and let the GM brainstorm for a little bit about what they’ve learned about your characters. Once you’re all ready, grab your dice and your sheet and get ready to take on the dungeon.

Once you’re ready the GM will get things started as described in the First Session chapter.​
I love the idea that the GM "writes the scenario" while the players stretch their legs and get a drink! (That's how I started my BW campaign.)

The First Session chapter has a little bit more advice (pp 177, 180, 183):

The first session of a game of Dungeon World begins with character creation. Character creation is also world creation, the details on the character sheets and the questions that you ask establish what Dungeon World is like—who lives in it and what’s going on. . . .

For the players, the first session is just like every other. They just have to play their characters like real people and explore Dungeon World. You [the GM] have to do a little more in the first session. You establish the world and the threats the players will face. . . .

Think about fantastic worlds, strange magic, and foul beasts. Remember the games you played and the stories you told. Watch some movies, read some comics; get heroic fantasy into your brain.

What you bring to the first session, ideas-wise, is up to you. At the very least bring your head full of ideas. That’s the bare minimum.

If you like you can plan a little more. Maybe think of an evil plot and who’s behind it, or some monsters you’d like to use.

If you’ve got some spare time on your hands you can even draw some maps (but remember, from your principles: leave blanks) and imagine specific locations.

The one thing you absolutely can’t bring to the table is a planned storyline or plot. You don’t know the heroes or the world before you sit down to play so planning anything concrete is just going to frustrate you. It also conflicts with your agenda: play to find out what happens. . . .

The first adventure is really about discovering the direction that future sessions will take. Throughout the first adventure keep your eye out for unresolved threats; note dangerous things that are mentioned but not dealt with. These will be fuel for sessions to come.

Start the session with a group of player characters (maybe all of them) in a tense situation. Use anything that demands action: outside the entrance to a dungeon, ambushed in a fetid swamp, peeking through the crack in a door at the orc guards, or being sentenced before King Levus. Ask questions right away—“who is leading the ambush against you?” 
or “what did you do to make King Levus so mad?” If the situation stems directly from the characters and your questions, all the better.

Here’s where the game starts. The players will start saying and doing things, which means they’ll start making moves. . . .

Once you’ve had some time to relax and think over the first session it’s time to prepare for the next session. Preparing for the second session takes a few minutes, maybe an hour if this is your first time. You’ll create fronts, maybe make some monsters or custom moves, and generally get an idea of what is going on in the world.​
This is very different from the advice in Moldvay Basic, Gygax's DMG, or any later D&D book I'm familiar with. It's not wildly different from the advice in the BW Adventue Burner. Those differences and resemblances are neither arbitrary nor coincidental.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> As I posted in reply to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] upthread, I am hoping to soon start playing a BW game.
> 
> Here are the Beliefs, Instincts, Traits (character traits are mostly colour; die traits are like D&D feats), Relationships, Affiliations and Reputation for my character, Thurgon. All but three Beliefs and three Instincts have been purchased as part of the process of PC building (and one of those three Beliefs has to be about my faith, due to being Faithful; normally a character has only three Beliefs, but being Sworn to the Order gives me a fourth):
> 
> [sblock]Beliefs
> The Lord of Battle will lead me to glory
> I am a Knight of the Iron Tower: by devotion and example I will lead the righteous to glorious victory
> Harm and infamy will befall Auxol - my ancestral estate - no more!
> Aramina will need my protection
> 
> Instincts
> When entering battle, always speak a prayer to the Lord of Battle
> If an innocent is threatened, interpose myself
> When camping, always ensure that the campfire is burning
> 
> Character Traits
> Disciplined
> Fanatical Devotion
> 
> Die Traits
> Faithful (May perform miracles of the faithful; this trait is lost if one Belief is not a statement of faith)
> Tonsured (Initiate of the Order of the Iron Tower: may officiate its rituals; 1D Affiliation")
> Sworn to the Order (4th Belief, dictated by membership of the Order of the Iron Tower)
> Mark of Privilege (Gain a 1D affiliation with the nobility; suffer +1 Ob penalty to Inconspicuous or Falsehood test if masquerading as someone of lower station)
> Hard (-1 hestitation due to pain)
> 
> Relationships
> Xanthippe (Mother, on family estate)
> Aramina (sorceress companion)
> 
> Reputation
> +1D, last Knight of the Iron Tower
> 
> Affiliations
> +1D, von Pfizer family
> +1D, Order of the Iron Tower
> +1D, nobility[/sblock]Another thing to note is this character has Cooking skill, and - when it comes to fighting - has Brawling, Cudgel and Mace skill. Also, I had to determine Thurgon's starting Faith by way of the following process:
> 
> [sblock]When a character acquires the Faithful trait, s/he opens a Faith attribute with an exponent of 3. The character must then answer each of the following questions, based on his/her Beliefs and the situation at hand:
> 
> Whom do you trust most?
> When in danger, whom do you consult for aid?
> Ultimately, how can you best serve your allies?​
> Each answer of “God” adds +1D to starting Faith
> 
> I answered _The Lord of Battle_, _The Lord of Battle_, and _My strength_, respectively: I think that is honest to the character, and particularly his Beliefs and Traits. And so starting Faith is 5.[/sblock]Here are the Beliefs, Instincts etc for Aramina, plus her spells (in PC-build terms, she is a "henchman"-type character that I have paid for; Thurgon is a 5 life path PC, and so when I pay for a companion character that character has 3 life paths, and so mechanically is a bit less powerful and a bit more narrowly-focused):
> 
> [sblock]Beliefs
> I'm not going to _finish_ my career with no spellbooks and an empty purse!
> I don't need Thurgon's pity
> If in doubt, burn it!
> 
> Instincts
> Never catch the glance or gaze of a stranger
> Always wear my cloak
> Always Assess before casting a spell
> 
> Character Traits
> Fiery Temper
> Extremely Respectful of Her Betters
> 
> Die Traits
> Gifted (may use Sorcery)
> 
> Relationships
> Thurgon (knight companion)
> 
> Spells
> Rain of Fire (streams of fire erupt from smoky red sky - somewhere between Fireball in damage potential and Meteor Swarm in AoE)
> Sparkshower (fire leaps and sparks from targeted blaze - in damage potential, a bit like Burning Hands)
> Call of Iron (grab a metal object)
> Touch Not Sublime Flesh (a defensive spell)[/sblock]Thurgon's equpiment includes armour, weapons, a riding horse, clothes and shoes, but no other travelling gear (and so no cloak or hood). (I couldn't afford travelling gear after paying for the other stuff I needed.)
> 
> Aramina's equipment includes clothes, shoes, and travelling gear (rope, candles, matches, flint and steel, pocket knife, skillet, warm coat, rain cloak and hood, a thick leather belt, money purse).
> 
> What sorts of signals does that send to the GM?​



To me, it would send that Thurgon is a fairly standard Paladin or War Cleric type who has (somehow!) managed to find himself both a horse and a hench before starting his adventuring career; and that Aramina is just starting out on her way to becoming a somewhat typical blast mage but for now is making her way as (what amounts to) a squire; and that they have in-character reasons to work together when they can.

As DM that's pretty much all I need to know other than their basic stats, hit points, etc.



> Well, for one thing there should be camping. With a fire. Which Aramina might use to activate Sparkshower. With a skillet, in which Thurgon might be cooking and which Aramina might want to grab via Call of Iron and which might be used (by one or both) for brawling.
> 
> I'm expecting there to be travel: because a riding horse is for travelling, and camps come with travel. If there's travel there'll probably be rain, because Thurgon doesn't have a cloak, but is Disciplined and so isn't going to be stopped by a bit of rain.
> 
> I would expect there to be strangers. Whose gaze Aramina probably will not meet. Who might be innocent, and threatened! (Or who might be Medusae.)



That all of these will happen is pretty much given; and that all of these will probably be largely hand-waved after the first instance or two is also a given...well, except for the Medusae; you might want to wait a while for that. 



> And I expect there will be choices: do I (as Thurgon) protect Aramina, or the innocent strangers? Is Fanatical Devotion really consistent with leading the righteous to glorious victory? If victory is even possible, will it be by way of arms (which is what the character is good at)? Or by way of cooking (which is one of the character's weakest trained skills)? And if by way of arms, what if Thurgon dies? Who, then, will protect Aramina? Or free Auxol, Thurgon's ancestral estate, from harm and infamy?



This is all great stuff, and I like it!  But it has nothing to do with the DM at all.  All of these are in-character issues which, with a truly neutral DM, would be up to the player to work out and role-play through as the game goes along.



> The GM will have his own thoughts. But those thoughts will be working with the same material: that's where the action is.



The action is when you're travelling through the mountain pass on your party's first trip and a band of orcs attack; or when you're in town looking for something worthy and noble to do for your first adventure and someone sees your potential and looks to hire you for something risky; or when you've stopped off at a farmstead for the night and a bunch of goblins attack it  - and these hold true no matter what or who is in the party and-or what their goals and aims might be; the DM is (or should be) working with the same material.

The game - and game world -  is bigger than the characters collectively, never mind any individual one.

Lan-"is the SOP of any decent blast mage ever not 'if in doubt, burn it'?"-efan​


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> That all of these will happen is pretty much given; and that all of these will probably be largely hand-waved after the first instance or two is also a given



There's been no camping in my current BW game; very little that I can recall in my main 4e game; and none to date in my Cortex Fantasy game, though I could see it happening in that game in the future.

As for hand-waving: given that this is what the PCs, at least currently, are built around I don't anticipate any hand-waving. For similar reasons that, in the OP, there was no hand-waving of the availability of a vessel.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I expect there will be choices: do I (as Thurgon) protect Aramina, or the innocent strangers? Is Fanatical Devotion really consistent with leading the righteous to glorious victory? If victory is even possible, will it be by way of arms (which is what the character is good at)? Or by way of cooking (which is one of the character's weakest trained skills)? And if by way of arms, what if Thurgon dies? Who, then, will protect Aramina? Or free Auxol, Thurgon's ancestral estate, from harm and infamy?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is all great stuff, and I like it!  But it has nothing to do with the DM at all.
Click to expand...


I think it depends a lot on the GM. Not every situation involves innocents; nor innocents under threat; nor innocents who can't be defended while also protecting Aramina. Nor does every situation establish pressure between Fanatical Devotion and glorious victory. If the situation, for instance, is an attack on the steading of innocent homesteaders by a group of orcs, its seems likely that Fanatical Devotion, glorious victory, and protecting everyone all push the same way.

Hence I'm not expecting this (which I hadn't read before typing the above!):



Lanefan said:


> you've stopped off at a farmstead for the night and a bunch of goblins attack it



That doesn't seem to force any choices at all.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> From descriptions of your game and @_*pemerton*_'s, it sounds like they're brimming with conflict.



Certainly conflict between the PCs and . . . obstacles . . . whether those are NPCs or inanimate aspects of the gameworld.

Dramatic need + obstacles/challenges/complications => conflict. That's what makes the game unfold, rather than just hand around in stasis, with nothing for the PCs (and hence the players) to do. And if the external conflict generates internal conflict (the sorts of choices I've just been discussing with [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]), or conflict among the PCs that forces hard choices to be made there too, well so much the better.

(Intra-party conflict is obviously tricky. As I approach the game, a certain onus falls both on GM and players to manage this carefully, especially in a system like D&D that presumes pretty tight party play. The conflict has to be enough to drive action, without being so great as to cause a split. I wonder what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s thoughts are on this.)



hawkeyefan said:


> There is no competitive angle that I want in my games...or at least, that's my concern.



I want at least this much competition: if I (as GM) am playing a NPC/creature who wants to hurt a PC, I want to be able to do that without having to hold back. I, the GM, have no particular desire that the PCs lose; but their opponent does, and I want to be able to express and give effect to that in my play of that opponent.

Not all systems allow for this: or, at least, if played this way they will produce what I would regard as an unacceptably high level of player defeats. (Low-level AD&D played in a non-dungeon crawl context I would regard as Exhibit A in this respect.)

I prefer ones that do. 4e combat handles this, by building a certain sort of "softballing" into the mechanics (PCs have depths of resilience and capacity to project power that NPCs/monsters lack). (It doesn't really arise in 4e non-combat, because skill challenges don't involve mechanical opposition, only narration in the form of framing, and then re-framing in light of consequences.)

BW handles it quite differently, by building in a range of non-death defeat consequences, and by embracing "fail forward", so that PC defeat isn't (straightforwardly) _player_ defeat.

MHRP has some issues with this, in virtue of the way the Doom Pool works. I'm still getting the hang of it. The dominant online advice is "Sometimes the GM should softball the Doom Pool", but I have doubts about that for the reasons I've stated.

(Note: the distinction between framing and resolution matters to the above. _Framing_ is, for me, a metagame process, and I do that based on the principles I've discussed above. But when the actual conflict is being resolved, once the situation is framed and the competing actions being declared, I don't want to have to metagame.)


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> The setting is not ill-defined. In fact, I would say that a setting which is generated via the methods I prefer tends to be quite rich. This is in part because it is more likely to contain content contributed by multiple authors (eg I don't think it would ever have occurred to me to narrate the giant ox; or - to allude back to another episode of play that I posted about upthread - an ancient battle between angels and demons in the Bright Desert); and it is in part, I think, because the connection between the setting and the dramatic trajectory of play is normally very transparent.




Hmm, I wasn't addressing your particular method of setting creation directly in that post  I was speaking to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] 's whose details are more nebulous to me... but I'll post my thoughts on the above statement here.  

I think there can be different types of richness... to claim that a setting is quite rich due to having a multitude of authors contribute to it doesn't seem like a particularly strong argument to me since that could just as easily lead to a hodgepodge or incoherent setting. In other words I don't think having more authors inherently adds to the richness of the setting.  I also wonder if there aren't different types of richness... in my games and the games I play with my normal group we feel a setting is rich and interesting when we ask a question and are able to get an objective, pre-defined answer (and yes admittedly there may be times where an answer isn't already detailed but in our playstyle the GM through his knowledge of the setting as a whole is positioned to most easily provide answers to said question)... generating said answers ourselves, through out of game or in-game methods, makes us feel the setting isn't rich or even designed but instead a thing that is ill-defined and in flux.  Is this inherently bad... no, but we don't start off with investment with such a setting and said investment has to be fostered and may or may not grow as play continues.  Your games strike me as much more concerned with the actions, thoughts, goals, motivations, etc. of the characters and much less with the setting outside of it facilitating those things and honestly in that type of game the setting only needs to be rich in so far as it serves that purpose.  But for some games (especially exploratory games and sandbox games which I enjoy running) the setting is important as an objective thing we want to explore, learn about and care about outside of it's importance to framing our characters motivations, goals, etc.  I didn't think it contentious to say a setting being decided and narrated in the moment with no secret backstory started ill-defined but I'd like to hear how you view it as being well-defined if nothing exists in the fiction for your games until it is brought into play?


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> As I said in my post upthread, and in response to which   [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] replied "that is very much the sort of distinction I am trying to make", the contrast is between a "curated" experience and what might (by way of contrast) be called a "spontaneous" or "unprepared" experience - an experience unmediated by curation.
> 
> What are the benefits of curation? The experience is ordered. The curator structures it in such a way as to try to ensure that the experience will have a certain, intended, character. Perhaps something becomes available to an audience who wouldn't otherwise know how to find it, or how to make sense of it.
> 
> What does curation preclude? It precludes spontaneity. It puts a burden on a certain sort of discovery.
> 
> What is Duchamp doing with his "Fountain"? One thing he's doing is mocking curation, and the sorts of expectations it creates. Why were the early twentieth century avant-garde European artists so fascinated by African masks and other "tribal" artefacts? Because (rightly or wrongly) they saw in them a certain sort of authenticity, or unmediated character, that they felt was absent from the received traditions of European visual art.
> 
> The political and aesthetic questions raised by this desire for authenticity are challenging. The political ones, obviously, are off-limits for this board. The aesthetic ones aren't, but naturally they're going to be matters of contention.
> 
> But I don't think we can easily ignore them. Look at the OSR, and its rejection of the Dragonlance/AP-model of adventure design, and its self-described "DIY" ethos. Look at The Forge, and its animating mantra of designer-published games as an alternative to RPG publication as the business of selling "supplements" that are barely-disguised works of fiction. What are these but expressions of the desire for a certain sort of authenticity?




Okay thanks for this... the use of the word curated in this instance makes much more sense to me than authentic vs. inauthentic and I don't think I have much if any disagreement in what you are saying or in the differences you've hashed out for me.  I don't think however this distinction falls along traditional vs. indie games as I believe both can provide curated and uncurated experiences depending on how they are run.  Many achieve spontaneity in sandbox games through random charts, while not the same methods you or [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] use...I think it still produces an uncurated experience... or am I still missing the difference? between the two?


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> What is "general fun"?
> 
> I enjoy five hundred more than bridge, because it is lighter, has a degree of randomness, and you only need to count trumps and high cards in off-suits. I have friends who are more serious card players than me who enjoy bridge more than five hundred, because in bridge skill counts for more. Which one of these games is generating "general fun"?
> 
> I enjoy backgammon more than chess for much the same reasons I enjoy five hundred more than bridge. Again, I have friends (and family members) who prefer chess. And others who prefer go to either. I don't find the notion of "general fun" very helpful here.
> 
> Are you saying that you enjoy D&D more than (say) Burning Wheel because it is less demanding to play (somewhat like five hundred being less demanding than bridge) and hence better as an accompaniment to a non-focused social gathering? That would be plausible. But the notion of "general fun" still doesn't have any work to do.




This was in reference to Law's player types which were brought up earlier in the thread.  But to try to simplify it so you don't have to go over numerous posts to get the gist of it... I was using it as a shorthand for what I think you and some others would call incoherent design (and please correct me if I am making an incorrect assumption here.) It would be the type of fun that comes from a game that caters to (or can be run in a way that caters to) numerous agendas of fun as opposed to being focused on creating a narrower but more focused specific type of fun.

I am saying I enjoy D&D more than BW because if I want to focus on beliefs I can in D&D through ideals, bonds, flaws and inspirtation... but I don't have to if I don't want to.  I could instead focus on tactical and strategic combat, or focus on the fun of powergaming and so on.  BW is focused on a specific type of fun, expressed through acting upon the beliefs of the characters the players have created (admittedly, I could be off about this, but it's the impression your posts have given me).  If I don't want to focus on said beliefs... why would I run BW?  I don't really have to ask myself that question with D&D... I can drift it into numerous types of fun depending on what my players want in a particular session or even in a particular moment.




pemerton said:


> The tailoring you describe can be done with MHRP. Or HeroQuest revised. Or PbtA. None of these has a built-in theme or level of seriousness.




It's not about a level of seriousness... it's about the mechanics of the game and what they bring about... as an example, If I remember correctly Heroquest has a mechanic that increases or decreases DC's based on dramatic appropriateness.  But if I want to play a more tactical/simmulationist game this doesn't work for me.  MHRP is lauded as a game that balances Jubilee and the Hulk and has little to any mechanical tactical play in combat... how do I drift that so the powergamers or the strategist/tacticians in my group have fun?  These games are created to produce very specific gameplay.   



pemerton said:


> As for drifting to certain experiences in the moment: the one thing the GM can't do (by definition, as it were) is choose to drift towards a player-driven experience! More generally, there are some experiences that aren't amenable to being chosen - they emerge only as by-products of other things.




Why couldn't I?  Are you saying D&D can't be run as a player driven game?  



pemerton said:


> I don't see how this in any way contradicts a claim that playing with the right people is important. It seems to be an instance of such a claim.




It's not contradicting the claim... it's contrasting the reasons.  I would rather play with my friends and family than with the people necessary for a specific game.  In one instance I am choosing people because they are my friends and family then picking a game that will accommodate all of our goals and wants as players... while in the other instance I am choosing a game thewn picking people who fit within the parameters of said game well enough to produce the expected experience.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I don't know. As in, I can't remember.
> 
> But I do want to reiterate that there is a significant difference between _the thought that the skulker might be a Vecna cultist_ - which I think I probably had at the time of first mentioning him - and _it being the case,  in the shard fiction, that the skulker is a Vecna cultists_. It is when the latter occurred that I don't know.
> 
> This difference - between _ideas for what might become part of the fiction_ and _the shared fiction per se_ - is what gives significance to Paul Czege's description of the following technique:
> 
> I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this.​
> "Unfixed" doesn't mean "no ideas". It means _establishing the fiction as part of framing and resolution_, not prior to it.




Sure, I understand that. I mean, I said as much in the post you quoted....that's how I tend to handle things when I introduce them into my game. I have an idea, but I'm not married to it. 




pemerton said:


> What I am trying to convey is that the same thing can be true on the GM side. So, to relate back to an example I mentioned upthread, just because I have notes that say that such-and-such might happen at the baron's funeral (or celebration) that doesn't mean that the shared fiction does, or will, include any such thing. As it happened there was no funeral (the PCs saved the baron from the catoblepas come to kill him) nor any celebration (instead the baron collapsed upon learning of his niece's death at the hands of the PCs).




Yeah, I'm fully aware of this, and as I said, this is generally how I handle my games. 

Do you consider this some sense of illusionism, though? If I understand that term as it's been used in this thread, it mostly relates to the illusion of choice or of consequence of choice being used by the GM. Does this flexibility with the true origin of a story element....let's use the yellow skulker as the example....kind of fall into that same category? 



pemerton said:


> Your use of the word "thwart" is itself tendentious, though. It's not a word I've used - I've talked about _determining that an action declaration fails by reference to elements of the fiction (ie fictional positioning) that the player is not aware of_, rather than via the action resolution mechanics. Nor have I used the word "bad". And that's deliberate. I don't think it's _bad_. Rather, it's not something I really care for in RPGing.
> 
> As I said above, though, you can't play classic dungeon crawling D&D without doing it. Eg a player declares "I search the southern wall for secret doors". If the GM's map indicates that there are no secret doors there, then that's that - whether or not the GM fakes a die roll, the answer is going to be "You don't find any secret doors". That's an instance of _determining that an action declaration fails by reference to fictional positioning of which the player is unaware_. Whether or not you would call that "thwarting the player" I will leave up to you, but it is an instance of application of GM's secret backstor. Hence it's not something I'm really into (and, as I posted upthread, it's not something I'm particularly good at either).




No, you have not used the word thwart....but every example you've provided has been one where the GM thwarts the PCs' ideas. The secret door example you just provided is the first benign example of this that I've seen you use. It's very possible that I've missed such an example if you have provided one...but from what I've read, it seems that your examples display a bit of a bias toward how you view it. Which is not wrong or bad by any means.....it just seems a bit obvious even if you don't come right out and say it. 

And I know you didn't term it as bad, but I meant that I am not as averse to it as you because I think it can be a legit method at times. So I don't find it bad in that sense. 



pemerton said:


> In that case, I would say that the idea of the GM _being constrained by player concerns/interests as expressed by the build and play of their PCs_ has no work to do. Likewise in these circumstances it would make no sense for the GM to "go where the action is", as there is no action in the relevant sense.
> 
> That doesn't sound, though, like a GM being constrained, at every moment of framing and narration, by the concerns and interests of the player as expressed by build and play of the PC. It sounds like a nod to the PC backstory as a passing event in some other trajectory of play.




But it is. It's just that the player interests and concerns are far less constraining. They don't have aspirations beyond those of the adventure path in question, or if they do, they are easily reconciled with and incorporated into the AP. 

In the case where players may have much more involved expectations for their PCs and so on, then it would be a concern. In that case, it would be far more difficult for a GM to run a traditional AP as presented without significant changes. 

My point though is that this criteria that you described doesn't seem to actually bar the AP style traditional GM driven game, depending on the players' desires and expectations. So as such, it doesn't seem to be a criteria for a player driven game. 




pemerton said:


> I don't fully agree with this.
> 
> There are some systems (eg Classic Traveller, at least some versions of RuneQuest, Moldvay Basic) where PC generation is almost totally random, and so building a PC gives the player almost no chance to "hook" the GM. And in some games (eg Moldvay Basic again, Tunnels and Trolls, many 1st level AD&D PCs), PCs - especially at the start of a campaign - are so _thin_ that they don't contain any hooks.
> 
> Although RM and RQ are both ultra-simulationist games, they have important differences, and it's not a coincidence that I fell in love with RM whereas - while I have long admired the austere beauty of RQ - I have never fallen in love with it. RM allows the player to make choices at PC build that send signals - eg choosing to give your PC skill in Cooking and Lie Detection, or in Etiquette and Seduction, tells me as GM something about what you want to do with your PC. RM also, in action resolution for melee and spell casting (not so much archery, which is a bit of a weakness0, allows choices to be made - roughly, trade offs of risk vs potential reward - which (again) allow a player to express an attitude towards the ingame situation and set stakes in a fashion; whereas in RM everything is just percentage skill checks without the same scope for player stake-setting.




Well, you've kind of narrowed this down to "the players hooking the GM with PC stats or game mechanics", but that need not be the case, and was certainly not what I had in mind. Regardless of PC creation methods, or statistics, the player can say to the GM "I kind of want this character to be haunted by his past...he's done some things he's ashamed of, and is working toward some kind of redemption, but he's not sure that's even possible at this point." 

That's an idea that a GM can take in so many directions. My current game has a PC with that very backstory involved. As a result, I created a mercenary company he had been a member of, and an entire group of supporting NPCs that he has a past with, and an NPC villain that usurped the mercenary company. I then figured out a way to tie this group into some of the other stories that have been established. All of this helps to constantly bring up elements of the group's past actions, and therefore the PC's past, in the current game. So he is constantly being reminded of his dark past and having to deal with that. 

It's a major part of our game, and it was entirely inspired by the player having an idea for his PC. He had the initial idea, and then I came up with some details and shared them with him, and we kind of tweaked them till we were both satisfied, and then we incorporated it into the game. Now, I will admit that I did have some elements in mind that I kept from him....I want there to be elements of this story that still need to be discovered. 




pemerton said:


> Certainly conflict between the PCs and . . . obstacles . . . whether those are NPCs or inanimate aspects of the gameworld.
> 
> Dramatic need + obstacles/challenges/complications => conflict. That's what makes the game unfold, rather than just hand around in stasis, with nothing for the PCs (and hence the players) to do. And if the external conflict generates internal conflict (the sorts of choices I've just been discussing with [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]), or conflict among the PCs that forces hard choices to be made there too, well so much the better.
> 
> (Intra-party conflict is obviously tricky. As I approach the game, a certain onus falls both on GM and players to manage this carefully, especially in a system like D&D that presumes pretty tight party play. The conflict has to be enough to drive action, without being so great as to cause a split. I wonder what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s thoughts are on this.)




By competition I mean more about conflict between the PCs and the game world more so than the players and the GM, although the GM does have to adopt a certain amount of antagonism toward the PCs when he is playing the villains of the game. I do like things to be difficult for my PCs.

But I do also root for them, and I try to make sure that any competition is fair. Or that in the case of something being unfair (for example, an opponent of some sort who is beyond the PCs' ability to actually fight and win) that I give enough information so that the situation is clear, and that there are alternate ways to handle the conflict, and the players can decide how to best proceed. 




pemerton said:


> I want at least this much competition: if I (as GM) am playing a NPC/creature who wants to hurt a PC, I want to be able to do that without having to hold back. I, the GM, have no particular desire that the PCs lose; but their opponent does, and I want to be able to express and give effect to that in my play of that opponent.
> 
> Not all systems allow for this: or, at least, if played this way they will produce what I would regard as an unacceptably high level of player defeats. (Low-level AD&D played in a non-dungeon crawl context I would regard as Exhibit A in this respect.)
> 
> I prefer ones that do. 4e combat handles this, by building a certain sort of "softballing" into the mechanics (PCs have depths of resilience and capacity to project power that NPCs/monsters lack). (It doesn't really arise in 4e non-combat, because skill challenges don't involve mechanical opposition, only narration in the form of framing, and then re-framing in light of consequences.)
> 
> BW handles it quite differently, by building in a range of non-death defeat consequences, and by embracing "fail forward", so that PC defeat isn't (straightforwardly) _player_ defeat.
> 
> MHRP has some issues with this, in virtue of the way the Doom Pool works. I'm still getting the hang of it. The dominant online advice is "Sometimes the GM should softball the Doom Pool", but I have doubts about that for the reasons I've stated.
> 
> (Note: the distinction between framing and resolution matters to the above. _Framing_ is, for me, a metagame process, and I do that based on the principles I've discussed above. But when the actual conflict is being resolved, once the situation is framed and the competing actions being declared, I don't want to have to metagame.)




All good ways to deal with PC failure. And I think we pretty much agree on how the GM needs to run opponents of the PCs. I also agree with your note about metagaming in how the situations are established, but then letting the game take over in the resolution of the situation.


----------



## Campbell

Not more narrow experiences, just different experiences. From my perspective the divide is not about which games are flexible and which games are focused. It is about which set of motivations games do more to actively reward. Most mainstream games are fairly good at rewarding Creative Component (Discovery, Design) and Achievement Component (Completion, Power) motivations. They are worse at rewarding Mastery Component (Challenge, Strategy) and Social Component (Competition,Community) motivations. The reverse is true for most indie games. The mainstream culture is heavily biased towards the motivations mainstream games reward. When they see a set of games that does not match their particular motivations for playing these games they assume they must be more meaningful narrow, rather than catering to gamers with a different set of motivations.

I will have more later when I have more time. I am addressing the typical case here, not the broad range of experiences within both indie games and mainstream games. I am not speaking to individual games or gamers here.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> How is a rule being put ahead of the fiction?
> 
> Which is to say, why is the fiction of your second option superior to the first, or true to the established fiction.




As I'm sure you agree, "better" is subjective. My only point is that as a DM I like to have options open, and I don't like how the rules seem to limit the option of ambiguity. 



pemerton said:


> And from the point of RPGing, what benefit do you think flows from the players not understanding the motivations of hostile NPCs? Upthread, [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] called this "find the plot" RPGing. And [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] referred, in this sort of case, to the players taking steps to find out what explains the NPC's behaviour. What makes this superior to the players knowing the NPC's motivation?




Because sometimes _when_ they learn something is as important as to what they learn. I don't agree it's "find the plot" RPGing. Just like a murder mystery, the "plot" is known pretty much from the beginning. Somebody is murdered, the question is who did it.

In some of the examples, the fact that they aren't told the answer tells them something. Once they learn that somebody is hiding the fact that the king is dead has potential implications. 

The story as a whole progresses from an unknown to a known. Just because the DM (or another player) knows something before the players doesn't mean that in terms of the story it's the right time to be known.



pemerton said:


> To reiterate: player-driven RPGing techniques aren't focused on _content_. The concern is with the _process_ of establishing that fiction.




OK, but by your assertion that not telling the players that the king is dead immediately breaks the rules of the game implies that it is disallowing that content within the fiction as well.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> In order to know whether or not _framing a PC into an episode of haggling with a merchant over silk_ counts as "going where the action is" (in the relevant sense), one needs to know whether or not _haggling with merchants_ is something that speaks to the player's concerns for the game (as expressed via build and play of the PC).




I'm not sure I follow. 

The PCs are in a town.

A player tells me I'm going to shop for some Calishite silks. An action.

I tell them they are able to find some, the price is 250 gp a bolt.

"Wow, that's really expensive, I'd like to haggle with him to see if I can get the price down." Another action. 

Haggle away.

No motivation is revealed, just a series of actions. I didn't frame them into anything. They took action.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> And my point is that, as a RPGing experience, it's even more powerful if the GM doesn't know either.
> 
> So then, instead of the player discovering what it is that the GM had in mind all along, the player and GM both discover what it is that they have created together through their playing of this game.




OK, I get what you're saying. As a musician, when improvising and everything falls into place just right it's absolutely amazing. Almost a religious experience. But more often than not, at least for amateurs like me, it just doesn't happen that often.

But I'm also not sure I totally agree with it either. Having had a co-DM a number of times, we would work on story lines together. And that moment where somebody comes up with that big moment _is_ pretty amazing. We're both surprised, our excitement is palpable. And then we riff off of it, "but wouldn't it be even better if...?" And usually it is even better. We get to fine tune it and tweak it so it's just that much better. And then not only is the moment amazing, but we get to live it a second time, but from a different perspective, the joy of the excitement of the players.


----------



## Maxperson

Ilbranteloth said:


> I'm not sure I follow.
> 
> The PCs are in a town.
> 
> A player tells me I'm going to shop for some Calishite silks. An action.
> 
> I tell them they are able to find some, the price is 250 gp a bolt.
> 
> "Wow, that's really expensive, I'd like to haggle with him to see if I can get the price down." Another action.
> 
> Haggle away.
> 
> No motivation is revealed, just a series of actions. I didn't frame them into anything. They took action.




I think he's saying there needs to be some other motivation.  The PC is a merchant, or loves silk, or just likes to bargain.  Something that would turn that into something relevant to the PC.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Maxperson said:


> I think he's saying there needs to be some other motivation.  The PC is a merchant, or loves silk, or just likes to bargain.  Something that would turn that into something relevant to the PC.




But why?

Player: I'm going to see if I can find a merchant with Calishite silk?

DM: Why, what's your motivation?

Player: No reason, well, not one I'm willing to discuss right now.

DM: Well then you can't go shopping for Calishite silk. I have to know your motivation.

The scene will unfold entirely without me, the DM, knowing the PCs motivation. To some degree it's like improv theater. I need to know what motivates  _me_, and interact with the other people. I don't need to know what motivates them, but they should. 

I'm not saying I can't know, just that I don't have to.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> But why?
> 
> Player: I'm going to see if I can find a merchant with Calishite silk?
> 
> DM: Why, what's your motivation?
> 
> Player: No reason, well, not one I'm willing to discuss right now.
> 
> DM: Well then you can't go shopping for Calishite silk. I have to know your motivation.
> 
> The scene will unfold entirely without me, the DM, knowing the PCs motivation. To some degree it's like improv theater. I need to know what motivates  _me_, and interact with the other people. I don't need to know what motivates them, but they should.
> 
> I'm not saying I can't know, just that I don't have to.




My take on it is what's important about it. Does the character have some trait that such a scene would play into, or does the player have a compelling reason for such a scene to be important to the character.

Forget the specific example of buying silk....I think pemerton's point is that any scene or challenge should have some sort of relevance to the character's beliefs or drives. The GM needs to be aware of a character's motivations in order to give that character challenges and conflict that are relevant to him. 

That's my take on it, anyway...I could be wrong.


----------



## Maxperson

Ilbranteloth said:


> But why?
> 
> Player: I'm going to see if I can find a merchant with Calishite silk?
> 
> DM: Why, what's your motivation?
> 
> Player: No reason, well, not one I'm willing to discuss right now.
> 
> DM: Well then you can't go shopping for Calishite silk. I have to know your motivation.
> 
> The scene will unfold entirely without me, the DM, knowing the PCs motivation. To some degree it's like improv theater. I need to know what motivates  _me_, and interact with the other people. I don't need to know what motivates them, but they should.
> 
> I'm not saying I can't know, just that I don't have to.




I agree that you don't have to know for the scene to play out.  I was just commenting on what I believe [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] meant by his statement.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

hawkeyefan said:


> My take on it is what's important about it. Does the character have some trait that such a scene would play into, or does the player have a compelling reason for such a scene to be important to the character.
> 
> Forget the specific example of buying silk....I think pemerton's point is that any scene or challenge should have some sort of relevance to the character's beliefs or drives. The GM needs to be aware of a character's motivations in order to give that character challenges and conflict that are relevant to him.
> 
> That's my take on it, anyway...I could be wrong.




I think the specific example is a very good one. Why should I be creating a challenge and conflict in this situation (other than trying to get a better price if he decides to haggle, although it's possible he can't find any)?

And why does such conflict have to be relevant to them. Yes, there are story arcs that are relevant, but this doesn't necessarily have to be one of them. Coming across an angry owlbear protecting her cubs in the woods doesn't have to be relevant to them. It's just an encounter. One of the many, many things that happen in the world that have no relevant to them.

I don't agree that _any_ scene should have relevance to the character's motivations. That's just not how the world works. Not to mention, the commonplace, the mundane aspects of life provide contrast to the things that aren't so mundane.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> I think the specific example is a very good one. Why should I be creating a challenge and conflict in this situation (other than trying to get a better price if he decides to haggle, although it's possible he can't find any)?
> 
> And why does such conflict have to be relevant to them. Yes, there are story arcs that are relevant, but this doesn't necessarily have to be one of them. Coming across an angry owlbear protecting her cubs in the woods doesn't have to be relevant to them. It's just an encounter. One of the many, many things that happen in the world that have no relevant to them.
> 
> I don't agree that _any_ scene should have relevance to the character's motivations. That's just not how the world works. Not to mention, the commonplace, the mundane aspects of life provide contrast to the things that aren't so mundane.




Sure, I kind of agree. I was just explaining my take on what pemerton meant. 

I think he wants the game to go to places that are relevant. If something's not relevant, then why bother with it? I mean if we think of it from an authorial standpoint...unless there was some reason to show a character haggling about the price of silk with the merchant, then why show it? And I can understand that from a basic storytelling pointof view. But an RPG is different from wroting fiction, despite the similarities.

I could be way off and I'm sure pemerton will be the best source to confirm what he meant, though.


----------



## Campbell

The reason why I ask about character motivations is because I am interested in what they are. I like really do want to know this stuff. When I am not interested I do not ask. There are some other considerations as well.


It might point to some other possible fictions to explore that could end up being a lot of fun. We find new ways to have fun.
It gets the player thinking about their character's internal world. This gets them to consider more meaningfully what their character wants.
Answering the question gets the player to commit to something about their character. We all learn something about who they are. This helps the player play their character with integrity because by putting it our there on the social layer we have made it real. There is now a powerful social expectation that they will be true to that.
It allows the player to put out there through their character's voice what interests them in the fiction. We can then be accommodating to that desire if we choose.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I am saying I enjoy D&D more than BW because if I want to focus on beliefs I can in D&D through ideals, bonds, flaws and inspirtation... but I don't have to if I don't want to.  I could instead focus on tactical and strategic combat, or focus on the fun of powergaming and so on.  BW is focused on a specific type of fun, expressed through acting upon the beliefs of the characters the players have created (admittedly, I could be off about this, but it's the impression your posts have given me).  If I don't want to focus on said beliefs... why would I run BW?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> it's about the mechanics of the game and what they bring about... as an example, If I remember correctly Heroquest has a mechanic that increases or decreases DC's based on dramatic appropriateness.  But if I want to play a more tactical/simmulationist game this doesn't work for me.  MHRP is lauded as a game that balances Jubilee and the Hulk and has little to any mechanical tactical play in combat... how do I drift that so the powergamers or the strategist/tacticians in my group have fun?  These games are created to produce very specific gameplay.



I think that this sort of "flexibility" claim about D&D is overstated.

For instance, if I _don't_ want movement-based and action economy-based tactics in my combat resolution, D&D won't deliver that for me. It's got no "simple contest" combat resolution mechanic (whereas HeroWars/Quest does, and BW actually has two such systems, as well as a full-blown tactical system).

If I want to run a game which will be driven by _conflicts_ within a PC's commitments and inclinations, and also _across_ the commitments and inclinations of PCs, the Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanics won't offer very much. BW handles both, and MHRP handles at least the second and to some extent (maybe quite an extent - I'm yet to find out) the first also.

If I want closed, scene-based non-combat resolution then the only edition of D&D that delivers that is 4e.

Etc.

And, from the other side, BW can be played beer and pretzels as well as theme and drama: see Burning THACO, and the discusssion of "microdungeoneering" in the Adventure Burner. Not to mention the OSR-inspired Torchbearer, which is a BW variant that delivers a Moldvay Basic-type experience.

HeroQuest revised can be used for high drama in Glorantha, or lowbrow superhero hijinks.

Etc, again.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> just because I have notes that say that such-and-such might happen at the baron's funeral (or celebration) that doesn't mean that the shared fiction does, or will, include any such thing. As it happened there was no funeral (the PCs saved the baron from the catoblepas come to kill him) nor any celebration (instead the baron collapsed upon learning of his niece's death at the hands of the PCs).
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do you consider this some sense of illusionism, though? If I understand that term as it's been used in this thread, it mostly relates to the illusion of choice or of consequence of choice being used by the GM. Does this flexibility with the true origin of a story element....let's use the yellow skulker as the example....kind of fall into that same category?
Click to expand...


Well, I don't think so. What's the illusion being perpetrated on the players?

It's not as if some fate or future for the skulker has already been settled, and - as GM - I am manipulating outcomes of action resolution, behind-the-scenes fiction, etc, to bring that about. Quite the opposite!



hawkeyefan said:


> No, you have not used the word thwart....but every example you've provided has been one where the GM thwarts the PCs' ideas. The secret door example you just provided is the first benign example of this that I've seen you use.



Personally I can't see any difference: the player has an idea that there might be a secret door there, and the GM "thwarts" it.

That's not to say that there's not a difference that is salient to you. But I will have to leave it to you to articulate that. From my point of view, the examples don't differ in terms of some being bad thwartings and others benign narrations of the gameworld. I see the GM narrating the absence of a secret door (because the notes say there isn't one there), narrating the court or the baron rebuffing the PCs (because the notes record facts about an assassination, or a kidnapping, that is as-yet unknown to the PCs) or narrating the unavailability of silk (because the notes say the country it is imported from is in turmoil) as all on a par, as far as GMing techniques are concerned.



hawkeyefan said:


> My point though is that this criteria that you described doesn't seem to actually bar the AP style traditional GM driven game, depending on the players' desires and expectations. So as such, it doesn't seem to be a criteria for a player driven game.



All I can really do is reiterate that a desire to play whatever it is the GM is offering up isn't an interest or concern of the sort I was referring to.

If I ask, "What film would you like to see?" and you answer "I don't care - whatever's showing", then I just don't think there's any interesting sense in which, in choosing a film for us to see, I have taken your desires into account in refining the selection. Rather, you didn't have any desires that needed to be taken into account.

The same thing is applying, mutatis mutandis, in this case.



hawkeyefan said:


> Regardless of PC creation methods, or statistics, the player can say to the GM "I kind of want this character to be haunted by his past...he's done some things he's ashamed of, and is working toward some kind of redemption, but he's not sure that's even possible at this point."
> 
> That's an idea that a GM can take in so many directions. My current game has a PC with that very backstory involved. As a result, I created a mercenary company he had been a member of, and an entire group of supporting NPCs that he has a past with, and an NPC villain that usurped the mercenary company. I then figured out a way to tie this group into some of the other stories that have been established. All of this helps to constantly bring up elements of the group's past actions, and therefore the PC's past, in the current game. So he is constantly being reminded of his dark past and having to deal with that.
> 
> It's a major part of our game, and it was entirely inspired by the player having an idea for his PC. He had the initial idea, and then I came up with some details and shared them with him, and we kind of tweaked them till we were both satisfied, and then we incorporated it into the game. Now, I will admit that I did have some elements in mind that I kept from him....I want there to be elements of this story that still need to be discovered.



Suppose it was _the player_ who decides what the shameful thing was, works up some details on the mercenary company, etc. And then you, as GM, are expected to make that a focus of the game. For me, using the terminology I've been using, that's probably something I would think of as a player-driven rather than a GM-driven game.

Conversely, suppose the player comes up with the idea of a shameful past, but leaves it for the GM to work out the details, and/or to choose whether and how to really incorporate it into the game: then I would think of it as a GM-driven rather than a player-driven game.

What you describe sounds somewhat intermediate between those two cases, and from what you've said I'm not going to attempt such an invidious task as classification on a think evidence base when I wasn't there! But I hope the two cases I've outlined give you some sense of what I think the salient differences are.

Another way to try and get at the same point: I find the idea of "side quests" vs the "main plot" quite inimical. I see the idea of "side quests" as the GM somehow incorporating or at least giving a substantive tip of the hat to a player's character-based motivations/desires; but in so far as they contrast with the "main plot", they are secondary, and so - if more than _mere_ tips of the hat - still somewhere in that general territory. Whereas, if the GM is framing every situation having regard to these matters, then the "side quest" vs "main plot" distinction completely breaks down.

And yet another way: if, in the adventure, I could replace the Princess to be rescued with Blackrazor to be recovered, but all the rest of the scenario (the obstacles, the opponents, the fetch quests, etc) could remain unchanged, then it is not an example of what I'm talking about. Because even if the McGuffin (and in this case it really is a McGuffin) is sensitive to players' expressed concerns/interests/PC motivations, the nuts-and-bolts of the scenario are not.

I'm not saying your game does (or doesn't) exemplify any of these features. I don't know. They're just different ways to try to convey what I'm getting at, and what I see the salient contrasts to be.


----------



## pemerton

This post is something of a sequel to the one just above.



Ilbranteloth said:


> The PCs are in a town.
> 
> A player tells me I'm going to shop for some Calishite silks. An action.
> 
> I tell them they are able to find some, the price is 250 gp a bolt.
> 
> "Wow, that's really expensive, I'd like to haggle with him to see if I can get the price down." Another action.
> 
> Haggle away.
> 
> No motivation is revealed, just a series of actions. I didn't frame them into anything. They took action.





Maxperson said:


> I think he's saying there needs to be some other motivation.  The PC is a merchant, or loves silk, or just likes to bargain.  Something that would turn that into something relevant to the PC.





Ilbranteloth said:


> But why?
> 
> Player: I'm going to see if I can find a merchant with Calishite silk?
> 
> DM: Why, what's your motivation?
> 
> Player: No reason, well, not one I'm willing to discuss right now.
> 
> DM: Well then you can't go shopping for Calishite silk. I have to know your motivation.
> 
> The scene will unfold entirely without me, the DM, knowing the PCs motivation. To some degree it's like improv theater. I need to know what motivates  _me_, and interact with the other people. I don't need to know what motivates them, but they should.
> 
> I'm not saying I can't know, just that I don't have to.





hawkeyefan said:


> My take on it is what's important about it. Does the character have some trait that such a scene would play into, or does the player have a compelling reason for such a scene to be important to the character.
> 
> Forget the specific example of buying silk....I think pemerton's point is that any scene or challenge should have some sort of relevance to the character's beliefs or drives. The GM needs to be aware of a character's motivations in order to give that character challenges and conflict that are relevant to him.





Ilbranteloth said:


> I think the specific example is a very good one. Why should I be creating a challenge and conflict in this situation (other than trying to get a better price if he decides to haggle, although it's possible he can't find any)?
> 
> And why does such conflict have to be relevant to them. Yes, there are story arcs that are relevant, but this doesn't necessarily have to be one of them. Coming across an angry owlbear protecting her cubs in the woods doesn't have to be relevant to them. It's just an encounter. One of the many, many things that happen in the world that have no relevant to them.
> 
> I don't agree that _any_ scene should have relevance to the character's motivations. That's just not how the world works. Not to mention, the commonplace, the mundane aspects of life provide contrast to the things that aren't so mundane.





hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, I kind of agree. I was just explaining my take on what pemerton meant.
> 
> I think he wants the game to go to places that are relevant. If something's not relevant, then why bother with it? I mean if we think of it from an authorial standpoint...unless there was some reason to show a character haggling about the price of silk with the merchant, then why show it? And I can understand that from a basic storytelling pointof view. But an RPG is different from wroting fiction, despite the similarities.
> 
> I could be way off and I'm sure pemerton will be the best source to confirm what he meant, though.



 [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], in the second of the quotes above, seems to have completely misconstrued the technique.

Why does the character want silk? Well, if the player won't tell the GM - as in, if the players are trying to establish fictional positioning ("I've got a bolt of silk!") that they see as giving them an advantage down the track that they don't want to betray to the GM - then we are already so far from playing in my preferred style that none of the stuff I've been talking about really has any bearing at all. This is something that I would associated with Gygaxian-style AD&D tuned to a high level of player/GM adversarialism.

But assuming that the GM understands, from the motivational/dramatic/thematic point of view, why silk matters, then that tells the GM how to handle the matter: say "yes"; frame a haggling check; open up the possibility of dealing with smugglers; etc.

The last time buying cloth came up in one of my games was when a PC was trying to delay an NPC's departure from the Keep on the Borderlands. Something - I think the efforts of the spirit-summoning PC - had led this NPC to slip over in the mud, ruining his fine robes. The elven princess offered to have new robes made for him - which would take time. Because there was something at stake in the availability of suitable cloth at a price she could afford, I called for a Resources check.

If the real issue was not the availability of cloth but the tailoring of it - eg suppose the PC was not trying to delay the NPC, but rather to trick him into wearing clothes sewn with some secret pattern of supernatural sigils - then it would have made sense to "say 'yes'" to the Resources check and instead focus on the Tailoring check.

The same thing applies to the owlbear. Given my preferences as a GM, why am I going to frame the PCs into a conflict with owlbears that doesn't serve any larger purpose, of speaking to the players' concerns/interests for their PCs? Maybe, in 4e at least, to establish some colour (4e really favours using combats to establish colour) - but even then I would want the colour to speak to those concerns/interests, even if it doesn't immediately put them under pressure.

If you read/watch fantasy stories - or at least the ones I know best, whcih are the Earthsea stories; Tolkien; REH's Conan; and then fantasy cinema like Excalibur, Star Wars, Hero, Crouching Tiger, Bride With White Hair, Ashes of Time, etc - there are not encounters just for the sake of it. Conflicts establish colour - including colour relevant to the protagonist - and/or allow something about the protagonist to be questioned and perhaps changed. (For some LotR paradigms consider the Mines of Moria, or the fight with Shelob.)

Self-evidently the real world doesn't work that way. It's not an authored fiction. But I'm not sure how that has any general relevance to RPGing. (I mean, if someone has a particular desire to have their RPGing resemble the real world, go for it; but that desire doesn't have any _general_ significance.)


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> your assertion that not telling the players that the king is dead immediately breaks the rules of the game implies that it is disallowing that content within the fiction as well.



I'm not sure what assertion of mine you're referring to.

I said that, as a narration of a failed Circles check, "Jabal says leave town now, or there will be consequences" would break the rules of the game. In particular, it breaks the principles that (i) the GM should go where the action is, and (ii) that - as part of this - the GM should narrate failure in such a way that new choices are forced upon the players. The narration you suggested doesn't go where any action is. It doesn't force any new choice. It leaves the players stranded, in terms of knowing what is at stake for their PCs and how they might reasonably proceed. It's a classic case of "find the plot".

As opposed to "Jabal says leave town now - you're cursed", which poses a clear question to the player: what's more important to you, keeping the cursed angel feather or making up with Jabal?

But anyway, there is any number of ways a dead king can be established as fiction. One example is by narrating it as a consequence of failure. Eg, the PCs, hearing rumour of an assassination threat against the king, rush to the palace. They fail their Speed (or whatever) checks. The GM narrates "When you arrive, it's too late - the king has been assassinated").

Or another sort of failure: the PCs come to court, looking for favours. Some sort of social-type check is made. The check fails. The GM narrates "You approach is rebuffed. Your contact is out of town, and no one else is interested in talking to you." That presents the players with choices for their PCs: track down the contact, or infiltrate the court some other way. And it leaves open the possibility - depending on future checks, framing, etc - that the reasons for the contact being out of town, and/or for no one else being interested in talking to the PCs, is that the king has just been assassinated.

The more general point is that _the causal sequence of authorship_ does not need to track _the ingame causal sequence of events_. It is possible to author an _effect_ now, although the _cause_ of that effect may not yet have been authored. Eg I can narrate, as (one part of) a consequence of failure, that there is no mace in the ruined tower, without - at that point - establishing the fiction of how the mace left the tower. That bit of fiction was established later, when I had the wastrel elf turn up wielding the mace.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Why does the character want silk? Well, if the player won't tell the GM - as in, if the players are trying to establish fictional positioning ("I've got a bolt of silk!") that they see as giving them an advantage down the track that they don't want to betray to the GM - then we are already so far from playing in my preferred style that none of the stuff I've been talking about really has any bearing at all.



Read literally, this tells me nothing can happen in your game just for the hell of it or for no particular reason other than "because", which sounds stiflingly dull.



> But assuming that the GM understands, from the motivational/dramatic/thematic point of view, why silk matters, then that tells the GM how to handle the matter: say "yes"; frame a haggling check; open up the possibility of dealing with smugglers; etc.



In your game, would the following exchange be able to occur:

Player (whose character has rarely expressed interest in shopping and has never mentioned silk before): "Hey guys, I'm going to head into town and pick up some silk - Calimshite, preferably.  Anyone want some?"
DM (to whom this comes right out of the blue): "Er...any particular reason why?"
Player: "Nah, just tired of these old trail duds, thought I could make something out of silk to wear instead now the weather's warmed up"
DM: <either says yes or rolls the dice>



> The same thing applies to the owlbear. Given my preferences as a GM, why am I going to frame the PCs into a conflict with owlbears that doesn't serve any larger purpose, of speaking to the players' concerns/interests for their PCs?



Again, just "because".  This is where you as DM get to do something just for the hell of it...and if nothing else the PCs will pick up a few xp.

Also, it adds to the depth of the game world if not everything revolves around the PCs and their own interests and it adds to the mystery (not to mention believability)  if there's always a level of question whether any given thing is in fact relevant to the PCs or not.  Maybe the owlbears are the key to the whole story.  Maybe they're just some xp on the hoof and not relevant to anything.



> If you read/watch fantasy stories - or at least the ones I know best, whcih are the Earthsea stories; Tolkien; REH's Conan; and then fantasy cinema like Excalibur, Star Wars, Hero, Crouching Tiger, Bride With White Hair, Ashes of Time, etc - there are not encounters just for the sake of it. Conflicts establish colour - including colour relevant to the protagonist - and/or allow something about the protagonist to be questioned and perhaps changed. (For some LotR paradigms consider the Mines of Moria, or the fight with Shelob.)



Tom Bombadil.

Total side quest just for the sake of it.  Its only function is to level the Hobbits up a bit.



> Self-evidently the real world doesn't work that way. It's not an authored fiction. But I'm not sure how that has any general relevance to RPGing. (I mean, if someone has a particular desire to have their RPGing resemble the real world, go for it; but that desire doesn't have any _general_ significance.)



It has more relevance than just about anything else, in that things are likely to work in any game world much as they do in the real world whenever the game doesn't force them not to e.g. by magic or environment.  People take diversions and go on what equate to side quests all the time...and that's just fine.  Nothing says the game world characters can't do the same.

Lan-"I'm obviously far too chaotic a player for this type of game, as I've always got my characters doing stuff just for the hell of it"-efan


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I think that this sort of "flexibility" claim about D&D is overstated.




I think maybe technically and from an official perspective you may be correct but with the advent of the OGL for 3e and the DM's Guild with 5e from a practical point of view I disagree... With this type of openenss and the numerous options created by 3rd party publishers, independent publishers, etc. I think D&D has an unprecedented amount of flexibility.



pemerton said:


> For instance, if I _don't_ want movement-based and action economy-based tactics in my combat resolution, D&D won't deliver that for me. It's got no "simple contest" combat resolution mechanic (whereas HeroWars/Quest does, and BW actually has two such systems, as well as a full-blown tactical system).




http://slyflourish.com/guide_to_narrative_combat.html



pemerton said:


> If I want to run a game which will be driven by _conflicts_ within a PC's commitments and inclinations, and also _across_ the commitments and inclinations of PCs, the Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanics won't offer very much. BW handles both, and MHRP handles at least the second and to some extent (maybe quite an extent - I'm yet to find out) the first also.




Not sure why the Ideals,Bonds,Flaws and Inspiration mechanics (along with Background) "won't offer very much" (especially since there are rules for fleshing these out in ther DMG...but I think my point is they are there as a framework for a DM to hang more or less on.  It seems you are claiming they are not integral... which is exactly my point, they are not necessary for the game but for those who want to hang more on them they exist... can I even play BW without these types of mechanics if I don't desire them to be front and center?   



pemerton said:


> If I want closed, scene-based non-combat resolution then the only edition of D&D that delivers that is 4e.




So there was at least one edition of D&D that covered it.  More relevant though there are plenty of people doing just this with 5e...

http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2016/08/16/skill-challenges-in-5th-edition-dd/
https://boccobsblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/17/1421/
https://deathbymage.com/2015/09/17/skill-challenges-in-5e-the-red-headed-stepchild-of-dd/

You seem to be confusing something being integral with the ability to drift a game in that direction. 



pemerton said:


> And, from the other side, BW can be played beer and pretzels as well as theme and drama: see Burning THACO, and the discusssion of "microdungeoneering" in the Adventure Burner. Not to mention the OSR-inspired Torchbearer, which is a BW variant that delivers a Moldvay Basic-type experience.




And yet Beliefs are still central to the BW variant you cited above, the advice is to tell the players what module you are running and what it is about... and to ignore "filler" combat... de-emphasize loot... not really seeing how this shows flexibility as opposed to a change in the scenery with the same game.


As to your second point you're citing a different game, Torchbearer, irregardless of whether it is based on similar rules to BW, is not BW.  If we are going that route the sheer number of d20 games and OGL games and D&D variants (from Mutants and Masterminds to True20) just further proves my point about flexibility.  Is there any game that has as many of these as D&D?



pemerton said:


> HeroQuest revised can be used for high drama in Glorantha, or lowbrow superhero hijinks.




Could you go into more depth about this?  I  mean just stating it doesn't make it true.  How can Heroquest be used for lowbrow superhero hijinks without it becoming an entirely different game?  Is there an example of someone using it for this?


----------



## Maxperson

Lanefan said:


> Tom Bombadil.
> 
> Total side quest just for the sake of it.  Its only function is to level the Hobbits up a bit.




He could be viewed as part of the Barrow Wight encounter where the hobbits get their Knives of Westernesse.  Without those knives the Witch King wouldn't have been killed two books later, and without Tom the hobbits die to the wights.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], in the second of the quotes above, seems to have completely misconstrued the technique.
> 
> Why does the character want silk? Well, if the player won't tell the GM - as in, if the players are trying to establish fictional positioning ("I've got a bolt of silk!") that they see as giving them an advantage down the track that they don't want to betray to the GM - then we are already so far from playing in my preferred style that none of the stuff I've been talking about really has any bearing at all. This is something that I would associated with Gygaxian-style AD&D tuned to a high level of player/GM adversarialism.




I just don't thing it has to be any level of adversarialism. I was exaggerating to make a point. All I'm saying is that as a DM, if the players tell me they are doing something, and I don't know why they are doing it, I don't need to know, nor would I usually ask why. I'll see how it plays out and it may become obvious over time.

I'm not sure I can remember a time that the players actually _hid_ something from me. It's just that they don't always explain why they're doing something. I might think I know the reason, only to find out later it's different.



pemerton said:


> But assuming that the GM understands, from the motivational/dramatic/thematic point of view, why silk matters, then that tells the GM how to handle the matter: say "yes"; frame a haggling check; open up the possibility of dealing with smugglers; etc.
> 
> The last time buying cloth came up in one of my games was when a PC was trying to delay an NPC's departure from the Keep on the Borderlands. Something - I think the efforts of the spirit-summoning PC - had led this NPC to slip over in the mud, ruining his fine robes. The elven princess offered to have new robes made for him - which would take time. Because there was something at stake in the availability of suitable cloth at a price she could afford, I called for a Resources check.
> 
> If the real issue was not the availability of cloth but the tailoring of it - eg suppose the PC was not trying to delay the NPC, but rather to trick him into wearing clothes sewn with some secret pattern of supernatural sigils - then it would have made sense to "say 'yes'" to the Resources check and instead focus on the Tailoring check.




And that's where we differ. I don't view my job as DM to frame the haggling check for them. The framing takes care of itself. In D&D we don't have Resources checks, of course, but I don't even see a check as such necessary. If they are in a village of 250, then it's something too rare to find there. If they're in Waterdeep, you have plenty of choices. We probably wouldn't play out the haggling itself anyway, we're not the acting types. I might call for a check, but most of the time it seems like you're just rolling dice. So I usually compare passive scores, consider any circumstances that might give an advantage, and come back with a discounted price.

It would generally play out along the lines of:
I want to get some Calishite silk, can I find any here?

Sure, there are plenty of merchants in Waterdeep eager to sell their wares. Do you have any skills or history with regard to purchasing silks that would give you an idea of what's good quality or price?

Yes, when I was working as as merchant in Athkatla, we often traded in fine Calishite silks.

OK, makes sense. You find that some of the "Calishite" silk is bogus (based on his Wisdom (Insight) modified by his past expertise), but for the legitimate goods, the price is higher than you'd expect, even up here in Waterdeep.

Can I haggle for a better price? 

Of course, the best you've been able to manage is 18% so far, do you want to continue to pressure, or go with that price. None of the others are willing to come down more than 5%, unusual from your experience.

Hmmm, I wonder why that is? (His Charisma (Persuasion) score is very high due to expertise, and his background as a merchant from Athkatla also probably tips him off). Maybe there's something going on - is anybody giving a reason why the prices are so high?

Inquiring, you find that the supply is very limited, due to the threat of a civil war in Calimshan right now. They will sell there wares without any problem at this price, and will likely be raising it.

So that one selling cheap is _really_ unusual. I'll buy a bolt from him. I'd like for us to keep an eye on him, though, and see if there's another reason why his prices are so good. I wonder if the silk is stolen. In the meantime, I'll make a special robe for the (NPC) who ruined his. Since it will take me some time to do that, the others can keep watch on the merchant. If I make it out of rare Calishite silk with a special pattern worked into it, can the wizard use that to help scry on them?

Yes - if you keep some of the same cloth, and the wizard studies the pattern (or perhaps draws it for you), then it will be easy for her to target the (NPC) with her spells.

While you're busy making the robe (no check is needed, I'm using passive skills again, he's a seamstress/tailor as well), the others are watching the merchant. There's one man in particular that visits, in plain brown leather armor, no cloak, muscular, the merchant gives him what looks like a coin purse, but looks nervous while doing so, checking around before getting it from behind the counter.

PCs - we'll see if we can follow him, see where he's going...

At which point we go back to "encounter level" detail, following the thug to several other merchants before heading to a warehouse in the Dock Ward. The PCs may investigate further, finding a bandit/smuggling ring that are taking advantage of the problems in Calimshan by waylaying other merchants, stealing their goods, then bringing them north to Waterdeep to undercut the other merchants. The plot is funded by a somewhat down-on-their-luck noble family that is trying to drive one of their rivals out of their trade territory. Their tactics with the local merchants they are using to sell the wares (who don't know who is providing the goods), is tough. They don't want them asking questions, and they don't want to risk their rivals from making the connection to them.

There's a good chance something like a civil war in far away Calimshan comes from a published source, rather than me. Unless I have a need to concern myself with Calimshan in the current thrust of the campaign. If they choose not to follow the thug, or go any further with investigating the merchant, they may simply return to him to purchase more goods, since his prices are good. In the meantime, the hook is there, and I can move it forward should the need arise.

But in the process of the scenes unfolding, I don't need to frame anything related to the PCs at all. It's just a part of the world around them and providing color. It might provide a future adventure should they choose to follow it. 

The "yes" comes from a combination of the expected resources in a city like Waterdeep, combined by their skills. I don't need to frame a haggling check, he'll tell me if he's looking to get the price down or not. Often they aren't worried about it, or have other goals. It's Waterdeep, so there's always the possibility of dealing with smugglers. Again, based on their background and skills, particularly this one character since he _is_ a former merchant (and thief, and fence) from Athkatla Amn, north of Calimshan. No real need for a tailoring check, either, based on his level of skill.



pemerton said:


> The same thing applies to the owlbear. Given my preferences as a GM, why am I going to frame the PCs into a conflict with owlbears that doesn't serve any larger purpose, of speaking to the players' concerns/interests for their PCs? Maybe, in 4e at least, to establish some colour (4e really favours using combats to establish colour) - but even then I would want the colour to speak to those concerns/interests, even if it doesn't immediately put them under pressure.




Well, to begin with, it doesn't have to be a conflict - which is one of the reasons I don't like 4e because of it's tendency to lean toward combat. The owlbear thing was something that came up in my campaign, and the PCs hadn't seen the cubs, just the angry owlbear. They killed it, only to realize afterwards that it was not a real threat, only defending her cubs. They could have easily found a different, probably better, solution. The ranger in particular took it to heart, and it was a moment where they all recognized that they needed to change their approach a bit (as players and characters).



pemerton said:


> If you read/watch fantasy stories - or at least the ones I know best, whcih are the Earthsea stories; Tolkien; REH's Conan; and then fantasy cinema like Excalibur, Star Wars, Hero, Crouching Tiger, Bride With White Hair, Ashes of Time, etc - there are not encounters just for the sake of it. Conflicts establish colour - including colour relevant to the protagonist - and/or allow something about the protagonist to be questioned and perhaps changed. (For some LotR paradigms consider the Mines of Moria, or the fight with Shelob.)
> 
> Self-evidently the real world doesn't work that way. It's not an authored fiction. But I'm not sure how that has any general relevance to RPGing. (I mean, if someone has a particular desire to have their RPGing resemble the real world, go for it; but that desire doesn't have any _general_ significance.)




Yes, but if you read/watch those stories, and for that matter most character driven stories, a lot of the "action" is the establishment of characters and relationships between the conflicts. It's the scenes where they spend time trudging through the wilderness, talking and learning about each other, and themselves. The problem is, those don't translate as well to RPGs. Unless you have a group of really good acting-style players. But the other problem is that those types of scenes take much more time as well.

So scenes that establish the "normalcy" of the world, the ones that make them stop and consider that the characters are people, interacting with other people, and that "normal" is not "anything we meet is an adversary" brings some of that humanity into the game, gets them thinking a bit more. It also provides dynamics, and provides a broader framing around the action and of the world. 

You feel that knowing the player/character motivations are essential to being able to frame the scenes. I think that can be quite helpful, but I've found that giving the players a broader understanding of the world, and their characters within it, helps them build better character motivations. I'll learn of the motivations through the course of play (what I don't know from the backstory, that is). The characters seem to take on a life of their own, leading the players down paths they don't expect.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> Read literally, this tells me nothing can happen in your game just for the hell of it or for no particular reason other than "because", which sounds stiflingly dull.
> 
> In your game, would the following exchange be able to occur:
> 
> Player (whose character has rarely expressed interest in shopping and has never mentioned silk before): "Hey guys, I'm going to head into town and pick up some silk - Calimshite, preferably.  Anyone want some?"
> DM (to whom this comes right out of the blue): "Er...any particular reason why?"
> Player: "Nah, just tired of these old trail duds, thought I could make something out of silk to wear instead now the weather's warmed up"
> DM: <either says yes or rolls the dice>
> 
> Again, just "because".  This is where you as DM get to do something just for the hell of it...and if nothing else the PCs will pick up a few xp.
> 
> Also, it adds to the depth of the game world if not everything revolves around the PCs and their own interests and it adds to the mystery (not to mention believability)  if there's always a level of question whether any given thing is in fact relevant to the PCs or not.  Maybe the owlbears are the key to the whole story.  Maybe they're just some xp on the hoof and not relevant to anything.
> 
> Tom Bombadil.
> 
> Total side quest just for the sake of it.  Its only function is to level the Hobbits up a bit.
> 
> It has more relevance than just about anything else, in that things are likely to work in any game world much as they do in the real world whenever the game doesn't force them not to e.g. by magic or environment.  People take diversions and go on what equate to side quests all the time...and that's just fine.  Nothing says the game world characters can't do the same.
> 
> Lan-"I'm obviously far too chaotic a player for this type of game, as I've always got my characters doing stuff just for the hell of it"-efan




The only thing I sort of disagree with here is the concept of diversions and side quests. I see those as a construct from games.

The characters (and people) in my world rarely have one overarching story. And even when they have something that is specifically driving them, it's for a relatively short period of time, usually a year or few at most. The plot often changes as well - they were considering looking for this ancient tomb, and got caught up investigating a smuggling ring instead. It's not a "side-quest" - it's the new plot. 

But if there isn't a central story line, then everything is a side-quest. Or everything is the main plot.

Lives are much more complex and full of multiple threads at any given time. Some of them more exciting than others. By allowing those multiple threads to exist in the game, it often goes in unexpected directions, and things that seemed unimportant become important.

It also highlights another aspect of life. Sometimes the characters are simply reactive, seeing what the world has to offer, and sometimes they are proactive, with a specific goal and direction. The reactive staff provides a lot of fodder for potential future adventures.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I think that this sort of "flexibility" claim about D&D is overstated.
> 
> For instance, if I _don't_ want movement-based and action economy-based tactics in my combat resolution, D&D won't deliver that for me. It's got no "simple contest" combat resolution mechanic (whereas HeroWars/Quest does, and BW actually has two such systems, as well as a full-blown tactical system).
> 
> If I want to run a game which will be driven by _conflicts_ within a PC's commitments and inclinations, and also _across_ the commitments and inclinations of PCs, the Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanics won't offer very much. BW handles both, and MHRP handles at least the second and to some extent (maybe quite an extent - I'm yet to find out) the first also.
> 
> If I want closed, scene-based non-combat resolution then the only edition of D&D that delivers that is 4e.
> 
> Etc.
> 
> And, from the other side, BW can be played beer and pretzels as well as theme and drama: see Burning THACO, and the discusssion of "microdungeoneering" in the Adventure Burner. Not to mention the OSR-inspired Torchbearer, which is a BW variant that delivers a Moldvay Basic-type experience.
> 
> HeroQuest revised can be used for high drama in Glorantha, or lowbrow superhero hijinks.
> 
> Etc, again.




I disagree. D&D 5E is an intentionally mod-able system. 

And I also find it odd that you would deny flexibility on the part of D&D and then use an example of an alternate version of Burning World in support of system flexibility. 

There are and can be alternate versions of any game. Or alternate rules and/or subsystems. If you're going to hold up BW as a flexible system, then I can't see how you can deny that D&D is, as well.




pemerton said:


> Well, I don't think so. What's the illusion being perpetrated on the players?
> 
> It's not as if some fate or future for the skulker has already been settled, and - as GM - I am manipulating outcomes of action resolution, behind-the-scenes fiction, etc, to bring that about. Quite the opposite!




It's similar to illusionism in that things that the players do not know about are being changed. Or in this case, not necessarily changed, but left open to be determined later on....which is not the way that the real world works. 

So the players see the yellow skulker....they will assume that the guy has some kind of motivation or goal, even if it is not clear to them at this point....and yet, his motivations and goals are undetermined at this point. So, there is an illusion of sorts at play.

It's definitely not exactly the same, I wasn't implying that it was....just that there are some similarities. And as I said, this is a technique I use in my games, so I'm not knocking it. 



pemerton said:


> Personally I can't see any difference: the player has an idea that there might be a secret door there, and the GM "thwarts" it.
> 
> That's not to say that there's not a difference that is salient to you. But I will have to leave it to you to articulate that. From my point of view, the examples don't differ in terms of some being bad thwartings and others benign narrations of the gameworld. I see the GM narrating the absence of a secret door (because the notes say there isn't one there), narrating the court or the baron rebuffing the PCs (because the notes record facts about an assassination, or a kidnapping, that is as-yet unknown to the PCs) or narrating the unavailability of silk (because the notes say the country it is imported from is in turmoil) as all on a par, as far as GMing techniques are concerned.




The difference I would point out is that in most of the examples the "thwarting" is done simply to "thwart". In the example you just provided, the GM is simply going with the prepared material....the purpose of his decision to not have a secret door there is not to deny the player's desires, although the end result is the same. 

I suppose an argument could be made that either way, the GM is trying to steer the narrative...in the earlier examples, he's taking away the player's desire for knowledge of the king's death or whatever, and in this case, he's making the players use the established exit from the room rather than a previously unknown exit. 

But I don't think that establishing some limitations on what the players can introduce through action declaration is a bad thing. I don't see that as railroading. I mean....can players simply try to find a secret door in any room in which they find danger? Is it forcing a specific narrative to not allow that?



pemerton said:


> All I can really do is reiterate that a desire to play whatever it is the GM is offering up isn't an interest or concern of the sort I was referring to.
> 
> If I ask, "What film would you like to see?" and you answer "I don't care - whatever's showing", then I just don't think there's any interesting sense in which, in choosing a film for us to see, I have taken your desires into account in refining the selection. Rather, you didn't have any desires that needed to be taken into account.




What if I say "I'll go see anything that's not a rom-com or sappy drama...I'd be happy with just about anything else"? There are degrees of player desire in between "none" and "many". My point is that the criteria you gave are not specific to a high level of player desire, and as such, may not be the best example to use as elements of player-driven games as opposed to GM driven games. 



pemerton said:


> Suppose it was _the player_ who decides what the shameful thing was, works up some details on the mercenary company, etc. And then you, as GM, are expected to make that a focus of the game. For me, using the terminology I've been using, that's probably something I would think of as a player-driven rather than a GM-driven game.
> 
> Conversely, suppose the player comes up with the idea of a shameful past, but leaves it for the GM to work out the details, and/or to choose whether and how to really incorporate it into the game: then I would think of it as a GM-driven rather than a player-driven game.
> 
> What you describe sounds somewhat intermediate between those two cases, and from what you've said I'm not going to attempt such an invidious task as classification on a think evidence base when I wasn't there! But I hope the two cases I've outlined give you some sense of what I think the salient differences are.




Sure, that's exactly why I've been saying that I use both player driven and GM driven elements in my game. In this case, the player came up with the basic idea of his shameful past. Because the PC is a fighter with the soldier background, I proposed him taking part in some questionable actions during some conflicts, and then the player said that he was in a mercenary group. I came up with the name of the group, and the idea that it started off as a pretty principled group (based on the PC's Neutral alignment, it didn't seem that he'd be involved in a group with any kind of extreme stance), but that the mercenary group was effectively infiltrated by elements of a CE war deity, and that things slowly shifted. The PC stuck it out for a while, and was involved in a lot of increasingly questionable actions. He finally reached a point where he had to get out or totally lose himself. 

So it really was a lot of back and forth until we were both happy with the results. And I also tied in elements from both an NPC I had planned for the game and one of the other PCs. This is why I feel my game is likely not nearly as different from yours despite having GM driven aspects....most of those are based around story or character ideas created in conjunction with or entirely by the players. 




pemerton said:


> Another way to try and get at the same point: I find the idea of "side quests" vs the "main plot" quite inimical. I see the idea of "side quests" as the GM somehow incorporating or at least giving a substantive tip of the hat to a player's character-based motivations/desires; but in so far as they contrast with the "main plot", they are secondary, and so - if more than _mere_ tips of the hat - still somewhere in that general territory. Whereas, if the GM is framing every situation having regard to these matters, then the "side quest" vs "main plot" distinction completely breaks down.
> 
> And yet another way: if, in the adventure, I could replace the Princess to be rescued with Blackrazor to be recovered, but all the rest of the scenario (the obstacles, the opponents, the fetch quests, etc) could remain unchanged, then it is not an example of what I'm talking about. Because even if the McGuffin (and in this case it really is a McGuffin) is sensitive to players' expressed concerns/interests/PC motivations, the nuts-and-bolts of the scenario are not.
> 
> I'm not saying your game does (or doesn't) exemplify any of these features. I don't know. They're just different ways to try to convey what I'm getting at, and what I see the salient contrasts to be.




I don't really have a problem with the terms side-quests or main plot. I understand your point, I just don't know if it always applies. I think that even players would admit to some of their desires or wants being less important than others. Or maybe they decide to pursue some game element on a whim. Relevance to the players should always matter. I think that's the difference....relevance to the players or relevance to the "main plot". Something that doesn't relate to the main plot of the campaign would be something I'd call a side quest. But that doesn't mean it isn't relevant to the characters. 

Perhaps the terms side quest and main plot are a bit loaded....but I don't see either as a bad thing. They're just terms I've used in discussion, I don't really make such distinctions when it comes to the actual game. In the game, we just play based on what happens and where the players decide to go. Their motivations and goals and the glue that binds them all together are strongly tied to the "main plot" to the point where that always comes into play.


----------



## Campbell

I do not think it is very helpful to think in terms of what can be done with any given game. I think it is more helpful to think in terms of what is expected and how difficult it is break from those expectations. Does the system help you? Does it stay out of your way, but is not particularly helpful? Does it actively work against your interests? When I speak of system here I am including all the attended social and cultural pressures that go along with playing any particular game, not merely the mechanisms. I mean we do not need formalized mechanics and principles to roleplay. They can help us do things which are not particularly natural for us to do, but could lead to more overall enjoyment. I think it is a mistake to assume that the lack of formalized system means no system is in place. We simply default to the natural constraints we put upon ourselves. In indie circles this is known as the Lumpley Principle.

We have a tendency not to see the ways we are used to doing things as constraints, because they do not feel constraining to us. While few mainstream games speak to their principles there is a body of principles and social expectations that go along with the design of most mainstream games that I feel are deeply constraining for my interests. This includes the expectation that a GM will either engage in lengthy *world building* or use someone else's *world building*, that a GM will prepare *adventures* that put designs on how players *should* interact with them or else use someone else's *adventures*, that a GM *should* engage situations to enable *spotlight balancing*, and that a GM *should* advocate for a particular narrative. It also includes expectations that a player *should* enjoy exploration of the fictional world and a GM's story for its own sake, decide how to approach everything as a unified group, puzzle out what they should be doing at any moment, not engage the mechanisms too deeply, not engage with parts of an adventure that are meant to highlight another player's character, and not interrogate the fiction too deeply. These are social expectations involved in playing most mainstream games that I find *deeply constraining* and that tend to cut against my interests.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> I do not think it is very helpful to think in terms of what can be done with any given game. I think it is more helpful to think in terms of what is expected and how difficult it is break from those expectations. Does the system help you? Does it stay out of your way, but is not particularly helpful? Does it actively work against your interests? When I speak of system here I am including all the attended social and cultural pressures that go along with playing any particular game, not merely the mechanisms. I mean we do not need formalized mechanics and principles to roleplay. They can help us do things which are not particularly natural for us to do, but could lead to more overall enjoyment. I think it is a mistake to assume that the lack of formalized system means no system is in place. We simply default to the natural constraints we put upon ourselves. In indie circles this is known as the Lumpley Principle.
> 
> We have a tendency not to see the ways we are used to doing things as constraints, because they do not feel constraining to us. While few mainstream games speak to their principles there is a body of principles and social expectations that go along with the design of most mainstream games that I feel are deeply constraining for my interests. This includes the expectation that a GM will either engage in lengthy *world building* or use someone else's *world building*, that a GM will prepare *adventures* that put designs on how players *should* interact with them or else use someone else's *adventures*, that a GM *should* engage situations to enable *spotlight balancing*, and that a GM *should* advocate for a particular narrative. It also includes expectations that a player *should* enjoy exploration of the fictional world and a GM's story for its own sake, decide how to approach everything as a unified group, puzzle out what they should be doing at any moment, not engage the mechanisms too deeply, not engage with parts of an adventure that are meant to highlight another player's character, and not interrogate the fiction too deeply. These are social expectations involved in playing most mainstream games that I find *deeply constraining* and that tend to cut against my interests.




Agh! Almost all of those are elements in my game!! 

The bits about advocating for a particular narrative and the like are not as forceful as would be typically expected, and it's shaped around what the players have already established as their desires, but it's there.


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## Campbell

When I speak to things like authenticity, collaboration over design, and *Mastery* over *Achievement* I am speaking in terms of having more or less of something rather than having the presence or absence of something. I am not really saying that a particular game completely lacks a feature - simply that it might not have enough for my particular interests.

When I speak to authenticity I mean it in the sense that the experience is less designed, involves more risk, involves more passion and vulnerability, and is more likely to get to that raw creative unfiltered part of ourselves and is reflective of what we all bring to the table. I also think a game can be too authentic, feel too real, involve too much collaboration for my interests. I want something less curated, more organic, and less designed than most mainstream games,  but that does not mean I want to dive off the deep end where there is absolutely no curation. The indie games I like to play tend to be closer to the mainstream end of things than the really avant garde stuff where the game can be lost to the experience. I think it's possible for media to be too real for our interests. Jessica Jones sometimes crossed that line for me.

There is this continuum where I regard Monsterhearts as usually more authentic than Apocalypse World which in turn is usually more authentic than Dungeon World in the sense I am talking about. I am also speaking in terms of what usually happens. It is possible to have raw, passionate play in Dungeons and Dragons. I view it as demonstrably more difficult to do so consistently.


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## Campbell

hawkeyefan said:


> Agh! Almost all of those are elements in my game!!
> 
> The bits about advocating for a particular narrative and the like are not as forceful as would be typically expected, and it's shaped around what the players have already established as their desires, but it's there.




There's nothing wrong with that! It sounds like you have a fairly strong bead on your players' interests and your game meets those desires and motivations. It's just not the sort of thing that would be ideal for me. I can enjoy this sort of game as a player. I just have to put a measure of some of my own desires to the side for the good of the game. I think most of us can enjoy things that don't really match our tastes without trying to make it into something it is not. I just think it is important to acknowledge our own constraints even when we *like* them.

The games I like most are not particularly well suited for players who *deeply* enjoy most mainstream games. If serial world exploration over character exploration. Story Advocacy, expressing your individual creativity rather than social creativity, completing the adventure, spotlight balance, having access to release valves, or not having to engage the mechanisms or fiction too deeply are the types of things you value about mainstream games the reduced emphasis on these things means you will probably enjoy indie games less. You might still enjoy them, just not as much. I know I still enjoy some more mainstream games, just not as much as I enjoy most indie games and some OSR games.

The other thing to remember is that we are mostly talking in broad strokes here. Individual games within a broad category can differ substantially. Character design is a big component of Burning Wheel. Blades in the Dark has a defined setting, even if broadly defined. It is also strongly focused on group play. Exalted 3e is deeply interested in character exploration and has targeted experience rewards. Demon - The Descent embraces conflicts between player characters and has a strong focus on risk taking.  

When it comes to game design, particularly when considering deeply social games, I find this notion that everyone can get exactly what they want exactly how they want it to be somewhat dangerous unless we are designing for an extremely narrow band of tastes. I do not think it matters who exactly does the designing here or when the design happens. There is no such thing as a perfect game that will fully satisfy all of our desires all of the time, nor do I think we should search one out. For me personally, a significant part of the fun comes from the imperfection and finding new experiences to engage with as they are, putting my own stamp on things, having other players do likewise, and seeing what happens.

I think the question of who we want to be designing our games and which parts they should be designing is an important one. I think I will add it to the list of things I want to address in a more meaningful way when I have the time to do so.


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## Imaro

Campbell said:


> When I speak to things like authenticity, collaboration over design, and *Mastery* over *Achievement* I am speaking in terms of having more or less of something rather than having the presence or absence of something. I am not really saying that a particular game completely lacks a feature - simply that it might not have enough for my particular interests.
> 
> When I speak to authenticity I mean it in the sense that the experience is less designed, involves more risk, involves more passion and vulnerability, and is more likely to get to that raw creative unfiltered part of ourselves and is reflective of what we all bring to the table. I also think a game can be too authentic, feel too real, involve too much collaboration for my interests. I want something less curated, more organic, and less designed than most mainstream games,  but that does not mean I want to dive off the deep end where there is absolutely no curation. The indie games I like to play tend to be closer to the mainstream end of things than the really avant garde stuff where the game can be lost to the experience. I think it's possible for media to be too real for our interests. Jessica Jones sometimes crossed that line for me.
> 
> There is this continuum where I regard Monsterhearts as usually more authentic than Apocalypse World which in turn is usually more authentic than Dungeon World in the sense I am talking about. I am also speaking in terms of what usually happens. It is possible to have raw, passionate play in Dungeons and Dragons. I view it as demonstrably more difficult to do so consistently.




Im still not getting this... IMO...most indie games are curated to produce a specific experience. As an example the "moves" and appropriate responses in the Apocalypse World games are curated... nothing about them strikes me as particularly authentic or organic. They are artificial constructs used to classify and limit the actions of the participants in order to produce a game about X...


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## Nagol

Imaro said:


> Im still not getting this... IMO...most indie games are curated to produce a specific experience. As an example the "moves" and appropriate responses in the Apocalypse World games are curated... nothing about them strikes me as particularly authentic or organic. They are artificial constructs used to classify and limit the actions of the participants in order to produce a game about X...




The aim is more to abstract than limit; the moves are designed to provide general support for typical genre-specific choices.  The moves provide a skeleton to hang what the character is attempting in the fiction onto for resolution purposes   It is possible to create new moves if none of the provided fits the situation well.  I'll note that although it is certainly possible to create moves off-the-cuff as you need to, I find putting some sober thought into them in advance very helpful.


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## Imaro

Nagol said:


> The aim is more to abstract than limit; the moves are designed to provide general support for typical genre-specific choices.  The moves provide a skeleton to hang what the character is attempting in the fiction onto for resolution purposes   It is possible to create new moves if none of the provided fits the situation well.  I'll note that although it is certainly possible to create moves off-the-cuff as you need to, I find putting some sober thought into them in advance very helpful.




But in what way is that any more organic or authentic than say D&D? The game is very much structured to produce a game focused on X... as I understand it that's pretty much the definition thats being used in this thread for in-authentic.


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## Nagol

Imaro said:


> But in what way is that any more organic or authentic than say D&D? The game is very much structured to produce a game focused on X... as I understand it that's pretty much the definition thats being used in this thread for in-authentic.




I didn't say it was.  I was just commenting on the limit perception.  In my experience, it's neither more nor less authentic.  Frankly, they're both games.

One produces situations that force the characters to interact with and deal with continual pressure that the players sign up for and provides a genre-appropriate toolset the players can call on for resolution.  Whereas games like D&D force the character to deal with situations whether or not the character is prepared for them, but generally allows the character to control the rhythm of engagement and lateral engagement is often necessary or at least valuable.

Both can be fun.  Either can be appropriate -- it depends on what the GM wants the play experience to be.


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## hawkeyefan

Campbell said:


> There's nothing wrong with that! It sounds like you have a fairly strong bead on your players' interests and your game meets those desires and motivations. It's just not the sort of thing that would be ideal for me. I can enjoy this sort of game as a player. I just have to put a measure of some of my own desires to the side for the good of the game. I think most of us can enjoy things that don't really match our tastes without trying to make it into something it is not. I just think it is important to acknowledge our own constraints even when we *like* them.




Oh I agree. My last post was mostly a joke...probably should have thrown some kind of smiley or something in there.




Campbell said:


> The games I like most are not particularly well suited for players who *deeply* enjoy most mainstream games. If serial world exploration over character exploration. Story Advocacy, expressing your individual creativity rather than social creativity, completing the adventure, spotlight balance, having access to release valves, or not having to engage the mechanisms or fiction too deeply are the types of things you value about mainstream games the reduced emphasis on these things means you will probably enjoy indie games less. You might still enjoy them, just not as much. I know I still enjoy some more mainstream games, just not as much as I enjoy most indie games and some OSR games.
> 
> The other thing to remember is that we are mostly talking in broad strokes here. Individual games within a broad category can differ substantially. Character design is a big component of Burning Wheel. Blades in the Dark has a defined setting, even if broadly defined. It is also strongly focused on group play. Exalted 3e is deeply interested in character exploration and has targeted experience rewards. Demon - The Descent embraces conflicts between player characters and has a strong focus on risk taking.
> 
> When it comes to game design, particularly when considering deeply social games, I find this notion that everyone can get exactly what they want exactly how they want it to be somewhat dangerous unless we are designing for an extremely narrow band of tastes. I do not think it matters who exactly does the designing here or when the design happens. There is no such thing as a perfect game that will fully satisfy all of our desires all of the time, nor do I think we should search one out. For me personally, a significant part of the fun comes from the imperfection and finding new experiences to engage with as they are, putting my own stamp on things, having other players do likewise, and seeing what happens.
> 
> I think the question of who we want to be designing our games and which parts they should be designing is an important one. I think I will add it to the list of things I want to address in a more meaningful way when I have the time to do so.




I agree about the broad strokes. I think most games have multiple facets to them and so do the players. What a game provides can shift, and ao can tastes. 

I try to vary things up a bit within my 5E campaign. The past few sessions of our game have been very roleplay heavy, with the PCs chasing down various leads that had come up. There was a good amount of conflict during these sessions, but combat was almost always avoided. So for next session, if things go the way they seem they will, I'm expecting it to be a more action packed session. 

Things may not wind up going that way...but it seems pretty likely. Which will be a welcome change of pace.


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## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Honestly I almost wish that was the answer.  I am looking for the part of the game where the GM gets to *unleash his unbridled creativity* and it just seems lacking in this department compared to more traditional roleplaying games.  One of my main purposes in stepping up to run game is that as DM/GM I get to *express my creativity on a broader palette than that of a player* but in these games it seems my palette is just as limited (and maybe even moreso) than that of the players.  For one of my primary interests in choosing to run a game these indie games strike me as overly restrictive and underwhelming.  i don't think I'd have any interest in running them though I'd be interested in giving them a whirl as a player.




Bold is mine to focus on that.  Two things:

1)  Being constrained by fictional positioning and bearing the discipline of GMing principles and adherence to "the system's say" doesn't mean that you don't get to unleash your unbridled creativity.  Some of this comes down to mental framework; what/how many balls you want in the air at any one time and how you perceive attention to _this ball_ or _that ball_ degrading either (a) attention to other balls, (b) attention to the juggling act as a whole, and/or (c) your enjoyment of the process (and attendant ability to stay fresh).

For instance.  I have as much confidence in my ability to GM as any person who has ever run a roleplaying game.  Yet, at this point in my GMing career (lets call it), I do not want the responsibility of managing or energizing a complex (complexity is key here) and inherently unbalanced or dynamism deficient combat (violent or social) system (assuming violent and social combat are supposed to be major arenas of resolution).  Those are two separate balls (balance and dynamism).  Some GMs may consider those extra balls in the air (responsibility/mandate) a gross increase in GM agency.  I don't look at it that way at all.  I consider it a net loss to my GMing agency, because when you put one or both of those balls in the air, all of my (a), (b), and (c) above are negatively affected.  Needless to say, I am not pleased.

This is a big deal that we don't discuss enough (or with enough clarity):  
*
"When is a gross increase in GM responsibility a net loss in GM agency (both near term due to cognitive workload/mental overhead issues and long term due to burnout)?"*

I would love to have a conversation solely focused on that.

2)  Consider this brief exchange from a Dungeon World play excerpt I linked upthread:



> Saerie
> 
> Rawr and I have the aboleth. When I'm down on my knee drawing my bow, I slap the sheepdog on the rump and point to Otthor and his plight. The old boy gets the picture immediately and, with his usual hitch in his giddy-up, he takes off to defend his new companion.
> 
> As Rawr wades into melee with the aboleth that Otthor just tore from the ceiling, I see him cringe and shake his head momentarily. But I've seen him stick his snout dead into a bee-hive and eat dozens of stings for his trouble. This creature's sickening aura will do little to my stout friend.
> 
> An arrow flies from my bow.
> 
> Volley (Dex)
> 6, 1 + 2 (- 1 for peace-bond) = 8.
> 
> I'll choose to put myself in danger as described by the GM as my complication.
> 
> d8 (6) damage + 3 for Rawr. 9 - 1 = 8 damage to the aboleth.






> GM
> 
> Your arrow flies true as Rawr's jaws clinch on black rubbery flesh. The creature reacts violently to the terrible maiming, it's alien, vertically stacked red eyes almost making expressions that are familiar to you. Tentacles fly wide, shoving against Rawr, trying to extract him. Two more jolt toward you, threatening to slam into you and take you from your feet!




So the player here has a somewhat constrained menu of prospective action declarations due to the fictional positioning she was dealing with (which is always the case in TTRPGs).  She could have probably done 3-4 things with effectiveness approaching thematic/archetypal coherency and high prospects for success.  She probably had a few more fairly decent decisions.

Then she has the agency of choosing her Volley complication; either (a) less damage, (b) spent Ammo (which she couldn't much afford at that point), or (c) danger.  

When she chooses danger (which is very common in DW), my menu of options for that danger opens up *dramatically*.  I went with the above, but due to all the pieces in play that I control and the (non-binary and multi-vector) nature of the system's machinery (resolution mechanics, tags and resource attrition/status effect system, and fictional trigger requirements for moves), I could have made probably a good dozen or more distinct moves that would changed the situation, observed fictional positioning continuity, observed the GMing principles and the games agenda, while escalating the threat level and introducing a new, interesting decision tree to one or both of the players.  

So, on the strength of (1) and (2) above, my creativity does not feel particularly bridled when running Dungeon World (neither in the moment nor long term)!



Let us focus on that for now (these conversations wind all over the place that I feel we often miss the trees for the forest).  I'll address the other two parts of your post in the upcoming days (my time is pretty limited right now).


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## Campbell

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

A well designed set of moves can serve to enhance the fantasy, to more meaningfully bring us into our characters' mind space. It can help bring the character's mental state, social obligations, emotional state, and inner life to the surface and help us make decisions as our characters would. The Team mechanics in Masks helps us feel like an actual team that supports each other. The strings mechanics in Monsterhearts help us to feel the weight of emotional dominance and hold other people have over us. Going Aggro models the commitment to doing violence that comes along with our characters' threats. Reading A Charged Situation helps model the thought process of someone in very real danger. The escalation mechanics in Dogs in the Vineyard models our tendency to double down or give in during tense situations. It's all about using the rules to align character and player interests, bring the tension of the moment to life, and help us view things from their perspective. The moves also have options to be used from one player character to another.

Let's talk about the way player moves function in play. You don't get to declare you are using a move. You need to establish fictional positioning in order to utilize a given move and you can always make moves that aren't like moves. When you declare something that your character does where no move applies we simply follow the fiction and the GM makes their moves that fit.  You also do not get to not make the move when the fiction applies.  

There is also the matter of there being less mechanics getting in the way. There is no action economy. Character growth is mostly outwards, rather than upwards. It uses abstracted rather than concrete ranges which in my experience match much more closely with the ways we interact with the world around us. Because we are engaging with the current situation and not concerned with the way things are supposed to go or happen or solving the adventure we are free to engage more fully with the fiction. We also only go to the dice for the sort of situations that should be tense for the character.

There are also matters of technique and principles to consider. Our questions help breathe life into these characters and ensure they have active inner lives. We address the characters not the players. We use countdown clocks to help players feel mounting pressure. We put players on the spot to make decisions for their characters. We convey the fictional world honestly so players can depend on their fictional reasoning and become invested in the fiction. We do not have easy release valves to escape the tension of the moment because the GM is playing to find out as well. We use NPCs with simple human desires and complicated relationships. 

Most importantly we approach play as curious explorers of the fiction, advocating for our characters as best as we are able. Our characters are deeply connected to the setting, not outsiders. We are following them around as they live their messy, complicated lives and choose how to handle things. Because the action is focused on a particular location we really get to know it and the characters that live within it intimately.

Finally a preference for a less curated experience is not a preference for no curation. The tendency to rely on false binaries does not help get to meaningful analysis and criticism. I took [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] to task for this several times over the course of this thread. Please try to meet me halfway here.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Campbell said:


> I do not think it is very helpful to think in terms of what can be done with any given game. I think it is more helpful to think in terms of what is expected and how difficult it is break from those expectations. Does the system help you? Does it stay out of your way, but is not particularly helpful? Does it actively work against your interests? When I speak of system here I am including all the attended social and cultural pressures that go along with playing any particular game, not merely the mechanisms. I mean we do not need formalized mechanics and principles to roleplay. They can help us do things which are not particularly natural for us to do, but could lead to more overall enjoyment. I think it is a mistake to assume that the lack of formalized system means no system is in place. We simply default to the natural constraints we put upon ourselves. In indie circles this is known as the Lumpley Principle.
> 
> We have a tendency not to see the ways we are used to doing things as constraints, because they do not feel constraining to us. While few mainstream games speak to their principles there is a body of principles and social expectations that go along with the design of most mainstream games that I feel are deeply constraining for my interests. This includes the expectation that a GM will either engage in lengthy *world building* or use someone else's *world building*, that a GM will prepare *adventures* that put designs on how players *should* interact with them or else use someone else's *adventures*, that a GM *should* engage situations to enable *spotlight balancing*, and that a GM *should* advocate for a particular narrative. It also includes expectations that a player *should* enjoy exploration of the fictional world and a GM's story for its own sake, decide how to approach everything as a unified group, puzzle out what they should be doing at any moment, not engage the mechanisms too deeply, not engage with parts of an adventure that are meant to highlight another player's character, and not interrogate the fiction too deeply. These are social expectations involved in playing most mainstream games that I find *deeply constraining* and that tend to cut against my interests.




Yes to world building and using somebody else's world building.

No to prepare adventures that put designs on how players should interact with them, and rarely somebody else's adventures, almost never as written.

I can't stand spotlight balancing, nor do I advocate any narrative. Add in that I'm not particularly concerned about game balance in the same way others are.

I don't have any specific expectations that a player should enjoy exploration of the world, although I hope they do. How the world is explored is really up to the players, and I can adjust to their preferred style. What I do hope they'll enjoy more is the exploration of their character.

Working as a unified group makes things easier, but I'm also happy to run multiple parallel campaigns with one, two, or more characters at a time, and bring them together if/when appropriate. Nor do I think that there are parts of the story meant to highlight anybody (no spotlighting) so they are free to interact with what they'd like.

Oh, yeah, I play D&D. That's about as mainstream as it gets.

However, my approach is one that's developed over 35+ years of DMing, with home-brew A&D having set the stage so to speak. So the development of the world and what I expect of the rules is built from that. The 5e rules are just simpler and more elegant - with modifications.

Having grown up with the game during a period where home-brew was published monthly in Dragon magazine, I consider my approach "mainline" in the sense that the game has always been (to me) malleable and flexible, the intent to make it work for you.

I also acknowledge that somebody who starts playing now will expect relatively simple rules with fast advancement, and be able to pick up a "campaign" (AP) to play a character more or less from start to finish. If you started in 4e, then you'll have different expectations from the game than if you started in 3e. I think 4e was more prescriptive about the play style. You pretty much had to use a battle mat, whether you wanted to or not, for example. I think 3/3.5e required quite a bit more investment in learning the rules, only because there were so many variables. AD&D (at least up until the _Complete_ series of books came out, and 5e, are much simpler from the player's perspective, for different reasons.

In other words, D&D is as mainstream as you choose to make it. But I get what you're saying, because when I run public campaigns, I feel very restricted in what I can do (or not do) as a DM. If I choose to limit races or classes, it's often a big deal, for example. What I think it really is, is the expectations that come with D&D. Although those expectations can vary widely, there are a number of things (like the ones you mention) that tend to be relatively common.

My solution? Well, one of them is that I love new players. I love helping them put together a character, and letting them loose in the world. No need to read through the rule-book - just tell me what your character does. The world is similar to ours in terms of physics, and you can really do, or attempt anything you'd like. We'll tell you how to figure out whether you succeed or not.

Of course, this sounds an awful lot like AD&D - the DM worries about the rules, you can focus on your character.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Let's talk about the way player moves function in play. You don't get to declare you are using a move. You need to establish fictional positioning in order to utilize a given move and you can always make moves that aren't like moves. When you declare something that your character does where no move applies we simply follow the fiction and the GM makes their moves that fit.  You also do not get to not make the move when the fiction applies.



Either I'm really missing something here or this is saying the player-as-character is banned from the option of simply Doing Nothing in a given situation even when such would make sense.  This seems...odd.

Lanefan


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## Nagol

Lanefan said:


> Either I'm really missing something here or this is saying the player-as-character is banned from the option of simply Doing Nothing in a given situation even when such would make sense.  This seems...odd.
> 
> Lanefan




Generally, the situations are constructed in such a way that a response/reaction is required/sensible/reflexive.  The GM keeps the characters under pressure and constantly reacting.  A character can freeze up and not react to the situation at which point the obvious unpleasant circumstance will resolve.

It's one of the areas I have some issue with as a player.  Sometimes I like to overthink, plan, prepare for contingencies, and have a situation resolve anticlimactically because the characters are just that good.  These sorts of indie games typically don't cover that form of success well.  I suppose they can if you applied a fair amount of GM force to be folded/spindled/mutilated to fit.


----------



## Nagol

Manbearcat said:


> <snip>
> 
> So, on the strength of (1) and (2) above, my creativity does not feel particularly bridled when running Dungeon World (neither in the moment nor long term)!




Creativity in the heat of the moment is pretty unbridled, I grant.  I find the area where the game constrains creativity on the part of the GM is between sessions.  Planning encounters and designing situations when I have the time for sober reflection is fun!  Attempting such with this form of game is a danger signal that you may be setting up rails and/or other forms of illusionism to control the game flow.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> Then she has the agency of choosing her Volley complication; either (a) less damage, (b) spent Ammo (which she couldn't much afford at that point), or (c) danger.
> 
> When she chooses danger (which is very common in DW), my menu of options for that danger opens up *dramatically*.  I went with the above, but due to all the pieces in play that I control and the (non-binary and multi-vector) nature of the system's machinery (resolution mechanics, tags and resource attrition/status effect system, and fictional trigger requirements for moves), I could have made probably a good dozen or more distinct moves that would changed the situation, observed fictional positioning continuity, observed the GMing principles and the games agenda, while escalating the threat level and introducing a new, interesting decision tree to one or both of the players.
> 
> So, on the strength of (1) and (2) above, my creativity does not feel particularly bridled when running Dungeon World (neither in the moment nor long term)!




Ok so looking at this and referencing the DW SRD... the player (because remember I was speaking to GM/DM creativity) decides what the out come will be from their move either less damage, spent ammo or danger.

Now let's first look at the example where the player picks less damage... With this choice I see no area where the GM gets to express any type of creativity.  It's less damage, pretty simple and straightforward.  I guess color is a form of description and the GM could describe less damage in an exciting or colorful way but I think it's quite the stretch to in any way call that the exertion of unbridled creativity on his or her part.

The second option...less damage is even more constraining on the GM's creativity it doesn't really allow any at all.

The third option...damage... okay finally we get something the GM can use... of course again this seem more to revolve around color as opposed to any real unbridled creativity.  I can describe the damage how I want but at the end of the day it is still just damage. 

So looking at this example I feel there are a couple of points of constraints on the GM...

1. The point at which the player decides what consequence they wish to take place due to their roll...  So the DM is constrained by the fact that he doesn't get to actively pick which of the consequences (even within the parameters of the 3 set forth for the specific roll in the game) affect the player.  Instead the GM is constrained by the layers choice.

2. The point at which one of those 3 consequences, as chosen by the player, take effect.  Now the GM has IMO two points of constrain
   a.) Point 1: The player chooses less damage or less ammo... the GM really has no route to express creativity in this instance.  These are player facing results that have are chosen by the player and leave little if any room for unbridled creativity.
    b.) Point 2: The player chooses danger, well the GM does get to flex his creative muscles in that he gets to decide the type of danger and the fiction surrounding it but again he is constrained.  The adversary can't run, can't negotiate, can't try to bribe the character and so on.  This is what I am getting at when I say constrained creativity.  In D&D I am not, as DM/GM constrained in this way.  I can choose to respond to the PC's attack in a multitude of ways that still fall within the rules of D&D that would not be available to me if I am following the rules and moves of DW.


----------



## Imaro

Ilbranteloth said:


> Having grown up with the game during a period where home-brew was published monthly in Dragon magazine, I consider my approach "mainline" in the sense that the game has always been (to me) malleable and flexible, the intent to make it work for you.




NOTE: Just a general clarification note, when I speak to D&D I am in general talking about the latest edition unless I specify older editions.

And this to me is where I feel a breakdown in discussing this.  I have literally never run into two people who run D&D the exact same way (While the indie games I have participated in usually are run a specific way as outlined by the rules).  I look at @_*Campbell*_ 's list and yes some of them apply to my game but not all of them and not the exact same ones as @_*Hawkeye*_ or you.  Why?  Because D&D is pretty flexible and mutable it's advice (at least in 5e) is pretty clear about the game being yours and malleable to your desires as opposed to setting forth a design principle and  way you should run D&D.  IMO, it's more a toolbox for you to enact your own playstyle (and like any toolbox it can have more or less tools to facilitate specific goals) than it is designed specifically to create an experience.  This is what I'm getting at when I talk about the flexibility of D&D.  

Is lengthy worldbuilding or a pre-made setting a general characteristic of D&D?  Not the older editions where you started with a dungeon and possibly a town or village, and many DM's still follow that philosophy with recent editions.  Are adventures with designs on how players should interact with them a intrinsic part of D&D... I don't think so I tend to (though not always) run pretty open sandbox D&D games where the characters interact with things as they see fit and I don't use pre-published adventures.  Enabling spotlight balance is also something I don't concern myself with, I leave it to my players to work out.  I believe the DM can advocate for a narrative just as the players can but ultimately it's actions and the dice that decide whether either of those narratives or an entirely different one arises... and so on. 

 I'm not trying to be contrary for the sake of it but I just feel like I've been exposed to enough D&D games (as a player and the one's I run which tend to differ on these points depending on the specifc campaign) with very few if any of these things in common that I'm not sure they hold up as a traditional game thing.  Especially if we are going with the advice, procedures, etc. laid out in the actual books.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> <Snip>
> 
> b.) Point 2: The player chooses danger, well the GM does get to flex his creative muscles in that he gets to decide the type of danger and the fiction surrounding it but again he is constrained.  The adversary can't run, can't negotiate, can't try to bribe the character and so on.  This is what I am getting at when I say constrained creativity.  In D&D I am not, as DM/GM constrained in this way.  I can choose to respond to the PC's attack in a multitude of ways that still fall within the rules of D&D that would not be available to me if I am following the rules and moves of DW.




Sort of, but not really.  If the player chooses danger, either the current situation is revealed to be more dangerous than presented earlier (the current environment/adversary reveals some new element about itself) OR something entirely new is introduced.  Continuing combat is certainly a plausible choice and one that is often taken in most RPGs.  But, nothing about the choice of danger really prevents the GM from having the adversary react in any plausible way.  It would be entirely possible for a 3rd party to burst onto the scene and have the current adversary offer a battlefield truce to deal with the common threat, for example.  Even if the current adversary presents as more dangerous (his sword begins to glow a dark sickly light...) nothing prevents the adversary from offering terms, giving the character some form of Sophie's choice, taunting, asking for terms, attempting to flee, or pretty much anything at all.  So long as the fiction supports the choice.


----------



## Imaro

Nagol said:


> Sort of, but not really.  If the player chooses danger, either the current situation is revealed to be more dangerous than presented earlier (the current environment/adversary reveals some new element about itself) OR something entirely new is introduced.  Continuing combat is certainly a plausible choice and one that is often taken in most RPGs.  But, nothing about the choice of danger really prevents the GM from having the adversary react in any plausible way.  It would be entirely possible for a 3rd party to burst onto the scene and have the current adversary offer a battlefield truce to deal with the common threat, for example.  Even if the current adversary presents as more dangerous (his sword begins to glow a dark sickly light...) nothing prevents the adversary from offering terms, giving the character some form of Sophie's choice, taunting, asking for terms, attempting to flee, or pretty much anything at all.  So long as the fiction supports the choice.




And as long as the danger ramps up right?  In other words yes you can do the things you have listed but ultimately the GM is constrained in that the danger he is dealing with must increase (along with the previous constraints he is under around the players choice).  It can't decrease... right?

EDIT: I'm not sure how I feel about this... it feels like it could also be a form of illusionism, but I don't think that's exactly right.  I'm presenting a fiction where it seems the danger should become less but in actuality it has ramped up... I don't know... I guess this part is more my rambling thoughts than anything coherent, I'll think some more on it and try to finalize my view.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> And as long as the danger ramps up right?  In other words yes you can do the things you have listed but ultimately the GM is constrained in that the danger he is dealing with must increase (along with the previous constraints he is under around the players choice).  It can't decrease... right?




Yep. In much the same way a monster's hp must go down because a character hit it (assuming it can take damage from the weapon), the partial success result impacts on the environment.  

The player chose "increased danger" so that is added to the environment.  Perhaps there was no danger present to begin with.  Perhaps the adversary is really an unrecognised ally.  The form that danger takes is directed by the GM inside the situation as it exists.  It is possible the adversary throws up his hands and says "I am not the enemy!  Take heed lest..." as the floor falls out from underneath the PC and he falls in front of an angry rancor.


----------



## Campbell

Lanefan said:


> Either I'm really missing something here or this is saying the player-as-character is banned from the option of simply Doing Nothing in a given situation even when such would make sense.  This seems...odd.
> 
> Lanefan




When I as MC ask "What do you do?" a player can simply state "I wait them out" or "I hold back".  That is still saying what your character does and we follow the fiction from there. If a player is waffling I often ask if that is what they do.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> This is a big deal that we don't discuss enough (or with enough clarity):
> *
> "When is a gross increase in GM responsibility a net loss in GM agency (both near term due to cognitive workload/mental overhead issues and long term due to burnout)?"*



 I'm sure it's different for every DM, but it'd make sense that there's an inflection point, somewhere...



> I would love to have a conversation solely focused on that.



 It could easily be it's own thread, either here or in the 5e forum, since the DM Responsibility that comes with DM Empowerment in D&D is not often nor deeply examined...


----------



## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> I'm sure it's different for every DM, but it'd make sense that there's an inflection point, somewhere...
> 
> It could easily be it's own thread, either here or in the 5e forum, since the DM Responsibility that comes with DM Empowerment in D&D is not often nor deeply examined...




I find the general DM empowerment approach of 5E to lead to an increase in GM agency with little to no increase in reaponsibility. 

I think the system has replaced a lot of "maintenance" type mechanics with simple judgment calls, which I find refreshing. This is largely due to coming from the highly codified systems of 3E/Pathfinder, and some dabbling in 4E. So mechanically, there is less to keep track of, less rules and subsystems to know.

This shift in focus away from mechanics has also kind of reminded me that the story should come first. I'm more free to focus on that, which I think has helped my game overall. It's also allowed me to involve the players much more in determining how the game goes, although that's likely more of an indirect effect than a direct one. 

I wouldn't be surprised, though, to hear others give examples that are very different than mine.


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> I find the general DM empowerment approach of 5E to lead to an increase in GM agency with little to no increase in reaponsibility.



 There's no such thing as power without responsibility.

(Though there are certainly many examples throughout history of power being exercised irresponsibly...)



pemerton said:


> I think that this sort of "flexibility" claim about D&D is overstated.



 But not unfounded.  D&D may not often have been a flexible system when viewed from a neutral perspective, but it has always been used that way, by a great many DMs - at first, because there wasn't much else available, then because we were simply very familiar with it.  There's a great deal of sunk expertise in modding D&D out here, especially D&D that's close enough to the traditional form it had for the first quarter-century.



> For instance, if I _don't_ want movement-based and action economy-based tactics in my combat resolution, D&D won't deliver that for me. It's got no "simple contest" combat resolution mechanic...
> ...If I want closed, scene-based non-combat resolution then the only edition of D&D that delivers that is 4e.



 That same sub-system can be adopted as a simple-contest combat resolution.  Substitute attack rolls for skill checks, set complexity at 1 - shouldn't take any time at all and would be completely abstract.



> If I want to run a game which will be driven by _conflicts_ within a PC's commitments and inclinations, and also _across_ the commitments and inclinations of PCs, the Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanics won't offer very much.



 But it offers something, so there's a 'starting point.'  Though I think player buy-in is more significant than mechanics on that point.


----------



## Imaro

hawkeyefan said:


> I find the general DM empowerment approach of 5E to lead to an increase in GM agency with little to no increase in reaponsibility.
> 
> I think the system has replaced a lot of "maintenance" type mechanics with simple judgment calls, which I find refreshing. This is largely due to coming from the highly codified systems of 3E/Pathfinder, and some dabbling in 4E. So mechanically, there is less to keep track of, less rules and subsystems to know.
> 
> This shift in focus away from mechanics has also kind of reminded me that the story should come first. I'm more free to focus on that, which I think has helped my game overall. It's also allowed me to involve the players much more in determining how the game goes, although that's likely more of an indirect effect than a direct one.
> 
> I wouldn't be surprised, though, to hear others give examples that are very different than mine.




This has pretty much been my experience with 5e as well.  Though like you I'm sure there may be some who differ even to the extent that 5e places too much or the wrong kind (for them) of DM responsibility on them.  

EDIT: I wonder if there are perhaps "GM types" who cognitively deal with running certain games better than others.  Less active preference and more just how their particular brain works??


----------



## Imaro

Tony Vargas said:


> There's no such thing as power without responsibility.
> 
> (Though there are certainly many examples throughout history of power being exercised irresponsibly...)




Well to be fair [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] spoke to feeling an increase in responsibility... not that he didn't feel any when running 5e.  For me I don't feel any more responsibility than I do with any other game I've played (and less than with quite a few), perhaps I felt different responsibilities but I don't think I felt more.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> There's no such thing as power without responsibility.
> 
> (Though there are certainly many examples throughout history of power being exercised irresponsibly...)




I didn't really say that, though. I said I felt my agency went up with little or no increase in responsibility. And I mean this in the "net" sense that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] originally mentioned. 

So, even if 5E increases my responsibility by empowering me as a DM, then such an increase is offset by the removal of other areas of DM responsibility that I found tedious and of little value.


----------



## Tony Vargas

hawkeyefan said:


> I didn't really say that, though. I said I felt my agency went up with little or no increase in responsibility.



 You said 'find' rather than 'felt,' but I'm starting to understand what you were trying to say...



> And I mean this in the "net" sense that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] originally mentioned.



 That is very different from how I took it, thanks for the clarification.



> So, even if 5E increases my responsibility by empowering me as a DM



 It would seem to follow that it does, inevitably - a price well worth paying, IMHO.  







> then such an increase is offset by the removal of other areas of DM responsibility that I found tedious and of little value.



 Ah, that's a different sense of 'responsibly' than I was thinking of:   While a system that figuratively 'runs itself' with detailed mechanics relieves the DM of /bearing responsibility for the results of those mechanics/, if the DM tracks/executes all those mechanics, himself, he's responsible for doing whatever work that 'entails' at the table - if you keep everything behind the screen, that could be a lot.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I think maybe technically and from an official perspective you may be correct but with the advent of the OGL for 3e and the DM's Guild with 5e from a practical point of view I disagree... With this type of openenss and the numerous options created by 3rd party publishers, independent publishers, etc. I think D&D has an unprecedented amount of flexibility.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> http://slyflourish.com/guide_to_narrative_combat.html





hawkeyefan said:


> D&D 5E is an intentionally mod-able system.
> 
> And I also find it odd that you would deny flexibility on the part of D&D and then use an example of an alternate version of Burning World in support of system flexibility.



My claim is that the flexibility of D&D is overrated, and that the non-flexibility of (say) BW is exaggerated. Hence I point to constraints in D&D, and to variants of BW.

The idea that D&D is flexible because there are lots of house rules, variants etc out there doesn't change my mind. I'm aware of a reasonable number of them.

But other systems can be modified and house-ruled too. The Cortex+ Hacker's Guide is full of such stuff for MHRP, Leverage and Smallville, for instance - I used some of those ideas to run my MHRP/Cortex Fantasy Hack.

When I look at 5e, the variants are mostly around PC build rules and some elements of combat action resolution. But at it's core it doesn't look that flexible. Just to give one example: the rate of PC _failure_ in BW is, to me at least, very striking. It's a core feature of the system, and a lot of other system elements are built around it. It's very hard for me to see how 5e would be modified to deliver that sort of experience in any coherent way.



Imaro said:


> Not sure why the Ideals,Bonds,Flaws and Inspiration mechanics (along with Background) "won't offer very much" (especially since there are rules for fleshing these out in ther DMG...but I think my point is they are there as a framework for a DM to hang more or less on. It seems you are claiming they are not integral... which is exactly my point, they are not necessary for the game but for those who want to hang more on them they exist



The Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanic doesn't contain a system for change.

And the Inspiration mechanic is triggered by "playing your character in a way that’s true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw" and/or "when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way" (SRD pp59-60). In the PC build dimension, and in the award of Inspiration dimension, there is no concern for conflict.

It's also far from clear that the maths of the game, and the basiscs of PC build, support constant access to advantage (eg look at barbarians' Reckless Attack), which means that the GM has a mechanical reason to be cautious in awards of Inspiration.

Conversely, the system in BW works in part by relying on the maths of the game: failure is a common default, so spending artha to boost rolls doesn't break the maths, it simply reduces the incidence of failure. A dice-pool system in which players are rolling for successes, not totalling the dice, means that adding bonus dice (Persona points add bonus dice 1-for-1; Fate points allow adding bonus dice by way of opening up 6s for re-rolls) increases the prospects of success while still leaving failure as an option (unlike bonuses in the d20 system); and there are rules for enhancing abilities, over the long sequence of play, by spending artha on them, which give players another consideration to factor in in spending their artha; etc.



Imaro said:


> can I even play BW without these types of mechanics if I don't desire them to be front and center?
> 
> Beliefs are still central to the BW variant you cited above, the advice is to tell the players what module you are running and what it is about... and to ignore "filler" combat... de-emphasize loot... not really seeing how this shows flexibility as opposed to a change in the scenery with the same game.



Well, hit points and damage dice are central to any D&D game. Does that mean that all the "flexible" options you are pointing to are all just changes in scenery?

Furthermore, Burning THACO presents a _completely different_ way of establishing and using backstory, and of establishing Beliefs: instead of the players working out Beliefs for their PCs, and the GM "going where the action is", the GM (via choice of module) establishes what the action is, and estabishes a whole lot of secret backstory (contained in the module keys) that s/he will use to adjudicate action declarations, and the players set Beliefs that fit with the module. That you see this shift from largely player-driven to largey GM-driven play as "a mere change of scenery" is to me very telling. It suggests that, in judging whether or not D&D is notably flexible compared to other systems, there are whole dimensions of game play that you are disregarding.

In any event, if you wanted to strip Beliefs, artha etc out of BW (and the "fail forward" resolution logic that accompanies it) then you'd have a simulationist dice-pool system that plays a bit like RQ or RM (or a fantasy version of Classic Traveller). I don't know if that would be fun or not - they're fairly brutal systems, and BW played in this way would be just as brutal, I suspect - but it could be done easily enough. You could even - to ameliorate the brutality - just put in a rule where each player gets (say) 2 Fate and 1 Persona at the start of each session.

Which is actually another thing D&D can't do: this sort of classic sim game.



Imaro said:


> As to your second point you're citing a different game, Torchbearer, irregardless of whether it is based on similar rules to BW, is not BW.



Seriously? So D&D is flexible because it has all these official and unofficial house rules, including under the OGL, but Torchbearear and Mouse Guard - which are BW variants designed and published by the BW designers and which have a greater degree of mechanical resemblance to BW than Moldvay Basic does to 5e - don't count as indicators of BW's flexibility?

OK, then, you win. (And no doubt that the HeroQuest revised rulebook is full of example that include low-brow superhero hijinks doesn't tell us anything about what that game can be used for either.)


----------



## pemerton

Further thoughts on illusionism and railroading:



hawkeyefan said:


> things that the players do not know about are being changed. Or in this case, not necessarily changed, but left open to be determined later on....which is not the way that the real world works.



It's true that fictional events, unlike events in the real world, are authored. But how does this tend to show that some approach or other to RPGing is illusionism?

Illusionism requires an illusion. There's no illusion in acknowledging that the fiction is authored. If anything, wouldn't it be illusionistic to somehow pretend that the elements that make up a fiction _aren't_ authored, but rather are the result of the (purely imaginary) causal processes taking place (as authored) within the fiction?



hawkeyefan said:


> So the players see the yellow skulker....they will assume that the guy has some kind of motivation or goal, even if it is not clear to them at this point....and yet, his motivations and goals are undetermined at this point. So, there is an illusion of sorts at play.



But (within the fiction) the skulker does have a motivation or goal! It's just not known yet.

If the GM _had_ already decided what it is, then (as I have talked about upthread) to the extent that the skulker becomes a focus of play at all, it is the players trying to find out what is written in the GM's notes.

If the GM doesn't know - at that point - what the skulker's goal is, then if the players engage with the skulker as an element of the fiction, some sort of motivation or goal for the skulker will emerge out of play. Eg, in the 4e game, at a certain point I decide that skulker is engaged to the baron's niece. I obviously couldn't have made that decision until it was established that there was a baron, so this was months of play (more than a year, I would guess) after the first occurrencdes of the yellow-robed mage as an NPC. This established new backstory about him, which informs what his motivations are. These emerging motivations (i) provide colour and framing, and (ii) answer questions that arose from earlier play ("What exactly is the skulking wizad's plan?") 

In the OP game, after introducing the wastrel elf, and his possession of the mace, I introduced the dark naga, in response to a player's belief for a PC. And I establish that the dark naga is the master whom the renegade elf was serving. That established , in the fiction, the elf's reason to be opposing the PCs.

I'm not seeing what the illusion is, other than the "illusion" inherent in any fiction. (Ie fiction is a type of pretence.) The GM isn't manipulating the players into believing something about the dynamics or elements of play that is false.



hawkeyefan said:


> can players simply try to find a secret door in any room in which they find danger? Is it forcing a specific narrative to not allow that?



The short answer is "yes". Qv the OP example of finding the vessel; the discussion, somewhere upthread, of the players making a Catacombs-wise check to see if their PCs successfully navigated through the Hardby catacombs to find a way into the tower where the events of the OP took place; and the example, somewhere more recently upthread, of a MHRP/Cortex Fantasy player making a check to establish a Secret Door asset.

In the Adventure Burner, Luke Crane discusses the players checking Architecture to see whether their PCs discover a secret door into a citadel they wish to infiltrate. The failure of the check estalishes (among other things) that there is no secret door to be discovered.

The longer answer relates back to the discussion with [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] upthread, about inclusion of "secret backstory" as part of the framing fiction in circumstances where it is _meaningfully knowable_ by the players, in virtue of action declarations by their PCs. Having NPCs arrive during a scene via a secret door that they shut behind them, for instance, reveals the presence of the secret door and thereby makes it salient in the context of the present situation, and - especially in a game with a rigorous action economy - opens up a new option for the players to engage the fiction to get what they want ("I try to find the mechanism for the secret door").

But that is quite different from "If you think to hunt for secret doors, and the GM rolls a 1 on a d6, then you'll find a new pathway to adventure."

Secret doors are especially interesting in this context, and raise speciall problems, because of their connection to the framing of scenes. Even Gygax, by the time of writing his DMG, was aware that treating what is, in fact, a question of the players' access to those bits of the backstory that they are interested in, as if it were a moment of action resolution, could sometimes lead to unsatisfying results - hence he gives the following an example of disregarding the dice (p 110):

You also might wish to give them [ie the players] an edge in finding a particular clue, eg a secret door that leads to a
complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining.​


----------



## hawkeyefan

Tony Vargas said:


> You said 'find' rather than 'felt,' but I'm starting to understand what you were trying to say...
> 
> That is very different from how I took it, thanks for the clarification.
> 
> It would seem to follow that it does, inevitably - a price well worth paying, IMHO.   Ah, that's a different sense of 'responsibly' than I was thinking of:   While a system that figuratively 'runs itself' with detailed mechanics relieves the DM of /bearing responsibility for the results of those mechanics/, if the DM tracks/executes all those mechanics, himself, he's responsible for doing whatever work that entails at the table.




Perhaps a shift in focus would be a better way to view it? A lessening of the role of rules manager/referee and an increase in the role of storyteller/narrator?

For me, the further we got into the 3E/Pathfinder era, the more constrained I felt as a GM. It seemed more about knowing all the mechanics than anything else. 

So for me the simpler rules and flattened math makes that side of things easier, allowing me to focus both before and during play on the story. 

I find I'm simply using judgment to make a ruling rather than having to consult rules and ao on.


----------



## Tony Vargas

*Flexibility & Illusionism*



pemerton said:


> The idea that D&D is flexible because there are lots of house rules, variants etc out there doesn't change my mind. I'm aware of a reasonable number of them. But other systems can be modified and house-ruled too.



 It's more a matter of DMs being flexible.  You can hack D&D quite a bit, if you want to and have experience or theoretical knowledge to do it well.  The same goes for any system, but a lot more of us have a lot more experience hacking D&D, because it has been the dominant TTRPG for so long.



> Just to give one example: the rate of PC _failure_ in BW is, to me at least, very striking. It's a core feature of the system, and a lot of other system elements are built around it. It's very hard for me to see how 5e would be modified to deliver that sort of experience in any coherent way.



 Isn't that just insisting the two systems are different?  So BW makes it likely for PC to fail, and 5e (sometimes even criticized as 'too easy') makes it likely for them to succeed.  That doesn't make one more or less flexible than the other.  
(And, really, how hard can be to shift something like chances of success?)



> The Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanic doesn't contain a system for change.
> And the Inspiration mechanic is triggered by "playing your character in a way that’s true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw" and/or "when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way" (SRD pp59-60). In the PC build dimension, and in the award of Inspiration dimension, there is no concern for conflict.



 The latter seems like conflict - between what's expedient and what fits those traits.



> Well, hit points and damage dice are central to any D&D game. Does that mean that all the "flexible" options you are pointing to are all just changes in scenery?



 Hit points/damage are one of D&D's less inflexible mechanics - they can represent anything that keeps the creature from being defeated, and anything that pushes it closer to defeat.  Fairly simple mechanics that can cover a lot of fictional ground = flexibility, no? 



> In any event, if you wanted to strip Beliefs, artha etc out of BW (and the "fail forward" resolution logic that accompanies it) then you'd have a simulationist dice-pool system that plays a bit like RQ or RM.



 Sounds good (RQ) or awful (RM). 
;P



> Which is actually another thing D&D can't do: this sort of classic sim game.



 I thought you considered D&D a sim game?  
It's certainly a classic game, by definition. 



> Seriously? So D&D is flexible because it has all these official and unofficial house rules, including under the OGL, but Torchbearear and Mouse Guard - which are BW variants designed and published by the BW designers and which have a greater degree of mechanical resemblance to BW than Moldvay Basic does to 5e - don't count as indicators of BW's flexibility?



 I don't buy that hacks and variants and other games using the same core system in any way equal flexibility in a game.  Flexibility exercised by the designers in the latter case or GMs in the former, sure, but not inherent in the system, itself.  If the game were flexible, you wouldn't need to hack it or publish a separate game to do a different genre or support a different style or whatever.

Maybe I haven't been paying close enough attention (no, I'm sure I haven't, I lack the patience), but it seems like the inflexibility of the various systems discussed in this thread had been the point.  Such-and-such a game plays a certain, specific way, to cater to a certain agenda or produce a certain result, and thus fill some sliver-like niche of the RPG market not already pinned down by the 500-lb gorilla, or not already lavishly catered to by some other, equally niche product.  While the 500-lb gorilla must remain inflexibly focused on looking, smelling, and acting the part of a gorilla, and weighing 500-lb (not 225 kg!), and squatting on the same share of the market, lest some 90 lb chimp temporarily take it's place.   



pemerton said:


> Illusionism requires an illusion. There's no illusion in acknowledging that the fiction is authored.



 There still could be.  It's like explaining how a magic trick is done, but still being able to pull it off well.  It goes from the sense of wonder "that's impossible!" to an appreciate of skill "wow, really well done!"

But, in general, illusions work better when the audience doesn't know the trick, and the magician controls the scene.  The same goes for illusionism in running a game.  You can play a game above board and still use such techniques, the players become magicians-assistants instead of audience, but you lose something (or rather they lose something of the experience).  But you'll deliver a better experience if you limit what the players know of the processes, so they can fill in something more impressive and cool than the reality of how it was done.


----------



## Tony Vargas

*DM Empowerment & DM Em-Responsibility-ment*



hawkeyefan said:


> Perhaps a shift in focus would be a better way to view it? A lessening of the role of rules manager/referee and an increase in the role of storyteller/narrator?



 OK, if that's what you meant to say.   
I'd see it more as a shift from rules-manager (tracking/applying system), to referee (making calls).  :shrug:  But I suppose I was thinking of a hypothetical case of a low-empowerment/low-responsibility system vs one that was high in both, while...



> For me, the further we got into the 3E/Pathfinder era, the more constrained I felt as a GM. It seemed more about knowing all the mechanics than anything else.



 OK, that I get, with 3.x as a concrete example.  Yes, you needed to know the mechanics, because the mechanics gave players a /lot/ of options, and all you had to push-back with was the off-handed 'rule-0' that everyone acknowledged but no one gave much respect - or using the very similar options for your monsters & NPCs.   
It was a very player-empowering edition, and it still made the game very hard on the DM.  That contrasts with both 4e, which was also player-empowering but phone-it-in-easy to run, and 5e which is, of course, very DM-empowering, and also much less player-empowering, but between the prior two WotC editions in ease of DMing, but with the 'hard' part of DMing being more a matter of taking responsibility (the issue Manbearcat was getting at) for the success of the game rather than from needing to master/manage the system like in 3.x/PF (the point you made, and I finally grok, I think).

And, like I at least tried to say, that sense of responsibility is an issue I think gets ignored when people complain about 5e being 'too easy' or 'imbalanced' or 'prone to illusionism' or whatever - that the DM has a responsibility, as a direct consequence of being Empowered, to make his campaign challenging, to give each PC their time in the sun, and to deliver a good play experience.



> I find I'm simply using judgment to make a ruling rather than having to consult rules and ao on.



 Another bit I can agree with.  I run 5e, improvisationally, how I feel is best in the moment - I run a lot of games that way, including some people might say were 'impossible' to run that way - but 5e does make it easy with the expectations it engenders in players.  I don't need to consult a rule - if a player points one out, I'll work with it (which includes around it or overruling it for a good reason), otherwise, I'll go with what feels right, often including going with about how something worked in AD&D, when built up a lot of my DMing muscles. 


  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], were you thinking of GM Empowerment vs Responsibility in terms of Agency with respect to a game like 5e (very high Empowerment, tempered by equally great Responsibility) vs a game like pemerton presents BW to be* (ie player-driven with lesser or shared-with-players Empowerment, but less/shared Responsibility for the success of the game, was well)?  As opposed to games like 3.5 (neither strictly player- nor DM-driven, per se, and with Empowerment one both sides of the screen coming through profound rewards for System Mastery, and, particularly on the player side, in consequence of a social contract typically emphasizing adherence to RAW)?







* I've never even glanced at BW.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't view my job as DM to frame the haggling check for them. The framing takes care of itself.



Literally speaking, this is impossible in a typical RPG: the player is dependent upon the GM presenting the fictional situation, narrating the actions of NPCs present in that siutation, etc.

In the example you provide, here is the framing:



Ilbranteloth said:


> there are plenty of merchants in Waterdeep eager to sell their wares. Do you have any skills or history with regard to purchasing silks that would give you an idea of what's good quality or price?
> 
> <snip player response>
> 
> OK, makes sense. You find that some of the "Calishite" silk is bogus (based on his Wisdom (Insight) modified by his past expertise), but for the legitimate goods, the price is higher than you'd expect, even up here in Waterdeep
> 
> <snip player response>
> 
> the best you've been able to manage is 18% so far, do you want to continue to pressure, or go with that price. None of the others are willing to come down more than 5%, unusual from your experience.
> 
> <snip player response>
> 
> Inquiring, you find that the supply is very limited, due to the threat of a civil war in Calimshan right now. They will sell there wares without any problem at this price, and will likely be raising it.



The difference between this - as you present it - and my preferred approach is that the action seems to be being driven by the GM's concerns and interests in the fiction, rather than the players'.



Ilbranteloth said:


> All I'm saying is that as a DM, if the players tell me they are doing something, and I don't know why they are doing it, I don't need to know, nor would I usually ask why. I'll see how it plays out and it may become obvious over time.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't need to frame anything related to the PCs at all.



From my point of view, that's one way of getting at the distinction between GM-driven and player-driven play. As I said, the approach you favou seems to mean that it is the GM's conerns and interests that underping the GM's framing and narration.



Ilbranteloth said:


> it doesn't have to be a conflict - which is one of the reasons I don't like 4e because of it's tendency to lean toward combat. The owlbear thing was something that came up in my campaign, and the PCs hadn't seen the cubs, just the angry owlbear. They killed it



Well, you're the one who described an angry owlbear protecting its cubs - which seemed to suggest conflict. And I didn't say anything about combat. The only two times the PCs in my 4e game encountered a bear, they tamed it. Based on your account, your - non-4e game -seems to be the one in which the players lean towards combat.



Ilbranteloth said:


> scenes that establish the "normalcy" of the world, the ones that make them stop and consider that the characters are people, interacting with other people, and that "normal" is not "anything we meet is an adversary" brings some of that humanity into the game



I don't see any connection between this, and the question of whether or not the GM is "going where the action is". Unless one is assuming that _the action_ doesn't involve the normalcy of the world and considerations of humanity - but what is the basis for such an assumption?


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> My claim is that the flexibility of D&D is overrated, and that the non-flexibility of (say) BW is exaggerated. Hence I point to constraints in D&D, and to variants of BW.




Okay.



pemerton said:


> The idea that D&D is flexible because there are lots of house rules, variants etc out there doesn't change my mind. I'm aware of a reasonable number of them.




I'm not really trying to change your mind but since you brought it up... what exactly would change your mind?



pemerton said:


> But other systems can be modified and house-ruled too. The Cortex+ Hacker's Guide is full of such stuff for MHRP, Leverage and Smallville, for instance - I used some of those ideas to run my MHRP/Cortex Fantasy Hack.




Never said they couldn't but I am moreso speaking of different ways to play or focuses when playing said games.  Can their play procedures, goals, etc. be changed and hacked?  Can I run a game that focuses on powergamming with MHRP?  Can I play a tactical combat game with Cortex?



pemerton said:


> When I look at 5e, the variants are mostly around PC build rules and some elements of combat action resolution.




Really... have you looked in the 5e DMG?  It's not really bursting with PC build options or options specifically for combat resolutions but instead has a multitude of ways to modify all aspects of 5e to play differently.  Everything from hero points to adding honor or sanity into the game...more abstract skills in play and optional systems for dispersing narrative control through plot points and more are covered in that book alone.



pemerton said:


> But at it's core it doesn't look that flexible. Just to give one example: the rate of PC _failure_ in BW is, to me at least, very striking. It's a core feature of the system, and a lot of other system elements are built around it. It's very hard for me to see how 5e would be modified to deliver that sort of experience in any coherent way.




Wouldn't you just adjust what the DC's represent, shifting higher numbers for easier tasks?  Or maybe I'm missing a key part of this comparison?



pemerton said:


> The Ideals/Bonds/Flaws mechanic doesn't contain a system for change.




No but they are a part of the game and with the general resolution system for reactions and skills in general, it's a pretty easy mod.



pemerton said:


> And the Inspiration mechanic is triggered by "playing your character in a way that’s true to his or her personality traits, ideal, bond, and flaw" and/or "when you play out your personality traits, give in to the drawbacks presented by a flaw or bond, and otherwise portray your character in a compelling way" (SRD pp59-60). In the PC build dimension, and in the award of Inspiration dimension, there is no concern for conflict.




Actually the DMG goes into more depth making it clear that inspiration is malleable and can be awarded for a multitude of actions depending on how you want to shape your campaign.  The DMG specifically mentions using it as a tool for encouraging roleplaying (what you cited above), heroism, as a reward for victories, genre emulation and so on.  There are also optional rules for letting players award inspiration as opposed to the DM as well as altogether ignoring inspiration. 



pemerton said:


> It's also far from clear that the maths of the game, and the basiscs of PC build, support constant access to advantage (eg look at barbarians' Reckless Attack), which means that the GM has a mechanical reason to be cautious in awards of Inspiration.




Well if a DM is truly worried about that... there's actually an optional rule where the players hand out inspiration and the DM in turn receives inspiration to use for the foes of the PC's depending on how often they hand it out.  So problem solved.  



pemerton said:


> Conversely, the system in BW works in part by relying on the maths of the game: failure is a common default, so spending artha to boost rolls doesn't break the maths, it simply reduces the incidence of failure. A dice-pool system in which players are rolling for successes, not totalling the dice, means that adding bonus dice (Persona points add bonus dice 1-for-1; Fate points allow adding bonus dice by way of opening up 6s for re-rolls) increases the prospects of success while still leaving failure as an option (unlike bonuses in the d20 system); and there are rules for enhancing abilities, over the long sequence of play, by spending artha on them, which give players another consideration to factor in in spending their artha; etc.




Ah... ok.  So basically you are put at a standard disadvantage in order to get you to do something around your beliefs (this sound surprisingly similar to what default inspiration does in D&D for ideals, flaws and traits) in order to receive artha so that you can reach a level of minimal competence?    

Also, on a side note... advantage doesn't give you an actual bonus even with advantage your roll can't be higher than a 20...so granting advantage in and of itself doesn't determine whether failure is impossible or not. 



pemerton said:


> Well, hit points and damage dice are central to any D&D game. Does that mean that all the "flexible" options you are pointing to are all just changes in scenery?




Does play center around damage and hit points like it does beliefs in BW?  I'd even argue you are overstating the importance of damage dice since in 5e monster damage can be run with average damage and it would be trivial to do the same with PC's



pemerton said:


> Furthermore, Burning THACO presents a _completely different_ way of establishing and using backstory, and of establishing Beliefs: instead of the players working out Beliefs for their PCs, and the GM "going where the action is", the GM (via choice of module) establishes what the action is, and estabishes a whole lot of secret backstory (contained in the module keys) that s/he will use to adjudicate action declarations, and the players set Beliefs that fit with the module. That you see this shift from largely player-driven to largey GM-driven play as "a mere change of scenery" is to me very telling. It suggests that, in judging whether or not D&D is notably flexible compared to other systems, there are whole dimensions of game play that you are disregarding.




But it is still play centered around player character beliefs.    



pemerton said:


> In any event, if you wanted to strip Beliefs, artha etc out of BW (and the "fail forward" resolution logic that accompanies it) then you'd have a simulationist dice-pool system that plays a bit like RQ or RM (or a fantasy version of Classic Traveller). I don't know if that would be fun or not - they're fairly brutal systems, and BW played in this way would be just as brutal, I suspect - but it could be done easily enough. You could even - to ameliorate the brutality - just put in a rule where each player gets (say) 2 Fate and 1 Persona at the start of each session.




So you wouldn't really be playing BW anymore...



pemerton said:


> Which is actually another thing D&D can't do: this sort of classic sim game.




Color me confused...



pemerton said:


> Seriously? So D&D is flexible because it has all these official and unofficial house rules, including under the OGL, but Torchbearear and Mouse Guard - which are BW variants designed and published by the BW designers and which have a greater degree of mechanical resemblance to BW than Moldvay Basic does to 5e - don't count as indicators of BW's flexibility?




D&D (and again I am speaking to 5e here) is flexible because it let's the group determine what the focus of play is vs. determining it for you and pushing it with mechanics tailored for that specific goal.



pemerton said:


> OK, then, you win. (And no doubt that the HeroQuest revised rulebook is full of example that include low-brow superhero hijinks doesn't tell us anything about what that game can be used for either.)




It's not about winning, I'm stating my view and you're stating yours... and again I'll ask could you provide some examples, it's been a while since I've read Heroquest.  I do remember that DC's increased or decreased depending on your previous successes or failures (getting harder the more you succeed and getting easier when you fail)... but I don't specifically remember that being tied to low brow superhero examples... that's why I asked for some examples.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> But (within the fiction) the skulker does have a motivation or goal! It's just not known yet.
> 
> If the GM _had_ already decided what it is, then (as I have talked about upthread) to the extent that the skulker becomes a focus of play at all, it is the players trying to find out what is written in the GM's notes.
> 
> If the GM doesn't know - at that point - what the skulker's goal is, then if the players engage with the skulker as an element of the fiction, some sort of motivation or goal for the skulker will emerge out of play. Eg, in the 4e game, at a certain point I decide that skulker is engaged to the baron's niece. I obviously couldn't have made that decision until it was established that there was a baron, so this was months of play (more than a year, I would guess) after the first occurrencdes of the yellow-robed mage as an NPC. This established new backstory about him, which informs what his motivations are. These emerging motivations (i) provide colour and framing, and (ii) answer questions that arose from earlier play ("What exactly is the skulking wizad's plan?")



From the players' side this seems like nothing more than splitting hairs.  They see the yellow-robed guy, eventually realize he's more significant than first thought, dig further, and learn some things about his motivations-goals-personality-history-etc.

Whether you decide he's engaged to the Baron's niece a) on the spot during a played session (i.e. from what's already in the DM's brain) or b) 6 years ahead of time in your world design phase (i.e. from what's already in the DM's notes) doesn't matter a whit to the players at the table.  You-as-DM still decided it, and they as players still learned it.

It's different from the DM side, of course, but that's irrelevant - it's the players' perspective that matters.



> I'm not seeing what the illusion is, other than the "illusion" inherent in any fiction. (Ie fiction is a type of pretence.) The GM isn't manipulating the players into believing something about the dynamics or elements of play that is false.



The illusion is in making a) and b) above completely indistinguishable from the players' side (regardless of  whether the information being presented is true, false, or neither).  The illusion is in keeping the players unable to tell whether you're running from notes or from what you're making up on the spot...and this applies to both your system and mine: my illusion is that I'm using notes when I'm sometimes not, yours would be the opposite.



> In the Adventure Burner, Luke Crane discusses the players checking Architecture to see whether their PCs discover a secret door into a citadel they wish to infiltrate. The failure of the check estalishes (among other things) that there is no secret door to be discovered.



And success on the check means there is?  

We're right back to my somewhat silly example of Schroedinger's diamonds from about a jillion pages ago, where as a player I can bring diamonds into existence in the game world just by having my character search for them.  Players shouldn't be able to punch their own ticket to a solution like this and so easily bypass the challenge.  In the citadel example, why would a party bother doing anything else (such as scouting, tracking guard movements, even attempting to sneak in) before finding a dark bit of wall and seeing if they can roll up* a secret door?  In the diamonds example, why bother adventuring to get rich when I can just generate a diamond about half the time I search for one?

* - for such it is, no more than a die roll.



> But that is quite different from "If you think to hunt for secret doors, and the GM rolls a 1 on a d6, then you'll find a new pathway to adventure."



Only true if there's in fact a secret door there to be found.



> Secret doors are especially interesting in this context, and raise speciall problems, because of their connection to the framing of scenes. Even Gygax, by the time of writing his DMG, was aware that treating what is, in fact, a question of the players' access to those bits of the backstory that they are interested in, as if it were a moment of action resolution, could sometimes lead to unsatisfying results - hence he gives the following an example of disregarding the dice (p 110):
> 
> You also might wish to give them [ie the players] an edge in finding a particular clue, eg a secret door that leads to a complex of monsters and treasures that will be especially entertaining.​



At its extreme, isn't this just another form of railroad?

Lan-"I search for a secret door that is, in fact, a painted-over diamond"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I don't see any connection between this, and the question of whether or not the GM is "going where the action is".



This strikes me as odd - in a player-driven game shouldn't it be the players' responsibility to go where the action is rather than the DM's?


----------



## Campbell

So let's talk about what the texts of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons has to say about the play experience. 


The Player's Handbook calls the *adventure* the *heart of the game*.
The game is divided up between *adventures* and *downtime*.
The Dungeon Master's Guide calls the DM *the creative force* behind the game and *architect of the campaign*.
The Dungeon Master's Guide is divided into *Master of Worlds*, *Master of Adventures*, and *Master of Rules*.
The adventuring section makes near constant appeals to *the story*. They encourage you to define what the players' goals are for the adventure. They also encourage surprises and *plot twists*.
The play style analysis is limited to *hack and slash play* and *immersive storytelling* with any given game fitting on a continuum between the two. There is no meaningful analysis of other ways to play role playing games - not even sandbox games.
The game has a reward structure built around *overcoming challenges* and reaching *adventure milestones*. The alternative is level ups according to the needs of *the story*.
Significant portions of the rules are devoted to combat, dungeon exploration, and traversing the wilderness. Most of the spells are heavily biased towards these activities. What little text and mechanisms there is devoted to character exploration assumes fairly static characters we play to rather than find out about.

Relevant Passages are quoted below. Emphasis is mine.



			
				Dungeon Master's Guide said:
			
		

> Every DM is the *creator of his or her own campaign world*. Whether you invent a world, adapt a world from a favorite movie or novel, or use a published setting for the D&D game, you make that world your own over the course of a campaign.






			
				Dungeon Master's Guide said:
			
		

> Whether you write your own adventures or use published ones, expect to invest preparation time beyond the hours you spend at the gaming table. You'll need to carve out some free time to *exercise your creativity* as you invent compelling plots, create new NPCs, craft encounters, and think of clever ways to *foreshadow story events* yet to come.






			
				Dungeon Master's Guide said:
			
		

> Creating adventures is on of the greatest rewards of being a Dungeon Master. It's *a way to express yourself*, designing fantastic locations and encounters with monsters, traps, puzzles, and conflicts. When you *design* an adventure, *you call the shots*. You do things exactly the way you want to.
> 
> Fundamentally, *adventures are stories*. An adventure shares many of the features of a novel, a movie, an issue of a comic, or an episode of a TV show. Comic series and serialized TV dramas are particularly good comparisons, because of the way individual adventures are limited in scope but *blend together to create a larger narrative*. If an adventure is a single issue or episode, a campaign is the series as a whole.
> 
> Whether you're *creating your own adventures or using published adventures*, you'll find advice in this chapter to help you create a fun and memorable experience for your players.
> 
> Creating an adventure involves blending scenes of exploration, social interaction, and combat into a unified whole that meets the needs of your players and your campaign. But it's more than that. The basic elements of *good storytelling* should guide you throughout this process, so your players experience the adventure as a story and not a disjointed series of encounters.






			
				Dungeon Master's Guide said:
			
		

> An adventure starts with a hook to get the players interested. A good adventure hook piques the interest of the players and provides a compelling reason for their characters to become involved in the adventure.
> 
> Maybe the adventurers stumble onto something they're not meant to see, monsters attack them on the road, an assassin makes an attempt on their lives, or a dragon shows up at the city gates. Adventure hooks such as these can instantly *draw players into your story.*






			
				Dungeon Master's Guide said:
			
		

> When players don't know *what they're supposed to do* in a given encounter, anticipation and excitement can quickly turn to boredom and frustration. A transparent objective alleviates the risk of players losing interest.
> 
> For example, if the *overall story of your adventure* involves a quest to deliver a priceless relic to a remote monastery, each encounter along the way is an opportunity to introduce a smaller objective that *moves the quest forward*. Encounters during the trip might see the adventurers accosted by enemies determined to steal the relic, or by monsters that are constantly threatening the monastery.
> 
> Some players create their own objectives, which is to be expected and encouraged. It is, after all, as much the players' campaign as yours. For example, a character might try to bribe enemies rather than fight them, or chase after a fleeing enemy to see where it goes.
> 
> *Players who ignore objectives will have to deal with the consequences*, which is another important facet of encounter design.




This is no weak text. I appreciate the call outs to trying to make decisions matter and keeping player interests in mind. I was also pleasantly surprised that the text emphasized the value of the rules far more than most practitioners here. I am actually liking the game as defined by the text far more than I like it as described by most users. However, this is a game that definitely wants to be run in a certain way. *The adventure* and *the story* are primary to the experience. World building is expected. Story advocacy is constant. Following defined objectives is expected and there are consequences when you don't.

The game has a much stronger voice than expected. There are no weasel words here.


----------



## Campbell

Here's the way I look at it: Hacking is good. Customizing any game you play to fit the interests of the play group is a *very good thing*. I just think it is best when you realize you are hacking a game, and the hacking is a group activity rather than a solitary pursuit. There will always be a significant amount of give while operating in the rules of a given game. My experience is that there is a significant amount of diversity in Apocalypse World play. My experience tells me there is a significant amount of diversity in Dungeons and Dragons play. My experience tells me the games according to their texts are better at satisfying different desires and both can be fun in different amounts for different people.

Apocalypse World is a game that offers a strong amount of latitude to the GM. It offers less in some ways than D&D. It offers more in some different ways. It is also imminently hackable and offers several suggestions on how to hack it directly in the text. In fact, hacking is expected. You are supposed to add custom moves that reflect this group's Apocalypse World and reflect the threat of your fronts. There are several peripheral move sets that may or may not come into play in a given game. We are talking about a game that tells you how to hack it, was designed to be hacked, and expects you to hack it. The move architecture was literally designed to be developed in play. It is entirely self-contained and modular.

When it comes down to it I believe that every game provides a specific experience. It is just a question of who designs what parts of the game, when they design it, and how they design it. 5th Edition favors a certain amount of real time design of mechanisms by the DM, but favors designing content before play. I believe this favors the Achievement and Creativity Components more than it favors the Mastery and Social Components.  The shifting ground and lack of transparency in both mechanics and social contract can make it more difficult to effectively collaborate on equal ground and engage our strategic muscles both from the standpoint of fictional positioning and engagement with the rules of the game. Apocalypse World favors designing content more collaboratively in real time to a certain extent, but favors design of mechanisms and principles before they come up in play. I believe this favors the Mastery and Social Components over the Achievement and Creativity Components. It makes it much more difficult to explore a world or have a story that conforms to all our desires when it tends to raise up in response to exploration and we have far less capacity to design our experience during the course of play. We must live with it.

The idea that there are no meaningful trade offs in one form of design, but there are in others is something I find problematic. I do not think we are wedded to one set of trade offs, but I believe there will always be trade offs.


----------



## Campbell

Dungeon World is not particularly typical of most Powered By The Apocalypse design. It plays with the form in some major ways, even more than Blades in the Dark in some ways. It has some fairly weak principles, unusual move design, and tends to cross the Player/MC line established by Apocalypse World quite frequently.

This blog post by John Harper discusses crossing the line.



			
				Apocalypse World - Crossing The Line said:
			
		

> I'm seeing a trend in some of the custom moves people are making for _Apocalypse World_. Basically, some moves are "crossing the line" regarding what the players' role is and what the MC's role is. I think it's a bit of a problem, so I'm writing this post to lay out my thinking.
> 
> *The Line*
> 
> In _Apocalypse World_, the players are in charge of their characters. What they say, what they do; what they feel, think, and believe; what they did in their past. The MC is in charge of the world: the environment, the NPCs, the weather, the psychic maelstrom.
> 
> Sometimes, the players say things that get very close to the line. Usually this happens when the MC asks a leading question.
> 
> _MC: "Nero, what do the slave traders use for barter?"
> Player: "Oh man, those ers? They use human ears."
> 
> That's a case of the player authoring part of the world outside their character, however -- and this is critical -- they do it from within their character's experience and frame of reference. When Nero answers that question, he's telling something he knows about the world.
> 
> Compare that exchange with this one, which is crossing the line:
> 
> MC: "Okay, Nero, so you get the box of barter away from the slave traders and haul into the back of the truck."
> Player: "Cool. I open it up."
> MC: "Okay. What do you see when you open it?"
> Player: "Um... uh, a bunch of severed fingers?"
> 
> See the difference? In the first case, the MC is addressing the character and asking about some knowledge he has. In the second case, the MC is fully turning over authorship of the world in-the-moment to the player, which is not part of the player role in AW.
> 
> *Moves That Cross the Line*
> 
> So, given that, we can look at a custom move and see if it's crossing the line. Is the move asking the player to fulfill the authorship role of the MC? In my opinion, if the answer is 'yes', it's not a good move. Let's look at some examples.
> 
> Here's a custom move from the book that approaches the line:
> 
> 
> When you *go into Dremmer’s territory*, roll+sharp. On a 10+, you can spot and avoid ambush. On a 7–9, you spot the ambush in time to prepare or flee. On a miss, you blunder into it.
> 
> 
> At face value, it might look like the player is authoring the world in-the-moment, determining if there's an ambush or not. But this move is rooted in what the character does and the effect it has. By making this move, the player isn't deciding what Dremmer and his people do, that's the purview of the MC. The move is determining how well the PC deals with what Dremmer already has in motion (i.e. lying in ambush for trespassers).
> 
> 
> For contrast, here's a custom move that crosses the line:
> 
> When you *try to deal with the rat-men*, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen, but choose 1:- they're drug-crazed and seeing visions
> - they're arming up for war on the tunnelers
> - they're starving for blood and demand some right now
> 
> See how that move asks the player to author the game world in-the-moment? There's no opportunity for another player to have any say. The player says what they do, then rolls the dice, then says what the NPCs do, then says what he does about it. Not only is this crossing the line into the MC's arena of authorship, it's also a huge bore for everyone else.
> 
> In various custom move threads around the web, I'm seeing moves that cross the line like that. They ask the player to initiate the action and then also author the outcome. That structure makes for a boring move and also a confused player who's asked to do things that fall under the MC's role.
> 
> 
> Here's a simple fix that improves that move:
> 
> 
> When you *try to deal with the rat-men*, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen, but the MC chooses 1:
> - they're drug-crazed and seeing visions
> - they're arming up for war
> - they're starving for blood and demand some right now
> 
> 
> That's pretty obvious, right? Instead of the player choosing what the NPCs do, the MC does (I also dropped 'on the tunnelers' from the war choice, so the MC can decide in-the-moment who the rat-men are going to fight).
> 
> 
> Here's another way to do it, with the player still choosing, without crossing the line:
> 
> 
> When you *try to deal with the rat-men*, roll+hot. On a 10+, they'll listen to what you have to say. On a 7-9, they'll listen if you prove yourself. Choose 1:
> - you consume their vile drug and have visions with them
> - you give them some intel on their enemies
> - you let them taste your blood (1-harm ap)
> 
> 
> Similar choices, but all written as actions the character takes.
> 
> 
> Hopefully that all makes sense. "Crossing the line" isn't the end of the world in a custom move, but it's something to be on the lookout for. Keeping moves on the player-role side of the line will help make them sharper and stronger in play.
> 
> _


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

Is it helpful to know that many groups run Dungeon World with an established setting? That there are adventure modules written for it? Is it helpful to know that our Blades in the Dark crew treats acquiring turf differently? That some players are all about The Devil's Bargain while others are not? That some Apocalypse World games use the battle moves while others do not? That principles can be actively prioritized in different ways? That we sometimes alter the principles? I know some people use Fiasco style setup for Monsterhearts to generate some of the initial fiction. When I ran Masks I did not use the default setting and went for something more X-Men like. One of the core features of Burning Wheel is the spokes on the wheel concept where you slowly bring in more advanced mechanics as fits your group or not. Some games run forever on just simple tests and bloody versus combat. Some use the detailed combat rules, but not Duel of Wits. Some do the reverse.

There's a fairly strong DIY mentality to the indie culture and we absolutely customize our games. We just tend to view doing so as hacking the game and hacks our encouraged. During my last Blades in the Dark session I advocated for harm because it made fictional sense to me. When I run Monsterhearts I often limit playbooks. When I ran 4e I did so by altering the rest structure and having very infrequent combat. I know  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] uses far more skill challenges than combat encounters.


----------



## Nagol

Campbell said:


> @_*Imaro*_
> 
> Is it helpful to know that many groups run Dungeon World with an established setting? That there are adventure modules written for it?  <snip>




Really?  I didn't think anything like a module existed other than Starters -- and they are not comparable to a published adventure for D&D.  I'm struggling to grasp what such a product would look like.   How could you make a true adventure in publishable form when play is so personalised to the characters?


----------



## Campbell

Nagol said:


> Really?  I didn't think anything like a module existed other than Starters -- and they are not comparable to a published adventure for D&D.  I'm struggling to grasp what such a product would look like.   How could you make a true adventure in publishable form when play is so personalised to the characters?




Red Box Vancouver does these modules that use a combination of fronts, custom moves, and B/X style module design with what looks like some pretty strong setup stuff to get PCs invested. It's definitely not exactly traditional Dungeon World play or traditional B/X play, but it looks like a strong mix. I have never personally used them because I don't play much Dungeon World, tending to favor other Powered By The Apocalypse games. I own a couple though. They are also supposed to be B/X compatible.


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> So let's talk about what the texts of 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons has to say about the play experience.





Are we really doing that if we slectively pick and choose which tools we will emphasize from the PHB and DMG. They are corebooks and thus are meant to be used and digested as a whole not piecemeal. I'm having a hard time believing that a 320 page rulebook of dense text can be summed up in 8 bullet points but ok i'll address these as best I can




Campbell said:


> The Player's Handbook calls the adventure the heart of the game.



Didn't see a quote for this but found the relevant passage in the PHB... I think it's more important to figure out how 5e is defining an adventure by looking deeper into the components it states are part of an adventure.




			
				PHB pg. 8 said:
			
		

> The adventure is the heart of the game, a story with
> a beginning, a middle, and an end. An adventure might
> be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased off the
> shelf, tweaked and modified to suit the DM’s needs and
> desires. In either case, an adventure features a fantastic
> setting, whether it’s an underground dungeon, a crumbling
> castle, a stretch o f wilderness, or a bustling city.
> It features a rich cast o f characters: the adventurers
> created and played by the other players at the table,
> as well as nonplayer characters (NPCs). Those characters
> might be patrons, allies, enemies, hirelings, or
> just background extras in an adventure. Often, one of
> the NPCs is a villain w hose agenda drives much o f an
> adventure’s action.
> 
> 
> Over the course o f their adventures, the characters
> are confronted by a variety of creatures, objects, and
> situations that they must deal with in some way. Sometimes
> the adventurers and other creatures do their
> best to kill or capture each other in combat. At other
> times, the adventurers talk to another creature (or even
> a magical object) with a goal in mind. And often, the
> adventurers spend time trying to solve a puzzle, bypass
> an obstacle, find something hidden, or unravel the current
> situation. Meanwhile, the adventurers explore the
> world, making decisions about which way to travel and
> what they’ ll try to do next.





Honestly I'm finding this hard to label as defining fo D&D since adventure as defined in the context of this passage seems to encompass very broadly what takes place in the majority of roleplaying games (traditional and indie) during play in the moment. The only thing I find possibly defining is the assertion that the adventure is created or purchased by the DM... it seems to point to a DM driven game. Of course if we look at the DMG we get an optional rule to subvert this assertion...




			
				DMG pg. 269 said:
			
		

> Plot points allow players to change the course of the
> campaign, introduce plot complications, alter the
> world, and even assume the role of the DM. If your first
> reaction to reading this optional rule is to worry that
> your players might abuse it, it's probably not for you.





So now we have a mechanism in 5e where the players help to create the adventures and even take on the role of DM... and even a little advice on what may be a warning sign about this particular playstyle with some players. this is what I am speaking to when I talk about flexibility






Campbell said:


> The game is divided up between adventures and downtime.





Yeah since downtime is presented as a totally optional activity (even in the PHB) I'm not sure it's really a defining feature of 5e play. But, I'd be interested in hearing why you think it is... 




Campbell said:


> The Dungeon Master's Guide calls the DM the creative force behind the game and architect of the campaign.





And yet in the same book are rules to allow players the power to...


1. ...add some element to the setting that the group must accept as true
2. ...add a complication to a scene
3. ...switch off as DM during play


I find number 3 especially interesting since if it is selected for a camapaign it means everything you are citing as DM duties or goals are actually shared by all players since they are all running and playing the game. Again with a less than a full page of optional rules 5e becomes a shared narrative game driven by all who are playing... that IMO is flexibility.






Campbell said:


> The Dungeon Master's Guide is divided into Master of Worlds, Master of Adventures, and Master of Rules.





These are catchy titles for headings of passages in the first 5 or so pages of the book. I'm not sure what is supposed to be taken away from this... that they decided to play on the title Dungeon Master to make them catchy?? I'm going to need more explanation as to what this is supposed to impart before i can address it.




Campbell said:


> The adventuring section makes near constant appeals to the story. They encourage you to define what the players' goals are for the adventure. They also encourage surprises and plot twists.





We must be reading different books then I see...




			
				DMG said:
			
		

> An adventure starts with a hook to get the players
> interested. A good adventure hook piques the interest
> of the players and provides a compelling reason for
> their characters to become involved in the adventure.





It doesn't say anything about defining their goals... it says to create your adventures around something that will hook the players interests... which IMO is just common sense...


I also notice you conveniently choose not to highlight this, IMO, very important assertion in the passage you quoted...




			
				Originally Posted by Dungeon Master's Guide said:
			
		

> When players don't know what they're supposed to do in a given encounter, anticipation and excitement can quickly turn to boredom and frustration. A transparent objective alleviates the risk of players losing interest.
> 
> 
> For example, if the overall story of your adventure involves a quest to deliver a priceless relic to a remote monastery, each encounter along the way is an opportunity to introduce a smaller objective that moves the quest forward. Encounters during the trip might see the adventurers accosted by enemies determined to steal the relic, or by monsters that are constantly threatening the monastery.
> 
> 
> *Some players create their own objectives, which is to be expected and encouraged. It is, after all, as much the players' campaign as yours.* For example, a character might try to bribe enemies rather than fight them, or chase after a fleeing enemy to see where it goes.
> 
> 
> Players who ignore objectives will have to deal with the consequences, which is another important facet of encounter design.





The fact that you are clearly reading these closely to highlight specific statements but choose to ignore this pretty big one makes me feel like you're cherry picking to suit your own preconceived idea of how D&D is supposed to be run...




Campbell said:


> The play style analysis is limited to hack and slash play and immersive storytelling with any given game fitting on a continuum between the two. There is no meaningful analysis of other ways to play role playing games - not even sandbox games.





Well the playstyle section references the player motivations section... where they explore 7 different player motivation types. And they also again stress that the game is just as much the players as the DM's. IMO this seems to support that 5e puts emphasis on catering to your players motivations as more important than a traditionally defined playstyle. In other words it seems to advocate designing a customized playstyle based on what you players desire... and as i said earlier in this thread is exactly what I do through varying techniques when running D&D.




Campbell said:


> The game has a reward structure built around overcoming challenges and reaching adventure milestones. The alternative is level ups according to the needs of the story.





There is also session based advancement... but again all this does is show flexibility in the advancement schema of 5e... 




Campbell said:


> Significant portions of the rules are devoted to combat, dungeon exploration, and traversing the wilderness. Most of the spells are heavily biased towards these activities. What little text and mechanisms there is devoted to character exploration assumes fairly static characters we play to rather than find out about.





And significant portions have nothing to do with combat, dungeon exploration and traversing the wilderness... especially in the DMG, again you seem to be cherry picking as opposed to really taking the time to look at what options the books actually present.


Honestly I mostly agree with the defualt being static characters... but there is no penalty for changing ideals, personality traits, and flaws. that said, I'm not sure how this precludes playing to find out about your ideals, flaws, bonds and personality traits. There are no penalties for choosing to change these things Or are you saying that in order to play to find out we need mechanics that force them to change at some point? Perhaps it's a matter of preference but I'm not sure I agree. If we all want to play to find out then I would think the players would be the best judge as to when something has affected theor characters to the point where something as significantr as a change in ideals or your very personality takes place... what i don't want is a couple rolls and you're a different person... tadaa!!




Campbell said:


> Relevant Passages are quoted below. Emphasis is mine.
> 
> 
> This is no weak text. I appreciate the call outs to trying to make decisions matter and keeping player interests in mind. I was also pleasantly surprised that the text emphasized the value of the rules far more than most practitioners here. I am actually liking the game as defined by the text far more than I like it as described by most users. However, this is a game that definitely wants to be run in a certain way. The adventure and the story are primary to the experience. World building is expected. Story advocacy is constant. Following defined objectives is expected and there are consequences when you don't.
> 
> 
> The game has a much stronger voice than expected. There are no weasel words here.





I think you feel that way because you chose to actively ignore the numerous options presented and the advice about using them in conjunction with the advice you cherry picked to support your own view. I think a much more thorough and neutral reading of the DMG would find that said voice is full of concessions but in isolation so that different groups can run the game they want to with 5e.


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> @_*Imaro*_
> 
> Is it helpful to know that many groups run Dungeon World with an established setting? That there are adventure modules written for it? Is it helpful to know that our Blades in the Dark crew treats acquiring turf differently? That some players are all about The Devil's Bargain while others are not? That some Apocalypse World games use the battle moves while others do not? That principles can be actively prioritized in different ways? That we sometimes alter the principles? I know some people use Fiasco style setup for Monsterhearts to generate some of the initial fiction. When I ran Masks I did not use the default setting and went for something more X-Men like. One of the core features of Burning Wheel is the spokes on the wheel concept where you slowly bring in more advanced mechanics as fits your group or not. Some games run forever on just simple tests and bloody versus combat. Some use the detailed combat rules, but not Duel of Wits. Some do the reverse.
> 
> There's a fairly strong DIY mentality to the indie culture and we absolutely customize our games. We just tend to view doing so as hacking the game and hacks our encouraged. During my last Blades in the Dark session I advocated for harm because it made fictional sense to me. When I run Monsterhearts I often limit playbooks. When I ran 4e I did so by altering the rest structure and having very infrequent combat. I know  @_*Manbearcat*_ uses far more skill challenges than combat encounters.




I think you either missed my point or I didn't present it well... at the end of the day it's the codification of the outcome by narrow moves that I feel puts the constraints on the GM/DM (and even the players to a lesser extent) in DW and in Apocalypse World games in general.  The player is deciding the pretty narrow parameters in which I must respond through their die roll, and for me as a DM/GM I don't want that.  In the example there's only 1 out of 3 player outcome choices that allow me to express creativity and then even with that one (danger) the ultimate outcome has to be an increase in danger... what if that's not what I want?  To me that feels like a distinct lack of GM/DM freedom in creativity and lack of flexibility.  Unless there's some way to disregard the moves and play more freeform... but then, as with the BW example earlier, it seems to loose what makes it DW.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> I think you either missed my point or I didn't present it well... at the end of the day it's the codification of the outcome by narrow moves that I feel puts the constraints on the GM/DM (and even the players to a lesser extent) in DW and in Apocalypse World games in general.  The player is deciding the pretty narrow parameters in which I must respond through their die roll, and for me as a DM/GM I don't want that.  In the example there's only 1 out of 3 player outcome choices that allow me to express creativity and then even with that one (danger) the ultimate outcome has to be an increase in danger... what if that's not what I want?  To me that feels like a distinct lack of GM/DM freedom in creativity and lack of flexibility.  Unless there's some way to disregard the moves and play more freeform... but then, as with the BW example earlier, it seems to loose what makes it DW.




Well, in D&D how much latitude for creativity expression does a single die roll such as attempting to strike an adversary in combat give the DM?  In D&D the player either hits or he doesn't.  If he hits, the damage might hit a threshold (death, unconsciousness, morale failure) or it doesn't.  That looks remarkably like your three points.  Miss or no threshold hit equals no creativity.

Now, I agree that at any point, the DM can decide to change the tactics of the adversary, but the same is true in Dungeon World.  In fact, in addition to that choice at every point, the GM is forced to change the circumstances of the battle more frequently than the DM is as he has to account both for partial success results like extra danger.  Some of those possible extra decision points are simple attrition (hp loss, ammo consumed, etc.) and so don't have creativity attached, but analogues to those also exist in D&D as... hp loss and ammo depletion, go figure.  Dungeon World just reduces the overall number of rolls and can provide the players negative situational changes as an alternative to the attrition.


----------



## Imaro

Nagol said:


> Well, in D&D how much latitude for creativity expression does a single die roll such as attempting to strike an adversary in combat give the DM?  In D&D the player either hits or he doesn't.  If he hits, the damage might hit a threshold (death, unconsciousness, morale failure) or it doesn't.  That looks remarkably like your three points.  Miss or no threshold hit equals no creativity.




But a single roll of the player in D&D doesn't in general determine the outcome of a shift in the environment(?? danger) that I as DM now *have* to make happen.  In general, in  D&D that's all left up to me and what I want to create or go for as DM and with an eye towards the surrounding fiction.



Nagol said:


> Now, I agree that at any point, the DM can decide to change the tactics of the adversary, but the same is true in Dungeon World.  In fact, in addition to that choice at every point, *the GM is forced to change the circumstances of the battle* more frequently than the DM is as he has to account both for partial success results like extra danger.  Some of those possible extra decision points are simple attrition (hp loss, ammo consumed, etc.) and so don't have creativity attached, but analogues to those also exist in D&D as... hp loss and ammo depletion, go figure.  Dungeon World just reduces the overall number of rolls and can provide the players negative situational changes as an alternative to the attrition.




It's not just about the adversary... due to the players roll I as DM am forced to take the encounter into a specific direction... irregardless of my desires or wants in the game.  That's the constraint I am speaking to, I'd rather not be forced to make an encounter more dangerous because the player decided on that outcome as opposed to taking damage or loosing some ammo.

Emphasis mine... forced (into a very narrow and specific change) is exactly my point.


----------



## Aenghus

IMO DM and player goals need to be sufficiently compatible to allow a functional and coherent game to emerge.

In retrospect when I was a regular player, as opposed to referee,  over 15 years ago now I generally sought a low risk strategy in RPG games, which annoyed some referees as they preferred a high risk game, this still being the days where low risk and high risk all pertained to chance of PC death. The referees generally didn't come out and say what they wanted, more often they would just not reward my efforts to find a safe path through the RPG minefield.

But games where the risk was too high for my tastes would make me even more hesitant and increase my analysis paralysis, as I hate my PCs being killed or crippled and avoiding that became an overriding priority for me, which led me to disengaging from the game. Looking back at it I wanted some sort of stake setting mechanic so I could deliberately choose the level of risk taking that worked for me as a player. 

The other thing I note is that character backgrounds were often ignored unless the referee liked them for some reason. Module timelines, PC casualties and overriding plots often put individual character stuff on the back burner, which in the case of players primarily invested in their own subplots would lose that player's  interest. The lack of willingness to talk about such issues and lack of agreed upon jargon to communicate clearly often made things worse.

As I see it some of the GM constraints in Player driven games are to attempt to discourage GM decisions from accidentally or deliberately sidelining player goals, something I saw happen an awful lot in conventional procedural DM driven games.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> But a single roll of the player in D&D doesn't in general determine the outcome of a shift in the environment(?? danger) that I as DM now *have* to make happen.  In general, in  D&D that's all left up to me and what I want to create or go for as DM and with an eye towards the surrounding fiction.
> 
> 
> 
> It's not just about the adversary... due to the players roll I as DM am forced to take the encounter into a specific direction... irregardless of my desires or wants in the game.  That's the constraint I am speaking to, I'd rather not be forced to make an encounter more dangerous because the player decided on that outcome as opposed to taking damage or loosing some ammo.
> 
> Emphasis mine... forced (into a very narrow and specific change) is exactly my point.




So, you complaint/observation is Dungeon World requires extra creativity during adjudication from the GM.  That's true.  Another complaint/observation is the players have more agency (and thus the GM less agency) over the immediate situation.  That's also true.  The player can have some control over the consequences of partial success as presented by the selected action.

As the GM you absolutely do not need to take the situation in a single direction based on player choice.  The player gets to change one dimension of the situation (it has become more dangerous) but has no input to how that extra danger resolves.  It could be additional adversaries arrive, it could be the next strike from the adversary will do more damage,  It may be the player attack also knocked over an oil lamp and a fire is beginning to spread threatening everyone.  It may be the food you ate earlier was in fact poisoned and the player's choice activates the toxin.  It may be the adversary taunts you with how your loved one is about to be killed and you have a limited time to attempt a rescue.  What the extra danger is wholly determined by the GM who remains in control of how the player's attempt affects the environment.


----------



## Imaro

Nagol said:


> So, you complaint/observation is Dungeon World requires extra creativity during adjudication from the GM.  That's true.  Another complaint/observation is the players have more agency (and thus the GM less agency) over the immediate situation.  That's also true.  The player can have some control over the consequences of partial success as presented by the selected action.




Please don't do that.  I said what my observations/complaint was (and it was never about DW needing extra creativity during adjudication from the GM, because honestly I don't feel it does... the GM providing color throughout an encounter is a part of the creativity outlet inherent in arguably all roleplaying games during resolution and outcome in said encounters)... as GM I am forced into a particular outcome by the players roll... that is both constraining around agency and creativity, IMO.  Re-framing my complaint in a (possibly??) disingenuous way is not going to foster good discussion or understanding.



Nagol said:


> As the GM you absolutely do not need to take the situation in a single direction based on player choice.  The player gets to change one dimension of the situation (it has become more dangerous) but has no input to how that extra danger resolves.  It could be additional adversaries arrive, it could be the next strike from the adversary will do more damage,  It may be the player attack also knocked over an oil lamp and a fire is beginning to spread threatening everyone.  It may be the food you ate earlier was in fact poisoned and the player's choice activates the toxin.  It may be the adversary taunts you with how your loved one is about to be killed and you have a limited time to attempt a rescue.  What the extra danger is wholly determined by the GM who remains in control of how the player's attempt affects the environment.




You are repeating what was said earlier... but still no matter how much color I interject the situation *must* become more dangerous... right?  Can it become less?  Can it stay the same?  I never said there was zero room for creativity within said constraints only that they exist upon the GM and are determined by the player.  I also asserted such constraints are generally not a part of D&D and thus creativity being constrained in said way is not a concern when I run D&D.  Perhaps it is constrained in a different way but so far that hasn't been asserted by anyone... and I don't think it is.

EDIT: At this point I'm a little unclear on what exactly you are trying to convey.  You seem to agree it's a constraint on DM creativity and forces the encounter into a general direction (one of becoming more dangerous)... are you trying to claim that this constraint doesn't matter?  Is not important or something else?


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> Please don't do that.  I said what my observations/complaint was (and it was never about DW needing extra creativity during adjudication from the GM, the GM providing color is a part of the creativity outlet inherent in arguably all roleplaying games during resolution and outcome)... as GM I am forced into a particular outcome by the players roll... that is both constraining around agency and creativity, IMO.  Re-framing my complaint in a disingenuous way is not going to foster good discussion or understanding.




All I did is express my understanding of the message I received from your text.  If I'm wrong, you should let me know -- as you did.  But, I will continue the technique because I find it valuable to confirm my understanding of others' points from time to time.



> You are repeating what was said earlier... but still no matter how much color I interject the situation *must* become more dangerous... right?  Can it become less?  Can it stay the same?  I never said there was zero room for creativity within said constraints only that they exist upon the GM and are determined by the player.  I also asserted such constraints are generally not a part of D&D.




Yes.  Agency in generally a zero-sum game.  If one party gains the agency to increase the danger level then the other party loses the ability to undo that increase. Otherwise the first party doesn't have agency merely the ability to issue recommendations.

Such constraints certainly aren't part of D&D.  In fact, most situations in D&D will have no escalation or de-escalation mechanisms since they are driven from keyed encounters that were locked down during the design phase.   Typically, the creature hits as hard as its stat block indicates, has the magical abilities listed, and its hp predetermined;  the encounter is what it is.  A DM can always inject an escalation/de-escalation in response as he wishes, of course and it has been a recommended practice over the different editions to have the environment respond appropriately to player action.  Much of that form of environment response remains the same in Dungeon World.  

Additionally, many D&D DMs ascribe to techniques whereby they adjust danger level off-the-cuff, typically covertly (fudging or illusionism).  Dungeon World restricts those tools, but despite @_*Manbearcat*_'s assertion, has similar ways to be deviate from a "honest" play experience if the GM wishes.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> <snip>
> 
> EDIT: At this point I'm a little unclear on what exactly you are trying to convey.  You seem to agree it's a constraint on DM creativity and forces the encounter into a general direction (one of becoming more dangerous)... are you trying to claim that this constraint doesn't matter?  Is not important or something else?




I think we're in general agreement.  I don't think it's a constraint on GM creativity; I think it forces the GM to provide more improv creativity to incorporate those player directives into the situation.  I do think it constrains the GM from being the single arbiter of pacing and stake-setting.

I don't advocate for either style of game; I pick the game that best fits my desire for play experience for a particular campaign.


----------



## Imaro

Nagol said:


> All I did is express my understanding of the message I received from your text.  If I'm wrong, you should let me know -- as you did.  But, I will continue the technique because I find it valuable to confirm my understanding of others' points from time to time.




No worries.  I've had the experience before of posters subverting what I've actually posted and may have jumped the gun there a bit.  My apologies.



Nagol said:


> Much of that form of environment response remains the same in Dungeon World



.  

Interesting... is this through specific moves?  And if so what is the play procedure for introducing these



Nagol said:


> Additionally, many D&D DMs ascribe to techniques whereby they adjust danger level off-the-cuff, typically covertly (fudging or illusionism).  Dungeon World restricts those tools, but despite @_*Manbearcat*_'s assertion, has similar ways to be deviate from a "honest" play experience if the GM wishes.




I'd also be interested in understanding the ways in which that deviation is accomplished.


----------



## Imaro

Nagol said:


> I think we're in general agreement.  I don't think it's a constraint on GM creativity; I think it forces the GM to provide more improv creativity to incorporate those player directives into the situation.  I do think it constrains the GM from being the single arbiter of pacing and stake-setting.
> 
> I don't advocate for either style of game; I pick the game that best fits my desire for play experience for a particular campaign.




I guess the only place I am in disagreement is around creativity.  If I must create around a certain outcome, even if I can bring about that outcome in any way I see fit, I still see it as constraints.  But at this point I don't think either of us is going to convince the other so I'm fine with agreeing to disagree on that point.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> My claim is that the flexibility of D&D is overrated, and that the non-flexibility of (say) BW is exaggerated. Hence I point to constraints in D&D, and to variants of BW.
> 
> The idea that D&D is flexible because there are lots of house rules, variants etc out there doesn't change my mind. I'm aware of a reasonable number of them.
> 
> But other systems can be modified and house-ruled too. The Cortex+ Hacker's Guide is full of such stuff for MHRP, Leverage and Smallville, for instance - I used some of those ideas to run my MHRP/Cortex Fantasy Hack.
> 
> When I look at 5e, the variants are mostly around PC build rules and some elements of combat action resolution. But at it's core it doesn't look that flexible. Just to give one example: the rate of PC _failure_ in BW is, to me at least, very striking. It's a core feature of the system, and a lot of other system elements are built around it. It's very hard for me to see how 5e would be modified to deliver that sort of experience in any coherent way.




Fair enough. I never said that any other game is not flexible, though. All I said was that D&D is flexible. 



pemerton said:


> Further thoughts on illusionism and railroading:
> But (within the fiction) the skulker does have a motivation or goal! It's just not known yet.




That's the illusion right there. Because the skulker's motivation has not yet been determined, so it is assumed he has a motivation of some sort....the players may guess at that motivation, which in turn could give the GM ideas on what to do....

It's not concrete....it's mutable. 



pemerton said:


> The short answer is "yes". Qv the OP example of finding the vessel; the discussion, somewhere upthread, of the players making a Catacombs-wise check to see if their PCs successfully navigated through the Hardby catacombs to find a way into the tower where the events of the OP took place; and the example, somewhere more recently upthread, of a MHRP/Cortex Fantasy player making a check to establish a Secret Door asset.
> 
> In the Adventure Burner, Luke Crane discusses the players checking Architecture to see whether their PCs discover a secret door into a citadel they wish to infiltrate. The failure of the check estalishes (among other things) that there is no secret door to be discovered.




See this is where I find the system as you've described it to be a bit flawed. It sounds to me like the players are free to attempt to introduce solutions to their problems via this method. They find themselves cornered in a room in some way? Oh, let's check for a secret door! Let's have the character with the best chance at such a check be the one to do it! 

It seems like this method could be easily abused to create deus ex machina type events that allow PCs to bypass challenges. And it also seems like it allows in some ways for players to really play to their characters' strengths rather than their weaknesses. 

Now, the players may be reasonable players who are not likely to abuse these rules....but it just seems like that would be open to multiple opinions and interpretations.


----------



## Nagol

Imaro said:


> Interesting... is this through specific moves?  And if so what is the play procedure for introducing these




Everything the GM does is through moves.  In fact, once play begins that's really his only tool since he doesn't get any dice.

Let me digress and discuss moves a little first.  In general, player moves are usually really generic.  I find it better to think of a player move as a defined resolution mechanic that the GM helps the player pick from based on what the PC is trying to accomplish.  "My character cuts the bottom of a vine and swings across the chasm" becomes a Defy Danger move with specific attributes involved for the roll.

The GM's moves are different than a player's, of course.  Both sets are often very generic, but the GM's are even more so.  Rather than a move of "Defy Danger" like a player may choose, the DM gets moves like "Reveal an Unwelcome Truth" or "Use up Their Resources".  The GM makes a move whenever a player rolls a failure OR when the players are waiting for something to happen (or if the situation is irresistible -- like a character says "Piece of cake.  What could possibly go wrong?").  GM moves are designed to keep the action flowing and don't really represent much more than the typical narration and action/reaction of the environment most games have.

Digression over.  Let's suppose a fight between the PCs and a guard breaks out.  One of the PCs attempts to hit the guard with a weapon (this is the Hack and Slash player move), but the player rolls a total of 4 on 2d6 + Strength.  Oops, a complete failure result.  The GM gets to make a move.  He might decide the guard strikes back (Deal Damage move), raises a horn to signal the rest of the band (Show signs of approaching threat), turn tail and run (Shows signs of approaching threat, Put someone on the Spot if they get a shot to interfere, or Change the Environment into a chase), or the guard may have a specific move defined in the stat block that is appropriate.

Now if the player had rolled 7 - 9 instead of <=6, the GM doesn't get a move.  The guard takes damage and something happens to the PC because of the partial success.  The typical side effect is the PC takes damage as the guard hits back, but it can be any GM move specifically targeting the PC that failed that makes sense within the situation.

So if the same group is having easy success at the gate and the GM gets an opportunity to play a move, perhaps the PCs hear the tumult of people scattering and see the prize they've come for being taken down one hallway (Offer an opportunity/Offer an opportunity with cost). as the camp scatters as best it can.



> I'd also be interested in understanding the ways in which that deviation is accomplished.




It comes back to the GM being in control of the developing fiction and moves.  Moves are defined in two categories: Hard and Soft.  A hard move has immediate irrevocable consequence like taking damage, losing gear, etc.  A Soft move adjusts the situation the PCs find themselves within often ramping up the danger of potential consequence of further failure.  The general expectation is the GM uses a Soft move to get the players moving and a Hard move most other times especially in reaction to failures and partial successes.  But there are no strong rules around whether the GM should use a Hard or Soft move since Soft moves are often a reasonable environmental response.

The primary way I'll call "Lead the horse to water and force it to drink".  One of the GMing principles for Dungeon World is "Play to find out what happens".  You're not supposed to plan too thoroughly and let the fiction go where the play experience takes you.  But let's say I'm a GM who really *really* wants a particular scene to occur.  Let's say I just watched _Slither_ or _Alien_ and I want the party to bring an outsider into the group that is acting as a host to a terrible evil so I can have it explode open at an inopportune time.

I want the inclusion of the Trojan Horse to be the PCs idea so that they will be caught off guard by the event when it does happen.   Since I'm in complete control as to how the fiction responds and the scene unfold I can lead the group to the base situation.   I design the Trojan Horse to be something that looks pitiable and something one or more of the players or characters is likely to respond to -- a sick pregnant woman, a lost and starving hound, whatever is appropriate and when the PCs try to approach/aid the creature I make a show of asking for a Move to successfully tend/befriend the Torjan Horse expecting at least a partial success and simple inclusion in the group from that point forward.  The player fails the move.  Now the expectation is I as GM will make a Move to reflect that failure and keep momentum going.  As a move in reaction, it should be a Hard move resulting in a change where the gambit the PC was pursuing can't pay off.  But I want it to happen so I make a Soft move.  Instead of the creature dying/running off in the night/attacking or whatever, I introduce a secondary threat and give the PCs a chance to save themselves AND the Trojan Horse.  If they fail again, I can continue to use a Move that doesn't prevent the adoption of the Trojan Horse into the group until such time as the group finally succeeds or I give up as my interference grows too blatant.  If I gave up, I can simply introduce a new Trojan Horse in the next couple of scenes until I get the result I want.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> Hit points/damage are one of D&D's less inflexible mechanics - they can represent anything that keeps the creature from being defeated, and anything that pushes it closer to defeat.



But "represent" here just means colour. It has no teeth.

It's not a coincidende that nearly all the early fantasy RPGs that react against D&D do so by abandoing the hp model, instead opting for some sort of wound/death spiral system.

And the hp mechanic produces endless debates about eg is it good or bad RP for a player whose PC has a loaded crossbow pointed at him/her to ignore the threat and suck up the attack.

Of indie games that exhibit this sort of "flexibility", in the sense of very loose connection between mechanics and colour, I would put HeroQuest revised at the top. Because it takes the hit point approach and generalises it across the whole framework of resolution (not just combat).

No serious sim system (eg RQ, RM, C&C, BW stripped of its overlays) is going to be flexible in that particular regard, because the whole point of those systems is to tightly anchor colour to resolution mechanics, so that the process of resolution also, ipso facto, establishes what is taking place in the fiction.



Tony Vargas said:


> I thought you considered D&D a sim game?



Not really. At least, not by the standards of RM or RQ. (And I should probably be putting C&S in there too, to complete the trifecta of "classic" sim games, but I don't know it very well.)

As I've often posted, hp and saving throws (as Gygax explains in his DMG) are fortune-in-the-middle resolution systems. They don't model any particular fictional process. Likewise the action economy. And one of 4e's great achievements is to really take hold of this by both hands and build the game around this mechanical premise from the ground up.

As I've also often posted, one of the things I like least about 3E is that it tries to meld a rather process-sim skill and combat manoeuvre system onto a wildly non-sim core combat mechanic (action economy and hit points), and then tops this off with non-sim, level-driven DC setting with an overlay of sim (ie the game makes no real effort to tell you what having a 40 DEX or a +30 natural armour bonus actually means in the fiction - the latter contrasting oddly, for instance, with the maximum +15 or so bonus available from the best magical plate armour in the game).

5e's bounded accuracy deals with some of the issues (eg the DC setting) but not others.


----------



## Maxperson

hawkeyefan said:


> See this is where I find the system as you've described it to be a bit flawed. It sounds to me like the players are free to attempt to introduce solutions to their problems via this method. They find themselves cornered in a room in some way? Oh, let's check for a secret door! Let's have the character with the best chance at such a check be the one to do it!
> 
> It seems like this method could be easily abused to create deus ex machina type events that allow PCs to bypass challenges. And it also seems like it allows in some ways for players to really play to their characters' strengths rather than their weaknesses.
> 
> Now, the players may be reasonable players who are not likely to abuse these rules....but it just seems like that would be open to multiple opinions and interpretations.




My issue with the whole secret door thing is that it makes it so that the PCs will always find every secret door.  If they succeed, they find the secret door.  If they fail, there was no secret door there to fail to find.  That stretches believability too much for me.  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s playstyle creates those kinds of situations too often for my liking.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> 5e which is, of course, very DM-empowering, and also much less player-empowering, but between the prior two WotC editions in ease of DMing, but with the 'hard' part of DMing being more a matter of taking responsibility (the issue Manbearcat was getting at) for the success of the game rather than from needing to master/manage the system like in 3.x/PF
> 
> <snip>
> 
> that sense of responsibility is an issue I think gets ignored when people complain about 5e being 'too easy' or 'imbalanced' or 'prone to illusionism' or whatever - that the DM has a responsibility, as a direct consequence of being Empowered, to make his campaign challenging, to give each PC their time in the sun, and to deliver a good play experience.
> 
> <sinp>
> 
> [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], were you thinking of GM Empowerment vs Responsibility in terms of Agency with respect to a game like 5e (very high Empowerment, tempered by equally great Responsibility) vs a game like pemerton presents BW to be* (ie player-driven with lesser or shared-with-players Empowerment, but less/shared Responsibility for the success of the game, was well)?



I can't speak for  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] (obviously) but I find the premise of the question a bit strange.

The GM has a lot of responsibility for the success of a game of BW. From the rulebook (Revised p 268; Gold p 551 - the text is the same in both editions):

In Burning Wheel, it is the GM's job to interpret all of the varous intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game. He's got to make sure that all the player wackiness abides by the rules.  When it doesn't, he must guide the wayward players gently back into the fold. Often this requires negotiating an action or intent until both player and GM are satisfied that it fits both the concept and the mood of the game.

Also, the GM is in a unique position. He can see the big picture - what the players are doing, as well as what the opposition is up to and plans to do. His perspective grants the power to hold off one action, while another player moves forward so that the two pieces intersect dramatically at the table. More than any other player, the GM controls the flow and pacing of the game. He has the power to begin and end scenes, to present challenges and instigate conflicts. It's a heady responsibility, but utterly worthwhile.

Most important, the GM is response for introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices. Burning Wheel is all about choices - from the minute you start creating a character, you are making hard choices. ONce play begins, as players choose their path, it is the GM's job to meaningfully inject resonant ramifications into play. A character murdes a guard. No big deal, right? Well, that's up to the GM to decide. Sure there's justice and revenge to consider - that's the obvious stuff -  but there's also the bigger picture elements to consider: whole provinces have risen in revolt due to one errant murder.​
Personally I find it very demanding.

The next page of both rulebooks goes on to discuss "the sacred and most holy role of the players", who "have a number of duties", to:

[O]ffer hooks to their GM and the other players in the form of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits . . .

[L]et the characgter develop as play advances . . . don't write a [PC] history in which all the adventure has already happened . . .

se their character to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones . . . to push and risk their characters, so they grow and change in surprising ways . . .

Use the mechanics . . .

Participate. Help enhance your friends' scenes and step forward and make the most of your own. . . . If the story doesn't interest you, _it's your job to create interestig situations and involve yourself._ . . .

Above all, have fun. . . . Listen to the other players, riff off of them; take their leads and run with them. Expand on their madness, but also rein them in whey they get out of hand. Remember that you're playing in a group, and _everyone_ has to have fun.​

Those duties are demanding too.  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has talked, upthread, about "release valves" and about inviolability of character concept. Well, BW - as you can see - insists that players put their characters on the line. Characters might change in ways that noone foresaw (changes of ability; changes of colour; changes of goals).

There's no analogue, in BW played as per the above guidelines, to just rolling up some PCs and taking on White Plume Mountain. (This is why Burning THACO is a significant departure. It drops much of the player and GM responsibilities mentioned above, and instead is all about light-hearted, beer-and-pretzels module bashing.)

I wouldn't think of it as having very much in common with either playing or GMing 3E/PF, except in some very surface level ways. There is not a whole lot of PC-build rules and lists of spells to remember and adjudicate. The dmeands all relate to establshing and engaging with the fiction.



Imaro said:


> Ok so looking at this and referencing the DW SRD... the player (because remember I was speaking to GM/DM creativity) decides what the out come will be from their move either less damage, spent ammo or danger.
> 
> Now let's first look at the example where the player picks less damage... With this choice I see no area where the GM gets to express any type of creativity.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the DM is constrained by the fact that he doesn't get to actively pick which of the consequences (even within the parameters of the 3 set forth for the specific roll in the game) affect the player.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The player chooses danger, well the GM does get to flex his creative muscles in that he gets to decide the type of danger and the fiction surrounding it but again he is constrained.



Perhaps I've missed the point, but this seems an odd place to argue about GM creativity. In D&D, if the player makes a roll to hit, all the GM gets to do is either leave the target's hp unchanged (on a miss) or reduce the hp tally (on a hit). (Having read on a bit, I see that  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] has made much the same point.)

And if we think about non-attack moves declared by a player, like climbing - well, the GM gets to declare "You go up", "You stay put" or "You fall". When  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] once suggested that, using DW-type principles, the GM might instead narrate an essential item falling into the crevasse, I remember this provoking a degree of controversy.

So what GM creativity are you envisaging being opened up by player action declarations that is missing from DW?



Imaro said:


> IMO...most indie games are curated to produce a specific experience. As an example the "moves" and appropriate responses in the Apocalypse World games are curated... nothing about them strikes me as particularly authentic or organic. They are artificial constructs used to classify and limit the actions of the participants in order to produce a game about X.



"Curated" is not a synonym for "designed". And no one is claiming that the _moves_ in PbtA games are authentic - the claim is about the play that these systems tend to support or push towards.

Because this thread is lacking in contention and points of disagreement, I'll just put this out there: one function of the D&D alignment system, in at least some of its applications, is to shield the players from having to fully deal with the ramifications of the choices. For instance, instead of having to wonder (in character) "Having done that terrible thing, am I still a good person?" there is a little entry on the PC sheet that assures them that they still are.

Another example in the same general conceptual space: Faith, in BW, is bound by "intent and task". The task is speaking a prayer: so, at the table, the player has to speak the prayer his/her PC is making. The intent is the deisred (mechanically defined) outcome, which also determines the difficulty of the check, although (as per Revised p 231; Gold p 523) "Outlandish intents are a fine cause for massively increased obstacles and a little divine wrath." Having to actually speak your prayer puts the player of the faithful character in quite a different position from the player of the D&D cleric: there is no "hiding" behind spell slots and V, S, M/F components. You have to give voice to your faith.

And yet another example, in a different conceptual space, but that relates back to the account of the GM and player roles that I have posted in response to Tony Vargas: the GM is expected to respond to what you, as a player of your character are pushing towards, and if you check fails the GM is expected to _thwart that intent_. Upthread,  [MENTION=6802765]Xetheral[/MENTION] described this as unduly adversarial. Personally I don't find it to be such (otherwise I wouldn't play the game), but it is putting emotions, and conceptions of the character and the fiction, on the line. There is nothing like an alignment system, a pre-written scenario, etc to serve as a buffer or a "release valve" for these issues.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Literally speaking, this is impossible in a typical RPG: the player is dependent upon the GM presenting the fictional situation, narrating the actions of NPCs present in that siutation, etc.
> 
> In the example you provide, here is the framing:
> 
> ​
> The difference between this - as you present it - and my preferred approach is that the action seems to be being driven by the GM's concerns and interests in the fiction, rather than the players'.




That's not the way I look at it. It's not driven by my concerns. It's driven by the world and what makes sense for the people in it. Yes, as the DM I have a hand in the authoring of the world. But I'm presenting "just the facts" - it's entirely up to the players to decide where they go and what they do.

PC: I want to buy stuff

DM: No problem Waterdeep has stuff. What skills will help you with this?

PC: I'm an ex-merchant.

DM: OK, you can tell that some people are selling forgeries (expected in a large city), and the price is higher than usual.

PC: Can I get a better price?

DM: Only at one place, everybody else held firm.

PC: I wonder why

DM: Rumors of civil war in Calimshan

I don't really see how this is "driven by my concerns." It has some potential adventure hooks, but other than the hooks, those adventures haven't been written. If they take one, then we'll see where it leads.

I see it as being driven entirely from the PC's concerns. The PC is the one that says they want to go buy the silk, and their questioning is what leads to additional hooks.

The reason I say I don't see it as "framing the scene" is because I'm specifically not trying to make the scene interesting, or tying it into the motivation of the PCs. I'm not trying to make it uninteresting, I'm just not actively trying to steer it in any specific direction. What I get out of the BW/DW recommended approach (which may be incorrect) is that you're always trying to tie _every_ scene into the motivations and story of the PCs. To me _that_ sounds like the story is being driven by the DM's concern - or their interpretation of what the players/characters are looking for. 

My goal is to present the world uncolored by my wishes in regards to story line/fiction. I love detailing the world itself, and the motivation of the others that live their. But all of that is still just scenery and color until the PCs interact with it.



pemerton said:


> From my point of view, that's one way of getting at the distinction between GM-driven and player-driven play. As I said, the approach you favou seems to mean that it is the GM's conerns and interests that underping the GM's framing and narration.




And I think that a DM-driven game is characterized by the DM writing story arcs and attempting to keep the game within that story arc. Although it doesn't always require railroading, it's quite difficult to have a DM-driven game that doesn't involve railroading. Although I have some input on the character's story arcs regarding NPCs like family members (especially extended ones) and history, the rest of my preparation and story arcs are written about the world around them, without involvement with the PCs. 

When the PCs intersect with these story arcs, they then have the control over the story. Yes, I still have control over the NPCs, and the decisions they make will write a part of those story arcs too. But those are driven by the NPCs established goals and personalities, and the logical reactions they will have to the PCs involvement.

Of course, I've had some players that don't contribute much to any story arc. These are the types of players that I find don't play in a sandbox style well. They need more to hang onto from a story arc, and in particular they have generally been most interested in a more epic style story arc. I can accommodate that as well, and the last campaign morphed more and more into that as the players involved changed. But it's not my preferred approach, because I think that the collaborative story is much better. I just have different thresholds as to what the players author and what they don't. 



pemerton said:


> Well, you're the one who described an angry owlbear protecting its cubs - which seemed to suggest conflict. And I didn't say anything about combat. The only two times the PCs in my 4e game encountered a bear, they tamed it. Based on your account, your - non-4e game -seems to be the one in which the players lean towards combat.




I described an angry owlbear which is a potential conflict. It's an obstacle to potentially be overcome. They can run away, they can try to calm it down, they can fight it, whatever.

Most people I know agree that 4e put combat front-and-center. That doesn't mean that you can't run a 4e game without combat being a focus. Nor does it mean that a non-4e game won't involve combat.

The fact that the players chose combat this time doesn't tell you anything about the rest of the campaign. In addition, this particular encounter really altered their approach to encounters, and when they would actually resort to combat.

I don't see any connection between this, and the question of whether or not the GM is "going where the action is". Unless one is assuming that _the action_ doesn't involve the normalcy of the world and considerations of humanity - but what is the basis for such an assumption?[/QUOTE]

Perhaps I'm not explaining it well. My point is that "going where the action is," at least as I've seen it explained, is that you skip past the boring parts. The idea of framing scenes like a movie or TV show. Each scene has a beginning, middle, and end, and once you reach the end, you jump ahead to the next scene. 

The scenes are when something "interesting" happens in the fiction. That things like the traveling from one place to another, the exploration in the dungeon with empty rooms, etc. basically anything that doesn't have an encounter, a decision point, or moving the fiction forward, is a scene to be skipped. 

The scene framing (at least the way I think about it) comes into play because of that construct.

For example, If you're following me with a camera, and I get up, put on my gun holster, I sit down for breakfast, then call my wife, who asks me to get some stuff at the grocery store, which I write down on a pad of paper on my desk, that shows the name of my private detective company at the top, then put on my coat, and I walk out my front door, then get in the car, drive to a client's, have a conversation, go to the hardware store, the pharmacy, meet a friend for lunch, stake out an office building, watching several people enter and exit over the course of hours, taking pictures,  taking notes, go to the grocery store where a villain attacks me, there isn't really any need to frame the scene. The narrative is continuous and flows from one "scene" to another. More importantly, you probably aren't expecting the attack in the grocery store. 

On the other hand, you might start with me getting out of the car at the grocery store. The camera pans up so when I'm leaning to get out of the car, you see the gun holster under my coat. You've framed the scene - I'm carrying a gun, and there will probably be a use for it in the grocery store, or you wouldn't have shown it to me so obviously.

When the violence happens in the grocery store, the expectation is that the gun will come into play. But in the first scene, that's just a routine "getting up to go to work" which happens to involve a gun, the expectation in the scene is different. 

Yes, both are technically scene framing. And one could argue that the first one is just a really long frame. But eventually it's long enough that it's not a frame, it's just part of the life of the character. Sure, waking up, getting dressed, getting breakfast, etc. establishes a normalcy, that life isn't really all that different for me than anybody else. More importantly, the attack isn't even necessarily expected at that point. There's no framing that points to a specific, violent encounter.

The boring, mundane part of life makes the character more human, you don't expect the violent encounter, and it has a greater impact when it happens. I see lots of advice to skip all of that. That's not to say that you can't gloss through some of it. Breakfast doesn't have to be watching him eat the whole thing, for example. The stakeout can show the passage of time based on how much of my coffee is drunk, etc. But what I'm not doing is deciding, as the DM, when the scene ends, and what we skip. Again, that sounds more like a DM-driven game, where the DM is deciding what's important and what's not. I'm also not waving a flag and saying, "pay attention, something important is happening here, or we wouldn't be here."

I do think that there are a lot of good approaches that have been mentioned here from those style of games. As I was writing out the market scene, it occurred to me that I give the player a lot of leeway on describing their past and how that will help with the current scenario. Likewise, when they meet somebody that their character knows from their past, I give them a lot of leeway in describing their relationship, how they feel about each other, perhaps some key events that explain why they feel that way about each other, etc. So I do let the players write a lot more at the table than I have given credit. Overall, I don't think we're all that far apart in our approaches, other than I like to have a really well detailed world ready for the PCs to explore.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> When I look at 5e, the variants are mostly around PC build rules and some elements of combat action resolution. But at it's core it doesn't look that flexible. Just to give one example: the rate of PC _failure_ in BW is, to me at least, very striking. It's a core feature of the system, and a lot of other system elements are built around it. It's very hard for me to see how 5e would be modified to deliver that sort of experience in any coherent way.




I do see a lot of that - new races, new classes, etc. I find that a lot of the home-brew that is showing up holds little interest for me too. Most of the UA stuff hasn't excited me terribly either, although there's lots of stuff I have stolen in part. But for a different group of gamers it's very popular. 

My 5e PHB Home Rules is 123 pages now. It covers character creation (limitations based on abilities, reworked races that support how they are different in the world, traits, etc., I don't have "build rules" like how to make the best fighter, etc. And I hope that the choices are meaningful, and not always easy to make), reworked classes, feats, equipment, movement, armor (including higher ACs and damage reduction), rules that support the different types of weapons (rapiers aren't great against plate, for example), combat (called shots, tactics based on fighting instead of a grid), magic (to tie it into the world better, and including rules on research learning spells, casting spells you haven't mastered, interrupting spellcasting, etc.), crafting magic items, healing, conditions (particularly in regard to addressing things such as pain, exhaustion etc.), separating short and long rest abilities from resting, along with including rules regarding sleep, or more specifically lack of, being awakened, etc. No initiative in combat, injuries, etc.

Also, failure _is_ much more common in my game. For example, our combat system is based on the idea that people wear armor because it offers very good protection. Tactics, based on positioning and endurance among other things, is really important to winning a combat. But monsters are also tougher. Like the giant in Game of Thrones picking somebody up and slamming them into a wall. Hit points are capped at level 8-12 (depending on race) and only Constitution bonuses are added as you gain levels after that. So combats require much more thinking than 5e (which is pretty much hit first and the most frequently). It's bringing it back to the gritty, deadly combat that I remember of AD&D (at least how we played it). Combat is more about survival than just being an obstacle to the treasure and a source of XP. 

So on the one hand, your chance of surviving is somewhat better, but any other creature wearing armor has the same benefits too. So it's harder to kill your opponents too. One of the things that I like least about 5e is how easy combat is (in most cases you hit at last 40%, but often more like 60% of the time), I like that it's fast, and it can be swingy, but overall the assumption is that the PCs will win, and win fairly quickly. The other thing is the very fast advancement. 

Advancement is very, very slow as well. And since there are level caps based on ability scores, that can have an impact too. With armor being more effective, even low level characters make a difference. 1st and 2nd level characters are nearly as effective as 8th level characters in combat, since only a +1 proficiency bonus separates them. They have fewer hit points, of course, but the way hit points work in the game it's not as much a hindrance provided they can survive a combat. Armor proficiency is based on background and region. Every able-bodied person in the village is trained in the use of several weapons and armor up to mail armor. 

Yet, at least to me, and my players, it still feels like 5e. It's feeling a lot like AD&D too (one of my goals), but because almost all of the mechanics are based off of existing 5e mechanics, that's what it feels like, mechanically. The exhaustion track and death saves are used extensively, for example. Combat is quite different in many ways, but also easy to understand. It's very modular, and you start with the basics and add layers as the character improves as they gain levels. 

This isn't really all that different than what I did in AD&D (which was also very easy to homebrew, although far from consistent which is part of why I was modifying it), 2e helped simplify some things, and it wasn't difficult to move our rules to 3e either. We were happily on the battle mat and lots of modifiers approach that started with 2.5e and continued until 4e. It was virtually impossible to continue with what we had in 4e. It was just too different.

5e is much simpler, but with a relatively small number of mechanics (some of which come from 4e, and are very good - mechanics were generally a strong point of 4e). 

That's why I find D&D as flexible. It is capable of supporting many different play styles, from minor changes or additions, to very significant modifications, all without breaking the system. Is it perfect? Of course not. Does it benefit from being the game with the most history and the largest base? Of course. If you're counting variations, pretty much any d20 book released is a variation of D&D. 

Does that mean other systems aren't variable? No. But, at least based on what I'm seeing in this thread, and also by looking at BW vs DW and other variants, there's a more narrowly defined core. As you've stated several times, the way I play D&D would break the game in BW. I don't think the opposite is true. While attempting to play BW/DW with D&D rules would be difficult. But my understanding is that it grew out of a particular way they played OD&D. In which case it's a also a variant of OD&D. And in reality, the flexibility of D&D also includes OD&D, BECMI, AD&D, all the way to 5e.

Even if you stick with only TSR/WotC published material - there is an enormous amount of variations from OD&D and AD&D alone simply by including the alternate rules published in Dragon magazine.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Further thoughts on illusionism and railroading:
> 
> It's true that fictional events, unlike events in the real world, are authored. But how does this tend to show that some approach or other to RPGing is illusionism?
> 
> Illusionism requires an illusion. There's no illusion in acknowledging that the fiction is authored. If anything, wouldn't it be illusionistic to somehow pretend that the elements that make up a fiction _aren't_ authored, but rather are the result of the (purely imaginary) causal processes taking place (as authored) within the fiction?
> 
> But (within the fiction) the skulker does have a motivation or goal! It's just not known yet.
> 
> If the GM _had_ already decided what it is, then (as I have talked about upthread) to the extent that the skulker becomes a focus of play at all, it is the players trying to find out what is written in the GM's notes.
> 
> If the GM doesn't know - at that point - what the skulker's goal is, then if the players engage with the skulker as an element of the fiction, some sort of motivation or goal for the skulker will emerge out of play. Eg, in the 4e game, at a certain point I decide that skulker is engaged to the baron's niece. I obviously couldn't have made that decision until it was established that there was a baron, so this was months of play (more than a year, I would guess) after the first occurrencdes of the yellow-robed mage as an NPC. This established new backstory about him, which informs what his motivations are. These emerging motivations (i) provide colour and framing, and (ii) answer questions that arose from earlier play ("What exactly is the skulking wizad's plan?")




Overall I agree with most of this. I disagree with the "players trying to find out what is written in the GM's notes." Or I guess it's the sense that you (or others) seem to consider that a negative. If the players are fighting a skulker, they may just be trying to survive the battle. They might not be giving any consideration beyond that, and may never give any consideration to it. Whether I have notes or not.

Just like creating the motivation on the fly isn't better or worse, neither is creating it ahead of time. Nor does that mean that the player have any interest in finding out what's in my notes. They remain interested in the world, the fiction, and whether I have it pre-written or not is (in my mind) irrelevant. Just as having it prewritten doesn't mean that it will actually come into play, nor that it will necessarily restrict my options as a DM as the scene unfolds.

Where it is a problem, is if they DM works to ensure that the players decide to learn what's in the DM's notes. That is, if the DM has prepared something so tries to push the play to ensure that his hard work will be used.

The reality, as far as I'm concerned, is this: The DM is providing the motivation for the skulker. Whether the DM predetermines that, improvises it, uses some sort of combination of the two, or even predetermines it, then changes it as better alternatives present themselves, is all good.

As a DM I certainly can't know or plan for everything ahead of time. I might have a motivation, if not, I'll have to improvise.
I won't know what the PCs are going to do, or where the fiction will lead for the evening. So I might need to change something.
I don't agree that the skulker _has_ to relate to the rest of the campaign's fiction, but it doesn't mean it can't either.

And in regards to [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan - there are quite a few people in the world that think that's exactly how the world works. Some people believe in fate, and that their lives are essentially predetermined (not saying I do, but I won't deny others the right to their beliefs). Of course, in the real world, each person is their own author. In that case, there isn't an overarching DM-being that's authoring everything, but they are taking on that roles. This isn't to turn this thread into a discussion about this. Just pointing out that like gaming theory, there are a lot of perspectives on how life works, and we may both be wrong.

Having said that, what is a simple fact is that a DM has a limited amount of time to prepare stuff, without having full information as to where the adventure will lead for the evening. If you don't want to be railroaded, then the DM has to rely on things like improvisation, and sometimes changing what they were thinking ahead of time. Can you run a game without these sorts of things? Yes, but I personally don't enjoy when I have to run a game like that (due to participant preferences) because it greatly limits my options to provide options for the players/characters.

One could eliminate the "authoring" by using an entirely randomly determined dungeon and event generator. But that is still authored in the sense that there area limited number of options on the table, and somebody had to decide what those were.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

hawkeyefan said:


> That's the illusion right there. Because the skulker's motivation has not yet been determined, so it is assumed he has a motivation of some sort....the players may guess at that motivation, which in turn could give the GM ideas on what to do....
> 
> It's not concrete....it's mutable.




But even in real life, aren't people's motivations mutable? Isn't it possible under whatever circumstances that they'll change their mind, or learn something, or decide that the risk isn't worth the reward, or whatever?

Regardless, pre-determining everything that can possibly happen (including random ones) is an awful lot to put on the DMs shoulders.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]

The basics of the techniques outlined in Apocalypse World work well in pretty much most games. Amongst D&D Versions I think they work best in B/X. 5e would probably come next, although I would strip out Inspiration and Feats. They could be made to work decently with 1e or 2e (without all the crazy supplements). I know from experience they work really well with Stars Without Number which is a B/X clone. I would not use them with 3e because of all the active management needed to make the rules work. I also would not use 4e because 4e works best as 4e. Basically the more tightly wedded to particular mechanics that require DM intervention and the rest cycle the less well it works. You really do not want to worry about things like balancing encounters and adventuring days. That probably speaks to my own preferences for handling time though. I feel like the specific principles should be tuned to what you're after though.

Burning Wheel is a different story though. The specific techniques are intimately tied into its mechanical features. It is a highly integrated design. I feel like Burning Wheel should be played as Burning Wheel.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Nagol said:


> Everything the GM does is through moves.  In fact, once play begins that's really his only tool since he doesn't get any dice.
> 
> Let me digress and discuss moves a little first.  In general, player moves are usually really generic.  I find it better to think of a player move as a defined resolution mechanic that the GM helps the player pick from based on what the PC is trying to accomplish.  "My character cuts the bottom of a vine and swings across the chasm" becomes a Defy Danger move with specific attributes involved for the roll.
> 
> The GM's moves are different than a player's, of course.  Both sets are often very generic, but the GM's are even more so.  Rather than a move of "Defy Danger" like a player may choose, the DM gets moves like "Reveal an Unwelcome Truth" or "Use up Their Resources".  The GM makes a move whenever a player rolls a failure OR when the players are waiting for something to happen (or if the situation is irresistible -- like a character says "Piece of cake.  What could possibly go wrong?").  GM moves are designed to keep the action flowing and don't really represent much more than the typical narration and action/reaction of the environment most games have.
> 
> Digression over.  Let's suppose a fight between the PCs and a guard breaks out.  One of the PCs attempts to hit the guard with a weapon (this is the Hack and Slash player move), but the player rolls a total of 4 on 2d6 + Strength.  Oops, a complete failure result.  The GM gets to make a move.  He might decide the guard strikes back (Deal Damage move), raises a horn to signal the rest of the band (Show signs of approaching threat), turn tail and run (Shows signs of approaching threat, Put someone on the Spot if they get a shot to interfere, or Change the Environment into a chase), or the guard may have a specific move defined in the stat block that is appropriate.
> 
> Now if the player had rolled 7 - 9 instead of <=6, the GM doesn't get a move.  The guard takes damage and something happens to the PC because of the partial success.  The typical side effect is the PC takes damage as the guard hits back, but it can be any GM move specifically targeting the PC that failed that makes sense within the situation.
> 
> So if the same group is having easy success at the gate and the GM gets an opportunity to play a move, perhaps the PCs hear the tumult of people scattering and see the prize they've come for being taken down one hallway (Offer an opportunity/Offer an opportunity with cost). as the camp scatters as best it can.
> 
> It comes back to the GM being in control of the developing fiction and moves.  Moves are defined in two categories: Hard and Soft.  A hard move has immediate irrevocable consequence like taking damage, losing gear, etc.  A Soft move adjusts the situation the PCs find themselves within often ramping up the danger of potential consequence of further failure.  The general expectation is the GM uses a Soft move to get the players moving and a Hard move most other times especially in reaction to failures and partial successes.  But there are no strong rules around whether the GM should use a Hard or Soft move since Soft moves are often a reasonable environmental response.
> 
> The primary way I'll call "Lead the horse to water and force it to drink".  One of the GMing principles for Dungeon World is "Play to find out what happens".  You're not supposed to plan too thoroughly and let the fiction go where the play experience takes you.  But let's say I'm a GM who really *really* wants a particular scene to occur.  Let's say I just watched _Slither_ or _Alien_ and I want the party to bring an outsider into the group that is acting as a host to a terrible evil so I can have it explode open at an inopportune time.
> 
> I want the inclusion of the Trojan Horse to be the PCs idea so that they will be caught off guard by the event when it does happen.   Since I'm in complete control as to how the fiction responds and the scene unfold I can lead the group to the base situation.   I design the Trojan Horse to be something that looks pitiable and something one or more of the players or characters is likely to respond to -- a sick pregnant woman, a lost and starving hound, whatever is appropriate and when the PCs try to approach/aid the creature I make a show of asking for a Move to successfully tend/befriend the Torjan Horse expecting at least a partial success and simple inclusion in the group from that point forward.  The player fails the move.  Now the expectation is I as GM will make a Move to reflect that failure and keep momentum going.  As a move in reaction, it should be a Hard move resulting in a change where the gambit the PC was pursuing can't pay off.  But I want it to happen so I make a Soft move.  Instead of the creature dying/running off in the night/attacking or whatever, I introduce a secondary threat and give the PCs a chance to save themselves AND the Trojan Horse.  If they fail again, I can continue to use a Move that doesn't prevent the adoption of the Trojan Horse into the group until such time as the group finally succeeds or I give up as my interference grows too blatant.  If I gave up, I can simply introduce a new Trojan Horse in the next couple of scenes until I get the result I want.




Part of what I struggled with (and perhaps it's just because it never became second nature) is the design of the game itself. 

The move mechanic still feels very, very foreign to me. Why do I have to have a "move" to blow a horn? Why isn't it just blowing a horn?

Does running mean you have to choose between shows signs of an advancing threat, put someone on the spot, or change the environment, or can all three occur? Why can't they just turn and run, and the players each tell me how they react?

Overall, it just felt to "gamey" to me, like the focus was on following the rules, rather than just following the characters. One of the main reasons I've yet to find a video game, as immersive as they are, provide anything remotely like the experience of playing D&D since literally almost anything can happen. 

I understand the concepts behind the system (at least some of them) and that the focus is on keeping the action flowing. Part of it is because I don't consider a primary purpose of being a DM as keeping the action flowing. Yes, I want to ensure that things don't get stuck, but really I see it as the PCs responsibility to keep things flowing. I'm not interested in making a soft move to move the characters along, because I think things are too slow, unless they are too slow because of a mistake I've made.

They are the ones making the decisions. So I let them do so without my interference.

Your example of the Trojan Horse is a good one in terms of showing that even games that are supposed to prevent DM overreach, it's going to be possible in just about any system you can design.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Either I'm really missing something here or this is saying the player-as-character is banned from the option of simply Doing Nothing in a given situation even when such would make sense.  This seems...odd.



Generally, I like to present situations in such a way that the players, in playing their characters, have a reason to act. This goes back to Eero Tuovinen's "standard narrativistic model":

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . 

Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules.​
If a player's response to a situation that I frame is to have his/her PC do nothing, then I've clearly framed a dud scene. In practice, because these things are happening via back-and-forth, if I can see that the situation I'm narrating is not engaging the player(s) via their PC(s), I'll change focus or add something in to correct for the initial misfiring.



Lanefan said:


> Read literally, this tells me nothing can happen in your game just for the hell of it or for no particular reason other than "because", which sounds stiflingly dull.
> 
> In your game, would the following exchange be able to occur:
> 
> Player (whose character has rarely expressed interest in shopping and has never mentioned silk before): "Hey guys, I'm going to head into town and pick up some silk - Calimshite, preferably. Anyone want some?"
> DM (to whom this comes right out of the blue): "Er...any particular reason why?"
> Player: "Nah, just tired of these old trail duds, thought I could make something out of silk to wear instead now the weather's warmed up"
> DM: <either says yes or rolls the dice>



I guess it could happen. I don't think it would happen - it doesn't sound all that interesting. A bit of light colour, perhaps. Certainly not worthy of a check.

More generally, I don't see why the idea of most action declarations having a purpose behind them, connected to the stakes of the evolving ingame circumstances, is dull. Whereas, given that I find shopping for clothes in real life rather tedious, why would I want to spend my leisure time pretending to be shopping for clothes?




Lanefan said:


> We're right back to my somewhat silly example of Schroedinger's diamonds from about a jillion pages ago, where as a player I can bring diamonds into existence in the game world just by having my character search for them.  Players shouldn't be able to punch their own ticket to a solution like this and so easily bypass the challenge.



That's kind of the point, though. In my preferred approach, there is no _the challenge_. If the PCs enter the fortress via a secret door, the GM's job is to narrate the resultant situation in such a way that it contains complication that forces a choice.



Lanefan said:


> it adds to the depth of the game world if not everything revolves around the PCs and their own interests and it adds to the mystery (not to mention believability) if there's always a level of question whether any given thing is in fact relevant to the PCs or not.



My game has plenty of mystery without the additional mystery of "Do we have any reason to care about this?"

As for depth: in my personal experience I haven't found random encounters with owlbears to add all that much depth. I tend to find that the "depth" of the gameworld is a product of immersion in compelling ingame situations, rather than a product of the accumulation of random details.



Lanefan said:


> From the players' side this seems like nothing more than splitting hairs.  They see the yellow-robed guy, eventually realize he's more significant than first thought, dig further, and learn some things about his motivations-goals-personality-history-etc.
> 
> Whether you decide he's engaged to the Baron's niece a) on the spot during a played session (i.e. from what's already in the DM's brain) or b) 6 years ahead of time in your world design phase (i.e. from what's already in the DM's notes) doesn't matter a whit to the players at the table.



The last claim is not true. It makes a huge difference, as a player, if I'm trying to divine the content of the GM's notes or if I'm trying to play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues.



Lanefan said:


> The illusion is in making a) and b) above completely indistinguishable from the players' side



But they're not.



Lanefan said:


> You-as-DM still decided it, and they as players still learned it.



Again, all I can do is reiterate: there is a huge difference between playing a game in which the goal is to discover (say) whether or not the GM has decided that the Dusk War is pending, and playing a game where your PCs are trying to show to the cosmos that the Dusk War is not pending, and you (as a player) are trying as hard to do that as your PCs are.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Campbell said:


> [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]
> The basics of the techniques outlined in Apocalypse World work well in pretty much most games. Amongst D&D Versions I think they work best in B/X. 5e would probably come next, although I would strip out Inspiration and Feats. They could be made to work decently with 1e or 2e (without all the crazy supplements). I know from experience they work really well with Stars Without Number which is a B/X clone. I would not use them with 3e because of all the active management needed to make the rules work. I also would not use 4e because 4e works best as 4e. Basically the more tightly wedded to particular mechanics that require DM intervention and the rest cycle the less well it works. You really do not want to worry about things like balancing encounters and adventuring days. That probably speaks to my own preferences for handling time though. I feel like the specific principles should be tuned to what you're after though.
> 
> Burning Wheel is a different story though. The specific techniques are intimately tied into its mechanical features. It is a highly integrated design. I feel like Burning Wheel should be played as Burning Wheel.




Maybe I spent too much time looking at BW and DW and not enough at AW. 

Although your point about tuning to specific principles (like balancing encounters and adventuring days - both of which I've more or less eliminated), is the key for me. My interest in learning more about how the games work is to mine ideas for my homebrew at this point. I don't think I'll really ever have the time (or a group) to play other games at this stage. Having said that, I would be happy to play it at a convention sometime. 

I still really enjoy these threads though, they help me identify more of what I want and _don't_ want, which ultimately helps me fine-tune my game. Aside from that, perhaps my questions (or outright ignorance sometimes...often?) will produce answers that will help others and might very well steer them toward some of the indie games.

Time to go dig up AW again and reread it...


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> The last claim is not true. It makes a huge difference, as a player, if I'm trying to divine the content of the GM's notes or if I'm trying to play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues.
> 
> ...
> 
> Again, all I can do is reiterate: there is a huge difference between playing a game in which the goal is to discover (say) whether or not the GM has decided that the Dusk War is pending, and playing a game where your PCs are trying to show to the cosmos that the Dusk War is not pending, and you (as a player) are trying as hard to do that as your PCs are.




I guess I'm also having difficulty understanding the difference. I certainly don't think, no actually I _know_ my players can't tell the difference, because we've had discussions and they have told me that. They are surprised about what I know ahead of time, and what I don't. And if they try to guess, they are often (usually?) wrong. 

Actually, the opposite has been an issue, although the players didn't identify it as such. I try to take good notes about what's going on in the campaign, in an easy way to quickly retrieve said notes when needed. But of course, sometimes I don't, or I forget something.

So it's much more likely for me to forget something when I don't have notes (either before or during the session) and they notice an inconsistency, or something I've forgotten (from a year-and-a-half ago). 

Preparing it ahead of time just means I don't have to take those notes during the session (or recreate them after the session). 

Aside from keeping good notes, I use a few simple techniques to keep things flowing smoothly. Probably the most important one is a big list of names so that everybody they meet has a name. Being able to give a quick description of a person (even if I can't do voices or mannerisms myself), is also very important. It doesn't matter if the NPC was prepared before the session or not. It needs to feel like that person was there in the world all along.

Anyway, I'm curious as to what the difference is from your perspective. What is the huge difference? How does it present itself from the player's perspective? Especially since you seem to be in agreement that developing a motivation on the spot doesn't constitute any worse or illusory scenario as a motivation that was predetermined.

My only real guess is that since you seem to take a more active role in writing the fiction as it happens as a GM than I do, that you can better tailor the material to the moment if it is not predetermined. But I don't know why you can't take something predetermined and modify it as needed. You've also pointed out plenty of situations where you've had predetermined content, other than not knowing exactly how or when it will come into play.

The most important thing that I think you're still missing, at least in regards to my campaigns, is that the goal is _never_ to discover whats in my notes. The character's goals are the character's goals in the world, and that's it. I might know there's a war brewing, and the PCs may be off on their adventures completely oblivious to it. War may actually break out. If it does in a region where they are presently adventuring, it might have a direct impact. Otherwise, they'll just hear of it amongst the news and rumors of the day. 

Their goals are simply to do whatever it is they decide their goals are. They might be looking for "easy" wealth, or maybe they're looking for a wife. I've had both in my campaigns. It all depends on the player and their character. I still have information about the village they are in, the people that live there, some of the stuff there is to explore around them, and current events both local and distant. It's there for them to explore or not. They might (and often do) go off in a completely different direction. That's cool too. 

The reason this is 100% true, is that I can't set their goals. Only the players can decide on the goals for their characters. I can make suggestions. I can certainly railroad them and make it obvious that if they are going to play with me, then they are going on this adventure dammit. But that's not my game. They decide what they do, when they do it, and how. If I'm lucky, it ties into some things I already know, since it makes it easier for me. Otherwise I improvise. Both are equally useful techniques, and both have their place in my campaign. The art of DMing is to make it seamless.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Because the skulker's motivation has not yet been determined, so it is assumed he has a motivation of some sort....the players may guess at that motivation, which in turn could give the GM ideas on what to do....
> 
> It's not concrete....it's mutable.



It's concrete, but unknown.

In the real world, people act based on the information they have. In the RPG, the players act on the information they have. So from the point of view of PC habitation, there's no issue.

From the point of view of RPG play (as I said to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] not far upthread), the difference is between the players trying to find a way to learn what is in the GM's notes, and the players (like their PCs) hoping to impose their will upon the world. I happen to prefer the second approach.



hawkeyefan said:


> It sounds to me like the players are free to attempt to introduce solutions to their problems via this method. They find themselves cornered in a room in some way? Oh, let's check for a secret door!
> 
> <sip>
> 
> It seems like this method could be easily abused to create deus ex machina type events that allow PCs to bypass challenges.



This seems to be assuming a GM-driven game: there is _the challenge_, which the PCs have to deal with rather than bypass; and there are only certain legitimate ways to deal with that challenge - finding a secret door is not one of them!

But, as I replied to Lanefan, if the game is being run in the style described by Eero Tuovinen's "standard narrativistic model", or the GMing instructions I quoted not far upthread from the BW rulebooks, then that assumption doesn't hold good. The GM's job is to "go where the action is" and to introduce complications that force players to make choices. I can do that whether or not the PCs find a secret door.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> My issue with the whole secret door thing is that it makes it so that the PCs will always find every secret door.  If they succeed, they find the secret door.  If they fail, there was no secret door there to fail to find.



Why do you say this?

Maybe the PCs fail, and the next thing that happens is that the secret door they failed to find opens and a horde of goblins pours out of it.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> That's not the way I look at it. It's not driven by my concerns. It's driven by the world and what makes sense for the people in it. Yes, as the DM I have a hand in the authoring of the world. But I'm presenting "just the facts"
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't really see how this is "driven by my concerns." It has some potential adventure hooks, but other than the hooks, those adventures haven't been written. If they take one, then we'll see where it leads.
> 
> I see it as being driven entirely from the PC's concerns. The PC is the one that says they want to go buy the silk, and their questioning is what leads to additional hooks.



The reason I describe it as "GM-driven" and as driven by the GM's interests/concerns is because the world, the events in it, the reactions of the NPCs, the hooks, the possibilities, have all been authored by the GM (or taken by the GM from something someone else wrote).



Ilbranteloth said:


> The reason I say I don't see it as "framing the scene" is because I'm specifically not trying to make the scene interesting, or tying it into the motivation of the PCs. I'm not trying to make it uninteresting, I'm just not actively trying to steer it in any specific direction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> My goal is to present the world uncolored by my wishes in regards to story line/fiction. I love detailing the world itself, and the motivation of the others that live their. But all of that is still just scenery and color until the PCs interact with it.





Ilbranteloth said:


> The most important thing that I think you're still missing, at least in regards to my campaigns, is that the goal is _never_ to discover whats in my notes. The character's goals are the character's goals in the world, and that's it.



But the choices that are made ("prices are high", "everyone else holds firm on price", "rumours of war") are all made by the GM. And they do seem to steer the fiction in a certain direction - at least, they certainly steer it _away_ easy access to silk.

In so far as the world looms large in play, and imposes constraints on and consequences for player action declarations for their PCs, it is the GM's vision of the world that seems to be paramount. The players, in the course of play, learn more about that. That is what I mean by "learning what is in the GM's notes". The player, by (say) having his/her PC looking around for the seller of silk at the the lowest price, is learning something about the GM's account/conception of the world. The shared fiction isn't being established _in response to_, and as part of the context of, the players declaring actions for their characters.



Ilbranteloth said:


> What I get out of the BW/DW recommended approach (which may be incorrect) is that you're always trying to tie _every_ scene into the motivations and story of the PCs. To me _that_ sounds like the story is being driven by the DM's concern - or their interpretation of what the players/characters are looking for.



Upthread of your post, I posted this about the role of the GM and player in BW (pp 268-69 (Revised); 551-52 (Gold)):

In Burning Wheel, it is the GM's job to interpret all of the varous intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game. He's got to make sure that all the player wackiness abides by the rules. . . . Often this requires negotiating an action or intent until both player and GM are satisfied that it fits both the concept and the mood of the game. . . .

[T]he players . . . have duties . . . [to] offer hooks to their GM and the other players in the form of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits . . .​
The player offers the hooks. The GM responds to them. If there is uncertainty we talk (as I posted upthread, I am not interested in GMing blind). That's part of the force of Luke Crane's comparison of GMing Moldvay Basic to a cross between telephone and pictionary. In Basic the GM _isn't_ talking to the players in that way, kibitzing with them, negotiating the framing with them. But in BW this is standard stuff. The GM isn't "guessing" or "interpreting" (I'm assuming we can put aside the philosophical questions of solipsism, other minds, etc in this context).



Ilbranteloth said:


> Just like creating the motivation on the fly isn't better or worse, neither is creating it ahead of time.





Ilbranteloth said:


> I guess I'm also having difficulty understanding the difference. I certainly don't think, no actually I _know_ my players can't tell the difference, because we've had discussions and they have told me that. They are surprised about what I know ahead of time, and what I don't.



For me, at least, it's not about creating on the fly. It's about the context of and rationale for authoring the motivation. I prefer it to emerge from the play of the game - ie roughly, as an output; not an input.

As a player, I think it's not that hard to tell when the GM is running the game based on his/her (pre-)conception of the fiction, rather than in response to the players' hooks.



Ilbranteloth said:


> My point is that "going where the action is," at least as I've seen it explained, is that you skip past the boring parts.



I've already posted this several times. Here it is again:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is)​
By "going where the action is" I mean framing scenes according to dramatic need: ie picking up on the players' hooks.

But I do think it's good advice to GMs to (in general) avoid boring stuff. (Obviously what is boring is relative. As I posted upthread to  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], I find shopping for clothes boring in real life and boring in game also. I wouldn't suppose that's a universal view.)



Ilbranteloth said:


> Most people I know agree that 4e put combat front-and-center.



All I'm saying is that you're the one who drew the inference from conflict to combat, and it's in your game, not mine that the players' response to an angry bear was to kill it.


----------



## pemerton

A novelist, screenwriter etc does (at least) two things in relation to the fiction:

(1) establishes the characters, including their "dramatic needs";

(2) writes scenes in which those characters are forced to make choices that are driven by, reveal further things about, and potentially change, those "dramatic needs".​
In a RPG with a fairly traditional player/GM divide - and everyone in this thread is posting about those sorts of RPGs - these functions are not located in the same person. Roughly speaking, the players do (1) and the GM does (2).

If the GM does (2) indepdently of the players - which is the default presentation of GMing in D&D (4e is a bit of an exception, but not a total one), and many other RPGs also, especially the ones [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] calls "mainstream" - then unless the players do (1) _in response_, there is no guarantee that (2) and (1) will actually mesh. But if the players do (1) in response, then the fiction is being driven by the GM. (Which is not to say that players may not do something else valuable in playing.)

BW invites the players to do (1), and then the GM does (2) in response to the players. Hence the "sacred and most holy role of the players" includes hooking the GM.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Generally, I like to present situations in such a way that the players, in playing their characters, have a reason to act. ... If a player's response to a situation that I frame is to have his/her PC do nothing, then I've clearly framed a dud scene. In practice, because these things are happening via back-and-forth, if I can see that the situation I'm narrating is not engaging the player(s) via their PC(s), I'll change focus or add something in to correct for the initial misfiring.



Who says they're not engaged?  It's entirely possible the players (in character) are so engaged in watching whatever the scene is play itself out (and have realized that anything they do probably won't help) that their best in-character action is to simply do nothing and wait for further developments.

A not-that-great example: the advisor/Baron scene, after the advisor has been made to reveal himself as a traitor - in a book or movie the Baron at this point is almost certainly going to react, probably leading to some back-and-forth between the Baron and the (soon-to-be-ex-)advisor.  And while the PCs might well find this very engaging and informative, their likely-best move during this part of the scene is to - along with the rest of the court - do nothing and see how the Baron-advisor argument turns out.



> More generally, I don't see why the idea of most action declarations having a purpose behind them, connected to the stakes of the evolving ingame circumstances, is dull. Whereas, given that I find shopping for clothes in real life rather tedious, why would I want to spend my leisure time pretending to be shopping for clothes?



OK, let's try a different example: party is travelling through some known-to-be-dangerous wilderness to get from one town to the next.  Maybe they've already scared off a marauding wolf or three and at some point diverted their course in order to avoid something big crashing through the trees.  Party in theory have a reason to get where they're going but it doesn't matter whether they get there tomorrow or next month, so out of the blue someone says "Screw it, this forest is dangerous.  Time someone cleaned it out.  I'm going after whatever's banging those distant drums I hear - who's with me?" So the player has not only just introduced the drums into the fiction but is also trying to get the party to engage with them...and thus left-turn from whatever they were going to be doing in the next town. (and note these drums or whatever is behind them have absolutely no bearing on anything else; the player who introduced them knows this and is just looking to do some head-bashing before what she fears might be another tedious round of diplomacy in the next town)



> My game has plenty of mystery without the additional mystery of "Do we have any reason to care about this?"
> 
> As for depth: in my personal experience I haven't found random encounters with owlbears to add all that much depth. I tend to find that the "depth" of the gameworld is a product of immersion in compelling ingame situations, rather than a product of the accumulation of random details.



The many details - some random - are the depth, without which immersion is either much more difficult or nigh impossible.  And, as the game world is (or really ought to be) far bigger than these few PCs and their cares, it stretches believability beyond its breaking point if everything the PCs ever encounter just happens to mesh with exactly what they care about.  "Do we have any reason to care about this" is a very valid question for characters to find themselves asking, sometimes followed by "Should we find a reason to care?" and-or "Should we care anyway?".



> The last claim is not true. It makes a huge difference, as a player, if I'm trying to divine the content of the GM's notes or if I'm trying to play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues.
> 
> But they're not.
> 
> Again, all I can do is reiterate: there is a huge difference between playing a game in which the goal is to discover (say) whether or not the GM has decided that the Dusk War is pending, and playing a game where your PCs are trying to show to the cosmos that the Dusk War is not pending, and you (as a player) are trying as hard to do that as your PCs are.



If you can tell the difference during the run of play then that's down to me as DM, as I'm doing it wrong.

If you-as-player can "play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues" (your words, above) does anything else matter...such as the source of said ensuing stuff?

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> A novelist, screenwriter etc does (at least) two things in relation to the fiction:
> 
> (1) establishes the characters, including their "dramatic needs";
> 
> (2) writes scenes in which those characters are forced to make choices that are driven by, reveal further things about, and potentially change, those "dramatic needs".​




(3) establishes the setting in which this all takes place

(4) links it all together into a coherent and more or less structured story.​


> In a RPG with a fairly traditional player/GM divide - and everyone in this thread is posting about those sorts of RPGs - these functions are not located in the same person. Roughly speaking, the players do (1) and the GM does (2).



And (3), and sometimes (4).



> If the GM does (2) indepdently of the players - which is the default presentation of GMing in D&D (4e is a bit of an exception, but not a total one), and many other RPGs also, especially the ones [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] calls "mainstream" - then unless the players do (1) _in response_, there is no guarantee that (2) and (1) will actually mesh. But if the players do (1) in response, then the fiction is being driven by the GM. (Which is not to say that players may not do something else valuable in playing.)
> 
> BW invites the players to do (1), and then the GM does (2) in response to the players. Hence the "sacred and most holy role of the players" includes hooking the GM.



Which just comes right back to something I said many pages ago: are the PCs (and players) proactive or reactive.

You seem to want the PCs/players to default to proactive and the game world/DM always be reactive (or passive if the PCs do nothing), which seems like a very one-way street.  Doesn't seem like a fit for either relatively passive or reactive players, or for chaotic types like me.

Traditional D&D looks for more of a mix - if the PCs/players proactively stick their necks out somehow, the game world/DM reacts then quickly shifts to proactive as it tries to beat their heads in, and the PC/players are in react mode until that bit is done.  But if the PCs/players do nothing (are passive) the game world/DM will proactively bring the action to them either by baiting adventure hooks or attacking them in their inn rooms or whatever.  Lots more give and take, and lots of room for different player types.

Lan-"proactively reacting to passivity"-efan


----------



## Nagol

pemerton said:


> Further thoughts on illusionism and railroading:
> 
> It's true that fictional events, unlike events in the real world, are authored. But how does this tend to show that some approach or other to RPGing is illusionism?
> 
> Illusionism requires an illusion. There's no illusion in acknowledging that the fiction is authored. If anything, wouldn't it be illusionistic to somehow pretend that the elements that make up a fiction _aren't_ authored, but rather are the result of the (purely imaginary) causal processes taking place (as authored) within the fiction?




Illusionism isn't describing the fiction: it is describing how the fiction is being presented.  The fiction is being presented as if it is being generated through choice on the players' part, but that choice is an illusion.  The will of the players has be stolen by the GM so he can present his desire.

For example, if the GM knows that the next destination is going to be a castle, the following exchange is illusionism:

"Do you go west or south?"
"West."
"You reach a castle."

The GM presented the illusion of choice.  The fiction is the fiction.  The feeling that the players had a say in the outcome is the illusion.

*EDIT* I want to expand my definition slightly:  it is illusionism when the presentation suggests the fiction is being derived from one a consequence and it actually is being derived from GM intention instead.

So, obviously rolling on the wandering monster chart but placing preferred encounter, openly rolling on a treasure table, but placing a preferred item, asking for player choice then placing your intended destination are all illusionism.

Asking which way the payers go then randomly determining what they find in that direction (or even purposefully designing what they find) isn't illusionism if the players understand what part choice plays in the determination.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> Can I run a game that focuses on powergamming with MHRP?



Yes.



Imaro said:


> have you looked in the 5e DMG?  It's not really bursting with PC build options or options specifically for combat resolutions but instead has a multitude of ways to modify all aspects of 5e to play differently.  Everything from hero points to adding honor or sanity into the game



The Blossome are Falling has Honour for BW. As far as Sanity is concerned, there is the Steel mechanic, the Corruption mechanic, and other options could easily be created using those as guidelines, and the ideas presented in the Magic and Monster Burners.



Imaro said:


> Wouldn't you just adjust what the DC's represent, shifting higher numbers for easier tasks?  Or maybe I'm missing a key part of this comparison?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So basically you are put at a standard disadvantage in order to get you to do something around your beliefs (this sound surprisingly similar to what default inspiration does in D&D for ideals, flaws and traits) in order to receive artha so that you can reach a level of minimal competence?



There are multiple considerations:

(1) Artha is earned in all sorts of ways that relate to Beliefs, Instincts and Traits: manifesting them in play; having them cause trouble in play; dramatically exemplifying them; dramatically departing from them.

(21) The dice pool system means that probability spreads are very different from D&D. If you boost DCs in 5e then some tasks become unattainable.

(3) Say 'yes' based on dramatic/pacing consideratins rather than an ingame causal assessment of whether or not success is uncertain means that ability ratings don't strictly correlate to success rates.

Inspiration has the limitation that it provides Advantage and hence doesn't stack with other sources of Advantage - therefore, especially in large quantities, potentially destablising other mechanical systems (and players rather than the GM handing it out doesn't seem to alleviate this issue); and turning into a bonus rather than a reroll compromises bounded accuracy.



Imaro said:


> D&D (and again I am speaking to 5e here) is flexible because it let's the group determine what the focus of play



As does BW: games can be focused on social conflict, combat, exploration, sword & sorcery hijinks, Dune (the Jihad: Burning Sands supplement, etc; with variant magic systems (eg Ars Magica-style "spontaneous" spell creation), various Emotional attributes, various races and lifepaths, etc.

Combat can be tactical (Fight!, Range and Cover), or not (Bloody Versus, Intent and Task), or switch back in forth in the same campaign if desired. Social conflict can be tactical and detailed (Duel of Wits) or not. There are many other options presented in the main book (the "Spokes" that contrast with the "Hub") and supplements. Eg Range and Cover can be used to adjudicate jousts, and skirmish-level or even mass combat. The skill system ranges from crafting to Logistics and Strategy, and the situations of play can be equally varied. And as Burning THACO shows, Beliefs can be player-chosen or focused on a GM's pre-authored situation.

It won't play like D&D; but, as I've said, D&D won't play like BW either.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> You seem to want the PCs/players to default to proactive and the game world/DM always be reactive (or passive if the PCs do nothing), which seems like a very one-way street.



I don't know why you say this.

I keep talking about the GM framing the PCs (and, thereby, the players) into situations that provoke choices. I give examples: eg, the PCs arrive to confront the tarrasque and their are maruts hovering there, ready to fight off anyone trying to stope the tarrasque; the PCs turn up for dinner with the baron and their nemesis is there as his advisor; the PCs leave their ruined tower and are attacked by the wastrel elf wielding the nickel-silver mace; etc.

The players (as I posted) establish the dramatic need of their PCs; the GM frames the PCs into situations that - in light of that dramatic need - force the players to make choices for/as their PCs.

This says nothing about whether the _PCs_ are proactive or reactive. Nor does it say anything about the gameworld. I am talking about the participants in the game, not the events that occur within the fiction.



Lanefan said:


> If you-as-player can "play my character, engage the fiction, and find out what sort of stuff ensues" (your words, above) does anything else matter...such as the source of said ensuing stuff?



If the stuff is already in the GM's notes, it's not _ensuing_. It's already there.

If I want to know what the GM thinks would make for a good story, I can just ask him/her. I don't need to play an RPG for that!


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> A not-that-great example: the advisor/Baron scene, after the advisor has been made to reveal himself as a traitor - in a book or movie the Baron at this point is almost certainly going to react, probably leading to some back-and-forth between the Baron and the (soon-to-be-ex-)advisor.  And while the PCs might well find this very engaging and informative, their likely-best move during this part of the scene is to - along with the rest of the court - do nothing and see how the Baron-advisor argument turns out.



My own view is that the players watching the GM act out a conflict between two NPCs does not make for good RPGing.



Lanefan said:


> party is travelling through some known-to-be-dangerous wilderness to get from one town to the next.  Maybe they've already scared off a marauding wolf or three and at some point diverted their course in order to avoid something big crashing through the trees.  Party in theory have a reason to get where they're going but it doesn't matter whether they get there tomorrow or next month, so out of the blue someone says "Screw it, this forest is dangerous.  Time someone cleaned it out.  I'm going after whatever's banging those distant drums I hear - who's with me?" So the player has not only just introduced the drums into the fiction but is also trying to get the party to engage with them...and thus left-turn from whatever they were going to be doing in the next town. (and note these drums or whatever is behind them have absolutely no bearing on anything else; the player who introduced them knows this and is just looking to do some head-bashing before what she fears might be another tedious round of diplomacy in the next town)



Leaving aside the question of where the player gets the authority to narrate the occurence of the drum beats, this sounds like an episode of play without any clear direction.

So it's already a long way from how I tend to approach RPGing.


----------



## Maxperson

pemerton said:


> Why do you say this?
> 
> Maybe the PCs fail, and the next thing that happens is that the secret door they failed to find opens and a horde of goblins pours out of it.




In post #1327 you said this...



> In the Adventure Burner, Luke Crane discusses the players checking Architecture to see whether their PCs discover a secret door into a citadel they wish to infiltrate. The failure of the check estalishes (among other things) that there is no secret door to be discovered.




The roll failure determined that there was no secret door.  If the roll had succeeded, there would have been one.  

Hordes of goblins can't come out of a secret door that the roll established was not there.  That would be going against the established fiction.  I supposed you could have the goblins come out of a secret door that the party didn't look for, but that's not the PCs failing to find the door, because they didn't look for it.  Had they looked prior to the goblins, they would have found it, or it wouldn't have been there for the goblins to exit.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This says nothing about whether the _PCs_ are proactive or reactive. Nor does it say anything about the gameworld. I am talking about the participants in the game, not the events that occur within the fiction.



Where I'm talking about both.



> If the stuff is already in the GM's notes, it's not _ensuing_. It's already there.



But you as player don't know that, if I'm doing it right, so how can it matter or make any difference to the at-the-time play experience?



> My own view is that the players watching the GM act out a conflict between two NPCs does not make for good RPGing.



True, so here's a better example: let's use the same scenario, but instead of the PCs being the ones at the dinner table outing the advisor we'll have that be that's a group of NPCs (or a second played party in the same game?) and our actual PCs instead have heard rumours that something big might be in the wind at this dinner and have spent all day carefully infiltrating into the Baron's keep so they can spy on the dinner.  When the dinner starts they've made it to a hidden chamber with a small lookout over the main hall - they maybe can't see much (they can see some of the (N)PC party but not the Baron or the advisor) but they can hear everything.  For the next few hours they're going to be very engaged in what transpires but their best action will be to do nothing other than continue watching and listening...



> Leaving aside the question of where the player gets the authority to narrate the occurence of the drum beats, this sounds like an episode of play without any clear direction.



Why does it sound like there's no clear direction - they'd done their diplomacy in town one and needed to make their (somewhat dangerous) way to town two to report back on what had transpired in town one...until someone left-turned it.  And if it's a game where the fiction is co-authored by the players and DM (or completely authored by the players, with the DM merely reacting to what they do) then narration of the drum beats would be very much in play.

It doesn't have unified direction, to be sure, but that's different...and a risk: when there's 5 people able to drive the bus instead of one you risk having the bus try to go 5 directions at once.  I'm that guy.  Many of the people I game with are also "that guy-or-gal".  If the game seems to be drifting and-or going to the action isn't generating much action and the game allows me to author in something different?  In it goes!  Hence, drums start pounding in the distance...

Now whether the rest of the party go along with it or not is of course an open question, which would need to be roleplayed out.  Maybe we don't go after the drums.  Maybe we do.  Maybe we come back to them after reporting into town two...

Lanefan


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Yes.




Examples of how this could be done would be great...



pemerton said:


> The Blossome are Falling has Honour for BW. As far as Sanity is concerned, there is the Steel mechanic, the Corruption mechanic, and other options could easily be created using those as guidelines, and the ideas presented in the Magic and Monster Burners.




I don't find you citing a different game and stating something *could* be created as an especially strong argument for flexibility, especially when I am speaking to things found in the corebooks for 5e.



pemerton said:


> There are multiple considerations:
> 
> (1) Artha is earned in all sorts of ways that relate to Beliefs, Instincts and Traits: manifesting them in play; having them cause trouble in play; dramatically exemplifying them; dramatically departing from them.




Hmm... Just as Inspiration per the DMG is earned in all sorts of ways related to Traits, Ideals, Bonds and Flaws: manifesting them in play; having them cause trouble in play; dramatically exemplifying them and (if the DM so chooses per the DMG) dramatically departing from them.



pemerton said:


> (21) The dice pool system means that probability spreads are very different from D&D. If you boost DCs in 5e then some tasks become unattainable.




as I understand it BW (going from the gold edition here so correct me if it's different in the edition you use) also has unattainable tasks where more successes are needed than the character has available dice to beat the obstacles.  So why is this a problem in D&D but not in BW?  



pemerton said:


> (3) Say 'yes' based on dramatic/pacing consideratins rather than an ingame causal assessment of whether or not success is uncertain means that ability ratings don't strictly correlate to success rates.
> 
> D&D also has say yes...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Burning Wheel Gold Edition PG. 13 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *When To Roll*
> 
> ...You make tests during dramatic moments, when the outcome is uncertain...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is the same determiner of when to roll as D&D 5e... What exactly is the difference?
> 
> 
> 
> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> Inspiration has the limitation that it provides Advantage and hence doesn't stack with other sources of Advantage - therefore, especially in large quantities, potentially destablising other mechanical systems (and players rather than the GM handing it out doesn't seem to alleviate this issue); and turning into a bonus rather than a reroll compromises bounded accuracy.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> It stacks with other bonuses (mostly plusses) that exist in D&D 5e so I'm unclear jow bonuses which are an actual part of the game... compromise bounded accuracy.  It also doesn't destabilize other mechanical systems because it is a resource that can be used when necessary and kept when not...
> 
> 
> 
> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> As does BW: games can be focused on social conflict, combat, exploration, sword & sorcery hijinks, Dune (the Jihad: Burning Sands supplement, etc; with variant magic systems (eg Ars Magica-style "spontaneous" spell creation), various Emotional attributes, various races and lifepaths, etc.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> And yet with all these different trappings BW is still a game focused on Beliefs, Instincts and Traits.  There is no way around that.  I'll ask again for the third (maybe fourth) time... can BW be played without a focus on these things?
> 
> 
> 
> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> Combat can be tactical (Fight!, Range and Cover), or not (Bloody Versus, Intent and Task), or switch back in forth in the same campaign if desired. Social conflict can be tactical and detailed (Duel of Wits) or not. There are many other options presented in the main book (the "Spokes" that contrast with the "Hub") and supplements. Eg Range and Cover can be used to adjudicate jousts, and skirmish-level or even mass combat. The skill system ranges from crafting to Logistics and Strategy, and the situations of play can be equally varied. And as Burning THACO shows, Beliefs can be player-chosen or focused on a GM's pre-authored situation.
> 
> It won't play like D&D; but, as I've said, D&D won't play like BW either.
> 
> Click to expand...
> 
> 
> 
> Eh above I think the focus of BW, using Traits, Ideals, Flaws and Bonds can be encapsulated pretty easily in D&D using only the three corebooks... or you can focus on some thing elwe for the game to revlove around.  BW on the other hand will always be a game focused around ideals, traits and beliefs... no matter what else is added, what setting it's dressed up in and so on...
Click to expand...


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> The reason I describe it as "GM-driven" and as driven by the GM's interests/concerns is because the world, the events in it, the reactions of the NPCs, the hooks, the possibilities, have all been authored by the GM (or taken by the GM from something someone else wrote).




Or, as I've stated before, taken from what the players have suggested, often off-hand, or it can be related to their backstories. A lot of what gets worked into the campaign is what the players have said in the past, they just don't usually realize it.



pemerton said:


> But the choices that are made ("prices are high", "everyone else holds firm on price", "rumours of war") are all made by the GM. And they do seem to steer the fiction in a certain direction - at least, they certainly steer it _away_ easy access to silk.




And see, to me, they are made by the world. Just like AW states to "Turn it over to the NPCs" there is a brewing war in Calimshan, and as a logical result, the prices of Calishite goods is increasing. However, there are some merchants that are involved in smuggling, extortion, or other schemes, and locating one of them yields different results.

In addition, it could be, at least in part, the determination of a die roll. 



pemerton said:


> In so far as the world looms large in play, and imposes constraints on and consequences for player action declarations for their PCs, it is the GM's vision of the world that seems to be paramount. The players, in the course of play, learn more about that. That is what I mean by "learning what is in the GM's notes". The player, by (say) having his/her PC looking around for the seller of silk at the the lowest price, is learning something about the GM's account/conception of the world. The shared fiction isn't being established _in response to_, and as part of the context of, the players declaring actions for their characters.




Some of it is in response to the actions of the players, some of it isn't. As I stated in other posts, like the one about illusionism, I have no problem changing something on the fly if that's more appropriate. While prepared material provides a foundation and framework for me to use, nothing is written in stone until it occurs in the campaign. Once the players have had that interaction, then there is something more that is known.

However, I approach it from a world-building and logical standpoint, not what might make an interesting story or scene in the moment. Because this is an ongoing campaign, with future ramifications for the player's other characters, I like to maintain an internal consistency. 



pemerton said:


> Upthread of your post, I posted this about the role of the GM and player in BW (pp 268-69 (Revised); 551-52 (Gold)):
> 
> In Burning Wheel, it is the GM's job to interpret all of the varous intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game. He's got to make sure that all the player wackiness abides by the rules. . . . Often this requires negotiating an action or intent until both player and GM are satisfied that it fits both the concept and the mood of the game. . . .
> 
> [T]he players . . . have duties . . . [to] offer hooks to their GM and the other players in the form of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits . . .​
> The player offers the hooks. The GM responds to them. If there is uncertainty we talk (as I posted upthread, I am not interested in GMing blind). That's part of the force of Luke Crane's comparison of GMing Moldvay Basic to a cross between telephone and pictionary. In Basic the GM _isn't_ talking to the players in that way, kibitzing with them, negotiating the framing with them. But in BW this is standard stuff. The GM isn't "guessing" or "interpreting" (I'm assuming we can put aside the philosophical questions of solipsism, other minds, etc in this context).
> 
> For me, at least, it's not about creating on the fly. It's about the context of and rationale for authoring the motivation. I prefer it to emerge from the play of the game - ie roughly, as an output; not an input.




And to me it's a bit different. Yes the players offer hooks, but I don't always incorporate those in the moment. I am, however, always reacting to the character's actions. Those actions have natural ramifications, based on the goals of the NPCs, or the many events outside of the character's control that are happening in the world. Why?

Because that's the way the world seems to work to me. If you're Elliot Ness going after Al Capone, you have your motivations, and Al has his. Yes, Al gains some new motivations because of your investigation, but in general his motivations are entirely independent from yours. And, at least early on, his motivations in relation to yours are probably more along the lines as orders to his goons to make you go away. They have motivations too, most of which are also unrelated to you. They are more closely tied to their selfish, greedy needs, their love of violence, their wish to move up in the organization, and/or not be "taken care of" by Capone or his men.

My "writing style" is to see where the story leads me, both within the campaign and offscreen. As soon as you create an NPC with a motivation and goals, it points to a certain direction. But then you place it in a world where there are other NPCs with motivations and goals, and things change. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about most of them, and in the majority of the cases, if it is a prewritten NPC, I probably don't consider what's happened until they do come into play. Now that I'm rereading the AW rules, it's not all that different from what's recommended there. 



pemerton said:


> As a player, I think it's not that hard to tell when the GM is running the game based on his/her (pre-)conception of the fiction, rather than in response to the players' hooks.



 My direct experience, since I use both, is that's it's not easy to tell the difference. At least to the players I've had. So I'm asking for more concrete evidence as to how you would be able to tell. 



pemerton said:


> I've already posted this several times. Here it is again:
> 
> One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is)​
> By "going where the action is" I mean framing scenes according to dramatic need: ie picking up on the players' hooks.
> 
> But I do think it's good advice to GMs to (in general) avoid boring stuff. (Obviously what is boring is relative. As I posted upthread to  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], I find shopping for clothes boring in real life and boring in game also. I wouldn't suppose that's a universal view.)
> 
> All I'm saying is that you're the one who drew the inference from conflict to combat, and it's in your game, not mine that the players' response to an angry bear was to kill it.




Conflict doesn't have to equate to combat, and I also gave a number of examples of other options that could have occurred that were neither conflict nor combat.

I don't control the players, and they opted to fight, yes. But my point was, after following what is largely a default course of action for many D&D PCs, they learned something and it dramatically changed how they approached things going forward. It didn't have anything to do with the rest of the motivations or story arc at the time, it was just an encounter. But it did change the course of the story, because it changed the way the characters behaved in the future. It had a surprisingly large impact.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Leaving aside the question of where the player gets the authority to narrate the occurence of the drum beats, this sounds like an episode of play without any clear direction.
> 
> So it's already a long way from how I tend to approach RPGing.






Lanefan said:


> Why does it sound like there's no clear direction - they'd done their diplomacy in town one and needed to make their (somewhat dangerous) way to town two to report back on what had transpired in town one...until someone left-turned it.  And if it's a game where the fiction is co-authored by the players and DM (or completely authored by the players, with the DM merely reacting to what they do) then narration of the drum beats would be very much in play.
> 
> It doesn't have unified direction, to be sure, but that's different...and a risk: when there's 5 people able to drive the bus instead of one you risk having the bus try to go 5 directions at once.  I'm that guy.  Many of the people I game with are also "that guy-or-gal".  If the game seems to be drifting and-or going to the action isn't generating much action and the game allows me to author in something different?  In it goes!  Hence, drums start pounding in the distance...
> 
> Now whether the rest of the party go along with it or not is of course an open question, which would need to be roleplayed out.  Maybe we don't go after the drums.  Maybe we do.  Maybe we come back to them after reporting into town two...
> 
> Lanefan




I think this pretty much sums up the divide between you two (and me and @_*pemerton*_). That doesn't mean that I disagree with everything @_*pemerton*_ presents (far from it, and I don't think you do either).

But basically different people enjoy different aspects of RPGs. Some relish the role-playing, while others are munchkinizers. Some of us like the "boring" stuff that happens between the exciting encounters, and acknowledging that any moment in a character's life can be a potential defining moment. Choosing to skip those potential moments writes a different type of story.

If there's no clear direction, that's the player's fault, not the DM's. Unless you want the DM writing the fiction, then it's the DM's fault.

The reality is, I think it's the responsibility of the players and the DM. I'm not a fan of what I'd call an "extreme sandbox" approach where the DM doesn't provide any input. Everything is location-based, usually predetermined, or random. There are no DM plots, behind the scenes or otherwise.

While my approach seems similar, the key difference is that there are a lot of things that happen in the world that might have an impact on the PCs that the DM does create. It's not just aimless wandering from place-to-place, there are schemes and plots going on around the PCs all the time. It's just a question as to whether they decide to involve themselves with those. 

Essentially, they can choose to aimlessly wander if they want to. That's fine. But they aren't doing it because I didn't provide them any hooks. Likewise, it shouldn't be because I'm not willing to allow them to go "off-adventure" and follow their own path.


----------



## pemerton

Maxperson said:


> The roll failure determined that there was no secret door.  If the roll had succeeded, there would have been one.
> 
> Hordes of goblins can't come out of a secret door that the roll established was not there.



But the absence of a secret door isn't the only possible failure narration for a failed check to find a secret door. It depends on the skill tested, on the framing of the check, on the motivations/goals that lie behind the check, etc.

Here's the example I was referring to (Adventure Burner, pp 304-5; Codex, pp 210-11):

Pete: "I'm going to find a secret entrance into the Citadel of the Unconquered Sun."

Thor (as GM): "No way. We already established that this keep is the strongest in the entire kingdom. You failed that Citadel-wise test way back at the start of the campaign. . . ."

[O]nce it's established that the Citadel of the Unconquered Sun has no secret entrances and the only means of ingress is the front gate, that remains true until the players dig their own tunnel or the GM introduces a situatio in which a foreign army lays siege to the place and sends in sappers.​
But establishing that there are no secret entrances, because it's the strongest keep in the kingdom, isn't the only possible failure result. It makes sense as a failure result for Citadel-wise; but what if the attempt, at the start of the campaign, had been a test on Rumour-wise (to learn rumours of secret entrances)?

Or suppose that a player delcares a Perception check to look for a secret door at a dead end. And s/he declares that s/he (in character) is searching carefully (so as to get a bonus die). And the check fails, meaning that the GM is licensed to introduce a significant time-based complication: so the GM might narrate, "As you are carefully tapping the wall, listening for hollow places, you hear boots coming along the corridor - it sounds like the iron-shod boots of goblins! And then the wall in front of you opens - there _is_ a secret door, with goblins on the other side of it. It looks like you're just in time for a rendezvous of forces!"

As I said, a failure to find _X_ can be for any number of reasons other than the absence of _X_. Upthread, for instance, I noted that a possible failure for a check to find a vessel to catch blood in might be that the character notices the vessel just in time to see it knocked to the ground by the other struggling characters, and smash on the floor.

It depends on the context and significance of the check (and the GM's imagination, obviously).


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I don't find you citing a different game



What different game? The only thing I cited is The Blossoms are Falling. That's a BW supplement.



Imaro said:


> I think the focus of BW, using Traits, Ideals, Flaws and Bonds can be encapsulated pretty easily in D&D using only the three corebooks



Examples?

As far as powergaming in MHRP, have you tried it and had trouble? I'm GMing at a table where people are doing it" you gun for XP to improve your PC, and you gun for PPs and mathematically optimise your dice pools. And the character with the ability to borrow a doom pool die and then step it back does this whenever possible to make sure that the doom pool never contains two d12s.

I don't really understand your posting strategy here: you ask people questions about games with which you seem to have little or no familiarity and play experience, and then when they answer you don't believe them. So why bother asking?


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> it could be, at least in part, the determination of a die roll.



But in the example under discussion it was not.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> What different game? The only thing I cited is The Blossoms are Falling. That's a BW supplement.




Sorry but that wasn't clear from your post.  And to be fair earlier in the discussion you chose to cite different games as examples of BW's flexibility.



pemerton said:


> Examples?




Yes as in those things which support the assertion you have made...




pemerton said:


> I don't really understand your posting strategy here: you ask people questions about games with which you seem to have little or no familiarity and play experience, and then when they answer you don't believe them. So why bother asking?




It's not about believing them or not... it's asking posters to support their assertions and explain exactly what they mean so that the conversation is clear.

Furthermore it's what every one is doing in this thread (and you when it comes to my assertions around 5e... why don't you just accept what I am asserting about said game, especially since it's clear you haven't read the actual corebooks only the free rules?) so I'm not sure specifically why you have a problem with me asking for examples or clarity around games I may not be as familiar with as other posters in the thread.  you're doing the same thing with D&D 5e.  Have you read the corebooks for 5e? 

 And since we are speaking to posting style, I don't understand yours either.  You seem pick and choose what to acknowledge in a particular post often taking things out of context or choosing the least salient (using the most pedantic means of nitpicking) points of a post while ignoring the main thrust(s)??  and/or more salient ones.  Main example being this very post... why is that?

EDIT: At this point I don't think there's much more to be gained by us discussing the flexibility of D&D 5e or BW as you've made it clear earlier that nothing I've posted will convince you and when asked what would convince you... you chose to ignore the question.  At this point it might be best to chock it up to difference of opinion, especially as it's degraded to questioning of each others posting styles as opposed to talking about games.


----------



## Campbell

I fail to see how the player moves of a game like Apocalypse World are in any way more constraining than the combat rules, stealth rules, spells, and special abilities of a game like Dungeons and Dragons. Right now I am currently playing in an occasional 5th Edition game with friends. I am playing a Tiefling Valor Bard with Vicious Mockery, Friends, Thaumaturgy, Bardic Inspiration, Charm Person, Cure Wounds, Sleep, and Identify. All these abilities are binding mechanisms with teeth that tell you what happens when you succeed and when you fail. Sleep does not even have a saving throw. All of these things can be used when I choose. I do not even have to establish fictional positioning to do so. They also tend to be more specific in their ability to affect the fiction than most player moves in Apocalypse World.

What there is a lack of in a game like Dungeons and Dragons is a lack of mechanisms with teeth to affect non-physical changes in the fiction from both the player and GM sides of the equation through mundane means. This is one of the classic *Walled Off Gardens* in most mainstream games I was talking about upthread. In this regard both 5th Edition and 4th Edition are much better than most other editions.

Let's take a look at a situation where a Dungeon World GM actually has far more flexibility in their ability to affect change in the fiction than the same GM would in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons - Combat.

So when the player of a fighter wants to smack a Dragon with their great sword in 5th Edition they need to establish they are within reach of the Dragon. They do so through detailed movement rates and the action economy. They can than take an action to make one or more attacks. When they do so they make an attack roll against the Dragon's AC listed in a detailed stat block prepared by the GM. If they succeed they roll their damage expression. The GM subtracts that damage from the listed hit points. If the player failed in their roll all that happens is they fail to effect the fiction. There are zero consequences for doing so. To effect the player character the GM must take an attack action based on the details of the stat block they have prepared. If they are successful against the player's AC they do damage. If they are not nothing happens in the fiction. Everything is finely controlled. There is no need for judgment calls because the system takes care of everything for you.

When a fighter wants to smack a Dragon with their great sword in Dungeon World first they must be given the opportunity to act by the GM because there is no action economy in place. Then they must establish fictional positioning that indicates they are able to hurt the Dragon. They do so by explaining in detail what they are doing and why it means they can hurt the Dragon. This is subject to GM judgment.  Often to get in a position where they can affect the Dragon a *Defy Danger* roll will be necessary. Once they successfully establish their ability to hurt the Dragon they can make the player move *Hack and Slash*. On a 10+ the fighter hurts the dragon and suffers no repercussions. On a 7-9 we get an exchange of blows. On a miss the GM gets to make as hard a move as they like. That might mean I separate them by having the dragon pick up the character with his teeth and fly off. It might mean I explain the consequences and give them a hard choice as them lurching forward give the Dragon on opportunity to go after one of the other PCs. It might just mean they get a nasty gash from the Dragon's claws.

Yes, Dungeon World places constraints on the GM. Yes, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition also places constraints on the GM. We become so used to the constraints we normally operate under that we fail to see them, both when it comes to mechanics and when it comes to the social layer.

When I play 5e I am constrained by the action economy, detailed physical positioning, lack of meaningful social influence unless the GM or other players explicitly allow it, rules and a social contract that sometimes obfuscate fictional positioning, social contracts which discourage playing too hard, the social impact of long campaigns that sometimes make playing really hard untenable, and a social contract where I am not a peer with the GM. I am emboldened by the action economy, combat and stealth rules, very explicit spells and special abilities, respect for individual creativity, and a social contract that mandates the GM to provide for my fun.  

When I play Apocalypse World I am constrained more meaningfully by fictional positioning, have no action economy to fall back on, must deal with social influence mechanics from other players and the GM, a social contract that favors vigorous active collaboration over individual creativity, rules that require active use of fictional positioning, a social contract that favors playing as hard as possible, expectations that are placed on me, my fellow players, and the GM. I am emboldened by clear fictional positioning, social influence mechanisms I can rely on, a collaborative and competitive atmosphere, the ability to clearly speak to my personal concerns with the entire group, being able to call for do overs when things were unclear, and clear social expectations.

When I run mainstream games I am constrained by a less clear social contract, an expectation of story advocacy, a need to provide for the other players, a need to world build and prepare encounters and stat blocks, rules I cannot trust, having to provide clarity to the proceedings, a need to design mystery, overly procedural combat rules, the burdens of authority, and having to have everything filtered through me. I am emboldened to take a more active hand, express my individual creativity, design specific encounters, not being constrained by mundane social influence or the fiction as established, amongst other things.

When I run Apocalypse World I am constrained by meaningful social influence with teeth, the established fiction, the expectation of character advocacy and curious exploration of the fiction, and the expectation that I will actively challenge the players, not softball, and advocate for the fiction. I am emboldened by the expectation that everyone will take an active interest and involve them with everyone else's stuff because they have a say, the expectation of constructive criticism, the expectation that players will actively bring it and not play passively, the lack of *expected* group play, really not knowing what is going to happen, real tension and social risks, mechanics that reward character advocacy, and the expectation that we can choose to step outside the rules together rather than that being my decision to make.

I am not saying you have to like the constraints that apply in other games that do not apply in Dungeons and Dragons. I am not saying you have to find the expectations that it brings as being particularly constraining to you. I do expect acknowledgement that when I say I find them constraining much of the time I am being authentic, and that when I say I find these other games socially freeing and flexible I am also being authentic. Games constrain social behavior to get us to act in ways we would not naturally act. That is what they do. I value this.

I have never said that 5th Edition and other mainstream games are bad or inflexible. We can always choose to step outside the rules and expected social conventions in any game. Mainstream games place all that power in the hands of the GM. The social contract for the games I *most* prefer makes that a group decision because we are all social peers. If we do not like the way something played out we simply revise or change the rules rather than manipulating things behind the screen. It's about GM flexibility vs. group flexibility. I simply prefer a different sort of social contract and trust model than some other posters.

When I tun more mainstream games I tend to utilize a more indie social contract being more transparent about things like Difficulty Class, which rules we choose to apply, and fictional ramifications of a given action.

When I play games I *generally* do not want to be *provided for* or *provide for others*. I want everyone to advocate for their own interests in genuine ways through vigorous and sometimes contentious collaboration. I want to be emboldened to play a game boldly. I want real tension even when I am running a game. This is no way more narrow or specific than other sorts of games. Different constraints, both mechanically and socially - not more constraints.


----------



## Campbell

I fail to see how the player moves of a game like Apocalypse World are in any way more constraining than the combat rules, stealth rules, spells, and special abilities of a game like Dungeons and Dragons. Right now I am currently playing in an occasional 5th Edition game with friends. I am playing a Tiefling Valor Bard with Vicious Mockery, Friends, Thaumaturgy, Bardic Inspiration, Charm Person, Cure Wounds, Sleep, and Identify. All these abilities are binding mechanisms with teeth that tell you what happens when you succeed and when you fail. Sleep does not even have a saving throw. All of these things can be used when I choose. I do not even have to establish fictional positioning to do so. They also tend to be more specific in their ability to affect the fiction than most player moves in Apocalypse World.

What there is a lack of in a game like Dungeons and Dragons is a lack of mechanisms with teeth to affect non-physical changes in the fiction from both the player and GM sides of the equation through mundane means. This is one of the classic *Walled Off Gardens* in most mainstream games I was talking about upthread. In this regard both 5th Edition and 4th Edition are much better than most other editions.

Let's take a look at a situation where a Dungeon World GM actually has far more flexibility in their ability to affect change in the fiction than the same GM would in 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons - Combat.

So when the player of a fighter wants to smack a Dragon with their great sword in 5th Edition they need to establish they are within reach of the Dragon. They do so through detailed movement rates and the action economy. They can than take an action to make one or more attacks. When they do so they make an attack roll against the Dragon's AC listed in a detailed stat block prepared by the GM. If they succeed they roll their damage expression. The GM subtracts that damage from the listed hit points. If the player failed in their roll all that happens is they fail to effect the fiction. There are zero consequences for doing so. To effect the player character the GM must take an attack action based on the details of the stat block they have prepared. If they are successful against the player's AC they do damage. If they are not nothing happens in the fiction. Everything is finely controlled. There is no need for judgment calls because the system takes care of everything for you.

When a fighter wants to smack a Dragon with their great sword in Dungeon World first they must be given the opportunity to act by the GM because there is no action economy in place. Then they must establish fictional positioning that indicates they are able to hurt the Dragon. They do so by explaining in detail what they are doing and why it means they can hurt the Dragon. This is subject to GM judgment.  Often to get in a position where they can affect the Dragon a *Defy Danger* roll will be necessary. Once they successfully establish their ability to hurt the Dragon they can make the player move *Hack and Slash*. On a 10+ the fighter hurts the dragon and suffers no repercussions. On a 7-9 we get an exchange of blows. On a miss the GM gets to make as hard a move as they like. That might mean I separate them by having the dragon pick up the character with his teeth and fly off. It might mean I explain the consequences and give them a hard choice as them lurching forward give the Dragon on opportunity to go after one of the other PCs. It might just mean they get a nasty gash from the Dragon's claws.

Yes, Dungeon World places constraints on the GM. Yes, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition also places constraints on the GM. We become so used to the constraints we normally operate under that we fail to see them, both when it comes to mechanics and when it comes to the social layer.

When I play 5e I am constrained by the action economy, detailed physical positioning, lack of meaningful social influence unless the GM or other players explicitly allow it, rules and a social contract that sometimes obfuscate fictional positioning, social contracts which discourage playing too hard, the social impact of long campaigns that sometimes make playing really hard untenable, and a social contract where I am not a peer with the GM. I am emboldened by the action economy, combat and stealth rules, very explicit spells and special abilities, respect for individual creativity, and a social contract that mandates the GM to provide for my fun.  

When I play Apocalypse World I am constrained more meaningfully by fictional positioning, have no action economy to fall back on, must deal with social influence mechanics from other players and the GM, a social contract that favors vigorous active collaboration over individual creativity, rules that require active use of fictional positioning, a social contract that favors playing as hard as possible, expectations that are placed on me, my fellow players, and the GM. I am emboldened by clear fictional positioning, social influence mechanisms I can rely on, a collaborative and competitive atmosphere, the ability to clearly speak to my personal concerns with the entire group, being able to call for do overs when things were unclear, and clear social expectations.

When I run mainstream games I am constrained by a less clear social contract, an expectation of story advocacy, a need to provide for the other players, a need to world build and prepare encounters and stat blocks, rules I cannot trust, having to provide clarity to the proceedings, a need to design mystery, overly procedural combat rules, the burdens of authority, and having to have everything filtered through me. I am emboldened to take a more active hand, express my individual creativity, design specific encounters, not being constrained by mundane social influence or the fiction as established, amongst other things.

When I run Apocalypse World I am constrained by meaningful social influence with teeth, the established fiction, the expectation of character advocacy and curious exploration of the fiction, and the expectation that I will actively challenge the players, not softball, and advocate for the fiction. I am emboldened by the expectation that everyone will take an active interest and involve them with everyone else's stuff because they have a say, the expectation of constructive criticism, the expectation that players will actively bring it and not play passively, the lack of *expected* group play, really not knowing what is going to happen, real tension and social risks, mechanics that reward character advocacy, and the expectation that we can choose to step outside the rules together rather than that being my decision to make.

I am not saying you have to like the constraints that apply in other games that do not apply in Dungeons and Dragons. I am not saying you have to find the expectations that it brings as being particularly constraining to you. I do expect acknowledgement that when I say I find them constraining much of the time I am being authentic, and that when I say I find these other games socially freeing and flexible I am also being authentic. Games constrain social behavior to get us to act in ways we would not naturally act. That is what they do. I value this.

I have never said that 5th Edition and other mainstream games are bad or inflexible. We can always choose to step outside the rules and expected social conventions in any game. Mainstream games place all that power in the hands of the GM. The social contract for the games I *most* prefer makes that a group decision because we are all social peers. If we do not like the way something played out we simply revise or change the rules rather than manipulating things behind the screen. It's about GM flexibility vs. group flexibility. I simply prefer a different sort of social contract and trust model than some other posters.

When I play games I *generally* do not want to be *provided for* or *provide for others*. I want everyone to advocate for their own interests in genuine ways through vigorous and sometimes contentious collaboration. I want to be emboldened to play a game boldly. I want real tension even when I am running a game. This is no way more narrow or specific than other sorts of games. Different constraints, both mechanically and socially - not more constraints.


----------



## Campbell

I really should clarify that I do not *actively dislike* mainstream games and modes of play. I just *generally prefer* other sorts of role playing games and modes of play. Right now I am playing in a V20 Dark Ages game, a Blades in the Dark game, and a 5th Edition game. These are all with different play groups. I will probably start running a game or two in the near future, perhaps with different people. I am all about diversity in play, and using the right tools for the sort of play you desire.

I actually really like 5th Edition. It is very amenable to hacking in many ways, slightly more so than some other games. Slightly less so than some of the games I play. Most role playing games are quite flexible because the rules are not built around physical artifacts nearly as much as board games and the hacker aesthetic is quite strong in our shared culture.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> Most role playing games are quite flexible because the rules are not built around physical artifacts nearly as much as board games and the hacker aesthetic is quite strong in our shared culture.



This is a key point - most (but not by any means all) RPG systems are either robust enough or flexible enough to withstand some kitbashing; thus if you don't like the way something works you can always change it to suit your preferences.

Problems only really arise when a system is so tightly designed* that changing something _here_ is going to have unavoidable knock-on effects _here_, _here_ and _here_...each of which then requires its own tweak to bring it back in line, thus causing further knock-ons down the line - until you find you're in fact rebuilding the whole thing from scratch.

* - some see this as a feature...which it is but only if the system as written works *perfectly* for everyone who wants to play / DM it.  I see it as a bug, because the perfect system for everyone does not yet exist (if it did, we'd all be playing it).

3e was bad for this (I say having long-term played in a somewhat-kitbashed 3e game where the knock-on effects eventually became overwhelming) and from what I can tell 4e was also not very easy to modify other than a few very minor things....when it first came out I had a long hard look at it to see if I could modify it into anything I'd ever want to run or play and quickly concluded it'd be easier just to either a) stay with what I already had or b) start over from scratch.

1e and 5e, however, were both designed as mod-able frameworks with the kitbasher squarely in mind, and the DMGs for both call this out.

Lan-"and, vaguely back toward topic, kitbashing should be the purview of either the DM only or the DM in consultation with *all* the players"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> At this point I don't think there's much more to be gained by us discussing the flexibility of D&D 5e or BW as you've made it clear earlier that nothing I've posted will convince you and when asked what would convince you... you chose to ignore the question.  At this point it might be best to chock it up to difference of opinion, especially as it's degraded to questioning of each others posting styles as opposed to talking about games.



You've not given any example of D&D providing a BW experience.

The Inspiration rules don't do that: they provide Advantage, which is not a discrete benefit from various other features of the system, meaning that interaction between granting Inspiration and various existing class and other mechanics is not smooth, and Inspiration defaults to being a seconardy concern; Inspiration does not stack; and then there is the whole question of how it is awarded.

The DC system is not up to the task, because of the relationship between bonuses, Inspiration and bounded accuracy; the advancement system is not up to the task Iit's based either on encounters or on reaching "story" milestones); etc.

Here are some other systems that 5e can't emulate either: Runequest, Rolemaster and 4e D&D.

The systems you pointed to as examples of 5e's flexibilituy - sanity and honour - exist in BW, and the system has ample scope to develop other related systems (and you scorn the idea of "developing" these, yet point to the scope to "develop" the 5e Inpsiration rules, or DC-setting rules, as evidence of its flexibility).

I'm not expressing any view on whether 5e is a good or bad game. But it is not uniquely flexibile. It doesn't even have a proper TotM combat positioning and targetting system (contrast, say, 13th Age, BW or even Classic Traveller).


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If the stuff is already in the GM's notes, it's not ensuing. It's already there.
> 
> If I want to know what the GM thinks would make for a good story, I can just ask him/her. I don't need to play an RPG for that!
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But you as player don't know that, if I'm doing it right, so how can it matter or make any difference to the at-the-time play experience?
Click to expand...


You didn't quote the second of the above sentences, but I've requoted it because the two go together.

As a player, I can tell if the GM is following his/her notes and/or his/her conception of what makes for a good story, or is following the hooks provided by the players via the build and play of their PCs.

Most obviously, I can tell if the ingame situation is forcing me to make choices on the basis of said hooks.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I'm asking for more concrete evidence as to how you would be able to tell.



Well, if a character has a Belief "Now that I've seen my brother [who is possessed by a Balrog], I pity him" then the player of that character can tell whether or not a given episode of play relates in some fashion to the character's pity for his brother.

If my character has the Instinct "When camping, always keep the campfire burning" I can tell whether or not a given episode of play contains a campfire.

In a system without that sort of explicit signalling via elements of PC build, if a PC is a Marshall of Letherna sworn to upholding and advancing the interests of the Raven Queen, the player of that PC can tell if those interests are at play in some fashion in a given episode of play.

That's why when, at some stage upthread, someone said it's just as easy to railroad in a player-driven game as in a GM-driven one I disagreed. You can't keep it secret from the players whether or not the ingame situation, being resolved at the table, speaks to their concerns and goals for their PCs, because that is evident in the moment of play.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I am talking about the participants in the game, not the events that occur within the fiction.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Where I'm talking about both.
Click to expand...


Upthread you were very exercised by maintaining clear distinctions between player and character. So why, now, are you insisting on running them together?

A player can be pro-active - eg establishing thematic concerns for his/her PC - but his/her PC be reactive. Eg the player build his/her PC as a fanatical devotee of the Raven Queen; the GM frames the PC into an assault by Orcus cultists.



Lanefan said:


> Why does it sound like there's no clear direction



Because of this:



			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> Maybe they've already scared off a marauding wolf or three and at some point diverted their course in order to avoid something big crashing through the trees. Party in theory have a reason to get where they're going but it doesn't matter whether they get there tomorrow or next month



The maruading wolves seem like nothing more than colour. Likewise the "something big". And although the PCs are heading from A to B, it doesn't matter when they arrive at B. And so a player makes up something new - drums sounding through the woods - to give his/her PC something to do.



Lanefan said:


> if it's a game where the fiction is co-authored by the players and DM (or completely authored by the players, with the DM merely reacting to what they do) then narration of the drum beats would be very much in play.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the game allows me to author in something different



What game do you have in mind?

Upthread [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] posted a passage from John Harper which, to me, seemed to be reiterating the Czege Principle, or something in that neighbourhood: that it's not satisfying, in a RPG, to be the one who both frames a challenge and chooses how to answer it.

I think the drum example counts as such a thing. Why is the player framing the challenge that his/her PC is called upon to answer - in effect, narrating his/her own opposition?



Ilbranteloth said:


> If there's no clear direction, that's the player's fault, not the DM's.



I've played in RPGs where the GM obviously has some sense of what is going on in the fiction, and wants the players to do something, but won't just spit it out and be overt about it, and so much of the play time is spent by the players trying to find out what the "plot" is, so that things can move forward.

Another thing that I've found can lead to a lack of clear direction is when the players are all revved up about _X_, and the GM - for whatever reason - is not interested in _X_, and through a combination of blocking and attempts at "hooking" tries to steer play away from _X_ and towards something else.

I think this sort of issue is mostly down to GMs, not players.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I've played in RPGs where the GM obviously has some sense of what is going on in the fiction, and wants the players to do something, but won't just spit it out and be overt about it, and so much of the play time is spent by the players trying to find out what the "plot" is, so that things can move forward.
> 
> Another thing that I've found can lead to a lack of clear direction is when the players are all revved up about _X_, and the GM - for whatever reason - is not interested in _X_, and through a combination of blocking and attempts at "hooking" tries to steer play away from _X_ and towards something else.
> 
> I think this sort of issue is mostly down to GMs, not players.




My comment was in the context of my assertion that the players are the ones writing the story. It's up to them to decide what to do, where to go, etc. If they don't have a clear direction in that situation, it's a problem of the players, not the DM.

Yes, I've seen plenty of situations where the expectation is that the DM will provide the story. And the scenarios happen frequently when DM's rely on a prepared story, because either they have to try to keep the players involved (railroading), or the PCs decide to go chasing drums in the forest, which is a story the DM isn't interested in, and tries to block it.

So let me try and explain how I run the game, in total, since it seems to be lost in multiple threads, and individual scenarios to illustrate a point, rather than describe DMing in totality.

The players and I work on the backstories for the characters.

I run a campaign in an established world, with established lore. That lore isn't 100% accurate in my campaign, but I encourage players to read as much as they want so we have a shared knowledge of that framework.

I author lore, plots, schemes, history and NPCs by starting with a simple concept, and seeing where it leads once it's "placed" within the campaign. I approach it as if I'm role-playing those characters within that world. That is, I let the NPCs take the lead, in AW terminology.

This might be prewritten, which usually consists of a few lines of description and goals, allies, organizations, etc., or it might be written on the fly. Even if it's written, it's malleable and can be changed.

Nothing is written in stone until it intersects with the campaign in some way. So if a warlord is building an army to attack a city, and the PCs are never involved in a way that affects that, then they may in fact attack the city. This might enter the campaign as news of the attack, instead of a direct connection, but might then lead to a more direct connection. It may not.

In the midst of a living world with events independent of the PCs, the players have full control over their actions and decisions. Their goals are typically related to their backstories, as well as those of their companions, but they might choose to investigate something unrelated to their backstories, or be asked to assist with something by somebody unrelated to their backstory.

In addition, some events, NPCs, and encounters will relate to their goals, backstories, and fears, based on what is prewritten (their backstories), and things they say and actions they take during the campaign.

Sometimes this means that there will be plots I introduce in reaction to them. For example, they return to town with a legendary sword, and go to every tavern in town boasting of their exploits. Amongst those that hear the story are folks that would like the sword for themselves. It might also bring attention to them to an agent of a larger organization, such as the Zhentarim, who also want the sword. So they may find themselves victims of attempts to steal it.

Most of the time, what happens is a more direct response to their actions. They enter an ancient tomb, and they encounter traps, undead, constructs, and find treasure. Typical straightforward dungeon crawls. This also applies to interacting with NPCs in towns and cities, and exploring the wilderness.

It's entirely up to the PCs to decide what it is they want to do, and where to go. I can provide an endless number of hooks not related to their history, backstories, and such. But in order to provide hooks that relate to them specifically, motivations, goals, backstory, etc, then they have to provide hooks for me.

From looking through AW/BW/DW, the major difference (aside from differing amounts of player/DM authoring of elements outside of the direct control of the PC), is that they narrow the focus to things that only relate to the motivations of the characters. The extent of the world to be defined is only what is relevant to that particular story in that particular campaign.

I prefer a much wider living world, where one campaign can have an impact on other campaigns. That like most of us, much of our daily lives is spent doing things that aren't directly addressing our motivations, dreams or goals. That sometimes you'll find yourself in the places you least expect to, and that the journey of a character's life is as important as the exciting bits.

As I'm re-reading the AW rules, I'm finding a fair amount that I not only agree with, but already do. There are a number of things I don't particularly like (starting with the entire presentation, which reminds me of the Planescape approach of loading the text with "flavor" and slang. On the surface, that's cool enough as a way to draw you further into the world (Ed Greenwood does it for the Forgotten Realms too), but it doesn't work so well if you don't care for the specific world or setting.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot here, because it's a rather complex process. So let's look at it from the AW principles:

*Barf forth apocalyptica.* OK, other than the lame attempt at trying to be funny/cool, yes, providing as much flavor as possible is a good thing.

*Address yourself to the characters, not the players.* Yes. Rules things are DM to player. Answering questions? Depends on the questions. Anything that the characters experience is directed to the characters, and I try to maintain the players stay in character, and I address them directly as much as possible.

*Make your move, but misdirect.* Hmmm. OK, I guess anything I do as a DM is a "move." So they are exploring a dungeon, and find a map in a treasure chest. Or they are in the tavern digging for information and hear a number of stories and rumors. Or a thug attempts to relieve them of their legendary sword. Or they defeat the thug and find out he's part of a secret society, which under further investigation determines that they are recruiting agents actively in an attempt to undermine the local government by replacing existing Lords with doppelgängers. 

But to me, the majority of that falls under "barfing apocalyptica" and "think offscreen." They'll have dozens of potential things to check out. Just like I see a bunch of ads nightly for places to eat, movies to see, stuff to buy. But it's up to me (or the PCs) to act. 

What I disagree with is misdirect. Even when there is something hidden to be learned (a plot to assassinate the king - or the fact the king is already dead if the criminals are attempting to cover it up), I don't ever advocate misdirecting the PCs as a DM. While I don't have a problem with ambiguity (No, you can't see the king, and you don't have the right to know why), there are clues that there's something not quite right. Something that might be worth investigating, if they choose to. It's not my job to direct them towards that, and not every situation or encounter will assist them on that task.

But to actively misdirect them, like red herrings, false clues, and things like that, is a really complicated thing. And even harder to do well. So I can't say I've never done it, but it's got to be the right situation. Puzzles and things like that are OK. And I've had dungeons designed (by the designers in world) to specifically prevent easy mapping and things like that. But those sort of things work best when it's something the players can figure out. Otherwise it's just skill checks and telling them how to solve the puzzle. Which means you really need to know your players well to be able to design a puzzle that they can figure out. The "three clues" rule combined with "reward creative solutions" that others are proponents of is something that I think applies well in these scenarios. Since I don't typically have mysteries or puzzles with specific solutions pre-planned, dropping new clues and handling creative play is relatively easy.

_*Make your move, but never speak it's name.*_ Well, since I don't assign catchy names to my moves, that's not really an issue. Instead I simply describe what the PCs experience. If they can't see, hear, smell, touch, or taste it, then they don't hear it from me. If an NPC or monster acts, then they know it. If they simply make diabolical plans to destroy the PCs later, then they don't know that unless the NPC tells them about it. But it will be evident in time. Of course, if they thwart a villain but don't manage to capture or kill them, then they should expect it anyway.

*Look through crosshairs.* Every NPC is expendable. However, not every one is likely to be caught in a position where they will be killed. Folks like Al Capone, for example, are very, very difficult to take out, even when you are their enemy (another gangster or the feds), and more importantly, once Capone knows you're after him, he's very dangerous indeed.

*Name everyone. Make everyone human.* Yep.

*Ask provocative questions and build on the answers.* Not entirely. Related to the fact that I only address the characters - I only address the characters from within the world. In other words, it's never the DM talking to the characters - it's NPCs, or a description of what's going on. So the only time I get to ask provocative questions is as an NPC. 

However, I do get to potentially put them in provocative situations. Moral dilemmas, etc., since the bad guys are, well, bad.

_*Respond with f-ery and intermittent rewards.*_ Again, aside for my strong distaste for the presentation, no. I as the DM aren't trying to screw with the players/characters, and I'm not rewarding them either. The "rewards" they earn in the world are enough. 

*Be a fan of the PCs.*Of course, the entire campaign is about them.

*Think offscreen too.*A huge yes. The world is a living place, things are happening everywhere, most of which the PCs don't have any direct impact. Offscreen is what provides endless opportunities for things to come onscreen.

*Sometimes, disclaim decision making.* Put it in your PC's hands. Absolutely, and I'll add put it in the world's hands. I try to make as few decisions as possible. I'm not trying to write an interesting story for them, nor guess what will be exciting for them. It's a smorgasbord, take what works for you. The world will continue living around you, and my decisions are always taken from the "role-playing" point of view when possible. That is, it's in the NPC's/world's hands.

If it's a appropriate to turn over to the players/PCs, then that's fine too. A countdown? If appropriate. Not in the gamey way using an external construct like the countdown clock - she's injured, and probably won't make it if you don't get her to help that you don't have right now. How long will remain a mystery (to them). I track it with established rules (which could be similar to the countdown clock), so everybody knows that it's fair and on the level (not that it's ever been a problem). I'm a big proponent for whatever happens in the world be supported by the rules. So if they are fighting a wizard with some strange spell, that spell has been defined and works within the magic system of the campaign. So fairness isn't generally a problem since they understand that.

Make it a stakes question? Yes, that's often the case. This falls within the countdown clock approach. I'm not the one deciding this, the PCs and the rules are. For example, I have rules for fatigue and exhaustion. Climbing is quite tiring - how many of us remember rope climbing in gym class? - if somebody is hanging on for dear life after a day of combat and traveling, you _know_ you have a limited amount of time to get to them. In the meantime, getting them to drop anything to lighten their load, and working as quickly as you can. My rules always have variables, I'm not a fan of automatic failure or automatic success. In this case they'd be using the combat fatigue rules, and that means a failed save makes it worse. It won't get better until you can get a rest. But it might be several attempts before failure, and you have to go through 6 levels of failure. So the amount of time could be as little as 6 rounds, or as long as...a pretty long time. The DCs increase, and the fatigue makes the chance of failure more likely, though.

So there's very little that I don't agree with here. In another thread from a long time ago, I saw somebody indicate that D&D is players vs DM, and AW isn't. But when I look at these rules, there are specific rules that instruct the DM to make the PC's lives difficult. No, you're not trying to kill them, but you're complicating things.

I'd prefer to let them complicate things themselves. Like the time when the PCs were trying to escape from a black dragon, made it into a tunnel that the dragon couldn't enter (and the dragon was already leaving, when the bard decided to run back down the passage (chased by several others) and taunt the dragon, casting _vicious mockery_. Of course, the dragon wasn't amused. And it climbed back up to the passage with the bard and breathed into the tunnel. They didn't really have anywhere to go...(and were not happy with the bard). The ranger had the good sense to leap out of the tunnel and down the rope they had climbed and go hide. Which is the only thing that saved the badly injured party.


----------



## Campbell

Some quick clarifications.

*Make your move, but misdirect* is not really about misleading the players. They know it is your turn to speak either because things have grinded to a halt, interrogating the fiction, or they did something that requires a response from the fiction. You are defining something in the fiction because there is a game to be played. You know it. They know it. We all know it. We just do not speak to it because it endangers the fantasy that the world is real. We are still *making Apocalypse World seem real*, but we are also *making the players' characters' lives not boring* - making sure there is interesting fiction to play in. The vast majority of the time this *will not be an issue* if they have made vibrant characters who they play with integrity. Think about why there are dungeons to be explored or adventures to be had in Dungeons and Dragons and why we do not speak to this real world truth. It does not have to be directly tied to their characters. We just want interesting fiction to play through.

I would not take *look through the crosshairs* too literally. It's more about ensuring that the fiction is dynamic and there is no meaningful status quo. It's about making sure that things are always changing in some way rather than staying static. We want success to be as consequential as failure. We want NPCs to do things to each other, rather than just the PCs. We want existing relationships to shift and become upended. Looking through the crosshairs could be about the waitress of their favorite watering hole changing jobs as much as a local warlord being assassinated. It could be about their allies calling in favors because they are under threat. It could be about that dungeon they have avoided being cleared out by another adventuring company. It could be about their wife leaving them for someone who can be there for their kids rather than always going off adventuring. Sometimes the crosshairs are literal. Often, they are not.
*
Respond With F---ery And Intermittent Rewards* is about characters getting what they earn, but not usually what they hope for. We do this to keep the fiction interesting and also because the fiction is what it is.  Social influence only goes so far. It does not change what motivates the character most of the time. Violence tends to beget more violence. Alliances are mutual relationships that must be nurtured. The game is more forceful about this than I would like, but Apocalypse World is about a particular hard-edged sort of fiction in a desperate world. The more the fiction is about a world where hope and perseverance wins the day the less applicable this principle should be.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> You didn't quote the second of the above sentences, but I've requoted it because the two go together.
> 
> As a player, I can tell if the GM is following his/her notes and/or his/her conception of what makes for a good story, or is following the hooks provided by the players via the build and play of their PCs.
> 
> Most obviously, I can tell if the ingame situation is forcing me to make choices on the basis of said hooks.



In which case this tells me one or more of several things:

1. You're looking too hard at it and-or maybe taking it too seriously, rather than just relaxing and enjoying the game for what it is
2. You're expecting the game to be about how the world interacts with the PCs (sun revolves around the earth) rather than how the PCs interact with the world (earth revolves around the sun)
3. The DM is doing it wrong - were it being done well the players' hooks etc. would be seamlessly incorporated into her story such that you couldn't tell how they were interwoven



> Well, if a character has a Belief "Now that I've seen my brother [who is possessed by a Balrog], I pity him" then the player of that character can tell whether or not a given episode of play relates in some fashion to the character's pity for his brother.



Obviously.  By the same token, however, not every episode will relate to this (and nor should it); some episodes will relate to other characters' stuff and some will not relate to any.



> If my character has the Instinct "When camping, always keep the campfire burning" I can tell whether or not a given episode of play contains a campfire.



This is one where, instead of having it come up every single night the party camps (which would very quickly get tedious - most adventuring parties do a *lot* of camping!) I'd just assume that when camping with this PC in the party the campfire would be constantly kept alight unless there's something indicating otherwise e.g. a very heavy rainfall or an opponent who intentionally tries to douse the fire to plunge the camp into darkness.



> In a system without that sort of explicit signalling via elements of PC build, if a PC is a Marshall of Letherna sworn to upholding and advancing the interests of the Raven Queen, the player of that PC can tell if those interests are at play in some fashion in a given episode of play.



At play in a given episode, yes.  Every episode?  No.



> That's why when, at some stage upthread, someone said it's just as easy to railroad in a player-driven game as in a GM-driven one I disagreed. You can't keep it secret from the players whether or not the ingame situation, being resolved at the table, speaks to their concerns and goals for their PCs, because that is evident in the moment of play.



Not necessarily.  Using your Marshall of Letherna example, it'd be pretty easy to make sure that what had to be done in order to uphold the Raven Queen's interests just happen to dovetail with the series of adventures I have in mind.



> A player can be pro-active - eg establishing thematic concerns for his/her PC - but his/her PC be reactive. Eg the player build his/her PC as a fanatical devotee of the Raven Queen; the GM frames the PC into an assault by Orcus cultists.



If the PC is passive about her fanatacism and waits for the DM to frame something, sure...but if the DM instead waits to see what this fanatic decides to go out and do on her own initiative and then reacts to that, the tables are turned.



> The maruading wolves seem like nothing more than colour. Likewise the "something big".



A wandering small pack of wolves is just as much a part of the "action" as a fight with Orcus cultists.  The only difference is that none of the PCs have any particular concerns etc. about wolves built into their backstories or goals; they just don't want to get eaten.  The "something big" could have been part of the action as well except the PCs chose to avoid it...which in itself is an action, only (as it turns out) less dangerous.



> And although the PCs are heading from A to B, it doesn't matter when they arrive at B. And so a player makes up something new - drums sounding through the woods - to give his/her PC something to do.



Or to change the direction of the evolving story, or to give the party a reason to get to B sooner, or just to throw another log on the fire.



> What game do you have in mind?



Any of these player-driven games you keep talking about.



> Upthread [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] posted a passage from John Harper which, to me, seemed to be reiterating the Czege Principle, or something in that neighbourhood: that it's not satisfying, in a RPG, to be the one who both frames a challenge and chooses how to answer it.
> 
> I think the drum example counts as such a thing. Why is the player framing the challenge that his/her PC is called upon to answer - in effect, narrating his/her own opposition?



Not at all.  The player is lobbing a pebble in the pond by narrating that there's something out there (which could include a great wide variety of things, lots of cultures/creatures use drums); the rest of the party then have to decide what if anything to do about it, and the DM has to narrate what's out there if the party decide to investigate.



> I've played in RPGs where the GM obviously has some sense of what is going on in the fiction, and wants the players to do something, but won't just spit it out and be overt about it, and so much of the play time is spent by the players trying to find out what the "plot" is, so that things can move forward.



"Wants the players to do something" - by this do you mean "wants the players to do a specific thing as opposed to some other thing they're doing now" (which is bad as it means she can't hit the curveball they've thrown) or "wants the players to do something as opposed to the nothing they're doing now" (which is good in that she wants them to get on with it)?



> Another thing that I've found can lead to a lack of clear direction is when the players are all revved up about _X_, and the GM - for whatever reason - is not interested in _X_, and through a combination of blocking and attempts at "hooking" tries to steer play away from _X_ and towards something else.



There's another thread going on right now in which I just brought up this exact thing.  The thread's about what's a DM to do if the players reject the plot; my point was that it can also happen in reverse, where the players get gung-ho about something the DM just isn't interested in (this has happened to me in the past).  The DM has very limited options:

1. Treat it like a band-aid: grit your teeth, get on with it, and get it over with as quickly as possible and then hope they go on (either with or without some nudging) to something more interesting
2. Do as you mention above and try to force a change toward something more interesting
3. Shut the game down.



> I think this sort of issue is mostly down to GMs, not players.



It's the DM's game.  If the DM isn't interested in what's happening in it she's not going to be all that keen on running it, and if she stops running it it's game over: no game can survive the loss of its DM.  So, assuming the players want the game to keep going it's in their better interests to ensure the DM is one or more of engaged, interested, amused, entertained, or curious about what happens next.

Lan-"I solve this by making sure I have entertaining players, and then I do my best to entertain them in return"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> What game do you have in mind?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Any of these player-driven games you keep talking about.
Click to expand...


But neither PbtA nor Burning Wheel permits the player to introduce drums in the way you describe.

This is why I'm curious as to what game you're talking about.



Lanefan said:


> You're expecting the game to be about how the world interacts with the PCs
> 
> <snip>
> 
> not every episode will relate to this (and nor should it); some episodes will relate to other characters' stuff and some will not relate to any.



As per the passage from the BW rules that I quoted upthread, it's the GM's job to weave everything together. Every moment of play should (and, hopefully, will) relate to something that is relevant to one or more of the PCs concerns/interests, as expressed by the players' builds and play.

That's what I mean by a "player-driven" game.


----------



## Nagol

Ilbranteloth said:


> Part of what I struggled with (and perhaps it's just because it never became second nature) is the design of the game itself.
> 
> The move mechanic still feels very, very foreign to me. Why do I have to have a "move" to blow a horn? Why isn't it just blowing a horn?




Moves on the GM's part aren't like chess moves -- singular actions corresponding to well-defined rules.  Moves are simply the GM injecting action into the situations.  I think this is one of the dirty secrets of the game.  It's not that you shouldn't name your moves because that would bring the players out of the situation: you shouldn't name your moves because trying to restrict yourself to the categorisation is too limiting.



> Does running mean you have to choose between shows signs of an advancing threat, put someone on the spot, or change the environment, or can all three occur? Why can't they just turn and run, and the players each tell me how they react?




Multiple might occur, but some may be mutually exclusive or dependent on not-success on the player's part.  For example, the guard turns to run, but the GM decides to put player A on the spot and says he is in position to take a shot to stop him (perhaps because that is where the player placed the character specifically, perhaps because the character hasn't had a chance to do much recently, perhaps because any other reason the GM might decide to make that call).  If the player succeeds (either by rolling 10+ or dropping the guard) then the guard doesn't manage to get out the door and change the situation.  Any other result and the GM will cue advancing threat, change of environment, or both.



> Overall, it just felt to "gamey" to me, like the focus was on following the rules, rather than just following the characters. One of the main reasons I've yet to find a video game, as immersive as they are, provide anything remotely like the experience of playing D&D since literally almost anything can happen.
> 
> I understand the concepts behind the system (at least some of them) and that the focus is on keeping the action flowing. Part of it is because I don't consider a primary purpose of being a DM as keeping the action flowing. Yes, I want to ensure that things don't get stuck, but really I see it as the PCs responsibility to keep things flowing. I'm not interested in making a soft move to move the characters along, because I think things are too slow, unless they are too slow because of a mistake I've made.
> 
> They are the ones making the decisions. So I let them do so without my interference.




It depends on the genre and experience at the table.  It provides an experience more akin to some types of movie (James Bond) or book (Harry Dresden) where the protagonists are rarely given a moment's peace once a situation starts.  Other games types allow more introspection and player-controlled tempo.



> Your example of the Trojan Horse is a good one in terms of showing that even games that are supposed to prevent DM overreach, it's going to be possible in just about any system you can design.




The GM has  a lot of power to wield.  There are other types of overreach in DW but they tend to boil down to the same soft move or hard move choice:
For example, *"One day, Alice *Pow* to the moon"*  The player gets a partial success and is given a choice: take a loss now (hp, ammo whatever --  a hard move) OR increase the danger (soft move designed to make a later hard move more punishing).  The player chooses danger (or perhaps the GM didn't even offer the choice -- he simply picked the soft move himself).  The danger level visibly increases (his sword begins to burn with a sickly green glow) , but miraculously the players manage to stop the bad guy before anyone is struck by that extra danger.  Every.  Stinking.  Time.  The GM is playing the soft move option as a safety valve; he offers the choice when he is pretty certain the players will negate the extra danger before it will come into play and thus prevent the loss the hard move would inflict.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If my character has the Instinct "When camping, always keep the campfire burning" I can tell whether or not a given episode of play contains a campfire.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This is one where, instead of having it come up every single night the party camps (which would very quickly get tedious - most adventuring parties do a lot of camping!) I'd just assume that when camping with this PC in the party the campfire would be constantly kept alight unless there's something indicating otherwise e.g. a very heavy rainfall or an opponent who intentionally tries to douse the fire to plunge the camp into darkness.
Click to expand...


This is one of those cases where one has to be careful about generalising. As I think I posted upthread, camping has featured very little in my 4e game, not at all in my BW game, and was never that big an element in my RM games.

Whereas, with this Instinct for my PC, I would expect the GM to frame a scene where the presence (or absence) of a campfire _matters_ - analogously to how, in the first session of my BW campaign, I established a _tower_ - ie a place with heights - as the home of an adversarial NPC because one of the PCs had the Instinct "When falling, cast Falconskin".



Lanefan said:


> A wandering small pack of wolves is just as much a part of the "action" as a fight with Orcus cultists. The only difference is that none of the PCs have any particular concerns etc. about wolves built into their backstories or goals; they just don't want to get eaten.



But that's enough to demonstrate that it doesn't count as "going where the action is" in the sense that I (following Eero Tuovinen) am using that phrase. It's just filler.



Lanefan said:


> Using your Marshall of Letherna example, it'd be pretty easy to make sure that what had to be done in order to uphold the Raven Queen's interests just happen to dovetail with the series of adventures I have in mind.



Maybe. Depending on the adventures.

Now imagine that, as the campaign unfolds, the player's conception of what fidelity to, and defence of, the Raven Queen entails becomes more-and-more richly developed. And you keep adapting your ideas to encompass that conception. Who is driving the campaign?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> But even in real life, aren't people's motivations mutable? Isn't it possible under whatever circumstances that they'll change their mind, or learn something, or decide that the risk isn't worth the reward, or whatever?
> 
> Regardless, pre-determining everything that can possibly happen (including random ones) is an awful lot to put on the DMs shoulders.




Absolutely. I agree that pre-determining everything is a lot of effort. And don't get me wrong....I am fine with leaving an NPC's actual motivations unknown, and only establishing them once it makes sense to do so, and in a way that makes sense for the story. I am just aware that doing this is along the lines of illusionism. 

Because you are right....motivations change in the real world. People are fickle and hypocritical and so on....they change their minds. Changing a motivation from A to B is something different from having no motivation at first and then establishing it as B at some later point. 




pemerton said:


> It's concrete, but unknown.
> 
> In the real world, people act based on the information they have. In the RPG, the players act on the information they have. So from the point of view of PC habitation, there's no issue.




Well, in the real world, people tend to have motivations all along....they don't spring into existence at the convenience of story. Or drama or going where the action is or whatever label you want to put on it. 

And I'd also say that the whole "from the point of the PCs, there's no issue" argument is pretty much exactly what people say in defense of illusionism. 




pemerton said:


> From the point of view of RPG play (as I said to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] not far upthread), the difference is between the players trying to find a way to learn what is in the GM's notes, and the players (like their PCs) hoping to impose their will upon the world. I happen to prefer the second approach.




That's cool, I can't blame you for preferring that. I don't see the two things as being in opposition, but I can understand your choice between the two. 



pemerton said:


> This seems to be assuming a GM-driven game: there is _the challenge_, which the PCs have to deal with rather than bypass; and there are only certain legitimate ways to deal with that challenge - finding a secret door is not one of them!
> 
> But, as I replied to Lanefan, if the game is being run in the style described by Eero Tuovinen's "standard narrativistic model", or the GMing instructions I quoted not far upthread from the BW rulebooks, then that assumption doesn't hold good. The GM's job is to "go where the action is" and to introduce complications that force players to make choices. I can do that whether or not the PCs find a secret door.




It doesn't necessarily have to be about a GM introduced challenge. I find the idea of the players introducing solutions to the story entirely on their own to be troublesome. Not to say that it can't be done effectively and fairly...I'm sure it can. But I think it can also be abused. Or lead to some less interesting or dramatic resolutions to the problems the PCs find themselves in.


----------



## Manbearcat

Tony Vargas said:


> @_*Manbearcat*_, were you thinking of GM Empowerment vs Responsibility in terms of Agency with respect to a game like 5e (very high Empowerment, tempered by equally great Responsibility) vs a game like pemerton presents BW to be* (ie player-driven with lesser or shared-with-players Empowerment, but less/shared Responsibility for the success of the game, as well)?  As opposed to games like 3.5 (neither strictly player- nor DM-driven, per se, and with Empowerment one both sides of the screen coming through profound rewards for System Mastery, and, particularly on the player side, in consequence of a social contract typically emphasizing adherence to RAW)?






hawkeyefan said:


> I didn't really say that, though. I said I felt my agency went up with little or no increase in responsibility. And I mean this in the "net" sense that [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] originally mentioned.
> 
> 
> So, even if 5E increases my responsibility by empowering me as a DM, then such an increase is offset by the removal of other areas of DM responsibility that I found tedious and of little value.







pemerton said:


> I can't speak for  @_*Manbearcat*_ (obviously) but I find the premise of the question a bit strange.
> 
> The GM has a lot of responsibility for the success of a game of BW.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I wouldn't think of it as having very much in common with either playing or GMing 3E/PF, except in some very surface level ways. There is not a whole lot of PC-build rules and lists of spells to remember and adjudicate.




Snipped  @_*pemerton*_ 's breakdown of BW GM responsibilities.  

So GM cognitive workload and mental overhead comes down to two primary evaluations IME:

1)  *Desirous vs Tedious*

Do I enjoy the game's expectant or necessary conversation/pacing/mood-enhancing techniques, book-keeping (mental and physical), scribing, examination-with-potential-for-required-hacking of the mechanics, interfacing with the resolution mechanics to produce dynamism/interesting and meaningful player choice?

2)  *Utility vs Cost*

How much efficient, coherent (with respect to the game's agenda) function does this responsibility provide and does it negatively impact my attention elsewhere?  Further, does it (in the course of multiple applications over multiple sessions) mentally tax to the point that my interest or sharpness becomes fatigued by the weight of it?

A game like Burning Wheel or Torchbearer (and honestly, I'll say Blades in the Dark at this point  @_*Campbell*_ ) has considerable, interfacing system components that do a lot of work to create the overall play experience.  The GM must not just understand the "how" these mechanical components work (by themselves but, more importantly, together), but they must intimately understand the "why."  This might be a heavy cognitive burden.

However...the elegance, coherency, predictability, and intuitiveness of the system's machinery (components by themselves, with respect to each other, and with respect to the games' agenda in full) is an *enormous *mitigating factor here.  Even though the sum total is significant, the mesh of it makes it less so because the "how" and the "why" becomes extremely easy to understand and instinctual in relatively short order.  These games are engineered to do _precisely _what they say and, while there is a lot going on under the hood (and in the GM's brain), there is no "beating it into shape" required before, during, or after play to reliably produce the play experience.  Just understanding, player advocacy for their PCs, and principled application of deft GMing.

(Since you brought it up) Now if we juxtapose with 3.x, you get nearly the inverse Utility:Cost relationship as you do in the games above.  The game _says _it wants to be a "kick in the door" and "back to the dungeon" experience.  So action-packed, fast-paced B/X like?  Uh no.  The game is fundamentally engineered to make it nearly impossible for a dungeon to be an impediment.  It doesn't provide the machinery to make B/X dungeoncrawling work.  The pacing of the game is entirely centered around (i) the unbelievably prolific, scaling, and powerful spells and the (ii) the PCs prolific means to facilitate their recovery and loadout so they can be deployed to circumvent/obviate obstacles.  This relationship is entirely adversarial to any sort of *action-packed* and *fast-paced* initiative that the game designers may have made the initial target.  It (predictably and reliably) produces the exact opposite of "kick in the door" and "back to the dungeon."

Complicating matters is an overwhelming amount of book-keeping (referencing an absurd amount of information, adjusting numbers for buffs and then readjusting for Dispel), cognitive maintenance of ruleset components and interactions, and the "beating into shape" (grotesque intra-party imbalance and grotesque outcome unpredictability - for the GM 0 which often requires Illusionism to head-off anticlimax and niche protection/PC relevance) before, during, and after to hopefully reproduce the NOT "kick in the door" and NOT "back to the dungeon" play agenda that you've pushed play towards (which is typically some form of Gritty Paladins and Princesses).  

So, on the spectra of Desirous <<<<<>>>>> Tedious and Utility <<<<<>>>>>Cost, I put 3.x deeply on the right of both while something from the Burning Wheel family (like Mouse Guard), the PBtA family (like Dungeon World), or the Cortex+ family (like Heroic Fantasy) registers well to the left of center on both.


----------



## Manbearcat

Nagol said:


> Additionally, many D&D DMs ascribe to techniques whereby they adjust danger level off-the-cuff, typically covertly (fudging or illusionism).  Dungeon World restricts those tools, but despite @_*Manbearcat*_'s assertion, has similar ways to be deviate from a "honest" play experience if the GM wishes.




I just want to make clear what I assert.

Illusionism can be facilitated or hindered by (a) explicit or implicit play agenda, (b) GM latitude or constraint, (c) the nature of play conversation/procedures/resolution mechanics (how transparent they are and the actual manifestation of the fortune resolution at the table), and (d) cultural orthodoxy.

When I talk about the PBtA games and Illusionism, I'm referring to how they interface with (a), (b), (c), and (d) above and how, if there is a continuum of Facilitate <<<<<>>>>> Hinder, they are on the extreme right because of it.  But *no *TTRPG can utterly squashed the prospects of Illusionism out of existence.  That is because TTRPG are a collection of directives and  people.  People can do all sorts of things (including the overturning/manipulation of stringent, clear, coherent, and highly functional directives) to further their own ends.


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Originally Posted by Imaro
> Ok so looking at this and referencing the DW SRD... the player (because remember I was speaking to GM/DM creativity) decides what the out come will be from their move either less damage, spent ammo or danger.
> 
> Now let's first look at the example where the player picks less damage... With this choice I see no area where the GM gets to express any type of creativity.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the DM is constrained by the fact that he doesn't get to actively pick which of the consequences (even within the parameters of the 3 set forth for the specific roll in the game) affect the player.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The player chooses danger, well the GM does get to flex his creative muscles in that he gets to decide the type of danger and the fiction surrounding it but again he is constrained.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Perhaps I've missed the point, but this seems an odd place to argue about GM creativity. In D&D, if the player makes a roll to hit, all the GM gets to do is either leave the target's hp unchanged (on a miss) or reduce the hp tally (on a hit). (Having read on a bit, I see that   [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] has made much the same point.)
> 
> And if we think about non-attack moves declared by a player, like climbing - well, the GM gets to declare "You go up", "You stay put" or "You fall". When  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] once suggested that, using DW-type principles, the GM might instead narrate an essential item falling into the crevasse, I remember this provoking a degree of controversy.
> 
> So what GM creativity are you envisaging being opened up by player action declarations that is missing from DW?
Click to expand...



It seems like the conversation with  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] and this post and another post by  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (regarding how the GM is constained in affecting the fiction in classic D&D turn-based combat due action economy and the prescriptive, binary nature of most actions) may have sorted this out.  But if it hasn't, here is another effort.  

In one (small with respect to scale and scope) Dungeon World combat the result of PC moves yielded the following:

Outright success * 2
Success with danger * 2 
Success with a prescribed worst outcome * 1
Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice * 3
Hard failure * 1

These are just the reactive moves I have to make.  This doesn't even take into account my initial framing (collection of soft moves in establishing the situation) and proactive soft moves I would need to make in the course of play to give effect to my NPCs/obstacles and follow the fiction.

Just those alone and you have 5 reactive moves that don't just allow, but require, a significant amount of creativity on the GM's part to (a) follow the fiction, (b) fill the character's lives with adventure, (c) think dangerous, and (d) create interesting decision-points/trees for the players.  These aren't in the least bit prescriptive or binary.  Each one of these probably entails a menu of 6-12 options (depending on how prolific/creative the GM is coupled with the NPC/Obstacle moves/Instincts, coupled with how constraining the present fictional positioning is) that the GM must collate and decide upon a winner.  Then you have the singular Hard failure where the options are either opened up or further constrained depending on the situation.

Contrast with the binary, prescriptive nature of classic D&D combat saving throws and the overwhelming majority of action declarations and their attendant resolution?  There is no comparison.  The creative burden and the creative (but principally constrained) latitude for a Dungeon World GM is overwhelmingly more significant.

If anything, the pressure and demands of this improvisational cognitive burden (creating dynamic, principled fiction with interesting/dynamic decision-points while simultaneously coherently addressing the premise the players' have flagged as important/relevant to their PCs) is the break-point for many classic D&D GMs who try their hand at Dungeon World and other PBtA games (see my post a few above this).  

I've known many that just flat can't do it.  I've known others that can do it in short bursts but anything more is exhausting.


----------



## Manbearcat

hawkeyefan said:


> Absolutely. I agree that pre-determining everything is a lot of effort. And don't get me wrong....I am fine with leaving an NPC's actual motivations unknown, and only establishing them once it makes sense to do so, and in a way that makes sense for the story. I am just aware that doing this is along the lines of illusionism.




One more quick post because I'm seeing a lot of concepts run together and Illusionism is getting conflated/diluted with other stuff because of it.

Keeping fiction mutable (be it backstory, an NPC's nature, or geographical "tightness/resolution") isn't Illusionism.  It can be used as a means to facilitate Illusionism, but it isn't by itself Illusionism.  It can also be used as a means to expedite only having on-screen "the action" (thematic stuff that the PCs care about).  That is the orthodox utility, and therefore reason for deployment, of that GMing technique.

The "illusion of fixedness/persistence/lack of mutability" is not Illusionism.  See below:

*Force*:  A technique deployed whereby control over a characters' thematically/strategically/tactically-significant decisions (or the outcomes of those decisions) is *overtly *wrested from the character's player and/or by way of subordinating the system's orthodox procedures.

All you have to do to turn Force into Illusionism is place a "c" in front of "overtly", thus turning it into "covertly."

The reason why Illusionism is oftentimes considered taboo is because it violates the implicit or explicit social contract that the players have signed up for (and/or the play priorities that the game champions).  If it does not violate social contract, then its perfectly fine (or necessary/expected).


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> It seems like the conversation with  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION] and this post and another post by  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] (regarding how the GM is constained in affecting the fiction in classic D&D turn-based combat due action economy and the prescriptive, binary nature of most actions) may have sorted this out.  But if it hasn't, here is another effort.
> 
> In one (small with respect to scale and scope) Dungeon World combat the result of PC moves yielded the following:
> 
> Outright success * 2
> Success with danger * 2
> Success with a prescribed worst outcome * 1
> Success with a worse outcome, hard bargain, or ugly choice * 3
> Hard failure * 1
> 
> These are just the reactive moves I have to make.  This doesn't even take into account my initial framing (collection of soft moves in establishing the situation) and proactive soft moves I would need to make in the course of play to give effect to my NPCs/obstacles and follow the fiction.
> 
> Just those alone and you have 5 reactive moves that don't just allow, but require, a significant amount of creativity on the GM's part to (a) follow the fiction, (b) fill the character's lives with adventure, (c) think dangerous, and (d) create interesting decision-points/trees for the players.  These aren't in the least bit prescriptive or binary.  Each one of these probably entails a menu of 6-12 options (depending on how prolific/creative the GM is coupled with the NPC/Obstacle moves/Instincts, coupled with how constraining the present fictional positioning is) that the GM must collate and decide upon a winner.  Then you have the singular Hard failure where the options are either opened up or further constrained depending on the situation.
> 
> Contrast with the binary, prescriptive nature of classic D&D combat saving throws and the overwhelming majority of action declarations and their attendant resolution?  There is no comparison.  The creative burden and the creative (but principally constrained) latitude for a Dungeon World GM is overwhelmingly more significant.
> 
> If anything, the pressure and demands of this improvisational cognitive burden (creating dynamic, principled fiction with interesting/dynamic decision-points while simultaneously coherently addressing the premise the players' have flagged as important/relevant to their PCs) is the break-point for many classic D&D GMs who try their hand at Dungeon World and other PBtA games (see my post a few above this).
> 
> I've known many that just flat can't do it.  I've known others that can do it in short bursts but anything more is exhausting.




Again I'll just say I see it differently... I feel it's constraining and most of the demand on creativity is because of said constraints.  I don't think it requires more creativity only a very specific kind at a very specific time determined wholly at random.  Your description above is IMO comparable to two artists... one who can draw whatever he wants within broad confines like landscapes (success or failure) vs. one who must quickly and randomly draw within narrow categories mountains, a lake, a forest, a clearing (outright success, success with danger, success with a...).  I don't think you can tell which artist has the most creativity though I do think the artist drawing a landscape has less constraints than the one drawing specific landscapes.  I don't agree that putting restraints on creativity and forcing someone to randomly and quickly create within them speaks to having or allowing more creativity it just speaks to who does and who doesn't work well in said constraints... and yes I feel being told what you must shape your fiction around at that detailed a level is more of a constraint than what is usually placed on a DM or player in a round of D&D combat.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I am fine with leaving an NPC's actual motivations unknown, and only establishing them once it makes sense to do so, and in a way that makes sense for the story. I am just aware that doing this is along the lines of illusionism.



What's the illusion? As in, in whay way is the GM deceiving the players, or pretending to do things one way while really doing them another?



hawkeyefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> In the real world, people act based on the information they have. In the RPG, the players act on the information they have. So from the point of view of PC habitation, there's no issue.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Well, in the real world, people tend to have motivations all along....they don't spring into existence at the convenience of story. Or drama or going where the action is or whatever label you want to put on it.
> 
> And I'd also say that the whole "from the point of the PCs, there's no issue" argument is pretty much exactly what people say in defense of illusionism.
Click to expand...


The motivation doesn't "spring into existence" - as I said, it's concrete and there all along. It's just that no one in the real world knows yet what it is, because it hasn't been authored yet.

Authorship is not an event that occurs in the fiction.

And I didn't say "from the point of view of the PCs, there's no issue". I said "from the point of view of PC habitation, there's no issue" - that is a comment about the _players_, and their "habitation" of their PCs. At least in my experience, illusionism creates significant issues with PC habitation, because of its effect on the capacity of the player to impose his/her will on the fiction (ie, from the point of view of the PC, _the world_) by way of action declaration. This is not an issue in CoC, which is _supposed_ to produce a feeling of humanity having no control over the cosmos, but is an issue in other games which rest on a different, more action-adventure, premise.



hawkeyefan said:


> I find the idea of the players introducing solutions to the story entirely on their own to be troublesome. Not to say that it can't be done effectively and fairly...I'm sure it can. But I think it can also be abused. Or lead to some less interesting or dramatic resolutions to the problems the PCs find themselves in.



Do you have examples in mind?

Whether or not you do, here's a whole range of ways that standard D&D PCs (at least the spell-using ones) can "introduce solutions to the story entirely on their own" which in the right context are as effective as discovering a secret door: Stone Shape, Knock, Passwall, Dimension Door, Teleport, Transmute Rock to Mud, Dig, Move Earth, Ehterealness, Shadow Walk, Disintegratem and probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment.

I'm not sure why the capacity to make a Citadel-wise or Architecture check is going to break the game in a fashion that those spells don't.

I would also reiterate - _the problems the PCs find themselves in_ does not denote some fixed quantity of situations. Equally, there is no fixed quantity of interest or drama. If you consider the GMing principles I have cited from very sources, you will see that they emphasise the role of the GM in framing the PC (and thereby the players) into circumstances that - in virtue of the complications/challenges present - force choices. For whatever reason (Luke Crane doesn't tell us) the PCs want to enter the fortress. That is a challenge. But it's not the only one. Complication, and the forcing of choices, can happen on the other side of a secret door as easily as on this side of one.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I feel being told what you must shape your fiction around at that detailed a level is more of a constraint than what is usually placed on a DM or player in a round of D&D combat.



Can you elaborate on the nature of the creativity that you think is available to a player or a GM in a typical round of D&D combat?


----------



## ArchfiendBobbie

Judgement call: "Decking the queen? In front of her entire army? Yeah, you're going to want this blank character sheet..."

Railroading: "What's that? You want to explore that hamlet rather than continue to the city? Roll Constitution... Congrats! You survived the five hour beating a group of druids delivered unto you for daring to step into their sacred forest!"


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> PCs have to deal with rather than bypass; and there are only certain legitimate ways to deal with that challenge - finding a secret door is not one of them!




If there is a secret door, what other options are there but to find it or not?



pemerton said:


> But, as I replied to Lanefan, if the game is being run in the style described by Eero Tuovinen's "standard narrativistic model", or the GMing instructions I quoted not far upthread from the BW rulebooks, then that assumption doesn't hold good. The GM's job is to "go where the action is" and to introduce complications that force players to make choices. I can do that whether or not the PCs find a secret door.




So I'm reading Eero's Standard Narrativistic Model (https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/) and he seems to specifically be promoting a GM-driven game:

_"These games are tremendously fun, and they form a very discrete family of games wherein many techniques are interchangeable between the games. The most important common trait these games share is the GM authority over backstory and dramatic coordination (I talk of these two extensively in Solar System, which is also a game of this ilk), which powers the GM uses to put the player characters into pertinent choice situations. Can you see how this underlying fundamental structure is undermined by undiscretionary use of narrative sharing?"_

His specific point, supported by all of the analysis before the outline of his structure, is that in order to have a "Story Now" game, the GM must have control over the story. 

His further elaboration seems to specifically support the sort of game I like to run:

_"The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design, this is exactly the thing that was promised to me in 1992 in the MERP rulebook. And it works, but only as long as you do not require the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice. If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character, not ask the player whether he’s OK with it – asking him is the same as telling him to stop considering the scene in terms of what his character wants and requiring him to take an objective stance on what is “best for the story”. Consensus is a poor to_ol in driving excitement, a roleplaying game does not have teeth if you stop to ask the other players if it’s OK to actually challenge their characters."

That the "_holy grail of RPG design_" is that the player's viewpoint is that the entire game is based around "nothing by choices made in playing his character."

By this measure, that the player is always in character, and making decisions as that character, then the methods the DM uses to present the world, events, encounters, etc. are irrelevant. I see it as going to a movie - I don't really care what technology, what cameras or techniques, or how many scriptwriters there were, etc. The finished product is what matters. 

Yes, after the movie (or after the game) I love to dig and see if we can figure out what makes it such a great experience. And while I understand how certain players object to things like illusionism, fudging, or many other techniques, my assertion is that is has far more to do with how the DM handled (or mishandled) those tools than the tools themselves. 

But without even going into the more controversial tools, I think Eero's Model has some contradictions. If one of the roles is to:

_"frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications."_

Then how can the story be "nothing by choices made by playing (the) character?" As soon as the DM fades to black at the end of one framed scene, then fades up on the next scene, you've removed a big chunk of player decisions from the game. Sure, it might make for a great story, but it's now the DM's story, not the PC's.

Where I think this theory is wrong is in not allowing the player to determine the "moments of choice." I totally agree that you should not "_ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father."_ And if all he's talking about is deciding as the DM when to reveal information like this, then I'm fine with it.

It's really his procedural description that I have some issue with, particularly the bolded selection:

_"The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the *GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character* (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end."_

His holy grail is that the players can make decisions entirely as the characters (which I agree 100% with), but then takes away some of that ability to make decisions by instructing the DM to frame the scenes, and implying that the only scenes that should remain are those that is "interesting" in "relation to the premise of the setting or character."

But the only people that should be deciding whether it's interesting or not is the players. While my description of the private detective was, in part, to show how the framing can lead the action (instead of "going to the action"), it also removed many opportunities for the character to do something different. In my example he still ended up at the grocery store to pick up a few things for his wife. But in the game play he may have opted to do something else altogether, specifically because he decided something was important, even if the DM didn't think so.

I can't tell you how many games I've seen where a DM was running a published or pre-planned adventure, and the DM had put something of great importance in front of the PCs, only for them to completely ignore it and go someplace else entirely. Many years ago I figured out that the stories were much more interesting (and "authentic") if they were driven by the PCs and not me, the DM. That's why I focus on the backstory and setting, all the things that are happening around the PCs, and let them decide what's important.

I get it, we have a lot less time to play than we used to. So the idea of skipping ahead (which we still do, in agreement rather than DM decision), is tempting. Because you think you're spending time on something that's not important and boring. But most of the time we find that if we just stick with it, there is plenty of interesting things that happen that greatly enrich the game, and wouldn't have happened if we skipped ahead. 

So there are two aspects to what I see as framing a scene. Yes - the description of the situation, what's there and where, is technically framing the scene. My objection is with the technique where the game is separated into distinct scenes where the DM decides when one scene ends and when (and where) the next one begins.

The only place where I think Eero misses is that the players should be in control of the story. The DM is in control of the world and everything except the PCs within it. In some cases this includes story (Vader is your father). But in most cases, the story is in control of the players and is a direct result of the choices they make in character.


----------



## Aenghus

Lanefan said:


> In which case this tells me one or more of several things:
> 
> 1. You're looking too hard at it and-or maybe taking it too seriously, rather than just relaxing and enjoying the game for what it is
> 2. You're expecting the game to be about how the world interacts with the PCs (sun revolves around the earth) rather than how the PCs interact with the world (earth revolves around the sun)
> 3. The DM is doing it wrong - were it being done well the players' hooks etc. would be seamlessly incorporated into her story such that you couldn't tell how they were interwoven




RE point 1 above, in fictional gameworlds the sun may very well revolve around the earth(or other planet)(or the world might be flat or whatever). IMO some of the RPGs being discussed are intended to make the game about the way the world interacts with the PCs.

Re point 3 above, I disagree that seamless incorporation is always possible, and even if it was, how the DM makes decisions is very important to some players. Whenever DM decision making is based whole or in part on criteria that violate the formal or informal social contract of the group, players can have legitimate grievances.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Can you elaborate on the nature of the creativity that you think is available to a player or a GM in a typical round of D&D combat?




I can pretty much describe my success or failure however I want, as long as I respect the fiction and don't assume it took the opponent out of the combat... unless of course the opponent was taken to zero hit points then even that doesn't apply.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Again I'll just say I see it differently... I feel it's constraining and most of the demand on creativity is because of said constraints.  I don't think it requires more creativity only a very specific kind at a very specific time determined wholly at random.  Your description above is IMO comparable to two artists... one who can draw whatever he wants within broad confines like landscapes (success or failure) vs. one who must quickly and randomly draw within narrow categories mountains, a lake, a forest, a clearing (outright success, success with danger, success with a...).  I don't think you can tell which artist has the most creativity though I do think the artist drawing a landscape has less constraints than the one drawing specific landscapes.  I don't agree that putting restraints on creativity and forcing someone to randomly and quickly create within them speaks to having or allowing more creativity it just speaks to who does and who doesn't work well in said constraints... and yes I feel being told what you must shape your fiction around at that detailed a level is more of a constraint than what is usually placed on a DM or player in a round of D&D combat.






Imaro said:


> I can pretty much describe my success or failure however I want, as long as I respect the fiction and don't assume it took the opponent out of the combat... unless of course the opponent was taken to zero hit points then even that doesn't apply.




I've read what you've written here but its entirely inconsistent with both my experience in classic D&D vs Dungeon World and (what I would think) the conception that someone would get from the comparative texts if they just read them and didn't actually play them.

So let us try this.

Give me a heroic fantasy combat encounter replete with (a) the general context of the situation and (b) the fictional elements of (general info like classes and levels) PCs, obstacles (NPC adversaries, hazards/traps et al), and battlefield/terrain dynamics.

I'll give you the abstract of how I see its potential iterations playing out in 5e versus Dungeon World (from procedures/resolution to outcomes).  You can then critique it and tell me where I'm wrong.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> I've read what you've written here but its entirely inconsistent with both my experience in classic D&D vs Dungeon World and (what I would think) the conception that someone would get from the comparative texts if they just read them and didn't actually play them.
> 
> So let us try this.
> 
> Give me a heroic fantasy combat encounter replete with (a) the general context of the situation and (b) the fictional elements of (general info like classes and levels) PCs, obstacles (NPC adversaries, hazards/traps et al), and battlefield/terrain dynamics.
> 
> I'll give you the abstract of how I see its potential iterations playing out in 5e versus Dungeon World (from procedures/resolution to outcomes).  You can then critique it and tell me where I'm wrong.




That sounds fair enough.  I probably won't get a chance to do this until sometime tomorrow though... also, though you state classic D&D in the post above, I've been clear to specify that it is 5e that I am speaking to.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> I can pretty much describe my success or failure however I want, as long as I respect the fiction



You can't describe your success or failure in terms of someone falling down (because prone modifiers aren't activated), in terms of someone being wrongfooted (because no martial mind-control forced movement), in terms of disarming (because that's a separate mechanical state), and in AD&D not even in terms of spinning someone around (because that would violate the facing rules).

Depending on table conventions, you may also not be able to describe significant physical injury, as there are no debilitating consequences as a result.

And, furthermore, it's _all just colour_, because D&D combat resolution has no regard to that sort of fictional positioning. Whether I describe the 5 hp I dealt as a wound or as reducing fighting spirit has no affect on subsequent resolution.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> You can't describe your success or failure in terms of someone falling down (because prone modifiers aren't activated)



Prone is a specific condition... every instance of falling does not inflict that condition and every time that condition is inflicted doesn't necessarily mean someone has fallen... In fact in D&D you take damage when you fall which seems to line up with what we are talking about... why can't I describe it that way with the victim taking damage and then scrambling to their feet before I can capitalize on a prone condition?  Some inconsequential movement is assumed in the exchange of blows in D&D combat... without the prone effect it is certainly inconsequential... so why can't I describe it like that?



pemerton said:


> in terms of someone being wrongfooted (because no martial mind-control forced movement)




Why do I need martial mind-control to describe a person misjudging their footing and missing a blow?  Or is the only way one could be wrong-footed in the fiction through mind-control forced movement?  that's a specific maneuver not the act of being wrong-footed in the fiction.



pemerton said:


> in terms of disarming (because that's a separate mechanical state)




Again they scoop up the weapon before anyone can capitalize on them being disarmed... unless of course someone actually inflicts the mechanical effect of disarming... which they could again describe however they like as long as it respects the fiction.



pemerton said:


> and in AD&D not even in terms of spinning someone around (because that would violate the facing rules)




Well I'm not speaking to AD&D...



pemerton said:


> Depending on table conventions, you may also not be able to describe significant physical injury, as there are no debilitating consequences as a result.




Wait what?  Some portion of hit points is physical... how much, we don't know so why can't I describe it as such?  Now if we as a table have made an agreement about said descriptions of course not... but that's beyond the scope of what the game does or does not allow.



pemerton said:


> And, furthermore, it's _all just colour_, because D&D combat resolution has no regard to that sort of fictional positioning. Whether I describe the 5 hp I dealt as a wound or as reducing fighting spirit has no affect on subsequent resolution.




That's what we are speaking to... creative description and whether that description is more constrained or not in particular systems.  If anything it seems you hamper your own creativity in these situations by tying the description to mechanics when they don't have to or even necessarily map uniquely with one of your chosen mechanics... .


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> One more quick post because I'm seeing a lot of concepts run together and Illusionism is getting conflated/diluted with other stuff because of it.
> 
> Keeping fiction mutable (be it backstory, an NPC's nature, or geographical "tightness/resolution") isn't Illusionism.  It can be used as a means to facilitate Illusionism, but it isn't by itself Illusionism.  It can also be used as a means to expedite only having on-screen "the action" (thematic stuff that the PCs care about).  That is the orthodox utility, and therefore reason for deployment, of that GMing technique.
> 
> The "illusion of fixedness/persistence/lack of mutability" is not Illusionism.  See below:
> 
> *Force*:  A technique deployed whereby control over a characters' thematically/strategically/tactically-significant decisions (or the outcomes of those decisions) is *overtly *wrested from the character's player and/or by way of subordinating the system's orthodox procedures.
> 
> All you have to do to turn Force into Illusionism is place a "c" in front of "overtly", thus turning it into "covertly."
> 
> The reason why Illusionism is oftentimes considered taboo is because it violates the implicit or explicit social contract that the players have signed up for (and/or the play priorities that the game champions).  If it does not violate social contract, then its perfectly fine (or necessary/expected).




I'm not saying that it is exactly the same, just that it's similar. 



pemerton said:


> What's the illusion? As in, in whay way is the GM deceiving the players, or pretending to do things one way while really doing them another?
> 
> The motivation doesn't "spring into existence" - as I said, it's concrete and there all along. It's just that no one in the real world knows yet what it is, because it hasn't been authored yet.




Well when you first mentioned this, you did so by implying that you likely had an idea of what the yellow clad skulker's motovations were when he first ahowed up, but that without establishing it within the game, you were free to change those motivations.

So I don't think that would be considered concrete. [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] describes it as "mutable", which to me seems a better fit. So that ability to change things...having the notion or plan for the skulker to be a member of the Cult of the Dragon, but then changing that to have him instead be a Thayan wizard...that's the illusion. 

Now, I said this was similar to Illusionism as the specific term you mean it to be. It's not identical to it. But I would think that any time the GM has idea A in place, and then it becomes idea B later on...that's a but of GM trickery.

Because if it were concrete as you say, and the motovation does not simply spring into existence...then why would you not decide it upon introducing the NPC? 



pemerton said:


> Do you have examples in mind?
> 
> Whether or not you do, here's a whole range of ways that standard D&D PCs (at least the spell-using ones) can "introduce solutions to the story entirely on their own" which in the right context are as effective as discovering a secret door: Stone Shape, Knock, Passwall, Dimension Door, Teleport, Transmute Rock to Mud, Dig, Move Earth, Ehterealness, Shadow Walk, Disintegratem and probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment.




Well I don't know if I would say that PCs introduce those spells to the game....they are already part of the game, and have been chosen at some point by the player. 

What I'm talking about is allng the lines of "finding" a secret door to get out of a potentially dangerous fight. Or making a perception check to see if the keys wee left in the lock by the stupid jailer. Or when apprehended by the town guard for lugging a dead body around town, making a diplomacy check to establish that the PCs cousin is a member of the guard and he helps things get smoothed over.



pemerton said:


> I'm not sure why the capacity to make a Citadel-wise or Architecture check is going to break the game in a fashion that those spells don't.




But I'm not talking about breaking the game. It need not be that drastic. It's more about things resolving in a less dramatic fashion. About a lame or anticlimactic resolution of some sort.


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> If there is a secret door, what other options are there but to find it or not?



Key words there are "if there is", which by the sound of it is unknown until a player rolls a check.  On a success, a secret door is found and at the same time is brought into existence.  On a fail, there's no door and maybe something goes wrong...guards arrive or whatever.  On a middling result there may or may not be a door, enemies might be waiting right behind it, etc.  Schroedinger's door.



> That the "_holy grail of RPG design_" is that the player's viewpoint is that the entire game is based around "nothing by choices made in playing his character."
> 
> By this measure, that the player is always in character, and making decisions as that character, then the methods the DM uses to present the world, events, encounters, etc. are irrelevant. I see it as going to a movie - I don't really care what technology, what cameras or techniques, or how many scriptwriters there were, etc. The finished product is what matters.
> 
> Yes, after the movie (or after the game) I love to dig and see if we can figure out what makes it such a great experience. And while I understand how certain players object to things like illusionism, fudging, or many other techniques, my assertion is that is has far more to do with how the DM handled (or mishandled) those tools than the tools themselves.



This kind of sums up what I've been trying to say for about the last 7 pages: if it's a good game, why does it matter how it came to be so? 

=======================================



			
				Aenghus said:
			
		

> RE point 1 above, in fictional gameworlds the sun may very well revolve around the earth(or other planet)(or the world might be flat or whatever).



I'll explain the analogy as you seem to have taken it literally.

The earth is the PCs.  The sun is the game world.  The game world is always bigger than the PCs.


> IMO some of the RPGs being discussed are intended to make the game about the way the world interacts with the PCs.



I know, and I'm railing against it as poor to awful design as all it does is make the PCs into special snowflakes, which if left unchecked and-or without the perfect group to play it leads to overentitled players and doormat or processor-unit DMs.



> Re point 3 above, I disagree that seamless incorporation is always possible, and even if it was, how the DM makes decisions is very important to some players. Whenever DM decision making is based whole or in part on criteria that violate the formal or informal social contract of the group, players can have legitimate grievances.



Assuming the DM is unwise enough to reveal whatever decision-making process is being used at a given time, then yes.  I know that my answer if asked about this as a DM would usually boil down to a polite version of "none of your business" which would get less polite each successive time I was asked.

I don't sign social contracts.  I just say (again in more flowery terms) "here's my game, here's the rules and system, here's the game world - check it out then either sit down and play or get up and leave". 

Lan-"'do it till they tell you to stop' can sometimes be a useful motto to play by"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and anyone else running a BW/DW type of system, a question:

Secret doors.  How in your system can - or is it even possible - the following occur: someone rolls a check to find a secret door and fails when in fact there is a secret door right there which might be found on a later check by someone else and-or remains to be used by the enemy?

I ask because in reading what's been posted here a failed check seems to hard-write into the fiction that no secret door is present (and the DM isn't allowed to predetermine there is one and just stick with that), where realism would say instead that all that gets written into the fiction at that point is that an unsuccessful search was made and in fact it yet remains uncertain whether there's a secret door present at that location or not.

Lan-"waiter - check, please"-efan


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

I think this goes back to my own concerns about group creativity over individual creative expression. When I make contributions to the fiction in a role playing game I have the expectation that the other people sitting at the table will be actively interested, have regard for what I am saying, and build upon it rather than negate it. My efforts to describe a given character's actions are not meaningful if there is no expectation that the other people sitting at the table will take that into account when making their own contributions to the fiction. If my efforts to establish fictional positioning can be freely disregarded according to the assumed social contract than playing the game loses all meaning to me. When playing my bard and I use *Vicious Mockery* and the rules say the words cut my expectation is that the actual words I speak for my character affected that character beyond the mechanical impact of losing 1d4 hp and getting disadvantage on the next attack. In turn I am socially obliged to actually speak words that should cut.

This is in part what I was speaking to when I said many mainstream games are played with *Walled Off Gardens* between players where we are only allowed to interact with each others stuff in ways that are explicitly approved. When we are socially free to disregard contributions to the fiction other players make and there is no need to actually establish appropriate fictional positioning to mechanically affect the play space there is no *shared fiction* - there are *individual fictions* that we sometimes allow others to impact when and where we choose.

This presumption that the mechanisms are meaningfully independent of the fiction and that one player's fiction is independent of another player's fiction results in play I have zero interest in. Furthermore it results in the sort of experience where in order for something to really have an impact it must be represented by mechanics. There can be no fruitful voids where we have fictional positioning that impacts play without going to the mechanisms.

*What I Want* 

*Fiction -> Mechanics -> Fiction ->* *Fiction -> Mechanics -> Fiction ->* *Fiction->Mechanics->Fiction*
*Fiction -> Fiction-> Fiction*​
*What I Do Not Want*

*Mechanics -> Mechanics-> Mechanics
<Fiction> <Fiction> <Fiction>

*Colors are used to show different contributors. Diagrams are not perfect. In reality for the sort of play I am interested in the Fiction and the Mechanics are meaningfully shared by all participants at all times. The reason I enjoy doing this thing we do is because we play in a dynamic *shared **collaborative* fiction that belongs to us all equally - where we are creative peers.


----------



## Lanefan

Campbell said:


> I think this goes back to my own concerns about group creativity over individual creative expression. When I make contributions to the fiction in a role playing game I have the expectation that the other people sitting at the table will be actively interested, have regard for what I am saying, and build upon it rather than negate it.



Whereas I as player harbour no preconceived expectations at all as to how my contributions to the fiction and entertainment will be received - though my ego would obviously like it to be well-received I've no right to automatically expect such, and nor should I.  

I say what I say and I do what I do and - *just like in real life!* - it's completely up to the listeners to determine what they think of it and-or how (or if) they're going to react to it and-or interact with it.  They're free to run with it, build on it, or support it and are equally as free to ignore it, be bored by it, or negate it.

It's their call.

By the same token, though, it's my call as to what I do with the fiction presented to me by the DM and-or other players.

As DM I have a right to somewhat more expectation that they're at least going to pay attention, but that's as far as it goes.



> My efforts to describe a given character's actions are not meaningful if there is no expectation that the other people sitting at the table will take that into account when making their own contributions to the fiction.



The DM has to take your actions into account.  The other players have to account for them but don't by any means have to agree with or support or build on them if they (in character) don't want to.



> If my efforts to establish fictional positioning can be freely disregarded according to the assumed social contract than playing the game loses all meaning to me. When playing my bard and I use *Vicious Mockery* and the rules say the words cut my expectation is that the actual words I speak for my character affected that character beyond the mechanical impact of losing 1d4 hp and getting disadvantage on the next attack. In turn I am socially obliged to actually speak words that should cut.



And if I'm the target I have the right to completely ignore said Bard (or pretend to, I'm still eating that d4 damage), or laugh at said Bard, or loudly tell said Bard to sod off, or attack said Bard (at disadvantage, grumble), or simply turn and walk away with my head held high.



> This is in part what I was speaking to when I said many mainstream games are played with *Walled Off Gardens* between players where we are only allowed to interact with each others stuff in ways that are explicitly approved. When we are socially free to disregard contributions to the fiction other players make and there is no need to actually establish appropriate fictional positioning to mechanically affect the play space there is no *shared fiction* - there are *individual fictions* that we sometimes allow others to impact when and where we choose.



The shared fiction is the sum of its parts, which are the individual fictions plus the overall fiction as a whole e.g. metaplot and adventure logs.  It sometimes can't even be fully seen until viewed in hindsight.

The individual fictions cannot remain independent when they impact another character (e.g. your Bard Vicious-Wording my Fighter just got your fiction all up in my fiction) or the overall game (my Fighter just took down that orc which means it's dead to you too).  But when my Fighter spins a grandly entertaining tale of derring-do in the highlands your Bard is still free to tell me exactly what I'm full of and then say "no, this is how it really went"...or just walk out.



> This presumption that the mechanisms are meaningfully independent of the fiction and that one player's fiction is independent of another player's fiction results in play I have zero interest in. Furthermore it results in the sort of experience where in order for something to really have an impact it must be represented by mechanics.



Here I agree; we don't need mechanics for everything.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And, furthermore, it's all just colour, because D&D combat resolution has no regard to that sort of fictional positioning. Whether I describe the 5 hp I dealt as a wound or as reducing fighting spirit has no affect on subsequent resolution.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> That's what we are speaking to... creative description and whether that description is more constrained or not in particular systems.  If anything it seems you hamper your own creativity in these situations by tying the description to mechanics when they don't have to or even necessarily map uniquely with one of your chosen mechanics... .
Click to expand...


I hadn't realised that you were talking about narration as mere colour, without it actually establishing fictional positioning that matters to resolution.

Personally I don't put a very high premium on that dimension of creativity in RPGing.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Well when you first mentioned this, you did so by implying that you likely had an idea of what the yellow clad skulker's motovations were when he first ahowed up, but that without establishing it within the game, you were free to change those motivations.
> 
> So I don't think that would be considered concrete.



I think you may have misunderstood.

The skulker's motivation is concrete _in the fiction_. It's just not yet been authored, and so - at the table - no one (not GM, not players) knows what it is - although all may have some conjectures.

I am insisting on a _very strong_ distinction between the fiction and the real world here, because I find without that distinction being clearly drawn we get strange claims that seem to imply that the fiction writes itself, or exercises causal power over people in the real world.



hawkeyefan said:


> that ability to change things...having the notion or plan for the skulker to be a member of the Cult of the Dragon, but then changing that to have him instead be a Thayan wizard...that's the illusion.



But nothing is being _changed_. To _author_ some bit of the fiction is not to _change_ some bit of the fiction. It is to establish it.

And I still don't see what the illusion is. On whom has it been perpetrated? I mean, I as GM had some conjecture as to whom the skulker might be. When the big reveal comes out it turns out that my initial conjecture was false - the skulker is someone else. Who has been deceived? What's the illusion? All I can see is _authorship_.



hawkeyefan said:


> I would think that any time the GM has idea A in place, and then it becomes idea B later on...that's a but of GM trickery.



First, what is the meaning of "in place"? If you mean _the fiction is already established_, then that is not what I am talking about and has no bearing on the example of the skulker. If you mean _the GM has a conjecture about some bit of the fiction_ then what does it mean to say that the idea is "in place"?

Assuming the second understanding - which is what I have been talking about, and is the example I provided - who is being tricked? Not the GM. Not the players. Not any of the fictional inhabitants of the gameworld.



hawkeyefan said:


> Well I don't know if I would say that PCs introduce those spells to the game....they are already part of the game, and have been chosen at some point by the player.
> 
> What I'm talking about is along the lines of "finding" a secret door to get out of a potentially dangerous fight. Or making a perception check to see if the keys wee left in the lock by the stupid jailer. Or when apprehended by the town guard for lugging a dead body around town, making a diplomacy check to establish that the PCs cousin is a member of the guard and he helps things get smoothed over.
> 
> But I'm not talking about breaking the game. It need not be that drastic. It's more about things resolving in a less dramatic fashion. About a lame or anticlimactic resolution of some sort.



How is finding a secret door by way of a successful Architecture check less dramatic than (say) casting a Passwall spell? Or, for that matter, how is bumping into your cousin and smoothing things over less dramatic than casting a Charm Person spell?

You're clearly seeing some distinction here, but I'm missing what it is.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> If there is a secret door, what other options are there but to find it or not?



  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] was expressing a concern that if a PC finds a secret door which the GM didn't know, in advance of the check to find it, was present in the fiction, then the PCs will "bypass the challenge". My comment is that this concern seems to rest on an assumption that there is such a thing as _the challenge_, which it would not be proper for the PCs to "bypass" by unexpectedly (to the GM) finding a secret door.

And my response is that, in the sort of approach I favour, there isn't such a thing as _the challenge_, and hence concerns about "bypassing" it aren't apposite.



Lanefan said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and anyone else running a BW/DW type of system, a question:
> 
> Secret doors.  How in your system can - or is it even possible - the following occur: someone rolls a check to find a secret door and fails when in fact there is a secret door right there which might be found on a later check by someone else and-or remains to be used by the enemy?
> 
> I ask because in reading what's been posted here a failed check seems to hard-write into the fiction that no secret door is present



Here's one way: the PCs learn (eg from a friend; from a blueprint) that a secret door is present in a certain place. They try to find it, and fail. Later on enemies come through the door.

Here's another way (reposting something I posted upthread):



pemerton said:


> suppose that a player declares a Perception check to look for a secret door at a dead end. And s/he declares that s/he (in character) is searching carefully (so as to get a bonus die). And the check fails, meaning that the GM is licensed to introduce a significant time-based complication: so the GM might narrate, "As you are carefully tapping the wall, listening for hollow places, you hear boots coming along the corridor - it sounds like the iron-shod boots of goblins! And then the wall in front of you opens - there _is_ a secret door, with goblins on the other side of it. It looks like you're just in time for a rendezvous of forces!"
> 
> As I said, a failure to find _X_ can be for any number of reasons other than the absence of _X_. Upthread, for instance, I noted that a possible failure for a check to find a vessel to catch blood in might be that the character notices the vessel just in time to see it knocked to the ground by the other struggling characters, and smash on the floor.
> 
> It depends on the context and significance of the check (and the GM's imagination, obviously).


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> So I'm reading Eero's Standard Narrativistic Model (https://isabout.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/the-pitfalls-of-narrative-technique-in-rpg-play/) and he seems to specifically be promoting a GM-driven game:
> 
> _"These games are tremendously fun, and they form a very discrete family of games wherein many techniques are interchangeable between the games. The most important common trait these games share is the GM authority over backstory and dramatic coordination (I talk of these two extensively in Solar System, which is also a game of this ilk), which powers the GM uses to put the player characters into pertinent choice situations. Can you see how this underlying fundamental structure is undermined by undiscretionary use of narrative sharing?"_
> 
> His specific point, supported by all of the analysis before the outline of his structure, is that in order to have a "Story Now" game, the GM must have control over the story.



No it's not. As you've quoted, he talks about GM authority over _backstory_ and _dramatic coordination_. This is not control over story.

The same sort of GM authority is described by Luke Crane in the BW rulebooks that I quoted upthread:



pemerton said:


> From the rulebook (Revised p 268; Gold p 551 - the text is the same in both editions):
> 
> In Burning Wheel, it is the GM's job to interpret all of the various intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game. He's got to make sure that all the player wackiness abides by the rules.  When it doesn't, he must guide the wayward players gently back into the fold. Often this requires negotiating an action or intent until both player and GM are satisfied that it fits both the concept and the mood of the game.
> 
> Also, the GM is in a unique position. He can see the big picture - what the players are doing, as well as what the opposition is up to and plans to do. His perspective grants the power to hold off one action, while another player moves forward so that the two pieces intersect dramatically at the table. More than any other player, the GM controls the flow and pacing of the game. He has the power to begin and end scenes, to present challenges and instigate conflicts. It's a heady responsibility, but utterly worthwhile.​



The "power to being and end scenes, to present challenges and instigate conflicts", and "to hold off one action" is what Eero Tuovinen calls _dramatic coordination_. The GM's knowledge of "the big picture" is what Eero Tuovinen calls _authority over backstory_.

Burning Wheel is an instance of the "standard narrativistic model" - and neither Luke Crane nor Eero Tuovinen is talking about _GM control over the story_. "Story" (or "plot") is the upshot of actual play, in which players make choices for their PCs in response to the situations framed by the GM. Here is Luke Crane's account of it (from the GM side):



pemerton said:


> Most important, the GM is response for introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices. Burning Wheel is all about choices - from the minute you start creating a character, you are making hard choices. Once play begins, as players choose their path, it is the GM's job to meaningfully inject resonant ramifications into play.



And here is Eero Tuovinen's (more technically elaborated) account of the same process:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, *frame scenes according to dramatic needs* (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .

The actual procedure of play is very simple: once *the players* have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. *The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs*, so* he makes choices on the part of the character*. This in turn *leads to consequences* as determined by the game’s rules. *Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices*, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
I've bolded some key passages - _the players_ establish the concrete characters, and hence the dramatic needs. The GM "goes where the action is" ie frames scenes that are interesting in relation to those dramatic needs, that have been established by the players. _The players_ then make choices, which have consequences - and those consequences (and their interaction with dramatic needs) provide the context for further framing. This is why I call it "player-driven": it is _the players_ who establish the focus of play, and whose choices for their PCs drive play.

The sort of thing he is talking about is _defeated_ by the GM's use of secret backstory to determine consequences of action declarations. Because at that point it is no longer a case of the GM "going where the action is" ie framing and narrating in response to dramatic need _as established by the players_ in the build and play of their PCs.



Ilbranteloth said:


> His further elaboration seems to specifically support the sort of game I like to run:
> 
> _"The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design, this is exactly the thing that was promised to me in 1992 in the MERP rulebook. And it works, but only as long as you do not require the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice. If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character, not ask the player whether he’s OK with it – asking him is the same as telling him to stop considering the scene in terms of what his character wants and requiring him to take an objective stance on what is “best for the story”. Consensus is a poor to_ol in driving excitement, a roleplaying game does not have teeth if you stop to ask the other players if it’s OK to actually challenge their characters."
> 
> That the "_holy grail of RPG design_" is that the player's viewpoint is that the entire game is based around "nothing by choices made in playing his character."
> 
> By this measure, that the player is always in character, and making decisions as that character, then the methods the DM uses to present the world, events, encounters, etc. are irrelevant.



The method that the GM uses to present the world, events, etc is absolutely central. Here are the key passages again, with some highlighting:

One of the players is *a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments* (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .

The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, *the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character* (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). *The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. *The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.

*The GM . . . needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences*. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​
This is what makes it _story now_. The aspiration is that every moment of play is a story, in the sense that something is happening that matters to the dramatic needs of these characters; and that this is achieved by _the players playing the characters they have built_ and the GM _framing scenes_ and _adjudicating action declarations[ made by the players for their PCs_. If the GM is framing scenes (eg moments of haggling, or marauding wolves) that don't speak to anyone character's dramatic needs, then we don't have story _now_. If the GM is adjudicating results not by reference to action declarations that express dramatic need, but rather by reference to secret backstory, then we don't have _story_ now.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I think Eero's Model has some contradictions. If one of the roles is to:
> 
> _"frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications."_
> 
> Then how can the story be "nothing by choices made by playing (the) character?" As soon as the DM fades to black at the end of one framed scene, then fades up on the next scene, you've removed a big chunk of player decisions from the game. Sure, it might make for a great story, but it's now the DM's story, not the PC's.



Well, I can report that there is no contradiction, as I (and many others) run games in this fashion.

You have misquoted Eero Tuovinen. He doesn't say that "the story is nothing but choices made by playing the character". He says that "from the player’s viewpoint . . . he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." That is, the player doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by playing his/her PC.

And the GM doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by framing the PCs into scenes that speak to dramatic need. (Eg the GM doesn't need a whole lot of notes such as one might find in a typical "event-driven" module.)

The story emerges from the sequence of *situation* -> *choices* -> *action declarations* -> *consequences* -> *new situation* -> etc. What is crucial to this is that the situation, at each point, speaks to dramatic need as established by build and play of the PCs.

It is therefore the exact opposite of most event-driven modules that I am familiar with, which are replete with devices (like back-up clues, back-up BBEGs, etc) all intended to ensure that whatever the outcomes of action declarations, _nothing will change_ and the situation will remain constant.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Where I think this theory is wrong is in not allowing the player to determine the "moments of choice." I totally agree that you should not "_ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father."_ And if all he's talking about is deciding as the DM when to reveal information like this, then I'm fine with it.
> 
> It's really his procedural description that I have some issue with, particularly the bolded selection:
> 
> _"The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the *GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character* (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end."_
> 
> His holy grail is that the players can make decisions entirely as the characters (which I agree 100% with), but then takes away some of that ability to make decisions by instructing the DM to frame the scenes, and implying that the only scenes that should remain are those that is "interesting" in "relation to the premise of the setting or character."
> 
> But the only people that should be deciding whether it's interesting or not is the players.



I'm not sure what you think the force of the _should_ is. And I'm not sure what method you have in mind either.

In the "standard narrativistic model", the "players [establish] concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes". As part of this, the players inform the GM what the dramatic needs of the PCs are. The GM is then obliged to frame a scene that speaks to this.

Luke Crane describes the same thing in these terms in the BW rulebooks:



pemerton said:


> The next page of both rulebooks goes on to discuss "the sacred and most holy role of the players", who "have a number of duties", to:
> 
> [O]ffer hooks to their GM and the other players in the form of Beliefs, Instincts and Traits . . .
> 
> [L]et the character develop as play advances . . . don't write a [PC] history in which all the adventure has already happened . . .
> 
> se their character to drive the story forward - to resolve conflicts and create new ones . . . to push and risk their characters, so they grow and change in surprising ways . . .​




The players offer hooks; the GM uses those hooks to frame scenes.

If the players, in fact, find the situation the GM frames unengaging (which can happen - humanity is frail, after all) then Luke Crane has the following advice:



pemerton said:


> Use the mechanics . . .
> 
> If the story doesn't interest you, _it's your job to create interesting situations and involve yourself._



But the player, in creating those interesting situations, is nevertheless going to have to work with what the GM has provided, because games run on this model _do not require, nor empower, the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice_. The player cannot frame his/her own challenge (that's the Czege Principle being applied).



Ilbranteloth said:


> I can't tell you how many games I've seen where a DM was running a published or pre-planned adventure, and the DM had put something of great importance in front of the PCs, only for them to completely ignore it and go someplace else entirely.



This is the exact opposite of the "standard narrativistic model". This is the sort of railroading play that the model is a reaction against.

There is no pre-planning of the sort you describe here in the "standard narrativistic model". Because all subsequent framing depends on prior consequences, and hence on prior choices plus the process of resolution. And so can't be known in advance.

This is why Tuovinen stresses that an important GM skill is to "figure out consequences". Whereas the whole point of the sort of published adventure you describe is to make consequences irrelevant because everything has been worked out in advance.



Ilbranteloth said:


> The only place where I think Eero misses is that the players should be in control of the story.



No one is in control of the story. It emerges from the process of *situation* -> *choices* -> *action declarations* -> *consequences* -> *new situation* -> etc - until, as he says, "all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end". It is _the players_ who decide what those outstanding issues are. This is why I describe this sort of RPGing as "player-driven".


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> if it's a good game, why does it matter how it came to be so?



This doesn't make sense, does it? It matters to the play of a game of chess who makes the moves. Given that playing a game is an activity, its _goodness_ can't be divorced from the process of playing it.



Lanefan said:


> Assuming the DM is unwise enough to reveal whatever decision-making process is being used at a given time
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I just say (again in more flowery terms) "here's my game, here's the rules and system, here's the game world - check it out then either sit down and play or get up and leave".



There seems to be a tension here - you say that you tell people what your system is, but you also seem to be implying that you keep your system secret. I'm not sure how both those things can be the case.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I hadn't realised that you were talking about narration as mere colour, without it actually establishing fictional positioning that matters to resolution.
> 
> Personally I don't put a very high premium on that dimension of creativity in RPGing.




So then are you speaking of differentiation through mechanics??  Because that's what matters to resolution in the way you seem to be pointing to...  The examples you gave were all specific mechanics with a mechanical effect that affected gameplay...  Not fictional positioning which can be established without a specific mechanic to represent it and does matter to resolution in what descriptions can follow and flwo from it... if the fiction is being respected.

EDIT: As a fan of 4e , where one of it's highest praises was how easily mechanics were reskinned with different fiction,  I find it interesting that you don't put a high premium on this dimension of creativity.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> When I make contributions to the fiction in a role playing game I have the expectation that the other people sitting at the table will be actively interested, have regard for what I am saying, and build upon it rather than negate it. My efforts to describe a given character's actions are not meaningful if there is no expectation that the other people sitting at the table will take that into account when making their own contributions to the fiction. If my efforts to establish fictional positioning can be freely disregarded according to the assumed social contract than playing the game loses all meaning to me. When playing my bard and I use *Vicious Mockery* and the rules say the words cut my expectation is that the actual words I speak for my character affected that character beyond the mechanical impact of losing 1d4 hp and getting disadvantage on the next attack. In turn I am socially obliged to actually speak words that should cut.



I think this relates to the idea of "authenticity".

To me, it also relates to this post I made upthread:



pemerton said:


> Faith, in BW, is bound by "intent and task". The task is speaking a prayer: so, at the table, the player has to speak the prayer his/her PC is making. The intent is the deisred (mechanically defined) outcome, which also determines the difficulty of the check, although (as per Revised p 231; Gold p 523) "Outlandish intents are a fine cause for massively increased obstacles and a little divine wrath." Having to actually speak your prayer puts the player of the faithful character in quite a different position from the player of the D&D cleric: there is no "hiding" behind spell slots and V, S, M/F components. You have to give voice to your faith.



In my 4e Dark Sun game, I have been inviting the bard player to speak the words that, in the fiction, correspond to his PC's powers (Vicious Mockery, Majestic Word). It makes a difference to play. And (I think quite obviously) it makes the player more vulnerable (eg, at a minimum, to contributing something to the fiction that others are not all that excited by).

Obviously 4e has weaker teeth in this respect than BW - but I think I prefer it to the more traditional V,S,M approach, which through its sheer ubiquity of verbal components doesn't really require the player to speak anything at all. This is one of those cases where I find that 4e opens up a nice space for engagement with fictional positioning even though often (not always) it doesn't force that.

Rereading your (Campbelll's) post and thinking about this reply also prompted another thought in response to [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION]'s post about pre-written event-style modules: it seems to me that one function of pre-written modules is to provide a type of "safety harness" to ensure that authenticity doesn't lead to failure. So rather than require anyone to engage with consequences, the sequence of events is spelled out in advance so that no one has to stake the occurence of the "story" on his/her own efforts of play. It's as if the plot/story itself is in a "Walled Off Garden".


----------



## Imaro

Campbell said:


> @_*Imaro*_
> 
> I think this goes back to my own concerns about group creativity over individual creative expression. When I make contributions to the fiction in a role playing game I have the expectation that the other people sitting at the table will be actively interested, have regard for what I am saying, and build upon it rather than negate it. My efforts to describe a given character's actions are not meaningful if there is no expectation that the other people sitting at the table will take that into account when making their own contributions to the fiction. If my efforts to establish fictional positioning can be freely disregarded according to the assumed social contract than playing the game loses all meaning to me. When playing my bard and I use *Vicious Mockery* and the rules say the words cut my expectation is that the actual words I speak for my character affected that character beyond the mechanical impact of losing 1d4 hp and getting disadvantage on the next attack. In turn I am socially obliged to actually speak words that should cut.
> 
> This is in part what I was speaking to when I said many mainstream games are played with *Walled Off Gardens* between players where we are only allowed to interact with each others stuff in ways that are explicitly approved. When we are socially free to disregard contributions to the fiction other players make and there is no need to actually establish appropriate fictional positioning to mechanically affect the play space there is no *shared fiction* - there are *individual fictions* that we sometimes allow others to impact when and where we choose.
> 
> This presumption that the mechanisms are meaningfully independent of the fiction and that one player's fiction is independent of another player's fiction results in play I have zero interest in. Furthermore it results in the sort of experience where in order for something to really have an impact it must be represented by mechanics. There can be no fruitful voids where we have fictional positioning that impacts play without going to the mechanisms.
> 
> *What I Want* *Fiction -> Mechanics -> Fiction ->* *Fiction -> Mechanics -> Fiction ->* *Fiction->Mechanics->Fiction*
> *Fiction -> Fiction-> Fiction*​
> *What I Do Not Want*
> 
> *Mechanics -> Mechanics-> Mechanics
> <Fiction> <Fiction> <Fiction>
> 
> *Colors are used to show different contributors. Diagrams are not perfect. In reality for the sort of play I am interested in the Fiction and the Mechanics are meaningfully shared by all participants at all times. The reason I enjoy doing this thing we do is because we play in a dynamic *shared **collaborative* fiction that belongs to us all equally - where we are creative peers.




 @_*Lanefan*_ pretty much summed up my feelings on this... but I'd like to add to his reply a little further... in what game are you forced to respect the fictional positioning (if you don't want to) of something like Vicious Mockery having an effect on your character beyond the mechanical effect?  And I am not speaking to a social contract among players here because that can be had with any group around any game and is independent of traditional vs. indie system (at least as you seem to be explaining it above).  I want to know what system forces you to do such a thing without tying a mechanic to it because otherwise it's simply a matter of group preference. 

EDIT: And while I can understand you preference for a player's character to say mean things to another player's character to bring a game more in line with said preferences... I doubt I'd want some kind of rule where that's necessary to the play of the game.  I just wouldn't find that appealing when playing with my nephews or in a game with younger children.  If that is what is meant by authenticity then I'll pass and keep it something optional as a group contract as opposed to an official part of gameplay.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> So then are you speaking of differentiation through mechanics??  Because that's what matters to resolution in the way you seem to be pointing to



I'm talking about fiction that matters to resolution. This can happen in two main ways:

(1) It engages a particular mechanic: this is how PbtA "moves" work, and is a factor in some of the systems I GM (eg in BW, if the GM isn't saying "yes" to an action declaration then s/he has to connect this to an appropriate ability - from the long list that is part of the system - for resolution purposes).

(2) It shapes the resolution of some other action declaration: eg in 4e combat resolution _location_ is an element of fictional positioning that (via the range/reach rules, the forced movement rules etc) matters to resolution.​
The examples you gave don't fall under either (1) or (2) - eg describing the 5 hp damage as a wound, as depleted morale, as dropping the weapon and having to pick it up, as wrongfooting that doesn't actual amount to changing the "square" in which the character is located. They are just colour.



Imaro said:


> fictional positioning which can be established without a specific mechanic to represent it and does matter to resolution in what descriptions can follow and flwo from it... if the fiction is being respected.



But this isn't _fictional positioning_: it doesn't matter to _resolution._

All you've got is that, at time 1, the player describes the 5 hp loss as a wound, and so - down the track at time 2 - the GM has to describe the NPC as wounded rather than (say) winded. But it's got no _teeth_ at all. For instance, there's not any rule that connects the player's narration to a requirement to (say) mark off a bandage on an equipment list - let alone anything like a wound penalty, or a constraint on future action declarations.

Contrast (say) this from Dungeon World (pp 23, 28):

Damage is dealt based on the fiction. Moves that deal damage, like hack and slash, are just a special case of this: the move establishes that damage is being dealt in the fiction. Damage can be assigned even when no move is made, if it follows from the fiction.

HP loss is often only part of the effect. If the harm is generalized, like falling into a pit, losing the HP is probably all there is to it. When the harm is specific, like an orc pulling your arm from its socket, HP should be part of the effect but not the entirety of it. The bigger issue is dealing with the newly busted arm: how do you swing a sword or cast a spell? Likewise having your head chopped off is not HP damage, it’s just you being dead. . . .

Losing HP is a general thing, it’s getting tired, bruised, cut, and so on. Some wounds are deeper though. These are debilities. . . .

Debilities don’t replace descriptions and using the established fiction. When someone loses an arm that doesn’t mean they’re Weak, it means they have one less arm.​
This is not just colour: this is the fiction establishing the parameters for action declarations and resolution. The sort of "creativity" you described in relation to D&D, by way of contrast, doesn't establish this sort of fiction. It is just colour.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> @_*Lanefan*_ pretty much summed up my feelings on this... but I'd like to add to his reply a little further... in what game are you forced to respect the fictional positioning (if you don't want to) of something like Vicious Mockery having an effect on your character beyond the mechanical effect?



I already posted an example upthread (I think in reply to a post of yours): Faith in Burning Wheel.

All action in BW is intent and task. The task, for Faith, is the prayer - which the player must speak. The table (with the GM as ultimate arbiter) has to be satisfied that the task is suitable for the intent.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I'm talking about fiction that matters to resolution. This can happen in two main ways:
> 
> (1) It engages a particular mechanic: this is how PbtA "moves" work, and is a factor in some of the systems I GM (eg in BW, if the GM isn't saying "yes" to an action declaration then s/he has to connect this to an appropriate ability - from the long list that is part of the system - for resolution purposes).​





So mechanics that effect the resolution...D&D 5e has a multitude of these from feats to spells to skills to class abilites, to ad-hoc moves under the discretiong of the DM and so on that can be used and/or reskinned... Did you expect me to list everyone of them out?  I don't have the inclination or that type of time since it's fairly clear they exist to anyone who has played or ran 5e.



pemerton said:


> (2) It shapes the resolution of some other action declaration: eg in 4e combat resolution _location_ is an element of fictional positioning that (via the range/reach rules, the forced movement rules etc) matters to resolution.



So again mechanics (ranges, reach, moving between attacks, dash, etc.) that D&D 5e has.  But again we'd have to go alot more specific than the examples you threw up in the previous post.  Is being prone a component of the success... it depends on the stated action of the player, the build of the character, the rulings of the DM and so on. 



pemerton said:


> The examples you gave don't fall under either (1) or (2) - eg describing the 5 hp damage as a wound, as depleted morale, as dropping the weapon and having to pick it up, as wrongfooting that doesn't actual amount to changing the "square" in which the character is located. They are just colour.




Well that's because there were no specifics and I believed we were talking to fiction as opposed to mechanics... which clearly isn't the case.  we are really talking mechanics here.



pemerton said:


> But this isn't _fictional positioning_: it doesn't matter to _resolution._
> 
> All you've got is that, at time 1, the player describes the 5 hp loss as a wound, and so - down the track at time 2 - the GM has to describe the NPC as wounded rather than (say) winded. But it's got no _teeth_ at all. For instance, there's not any rule that connects the player's narration to a requirement to (say) mark off a bandage on an equipment list - let alone anything like a wound penalty, or a constraint on future action declarations.




Sure it does... it can affect how the next player or the DM decide to describe what happens next.  what you really mean is that beyond hit point loss it has no mechanical resolution.



pemerton said:


> Contrast (say) this from Dungeon World (pp 23, 28):
> 
> Damage is dealt based on the fiction. Moves that deal damage, like hack and slash, are just a special case of this: the move establishes that damage is being dealt in the fiction. Damage can be assigned even when no move is made, if it follows from the fiction.
> 
> HP loss is often only part of the effect. If the harm is generalized, like falling into a pit, losing the HP is probably all there is to it. When the harm is specific, like an orc pulling your arm from its socket, HP should be part of the effect but not the entirety of it. The bigger issue is dealing with the newly busted arm: how do you swing a sword or cast a spell? Likewise having your head chopped off is not HP damage, it’s just you being dead. . . .​





So in DW your character would no longer have an arm in this instance??... even though the mechanical effect is take damage??  Or are you claiming someone can chose to play their character like his arm is gone... because if so that's no different than him choosing to do the same in D&D.  What in DW forces a player to go beyond just writing the damage down and moving on with play?  Moreso how is this different from having a condition or a specific type of damage applied in D&D.  A vorpal sword will do the same thing... right?  



pemerton said:


> Losing HP is a general thing, it’s getting tired, bruised, cut, and so on. Some wounds are deeper though. These are debilities. . . .
> 
> Debilities don’t replace descriptions and using the established fiction. When someone loses an arm that doesn’t mean they’re Weak, it means they have one less arm.
> 
> This is not just colour: this is the fiction establishing the parameters for action declarations and resolution. The sort of "creativity" you described in relation to D&D, by way of contrast, doesn't establish this sort of fiction. It is just colour.




Again you are speaking to mechanics not fiction.  There's no way in DW you're going to get a result of hit point damage on me as a player but then, because it was an Orc, tell me my arm got ripped off, not unless there's a specific ability or move for you to accomplish such.  Now I may choose to roleplay my arm being busted up... but I could do the same thing in D&D.​


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> I already posted an example upthread (I think in reply to a post of yours): Faith in Burning Wheel.
> 
> All action in BW is intent and task. The task, for Faith, is the prayer - which the player must speak. The table (with the GM as ultimate arbiter) has to be satisfied that the task is suitable for the intent.




There is nothing in the BW Gold rules that state this.  It refers to the player's character not the player... just like D&D. 



			
				BW Gold pg. 523 said:
			
		

> PRAY
> A faithful *character* may pray for divine intervention.  the prayer must be announced and spoken.  Hew must chant his sutras or invoke his god in order for the power to be made manifest.  The *player* creates the prayer on the fly and states his desired outcome.  then he tests his Faith.  There is no tax and no "prayer failure" chart.




There's nothing in this about the player having to chant or say anything (only the character), though just like in D&D it's cool if they want to.  It's establishing that in the fiction the prayer has a prominent vocal component that is spoken by the character (not the player) in the same way many D&D spells do as well.  The player only has to create the prayer and state his desired outcome.  At which point he or she tests faith to see if it succeeds.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> There is nothing in the BW Gold rules that state this.  It refers to the player's character not the player... just like D&D.



What's weird about this is that you've highlighted the bit that says "player".

From Revised, p 231 (the identical text is in BW Gold, p 523):

A Faithful character may pray for divine intervention. The prayer must be announced and spoken. . . . The player creates the prayer on the fly and states his desired outcome.​
The player has to create the prayer. It has to be stated - in Fight!, prayer is a tandem action and is measured in syllables, which (perforce) have to be spoken.

The topic is elaborated upon in the Adventure Burner (pp 344-45; the same text is found in the Codex, pp 221-22):

The prayer or invocation of the player is the prime part of the task. . . . The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table. . . .

How often can you pray? Each prayer must be a complete idea spoken, sung or invoked in the proper idiom. The spoken prayer is part of the task of this test! If the task is inappropriate to the intent, disallow the test. Since only a few words can be spoken in each volley, most prayers should take two volleys. More elaborate prayers can take three to six volleys.​


Imaro said:


> There's nothing in this about the player having to chant or say anything (only the character), though just like in D&D it's cool if they want to.  It's establishing that in the fiction the prayer has a prominent vocal component that is spoken by the character (not the player) in the same way many D&D spells do as well.  The player only has to create the prayer and state his desired outcome.  At which point he or she tests faith to see if it succeeds.



I don't know what _you_ think "create the prayer" means; and I don't know how you think the number of volleys required to state the prayer is determined. But it's clear what the designers think and intended: it means that the player has to state the prayer!


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I think you may have misunderstood.
> 
> The skulker's motivation is concrete _in the fiction_. It's just not yet been authored, and so - at the table - no one (not GM, not players) knows what it is - although all may have some conjectures.
> 
> I am insisting on a _very strong_ distinction between the fiction and the real world here, because I find without that distinction being clearly drawn we get strange claims that seem to imply that the fiction writes itself, or exercises causal power over people in the real world.




I am insisting on disregarding such a distinction. Not because the fiction writes itself. But the fiction can certainly exercise causal power over people in the real world. Of course it does....that's how the game works. The players take input from the fiction and then decide how their characters would act. Interaction between the players and the fiction happens all the time. 

I would say your view is more along the lines of the fiction writing itself because it ignores the GM's involvement. The GM introduces the NPC in question. The GM chooses to either commit to a motivation, or to leave it open. 

Now, I am not against keeping NPC motivations open. Leaving things vague enough so that I can take it in several directions. But I do think a change is taking place. 

If the NPC has no motivation when introduced....he's up to something, but it is unknown by everyone, including the GM, then that's fine. But it is what it is. I don't care that a motivation can be introduced later on and within the fictional world it can be justified. There is no motivation, then there is. That is a change. 



pemerton said:


> But nothing is being _changed_. To _author_ some bit of the fiction is not to _change_ some bit of the fiction. It is to establish it.




I disagree. Now, this disagreement is very likely largely due to the approaches in question...I favor the GM being heavily involved in the story of the game and driving the game, while you prefer the approach of all players and hte GM establishing the fiction as they play. 



pemerton said:


> How is finding a secret door by way of a successful Architecture check less dramatic than (say) casting a Passwall spell? Or, for that matter, how is bumping into your cousin and smoothing things over less dramatic than casting a Charm Person spell?
> 
> You're clearly seeing some distinction here, but I'm missing what it is.




Well, from a fictional standpoint, the Passwall spell as a solution to a problem is something that comes from within the character. It's a choice made by the player for his character to have that ability because it may help in certain situations. 

The secret door, from a fictional standpoint, is something outside that kind of shows up out of the blue just to help the characters out of a jam. 

So, from a fictional standpoint, I think one is a bit more satisfying than the other. Meaning that if I was reading a story, chances are I would prefer a character solving his own problem rather than some outside element solving it for him. Not always....such random occurrences can be interesting....but generally I would consider one favorable to the other. 

From a gaming standpoint, I'm not as sure of the distinction. This is because I am not familiar with this gaming style, so there could be restrictions or caveats of some sort that limit how such information comes into play. But for me, looking at it simply as part of our discussion, the PCs being trapped in some way, and one of them using Passwall seems to be a PC using an ability chosen by the player for exactly this type of situation. A player instead using a character skill of some sort to establish the presence of a secret door is likely some level of player skill....but it's using the elements of the fictional world in a way that is far less constrained, so to me it feels easier.


----------



## Aenghus

Lanefan said:


> I'll explain the analogy as you seem to have taken it literally.



As it happens I'm on the autism spectrum and prone to taking thing literally. But I had a different motivation in my comment.



> The earth is the PCs.  The sun is the game world.  The game world is always bigger than the PCs.



I just thought it ironic that the analogy is far less appropriate to RPGs than in most other fields. And I am literal minded.



> I know, and I'm railing against it as poor to awful design as all it does is make the PCs into special snowflakes, which if left unchecked and-or without the perfect group to play it leads to overentitled players and doormat or processor-unit DMs.



I disagree, as there are no perfect groups, just us flawed fallible humans, who are permitted to pursue happiness. This may involve player expectations and styles of RPG play you disagree with but even so work for other people.



> Assuming the DM is unwise enough to reveal whatever decision-making process is being used at a given time, then yes.  I know that my answer if asked about this as a DM would usually boil down to a polite version of "none of your business" which would get less polite each successive time I was asked.




I've been a referee for decades and I'm not that precious about my decision making (I may or may not provide some explanation but I'm certainly not annoyed or irritated by appropriate polite requests as I understand them and their motivations). Many players will want some model of the referee's decision making process, especially how and when it deviates from the agreed on system and mechanics, to aid in their own decision making. 

Back in the bad old days I asked refereees lots of question and sometimes got a response similar to your "none of your business" above. Sometimes I was browbeaten into silence by such responses from referees, which didn't make for an enjoyable game for me, as I need lots of information to make decisions and avoid analysis paralysis. In some cases I should have left the game as not suiting me. In others the referee got better at his job, or an alternate referee replaced them.



> I don't sign social contracts.  I just say (again in more flowery terms) "here's my game, here's the rules and system, here's the game world - check it out then either sit down and play or get up and leave".




There are always social contracts, the unwritten ones just tend to be fuzzier and less well defined.


----------



## Nagol

Lanefan said:


> Whereas I as player harbour no preconceived expectations at all as to how my contributions to the fiction and entertainment will be received - though my ego would obviously like it to be well-received I've no right to automatically expect such, and nor should I.
> 
> I say what I say and I do what I do and - *just like in real life!* - it's completely up to the listeners to determine what they think of it and-or how (or if) they're going to react to it and-or interact with it.  They're free to run with it, build on it, or support it and are equally as free to ignore it, be bored by it, or negate it.
> 
> It's their call.




I think you are communicating at cross purposes here.  A negation would be "You didn't do that/that doesn't happen" as opposed to doing something to undo your action.

If you opened a door, the door is now open with all the necessary fictional dependencies accomplished (you touched the handle, turned the knob and moved the door in its new position).  Someone else can decide to close the door, but no one has the right to say "No you didn't" other than through interruption of the fiction by introducing new information "As you grab the handle..." as you acknowledge in the next section.



> By the same token, though, it's my call as to what I do with the fiction presented to me by the DM and-or other players.
> 
> As DM I have a right to somewhat more expectation that they're at least going to pay attention, but that's as far as it goes.
> 
> The DM has to take your actions into account.  The other players have to account for them but don't by any means have to agree with or support or build on them if they (in character) don't want to.





> And if I'm the target I have the right to completely ignore said Bard (or pretend to, I'm still eating that d4 damage), or laugh at said Bard, or loudly tell said Bard to sod off, or attack said Bard (at disadvantage, grumble), or simply turn and walk away with my head held high.
> 
> The shared fiction is the sum of its parts, which are the individual fictions plus the overall fiction as a whole e.g. metaplot and adventure logs.  It sometimes can't even be fully seen until viewed in hindsight.
> 
> The individual fictions cannot remain independent when they impact another character (e.g. your Bard Vicious-Wording my Fighter just got your fiction all up in my fiction) or the overall game (my Fighter just took down that orc which means it's dead to you too).  But when my Fighter spins a grandly entertaining tale of derring-do in the highlands your Bard is still free to tell me exactly what I'm full of and then say "no, this is how it really went"...or just walk out.
> 
> Here I agree; we don't need mechanics for everything.
> 
> Lanefan




So you do have the right for your contributions to be acknowledged in how they affect the world and for them not to be negated.  

Some of the games we're discussing have given the option to transfer some mechanical expression from the GM to the player while leaving the fictional expression of that mechanism with the GM.  The GM may decide to give the player a choice of "pay me now or go for double or nothing".  If the player chooses the double-or-nothing option, the GM is supposed to alter the scene to reflect the new danger level rather than negating the choice by keeping the danger the same or lower.

The GM is surrendering some control over the situation by granting the mechanical choice to the player, but is retaining (and arguably increasing) his creativity by maintaining sole control over the fictional representation.


----------



## Nagol

Lanefan said:


> [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and anyone else running a BW/DW type of system, a question:
> 
> Secret doors.  How in your system can - or is it even possible - the following occur: someone rolls a check to find a secret door and fails when in fact there is a secret door right there which might be found on a later check by someone else and-or remains to be used by the enemy?
> 
> I ask because in reading what's been posted here a failed check seems to hard-write into the fiction that no secret door is present (and the DM isn't allowed to predetermine there is one and just stick with that), where realism would say instead that all that gets written into the fiction at that point is that an unsuccessful search was made and in fact it yet remains uncertain whether there's a secret door present at that location or not.
> 
> Lan-"waiter - check, please"-efan




BW (as I understand it; my copy is the first edition and it is much more of  a fantasy heartbreaker than a narrative game) and DW are different is this regard.  DW has the "make maps but leave blanks" principle so it entirely possible there is a secret door and the PCs fail to spot it.  The "leave banks"  means there may not be a secret door on the map originally, but the idea was deemed so appropriate, the GM adds it on the spot in reaction to player action.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> So in DW your character would no longer have an arm in this instance??... even though the mechanical effect is take damage??
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What in DW forces a player to go beyond just writing the damage down and moving on with play? Moreso how is this different from having a condition or a specific type of damage applied in D&D.



The passage isn't ambiguous. It is talking about the character having his/her arm "busted" or otherwise losing an arm. And what "forces" the player to go along with this is nothing different from what "forces" the player, in a D&D game, to accept that - after being Thunderwaved - his/her PC is at place X (say, next to the pit) rather than place Y (say, next to his/her friend). It's an expectation in these games that once accepts the fiction that is established by application of the mechanics.

(The actual move on the GM's part would, I think, be "deal damage" (p 168): "When you deal damage, choose one source of damage that’s fictionally threatening a character and apply it. . . . The amount of damage is decided by the source. . . . Most damage is based on a die roll." Though one would need to keep in mind (p 23) that "Damage can be assigned even when no move is made, if it follows from the fiction.")

The basic principle is no different in BW than in DW, though the mechanics are different. If an action is declared "I chop his arm off!", and the resolution is successful (say, an Ob 4 Sword test) then the intent is realised and the victim's arm is chopped off.

And I don't really see how a vorpal sword is that relevant: yes, that generates fiction that has teeth, but it's not as if a GM is free to creatively narrate vorpal effects at will. So it's hardly an illustration of D&D being more creative with respect to the creation of fiction-with-teeth than is BW.



Imaro said:


> I believed we were talking to fiction as opposed to mechanics... which clearly isn't the case. we are really talking mechanics here.



Well, as I posted upthread, I didn't realise that when you said "The GM can be more creative in D&D" you were referring to mere colour that has no teeth as far as resolution is concerned. And it's not clear why you think that the DW GM can't do the same - eg when announcing the increased danger, also introduce whatever additional toothless colour you think is open to the D&D GM?


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> As a fan of 4e , where one of it's highest praises was how easily mechanics were reskinned with different fiction,  I find it interesting that you don't put a high premium on this dimension of creativity.



The example of "reskinning" in the 4e PHB - from memory, Magic Missile as howling skulls - is relatively uninteresting. It's just colour.

Using the stats of Black Star entities (from the E1 module) as Torog's shrivers - which I did - would count as an instance of reskinning as well. But that wasn't mere colour. The fact that these were shrivers _mattered_ to the resolution - eg when they were defeated, Torog lost control of the flow of souls in his Soul Abattoir.

In general, colour becomes interesting when it goes beyond being mere colour and actually establishes fictional positioning. As I said, I'm not very excited by the idea that, because a player narrated a wound, everyone else is bound by that narration, _but nothing in the actual resolution of any action_ reflects the occurence or existence of that wound. (No medical supplies consumed, no disease/infection checks, no wound penalties, etc.)

The player of the paladin in my Raven Queen established, from the beginning of the campaign, that his character sleeps standing up (he'll lie on his back when he's dead). That's not mere colour - one time when the PCs were ambushed while sleeping, that character didn't need to spend an action standing from prone.

When the PCs fought a Chained Cambion (p 25), it "radiate[d] pain, rage, and frustration" and "scream[ed] its despair within the minds ofnearby foes" (MM3 p 25). The casual reader might mistake this for mere colour, but it's not. The Chained Cambion has the following ability:

*Mind Shackles* (psychic) Recharge when first bloodied
_Effect:_ Two enemies adjacent to each other in a close burst 5 are psychically shackled (save ends; each enemy makes a separate saving throw against this effect). While psychically shackled, an enemy takes 10 psychic damage at the start and the end of its turn if it isn't adjacent to the other creature that was affected by this power. _Aftereffect:_ The effect persists, and the damage decreases to 5 (save ends).​
This ability causes rage and frustration in the players: first because their PCs have to stay adjacent to avoid the ongoing damage; and then because, when one has saved, the other is still afflicted and so the one who saved doesn't get the benefit of that!

That's way beyond just colour: it's one of the most impressive bits of RPG design I've encountered.


----------



## pemerton

Nagol said:


> BW (as I understand it; my copy is the first edition and it is much more of  a fantasy heartbreaker than a narrative game) and DW are different is this regard.  DW has the "make maps but leave blanks" principle so it entirely possible there is a secret door and the PCs fail to spot it.  The "leave banks"  means there may not be a secret door on the map originally, but the idea was deemed so appropriate, the GM adds it on the spot in reaction to player action.



I don't know DW as well as BW, but I think this might fall under Discern Realities: "What here is useful to me", and the GM might answer "A secret door!"

But I don't think DW has anything quite comparable to Wises or similar checks in BW (eg the Perception check mentioned in the OP), which permit the player to state as an intent the discovery or realisation of something that has not yet been established as part of the fiction, such that - if the check succeeds - the intent, and hence the desired fiction, is established.


----------



## Nagol

pemerton said:


> I don't know DW as well as BW, but I think this might fall under Discern Realities: "What here is useful to me", and the GM might answer "A secret door!"
> 
> But I don't think DW has anything quite comparable to Wises or similar checks in BW (eg the Perception check mentioned in the OP), which permit the player to state as an intent the discovery or realisation of something that has not yet been established as part of the fiction, such that - if the check succeeds - the intent, and hence the desired fiction, is established.




FATE has something similar.  Any player who is an acknowledged expert in a field may make a statement that will add an aspect to the environment with a relatively simple roll.  DW has preconceived mapping and decisions.  The "leave blanks" principle is designed for the GM to be able to adjust the design in response to player input / play direction.


----------



## Manbearcat

[MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] , quick clarification on Illusionism and mutable backstory.

If a GM uses unfixed backstory in order to block a player move after they declare an action, that would be a case of Illusionism. A classical case of this would be "is there warding againstTeleportation/Scrying magic in location x?" GM left this unfixed. But now because the Wizards powerful magic will render an important (perceived to the GM) obstacle innert, the GM initiates the post-hoc block.

That would be a case of mutable setting/backstory leveraged for Illusionism. Basically the GM wants to "say no" and needs justification.

This is why "say yes or roll the dice" is a fundamental principle in games with low resolution setting/unfixed backstory. It protects the social relationship and game integrity against such (perceived or real) "bad faith blocks)...while also allowing the GM to "play to find out!"


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> What's weird about this is that you've highlighted the bit that says "player".
> 
> From Revised, p 231 (the identical text is in BW Gold, p 523):
> 
> A Faithful character may pray for divine intervention. The prayer must be announced and spoken. . . . The player creates the prayer on the fly and states his desired outcome.​
> The player has to create the prayer. It has to be stated - in Fight!, prayer is a tandem action and is measured in syllables, which (perforce) have to be spoken.




Creating could just as easily mean writing it down, especially if he'll be using it again.  The character is who speaks it, not the player and your quote above supports that.

In FIGHT! this is the relevant passage...



			
				BW Gold pg.455 said:
			
		

> Speech, Song and Prayer
> Characters may speak a few words in each volley they are not hesitating.
> (That's up to 8 syllables for the pedants)
> 
> Song, Howls and Prayer
> Elven songs, Great Wolf howls and prayers using faith do not cost an action to perform.  they may be performed at the same time as any other action.




Again the word characters as opposed to players is used.  All this passage does is establish how long in combat a particular prayer takes to cast.  It doesn't state anything about the player saying it aloud or singing it or anything else along those lines.



pemerton said:


> The topic is elaborated upon in the Adventure Burner (pp 344-45; the same text is found in the Codex, pp 221-22):
> 
> The prayer or invocation of the player is the prime part of the task. . . . The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table. . . .
> 
> How often can you pray? Each prayer must be a complete idea spoken, sung or invoked in the proper idiom. The spoken prayer is part of the task of this test! If the task is inappropriate to the intent, disallow the test. Since only a few words can be spoken in each volley, most prayers should take two volleys. More elaborate prayers can take three to six volleys.​
> I don't know what _you_ think "create the prayer" means; and I don't know how you think the number of volleys required to state the prayer is determined. But it's clear what the designers think and intended: it means that the player has to state the prayer!




Create the prayer means just that... create it, just like the example ones *written* down in the book.  Sure you could read it or sing it or whatever out loud if you want... but you could just as easily hand it to the GM to review after creating it while stating my character sings aloud a prayer of consecration...  In other words nowhere in the rules does it state the player must sing or chant the prayer only that the character must.  They even have shortened one word names for the example ones in the book.


----------



## Manbearcat

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] , regarding your conversation with  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] on DW. Few clarifying elements for you.

1) DW adjudicates by reference to fictional triggers and genre logic.

2) DW makes liberal use of Tags for shorthand of effects.

3) Stakes, when not implicit, need to be made clear to players so they can make informed decisions.

4) DW GMs are expected to convey and telegraph relevant info related to the fiction, Tags, and stakes.


Integrating the above together, you'll get the following two scenarios in play.

A) A deep canyon is a straight up lethal drop. A PC is being pushed and wants to jump it with its horse. The GM says "...alright, no problem...but on a 6 or less, you're 'stuff on the rocks...'. Straight dead." A smaller fall may be nearly lethal best of 2d12+5.

B) "The bloodthirsty Orc Savage grabs the gate guard by the neck and lifts him from his feet like a rag doll. With a sickening crunch and grotesque spurt of blood, he ends the life of the poor man. The mans head falls from his shoulders with no spinal column to support it. A spray of blood washes over the Orcs face as he grins and looks beyond the ruined corpse at you."

"Messy tag!"

So if you engage that Orc in melee, you know that he is extremely dangerous. A 7-9 on an exchange may yield a damaged weapon or shield (maybe take -1 ongoing to Hack & Slash or Defend. Armor down by 1 or ruined.) A 6- on a grapple and, yeah you may come away missing something or a Con/Wis debility + damage.

A dragon with Messy? Yeah. Much worse.


----------



## Manbearcat

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] , regarding your conversation with  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] on DW. Few clarifying elements for you.

1) DW adjudicates by reference to fictional triggers and genre logic.

2) DW makes liberal use of Tags for shorthand of effects.

3) Stakes, when not implicit, need to be made clear to players so they can make informed decisions.

4) DW GMs are expected to convey and telegraph relevant info related to the fiction, Tags, and stakes.


Integrating the above together, you'll get the following two scenarios in play.

A) A deep canyon is a straight up lethal drop. A PC is being pushed and wants to jump it with its horse. The GM says "...alright, no problem...but on a 6 or less, you're 'stuff on the rocks...'. Straight dead." A smaller fall may be nearly lethal best of 2d12+5.

B) "The bloodthirsty Orc Savage grabs the gate guard by the neck and lifts him from his feet like a rag doll. With a sickening crunch and grotesque spurt of blood, he ends the life of the poor man. The mans head falls from his shoulders with no spinal column to support it. A spray of blood washes over the Orcs face as he grins and looks beyond the ruined corpse at you."

"Messy tag!"

So if you engage that Orc in melee, you know that he is extremely dangerous. A 7-9 on an exchange may yield a damaged weapon or shield (maybe take -1 ongoing to Hack & Slash or Defend. Armor down by 1 or ruined.) A 6- on a grapple and, yeah you may come away missing something or a Con/Wis debility + damage.

A dragon with Messy? Yeah. Much worse.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> And I don't really see how a vorpal sword is that relevant: yes, that generates fiction that has teeth, but it's not as if a GM is free to creatively narrate vorpal effects at will. So it's hardly an illustration of D&D being more creative with respect to the creation of fiction-with-teeth than is BW.




Why isn't he?  Outside of pre-established social contract forbidding it... why can't the DM narrate an NPC's limb being lopped off as part of hit point damage?  Why can't the player narrate their limb being lopped off as part of hit point damage if they want and stick to it in the fiction the same way your Raven Queen paladin slept standing up?


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] , regarding your conversation with  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] on DW. Few clarifying elements for you.
> 
> 1) DW adjudicates by reference to fictional triggers and genre logic.
> 
> 2) DW makes liberal use of Tags for shorthand of effects.
> 
> 3) Stakes, when not implicit, need to be made clear to players so they can make informed decisions.
> 
> 4) DW GMs are expected to convey and telegraph relevant info related to the fiction, Tags, and stakes.
> 
> 
> Integrating the above together, you'll get the following two scenarios in play.
> 
> A) A deep canyon is a straight up lethal drop. A PC is being pushed and wants to jump it with its horse. The GM says "...alright, no problem...but on a 6 or less, you're 'stuff on the rocks...'. Straight dead." A smaller fall may be nearly lethal best of 2d12+5.
> 
> B) "The bloodthirsty Orc Savage grabs the gate guard by the neck and lifts him from his feet like a rag doll. With a sickening crunch and grotesque spurt of blood, he ends the life of the poor man. The mans head falls from his shoulders with no spinal column to support it. A spray of blood washes over the Orcs face as he grins and looks beyond the ruined corpse at you."
> 
> "Messy tag!"
> 
> So if you engage that Orc in melee, you know that he is extremely dangerous. A 7-9 on an exchange may yield a damaged weapon or shield (maybe take -1 ongoing to Hack & Slash or Defend. Armor down by 1 or ruined.) A 6- on a grapple and, yeah you may come away missing something or a Con/Wis debility + damage.
> 
> A dragon with Messy? Yeah. Much worse.




Ok that makes things clearer... but how does setting these stakes beforehand not lead to some constraint on creativity.


----------



## Imaro

Manbearcat said:


> [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] , regarding your conversation with  [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] on DW. Few clarifying elements for you.
> 
> 1) DW adjudicates by reference to fictional triggers and genre logic.
> 
> 2) DW makes liberal use of Tags for shorthand of effects.
> 
> 3) Stakes, when not implicit, need to be made clear to players so they can make informed decisions.
> 
> 4) DW GMs are expected to convey and telegraph relevant info related to the fiction, Tags, and stakes.
> 
> 
> Integrating the above together, you'll get the following two scenarios in play.
> 
> A) A deep canyon is a straight up lethal drop. A PC is being pushed and wants to jump it with its horse. The GM says "...alright, no problem...but on a 6 or less, you're 'stuff on the rocks...'. Straight dead." A smaller fall may be nearly lethal best of 2d12+5.
> 
> B) "The bloodthirsty Orc Savage grabs the gate guard by the neck and lifts him from his feet like a rag doll. With a sickening crunch and grotesque spurt of blood, he ends the life of the poor man. The mans head falls from his shoulders with no spinal column to support it. A spray of blood washes over the Orcs face as he grins and looks beyond the ruined corpse at you."
> 
> "Messy tag!"
> 
> So if you engage that Orc in melee, you know that he is extremely dangerous. A 7-9 on an exchange may yield a damaged weapon or shield (maybe take -1 ongoing to Hack & Slash or Defend. Armor down by 1 or ruined.) A 6- on a grapple and, yeah you may come away missing something or a Con/Wis debility + damage.
> 
> A dragon with Messy? Yeah. Much worse.




Ok that makes things clearer, I wasn't aware the stakes were set with total transparency... but how does setting these stakes beforehand like this not lead to some constraint on creativity.


----------



## hawkeyefan

Manbearcat said:


> [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] , quick clarification on Illusionism and mutable backstory.
> 
> If a GM uses unfixed backstory in order to block a player move after they declare an action, that would be a case of Illusionism. A classical case of this would be "is there warding againstTeleportation/Scrying magic in location x?" GM left this unfixed. But now because the Wizards powerful magic will render an important (perceived to the GM) obstacle innert, the GM initiates the post-hoc block.
> 
> That would be a case of mutable setting/backstory leveraged for Illusionism. Basically the GM wants to "say no" and needs justification.
> 
> This is why "say yes or roll the dice" is a fundamental principle in games with low resolution setting/unfixed backstory. It protects the social relationship and game integrity against such (perceived or real) "bad faith blocks)...while also allowing the GM to "play to find out!"




Sure, I get the concern about Illusionism in that sense. 

What I am saying is that the mutability of backstory and story elements is along the lines of Illusionism (not that it must be Illusionism, although it can be) in the sense that it allows the GM leeway to go in multiple directions based on what the GM decides is best for the game by working in an area unknown to the players. I know that such leeway need not be about blocking the players' actions in some way. 

I'm not ascribing any negativity to this technique....I think it's fine, generally (as always, table expectations and desires play a role here). I just see a similarity in the GM having the ability to decide things on the fly. Whether that happens to be what's at the end of the left fork in a tunnel, or the affiliations and goals of an NPC....the GM is free to alter what is true until some point of commitment.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I am insisting on a _very strong_ distinction between the fiction and the real world here, because I find without that distinction being clearly drawn we get strange claims that seem to imply that the fiction writes itself, or exercises causal power over people in the real world.
> 
> But nothing is being _changed_. To _author_ some bit of the fiction is not to _change_ some bit of the fiction. It is to establish it.




These two statements seem to be contradictory. In the first you are implying that the fiction cannot write itself (which is something a great many authors have said is what often happens), and in the second you are saying the fiction is already written and we cannot change it.

So is the fiction "fixed" (that is, not being changed) and we are just discovering it, in which case we are not authoring it, or are we authoring it, in which case the fiction is not "fixed."

When I talk of fiction authoring itself, I think it's a combination of the author, and the conditions previously set forth in the fiction. So when you create a new NPC who has motivations, and then consider (without additional authors) how that NPC goes about achieving those motivations in relation to the rest of the fiction (NPCs, events, plots, etc.), it sort of writes its own story. Yes, somebody else might come to different conclusions, but the perception is that it's "writing itself."

I've experienced that sort of circumstance both in writing and in music. Is it _really_ writing itself? I don't really care. Because it's writing itself without conscious input by myself. 

As far as something in the fiction not being fixed (that is, cannot be changed) until authored, that's a classic example of Schroedinger's Cat. The secret door is present/not present until the check determines whether it is or not. That's the objection that a lot of people have. Whether a player or DM, some people just don't like that concept.

I don't share that objection 100%. When you improvise, roll randomly, or even change something on the fly it's the same effect as saying "authoring some bit of fiction does not change the fiction." But the reality is that isn't not being changed, because it didn't exist in the first place.

This doesn't exclude the possibility of the "fiction writing itself" of which random generation is one way for it to write itself. 



pemerton said:


> How is finding a secret door by way of a successful Architecture check less dramatic than (say) casting a Passwall spell? Or, for that matter, how is bumping into your cousin and smoothing things over less dramatic than casting a Charm Person spell?
> 
> You're clearly seeing some distinction here, but I'm missing what it is.




My issue is not the drama. My issue is the logic and continuity. Does a secret door belong here? Like traps, secret doors and passages are built for specific reasons. One is to allow somebody to stealthily come and go as they please. While those seem to be fairly prevalent in fantasy RPGs, I think that the more common types of a secret passage is as an escape route.

Regardless, it's not a random inclusion or placement. I don't mind determining if there is a secret door there until later, but by doing it based on a skill check would sometimes give me cause to override such a roll if the placement made it impossible.

In your case, you probably haven't designed the entire castle. OK. But I think if you design by skill check you'll have a very oddly designed and entirely ineffective castle. I get it, you're going to interact with that castle for a period of time when it's relevant to this adventure. But in my case it's going to potentially exist for the next 30 years of my campaign.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Manbearcat said:


> So GM cognitive workload and mental overhead comes down to two primary evaluations IME:
> 
> 1)  *Desirous vs Tedious*
> 
> Do I enjoy the game's expectant or necessary {GMing tasks}?



 That's a spectrum so clearly subjective, I'm tempted to ignore it.  But, I'm also bothered by it, because if you evaluate a game that way, you can make a system that requires a lot of work from the GM seem desirable over one that doesn't for those DMs that like doing the work - but, the thing is, you could probably put in a lot of whatever kind of work you enjoy even with a system that doesn't actually require it, too.  

So, alternatively, what about a spectrum of *discretionary vs necessary*?  On the far left, the GM can put in only the work he enjoys, to the degree he enjoys it, on the far right, there is a great deal of mandatory workload/mental-overhead, even if it's still entirely possible a given GM might enjoy all of it.



> 2)  *Utility vs Cost*
> 
> How much efficient... function does this responsibility provide and does it negatively impact my attention elsewhere?



 This sounds more like a function than a spectrum, but I suppose it could be a continuum of the net results, ie: with the Utility end of the spectrum having no net cost (all cost returns corresponding utility) and Cost end no net utility (cost overwhelms any utility it may provide)?



> However...the elegance, coherency, predictability, and intuitiveness of the system's machinery (components by themselves, with respect to each other, and with respect to the games' agenda in full) is an *enormous *mitigating factor here.



 If those can mitigate, I suppose, say 'familiarity' could, as well.  If the burden imposed by the system is predictable and intuitive, that makes it easier to work with, but if it's familiar & mastered to the point of being second nature, it'll be just as much easier to work with, too.  
I suppose that could be thought of as sunk cost or investment, as well.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The skulker's motivation is concrete _in the fiction_. It's just not yet been authored, and so - at the table - no one (not GM, not players) knows what it is - although all may have some conjectures.



The skulker is seen doing things in the distance a few times before the party really interact with him, right?  So, if nobody knows his motivation at that time why is he doing what he's doing?  His motivation for doing those things has to come from somewhere...in this case, the DM...and thus DM speculation becomes for the moment hidden DM fact.  And the players can then speculate as they wish.



> But nothing is being _changed_. To _author_ some bit of the fiction is not to _change_ some bit of the fiction. It is to establish it.
> 
> And I still don't see what the illusion is. On whom has it been perpetrated? I mean, I as GM had some conjecture as to whom the skulker might be. When the big reveal comes out it turns out that my initial conjecture was false - the skulker is someone else. Who has been deceived? What's the illusion? All I can see is _authorship_.



The skulker is someone else, as in not the same individual at all?  There's two yellow-robed guys?  Is that what you mean?

If they are the same person, however, then the later "authoring" does in fact overwrite whatever was driving his actions when he was seen earlier.  Nothing wrong with this as long as his "new" self would have done the same things seen earlier...but to claim there's no change from what he was previously based on is false.  There is a change.  Thing is, only you as DM know this.



> First, what is the meaning of "in place"? If you mean _the fiction is already established_, then that is not what I am talking about and has no bearing on the example of the skulker. If you mean _the GM has a conjecture about some bit of the fiction_ then what does it mean to say that the idea is "in place"?



Because as I just said, once the skulker attracts the party's attention by flying around in the distance, DM conjecture known only to the DM becomes DM fact known only to the DM.  The idea is in place and being reflected in the fiction by the skulker doing whatever he's doing when the party see him.



> Assuming the second understanding - which is what I have been talking about, and is the example I provided - who is being tricked? Not the GM. Not the players. Not any of the fictional inhabitants of the gameworld.



Nobody is really being tricked here, in that the skulker's earlier actions are innocuous enough that retconning a different set of motivations onto him makes little real difference.  EXCEPT, you have to ask yourself this: if the skulker had been operating under these "new" motivations all along would the party have seen him doing anything different than what they in fact saw?  If yes, then both the players and their PCs have been (more or less) tricked or deceived.



> How is finding a secret door by way of a successful Architecture check less dramatic than (say) casting a Passwall spell? Or, for that matter, how is bumping into your cousin and smoothing things over less dramatic than casting a Charm Person spell?



There's quite a difference.  Passwall doesn't care if there's a secret door there - it just makes an obvious way through by temporarily changing the architecture - where the Architecture check is based on what's been constructed into the building as noted on the DM's map (or bloody well should be - this idea of Schroedingers Secret Door just doesn't fly with me).  Charm Person is the brute-force approach to diplomacy and information gathering (and not available to everyone).



> suppose that a player declares a Perception check to look for a secret door at a dead end. And s/he declares that s/he (in character) is searching carefully (so as to get a bonus die). And the check fails, meaning that the GM is licensed to introduce a significant time-based complication: so the GM might narrate, "As you are carefully tapping the wall, listening for hollow places, you hear boots coming along the corridor - it sounds like the iron-shod boots of goblins! And then the wall in front of you opens - there is a secret door, with goblins on the other side of it. It looks like you're just in time for a rendezvous of forces!"
> 
> As I said, a failure to find X can be for any number of reasons other than the absence of X. Upthread, for instance, I noted that a possible failure for a check to find a vessel to catch blood in might be that the character notices the vessel just in time to see it knocked to the ground by the other struggling characters, and smash on the floor.
> 
> It depends on the context and significance of the check (and the GM's imagination, obviously).



That doesn't answer my question.

Can, in your system, an existing secret door simply be missed on a search?  It's not about an absence of anything, it's about the presence of it being flat-out missed by the searcher (with or without possible consequences then or later).

Can there in fact be a blood-catching vessel in the room that the searcher just doesn't notice even though it might be in plain sight (we've all done this in real life!)?

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This is what makes it _story now_. The aspiration is that every moment of play is a story, in the sense that something is happening that matters to the dramatic needs of these characters; and that this is achieved by _the players playing the characters they have built_ and the GM _framing scenes_ and _adjudicating action declarations[ made by the players for their PCs_. If the GM is framing scenes (eg moments of haggling, or marauding wolves) that don't speak to anyone character's dramatic needs, then we don't have story _now_. If the GM is adjudicating results not by reference to action declarations that express dramatic need, but rather by reference to secret backstory, then we don't have _story_ now.



Then you (and maybe these guys you're quoting) are horribly mis-using the word "story".

The story is what happens in the game fiction.  Period.  No matter what it may consist of.

Marauding wolves or haggling with merchants is every bit as much a part of the story as finding out someone's brother is bent.

Every time a character says or does something, every time the game-world either reacts or proacts with the characters, every time the DM narrates the result of a die roll (with very few exceptions, no matter what the roll is for) - that's all story; and it's all story now.

Later, if you're the sort of crew that does such things, it gets beaten down into a game log which then becomes The Story. (or, "story then").



> You have misquoted Eero Tuovinen. He doesn't say that "the story is nothing but choices made by playing the character". He says that "from the player’s viewpoint . . . he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." That is, the player doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by playing his/her PC.
> 
> And the GM doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by framing the PCs into scenes that speak to dramatic need. (Eg the GM doesn't need a whole lot of notes such as one might find in a typical "event-driven" module.)



This makes a bunch of very broad (and IMO very poor) assumptions: that the PCs are the centre of everything, that the game world is never bigger than the PCs and how dare its story interrupt theirs, that there's never anything happening that the PCs either aren't involved in or only observe from a distance, and so on.



> In the "standard narrativistic model", the "players [establish] concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes". As part of this, the players inform the GM what the dramatic needs of the PCs are. The GM is then obliged to frame a scene that speaks to this.



The last sentence is where I fall off the bus.  As DM I'm not obliged to frame anything specific to anyone.  I frame a game world, a setting, some history, some ongiong stuff, and the PCs can fit themselves in however they like...and in so doing they can sort out their own dramatics, again however they like.

In other words, I give them a stage and maybe a bare-bones plot.  It's up to them to write the script (which may or may not stick to the plot I suggested) and then insert their own dramatics as they act it out.



> No one is in control of the story. It emerges from the process of *situation* -> *choices* -> *action declarations* -> *consequences* -> *new situation* -> etc - until, as he says, "all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end". It is _the players_ who decide what those outstanding issues are. This is why I describe this sort of RPGing as "player-driven".



You say "no-one is in control of the story" and then almost immediately say the players *are* in control via their decision of both what the outstanding issues are and what choices they make in order to deal with them.  Make up yer mind. 

Lan-"the DM, however, somewhat ironically seems to be not in control of the story she's then expected to DM"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This doesn't make sense, does it? It matters to the play of a game of chess who makes the moves. Given that playing a game is an activity, its _goodness_ can't be divorced from the process of playing it.



Chess is a poor comparison in that both participants (and there's only two) are in theory equal.  RPGs have two different types of participant - DM and player - and the number of one of those (player) can be quite variable.  A further variable in RPGs is that both DM and players are operating in a fiction and reality at the same time.

That said, if I'm playing chess and my opponent makes a move, it's not my place to ask what thought processes went into said move.  I've just got to deal with what the move is and what it means for my position.*

Same with a player-DM situation: it's not the player's place to ask what thought (or mechanical) processes went into whatever the DM just did.  The player/character just has to deal with it and what it means to them.*

* - I'm ignoring illegal chess moves and obviously-bad-faith DM moves here for the sake of simplicity.



> There seems to be a tension here - you say that you tell people what your system is, but you also seem to be implying that you keep your system secret. I'm not sure how both those things can be the case.



Game version and edition - is the game going to be 5e, or 1e, or DCC, or CoC - and player-side houserules thereto; those are what I mean by "system".

My behind-the-screen stuff, other than being consistent with said system, is my own.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Tony Vargas said:


> If those can mitigate, I suppose, say 'familiarity' could, as well.  If the burden imposed by the system is predictable and intuitive, that makes it easier to work with, but if it's familiar & mastered to the point of being second nature, it'll be just as much easier to work with, too.



I'd say familiarity is the biggest mitigating factor there is.  Once you know a system well enough it seems to largely run itself - you're doing less work because you know what really needs doing and what doesn't, and the work you are doing doesn't seem as much like work because it's familiar and comfortable.


> I suppose that could be thought of as sunk cost or investment, as well.



And the familiarity is the payoff.

Lan-"find familiar"-efan


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I would say your view is more along the lines of the fiction writing itself because it ignores the GM's involvement. The GM introduces the NPC in question. The GM chooses to either commit to a motivation, or to leave it open.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the NPC has no motivation when introduced....he's up to something, but it is unknown by everyone, including the GM, then that's fine. But it is what it is. I don't care that a motivation can be introduced later on and within the fictional world it can be justified. There is no motivation, then there is. That is a change.



I'm not ignoreing the GM involvement. I'm expressly noting it.

In the real world, a change takes place: something that was unknown (the skulker's motivation) becomes known. Something that was unauthored (the skulker's motivation) becomes authored.

But there is no change _in, or to, the gameworld_. Within the fiction, the skulker's motivation has not changed. It is what it always was.

Hence the notion of "Schroedinger's motivation" or "Schroedinger's secret door" misfires. It's not the case that the door is both there or not there. It's either there, or not, but no one knows because the fiction hasn't been authored yet.

It's no different from watching Star Wars and wondering whether or not Luke knows how to ride a horse or similar beast. Either he does or he doesn't - there's nothing of a Schroedinger nature about his ability to ride. But from wathcing the movie one can't tell because that particular bit of fiction has not been authored yet, and nor has anything else that might entail an answer one way or another.

Just because a bit of fiction hasn't been authored yet doesn't mean that, _in the fiction_, there is no fact of the matter one way or the other. And authoring the fiction doesn't _change anything in the fiction itself_. The only change that takes place is in the real world. (Something unauthored and hence unknown becomes authored and thereby known.)



hawkeyefan said:


> Well, from a fictional standpoint, the Passwall spell as a solution to a problem is something that comes from within the character. It's a choice made by the player for his character to have that ability because it may help in certain situations.
> 
> The secret door, from a fictional standpoint, is something outside that kind of shows up out of the blue just to help the characters out of a jam.
> 
> So, from a fictional standpoint, I think one is a bit more satisfying than the other. Meaning that if I was reading a story, chances are I would prefer a character solving his own problem rather than some outside element solving it for him. Not always....such random occurrences can be interesting....but generally I would consider one favorable to the other.



There are no REH Conan stories in which Conan casts a spell, but there are stories in which he finds secret doors.

And there are adventure films in which secret doors figure. It's a fairly common trope (it's not as if Gygax invented it from scracth!).



hawkeyefan said:


> From a gaming standpoint, I'm not as sure of the distinction. This is because I am not familiar with this gaming style, so there could be restrictions or caveats of some sort that limit how such information comes into play. But for me, looking at it simply as part of our discussion, the PCs being trapped in some way, and one of them using Passwall seems to be a PC using an ability chosen by the player for exactly this type of situation. A player instead using a character skill of some sort to establish the presence of a secret door is likely some level of player skill....but it's using the elements of the fictional world in a way that is far less constrained, so to me it feels easier.



Well, there is no cost to using a Passwall spell or similar in D&D!

And a character having good Perception, or Architecture, or Catacombs-wise, or whatever, doesn't seem to me any different in principle from a player having an ability for a particular situation.

In any event, in BW, the failed check obliged the GM to narrate a consequence of failure. New fiction gets established, adverse to the intention with which the action was declared. The example that has already come up in this thread is the search for the nickel-silver mace in the ruined tower - the check failed, and the consequence was the discovery, instead, of black arrows made by the mage's brother prior to being possessed by a balrog.

It is the combination of needing to establish the right fictional positioning to declare the check, and the risk of failure, that generates the constraint.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> No it's not. As you've quoted, he talks about GM authority over _backstory_ and _dramatic coordination_. This is not control over story.
> 
> The same sort of GM authority is described by Luke Crane in the BW rulebooks that I quoted upthread:
> 
> ​
> The "power to being and end scenes, to present challenges and instigate conflicts", and "to hold off one action" is what Eero Tuovinen calls _dramatic coordination_. The GM's knowledge of "the big picture" is what Eero Tuovinen calls _authority over backstory_.
> 
> Burning Wheel is an instance of the "standard narrativistic model" - and neither Luke Crane nor Eero Tuovinen is talking about _GM control over the story_. "Story" (or "plot") is the upshot of actual play, in which players make choices for their PCs in response to the situations framed by the GM. Here is Luke Crane's account of it (from the GM side):
> 
> ​
> And here is Eero Tuovinen's (more technically elaborated) account of the same process:
> 
> One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, *frame scenes according to dramatic needs* (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .
> 
> The actual procedure of play is very simple: once *the players* have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. *The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs*, so* he makes choices on the part of the character*. This in turn *leads to consequences* as determined by the game’s rules. *Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices*, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
> I've bolded some key passages - _the players_ establish the concrete characters, and hence the dramatic needs. The GM "goes where the action is" ie frames scenes that are interesting in relation to those dramatic needs, that have been established by the players. _The players_ then make choices, which have consequences - and those consequences (and their interaction with dramatic needs) provide the context for further framing. This is why I call it "player-driven": it is _the players_ who establish the focus of play, and whose choices for their PCs drive play.
> 
> The sort of thing he is talking about is _defeated_ by the GM's use of secret backstory to determine consequences of action declarations. Because at that point it is no longer a case of the GM "going where the action is" ie framing and narrating in response to dramatic need _as established by the players_ in the build and play of their PCs.
> 
> The method that the GM uses to present the world, events, etc is absolutely central. Here are the key passages again, with some highlighting:
> 
> One of the players is *a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments* (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications. . . .
> 
> The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, *the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character* (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). *The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. *The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.
> 
> *The GM . . . needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences*. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​
> This is what makes it _story now_. The aspiration is that every moment of play is a story, in the sense that something is happening that matters to the dramatic needs of these characters; and that this is achieved by _the players playing the characters they have built_ and the GM _framing scenes_ and _adjudicating action declarations[ made by the players for their PCs_. If the GM is framing scenes (eg moments of haggling, or marauding wolves) that don't speak to anyone character's dramatic needs, then we don't have story _now_. If the GM is adjudicating results not by reference to action declarations that express dramatic need, but rather by reference to secret backstory, then we don't have _story_ now.
> 
> Well, I can report that there is no contradiction, as I (and many others) run games in this fashion.
> 
> You have misquoted Eero Tuovinen. He doesn't say that "the story is nothing but choices made by playing the character". He says that "from the player’s viewpoint . . . he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." That is, the player doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by playing his/her PC.
> 
> And the GM doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by framing the PCs into scenes that speak to dramatic need. (Eg the GM doesn't need a whole lot of notes such as one might find in a typical "event-driven" module.)
> 
> The story emerges from the sequence of *situation* -> *choices* -> *action declarations* -> *consequences* -> *new situation* -> etc. What is crucial to this is that the situation, at each point, speaks to dramatic need as established by build and play of the PCs.
> 
> It is therefore the exact opposite of most event-driven modules that I am familiar with, which are replete with devices (like back-up clues, back-up BBEGs, etc) all intended to ensure that whatever the outcomes of action declarations, _nothing will change_ and the situation will remain constant.
> 
> I'm not sure what you think the force of the _should_ is. And I'm not sure what method you have in mind either.
> 
> In the "standard narrativistic model", the "players [establish] concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes". As part of this, the players inform the GM what the dramatic needs of the PCs are. The GM is then obliged to frame a scene that speaks to this.
> 
> Luke Crane describes the same thing in these terms in the BW rulebooks:
> 
> ​
> The players offer hooks; the GM uses those hooks to frame scenes.
> 
> If the players, in fact, find the situation the GM frames unengaging (which can happen - humanity is frail, after all) then Luke Crane has the following advice:
> 
> ​
> But the player, in creating those interesting situations, is nevertheless going to have to work with what the GM has provided, because games run on this model _do not require, nor empower, the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice_. The player cannot frame his/her own challenge (that's the Czege Principle being applied).
> 
> This is the exact opposite of the "standard narrativistic model". This is the sort of railroading play that the model is a reaction against.
> 
> There is no pre-planning of the sort you describe here in the "standard narrativistic model". Because all subsequent framing depends on prior consequences, and hence on prior choices plus the process of resolution. And so can't be known in advance.
> 
> This is why Tuovinen stresses that an important GM skill is to "figure out consequences". Whereas the whole point of the sort of published adventure you describe is to make consequences irrelevant because everything has been worked out in advance.
> 
> No one is in control of the story. It emerges from the process of *situation* -> *choices* -> *action declarations* -> *consequences* -> *new situation* -> etc - until, as he says, "all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end". It is _the players_ who decide what those outstanding issues are. This is why I describe this sort of RPGing as "player-driven".




I'm going to start with this, because clearly we're (I'm?) not communicating well.

So I'll start with part of my original quote that you specifically responded to since it kind of relates to the OP:

"*I can't tell you how many games I've seen where a DM was running a published or pre-planned adventure, and the DM had put something of great importance in front of the PCs, only for them to completely ignore it and go someplace else entirely.* Many years ago I figured out that the stories were much more interesting (and "authentic") if they were driven by the PCs and not me, the DM. That's why I focus on the backstory and setting, all the things that are happening around the PCs, and let them decide what's important."

To which you responded (only to the bolded portion):



pemerton said:


> This is the exact opposite of the "standard narrativistic model". This is the sort of railroading play that the model is a reaction against.




Yes. 100%. Exactly. That's my point and why I stated: "Many years ago I figured out that the stories were much more interesting (and "authentic") if they were driven by the PCs and not me, the DM. That's why I focus on the backstory and setting, all the things that are happening around the PCs, and let them decide what's important."

I disagree that the model was specifically a reaction against that sort of railroading play. The model, as far as I can tell, was specifically a reaction against shared-authorship in several forms. The post in which he lays out the "standard narrative model" is all about how shared-narrative approaches robs the players of the best possible experience because they are put in a position where they have to advocate for their players while at the same time advocate for what's best for the story. And in many situations those two positions are at odds with each other. He states quite clearly what he thinks the problem is, and it has nothing to do with railroading:

_"The problem we have here, specifically, is that when you apply narration sharing to backstory authority, you require the player to both establish and resolve a conflict, which runs counter to the Czege principle. You also require the player to take on additional responsibilities in addition to his tasks in character advocacy; this is a crucial change to the nature of the game, as it shapes a core activity into a completely new form. Now, instead of only having to worry about expressing his character and making decisions for him, the player is thrust into a position of authorship: he has to make decisions that are not predicated on the best interests of his character, but on the best interests of the story itself."_



pemerton said:


> You have misquoted Eero Tuovinen. He doesn't say that "the story is nothing but choices made by playing the character". He says that "from the player’s viewpoint . . . he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character." That is, the player doesn't have to make any effort to create a story other than by playing his/her PC.




I stated: "That the "holy grail of RPG design" is that the *player's viewpoint* is that the entire game is based around "nothing by choices made in playing his character."

How can I misquote somebody I've copied and pasted? Mis-interpreted perhaps, but I disagree. 

Anyway, that's exactly the same thing you just said, and what I have been describing all along, that the players create the story by playing his/her PC. Not by authoring the backstory (secret or otherwise), and not by authoring the setting.

You _are_ correct that I should have said "backstory and setting" and not "story." 

And I stand by what I stated before, that I find his statements contradictory. The fact that people have played games based on this concept do not mean that his statements aren't contradictory. Just that others either don't feel they are contradictory, or choose to ignore that they are.

Making the DM responsible to "frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications." You are giving them more control over the story, or to put it a different way, taking control of the story away from the players.

I like his division of roles: backstory and setting for the DM; characters and story for the players. That pretty much sums up my approach.

Whether the DM takes that control or not is a different story, but the general guideline is to frame scenes around the action. This concept is largely what 4e recommended as well. 

To me, framing a scene means that there is a start and finish to the scene - the frames. How hard you frame the scene has an impact as well, including on the story. Meaning that the DM takes some control of the story (away from the characters) when you frame the scenes in this way. At it's extreme, this can be a railroad.

For example, here's a look at two scenes:

Scene 1: "You find yourself lying on a rocky shore water lapping at your legs. It's dark. Very dark. You notice that there is something around your ankle...a manacle with a chain still attached. As your mind clears, you recall that you were in the hold of a ship. A slave ship, chained to the deck. A light flares up some distance away, you hear and see a boat several hundred yards away, and the sound of voices, voices you recognize. The slavers. What do you do?"

That was how one of my campaigns started. I took full control of the story at that stage, and it's a very hard frame. I then handed it over to the PCs. Where they went and what they did was up to them.

So let's say I had then have some encounters, they escaped the slavers, made their way into the caves around them (they were underground), and found the remains of an adventuring party, giving them weapons and supplies and a clear exit from the caverns beneath Waterdeep. So this was the "opening scene" that established where they came from, and why they were together. End scene 1.

Scene 2. Then cut to a tavern in Waterdeep, with the group together, waiting for an NPC. Somebody with information, names of the slavers and where they can be found. The person provides the information and the location where the NPC will be, others seem to be eavesdropping, and the PCs react to that, then make plans on how to confront the slavers. End scene 2.

This is another hard frame. It's a logical frame and goes to where the action is. It's a great dramatic sequence to start things, explain why they are together, what they are trying to accomplish. It skips past lots of things not related to the story. It provides all of the dramatic tension that's needed, and a clear starting point for the next scene.

And it also completely took the thrust of the story away from the characters. By skipping what happened after they escaped the caves, and then met in the tavern, were the decisions as to whether they intended to go after the slavers. Perhaps the characters didn't care about the slavers, or each other for that matter.  By skipping everything between scene 1 and scene 2, along with the specific framing of scene 2, the DM took control of the story away from the PCs.

I'm not saying the other way is bad, it's a great way to create a dramatic story. It's a style of story-telling that can be really exciting and dramatic. As somebody mentioned, it's a James Bond style of story-telling - there are clear start and end points to each scene, with the end of one pointing to the start of the next. There could be thousands of miles between them. Until you get to the end-game where the action is continuous. Sometimes there are a couple of these story arcs leading to the big continuous scenes. And it might be the exact type of story your players want to play.

But that's not the way everybody wants to play. We find the stuff between "the action" to be where the real meat of the story often exists. The character development occurs in the scenarios like the angry owlbear where they learned something about themselves which altered the direction of the rest of the campaign.

Also note that I'm not saying all Story Now campaigns have to frame scenes quite that hard. But it does show that when the DM is responsible for framing the scenes dramatically (rather than sequentially based only on the actions of the PCs), that is making decisions as to what scenes there should be, and when they start or end, it can actually foster, if not a railroad, a very DM-driven game.

It's simply an acknowledgement (and pointing out contradiction in the method) that whenever you hand over control to stop and start the scenes in order to frame them for dramatic purposes, you are also handing over control of the story to the DM, who then hands it back to the PCs after the scene is set.

Maybe some (most?) story now campaigns don't frame scenes as hard as I think they do. But that seems to be what they are advocating to me, in the same way that 4e recommended that you "skip to the fun parts." Either way, the players have agreed that the DM should be framing the scenes dramatically, and skipping over the boring parts. It's not a bad thing, just a different type of approach than I prefer.

I also disagree with his assertion that D&D has nothing to do with this model. As I've pointed out, I think it describes D&D very well. Perhaps not later editions as much, or at least as they are presented. But I _can_ say that later editions can still be played this way.

Eero's description is equally descriptive of the style we prefer:

1. The DM is in charge of the backstory and setting (minus the framing for dramatic purposes).
2. The players are in charge of their character, making decisions as their character.
3. The DM frames the scenes, although in our case a hard frame is the start, and maybe, the end of the campaign. Other hard frames occur only when the DM and players agree together to skip ahead.
4. The player's task is advocacy. He also comments on how the DM utilizes rules, and tools from outside the rules, and experience.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]: I'll ask again, how do _you_ think the number of words required by a prayer is estahblished?

And I find it very bizarre that you seem to be contesting the designers' own published elaboration of their rules: 'The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table". What do _you_ think that is about?

Faith is not the only BW mechanic that requires the player to speak appropriate words. There is the Elven Spell-song Rhyme of Rules, and the Human Courtier lifepath trait Rapier Wit.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] - the word "story" can have (at least) two meanings. It can refer to any narrated sequence of events. Or, it can mean a story in something like the literary sense - dramatic need, rising action, complication, climax etc.

In the first sense, even Andy Warhol's _Empire_ or _Sleep_ has a story: "the sleeper is still there, sleeping"; "he's still there, sleeping"; etc. But in the second sense there is no story (which is part of the point of those films, as far as Andy Warhol was concerned).



Lanefan said:


> As DM I'm not obliged to frame anything specific to anyone.  I frame a game world, a setting, some history, some ongiong stuff, and the PCs can fit themselves in however they like...and in so doing they can sort out their own dramatics, again however they like.



I'm sure this is true for you. I'm not stating principles that are universal. I'm stating the principles that govern a particular, fairly well-known (but I think not that well-known on ENworld) approach to RPGing - what Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narratiistic model".



Lanefan said:


> You say "no-one is in control of the story" and then almost immediately say the players *are* in control via their decision of both what the outstanding issues are and what choices they make in order to deal with them.



That doesn't put the players in control of the story. By analogy: a farmer sows seeds. And waters them, and weeds the fields. But the farmer is not in control of the yield. Other factors are also at work (eg the weather; the quality of the soil; animals that might eat the growing plants; etc).

The players control their PC responses, and they establish the dramatic need that governs framing. But the GM actually does the framing; and, when checks fail, the GM narrates the consequences. Thus, no one is in control of the story. It is emergent.

The OP gives a clear example: the (small slice of story) described in the OP is this:

A snake-handling shaman, under the control of a dark naga, hopes to capture a powerful mage and take said mage back to the naga, so said mage's blood can be spilled in sacrifice to the spirits. But, before the shaman could get to the mage - who was lying unconscious in a room in another mage's tower - an assassin decapitated said mage in an act of revenge. The shaman, seeing this occur, thinks "All that blood is flowing away, and my master wants it. Is there a vessel I can catch it in?" Looking around the room, he sees such a vessel, and uses it to catch the blood.​
That's the story. It is a story in the second of the two sense I identified: it has dramatic need, rising action, complication, a degree of climax and resolution.

Who was in control of it?

No single individual. The player of the shaman has a PC with the Belief that he will get the mage for his master. The player chose to have the shaman try to enter the tower to take the unconscious mage away. A series of failed checks (including, in the end, an opposed Speed check between PCs and assaasin) resulted in the assassin - played by me, the GM - getting there first. The player decided that the PC would look around for a vessel. A successful check meant that he found one.

That is "the standard narrativistic model" at work: the players providing dramatic need and making choices; the GM framing scenes that include complications (like assassins trying to kill the mage); dice being used to resolve action declarations, with successes realising player (and PC) intent, and failures leading to intent-defeating consequences narrated by the GM.

I call this "player driven" because it is the player-supplied dramatic need and the players' choices about action declarations that drive things. But that doesn't mean the players control the story. They don't. No one does. And we don't want anyone to control it - that's why we _roll the dice_.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Campbell said:


> Some quick clarifications.
> 
> *Make your move, but misdirect* is not really about misleading the players. They know it is your turn to speak either because things have grinded to a halt, interrogating the fiction, or they did something that requires a response from the fiction. You are defining something in the fiction because there is a game to be played. You know it. They know it. We all know it. We just do not speak to it because it endangers the fantasy that the world is real. We are still *making Apocalypse World seem real*, but we are also *making the players' characters' lives not boring* - making sure there is interesting fiction to play in. The vast majority of the time this *will not be an issue* if they have made vibrant characters who they play with integrity. Think about why there are dungeons to be explored or adventures to be had in Dungeons and Dragons and why we do not speak to this real world truth. It does not have to be directly tied to their characters. We just want interesting fiction to play through.
> 
> I would not take *look through the crosshairs* too literally. It's more about ensuring that the fiction is dynamic and there is no meaningful status quo. It's about making sure that things are always changing in some way rather than staying static. We want success to be as consequential as failure. We want NPCs to do things to each other, rather than just the PCs. We want existing relationships to shift and become upended. Looking through the crosshairs could be about the waitress of their favorite watering hole changing jobs as much as a local warlord being assassinated. It could be about their allies calling in favors because they are under threat. It could be about that dungeon they have avoided being cleared out by another adventuring company. It could be about their wife leaving them for someone who can be there for their kids rather than always going off adventuring. Sometimes the crosshairs are literal. Often, they are not.
> *
> Respond With F---ery And Intermittent Rewards* is about characters getting what they earn, but not usually what they hope for. We do this to keep the fiction interesting and also because the fiction is what it is.  Social influence only goes so far. It does not change what motivates the character most of the time. Violence tends to beget more violence. Alliances are mutual relationships that must be nurtured. The game is more forceful about this than I would like, but Apocalypse World is about a particular hard-edged sort of fiction in a desperate world. The more the fiction is about a world where hope and perseverance wins the day the less applicable this principle should be.




I meant to go back and rewrite my analysis of the "Make your move, but misdirect" rule, because after going back to the rules it was clear that it wasn't so much about misleading the PCs itself. But it is another example of how I don't like the presentation since I think it's a poor choice of words for GM Principles that are listed in bold and might only be re-referenced by name, rather than reading the rules again.

If the player's lives are boring, it depends on the source. If the world as I present it (backstory and setting) aren't interesting, that's on me. But if they are just heading off to do boring things, then that's really their problem. It might become my problem if it's clear that this group of players needs a different style of game than a straight living sandbox. I can provide more story myself if needed, but I prefer for the players to do it.

That makes sense about "look through the crosshairs," and I also understand the general thrust behind "respond with f-ery..." but ultimately the rules themselves can imply that the GM is there in part to mess with the characters. And that's not the way I run my games. That doesn't mean that there won't be NPCs that will target the characters specifically, but it won't be because the game tells me that at this point in time I need to mess with the PCs.

The world is always changing, but as a DM I aim to approach the world from a neutral standpoint. I'm not trying to make it easier or harder on the PCs. I mean, the world outside of civilization is a pretty deadly place, but I'm not trying to change it on the fly. Your examples are exactly the sort of things that I do think are appropriate - but the intention is a bit different, I guess. I'm not trying to make their lives not boring or the fiction interesting. I know it sounds a bit paradoxical, but if I'm providing an interesting backstory and setting (including NPCs and their motivations) then the players can run with that and create an interesting story without me having to create dramatic scenes and interesting complications.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> if nobody knows his motivation at that time why is he doing what he's doing? His motivation for doing those things has to come from somewhere...in this case, the DM.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the later "authoring" does in fact overwrite whatever was driving his actions when he was seen earlier.



Both these claims are just false. As in, refuted by the actual experience of people running RPGs.

I can narrate a NPC doing something without knowing what that NPC's motivation is, and without even having an idea as to what it might be. Here is a concrete example: the Gynarch of Hardby is engaged to marry Jabal of the Cabal. Why? No one at the table knows. It's a mystery. I introduced this mystery into the game because I thought that it would spur one or more of the PCs to action, given their dispositions and concerns. And I was right about that - it did.

When, in play (possibly our next session) a reason emerges, it won't be an "overwriting" of any earlier fiction, because _there was no earlier fiction_.

Likewise in the skulker case. Subsequent episodes of play established that one of his motivations for supporting the hobgoblin army was to wield power in the city where he was an advisor to the baron (because a hobgboblin army created a state of siege which empowered the baron and hence his advisor). But that was not known to me, or anyone, when I first narrated him flying out of the hobgoblin fortress on a flying carpet. At that point the baron hadn't even been established as an element of the shared fiction, nor any sort of hobgoblin operations against the city.

Establishing this later stuff is not _rewriting_. It is simply _writing_. Had the game unfolded differently, the fiction would have been different. The city might never beecome anything more to play than a dot on a map; its form of government might have remained undiscovered; and it might have turned out that the yellow-robed skulker was not an advisor to anyone, and had no motivations connected to the baron or the city.

I understand that you don't yourself GM in this fashion. But I don't get why it is so hard to see what's going on: that these bits of the fiction are authored by the GM when needed to establish framing or consequences, and not beforehand.



hawkeyefan said:


> mutability of backstory and story elements is along the lines of Illusionism (not that it must be Illusionism, although it can be) in the sense that it allows the GM leeway to go in multiple directions based on what the GM decides is best for the game by working in an area unknown to the players



As I see it, the key feature of Illusionism is not that it is GM narration.

The key feature of Illusionism is that it is GM narration that covertly nullifies the significance or consequences of player action declarations for their PCs. The _illusion_ is that these action declarations, and their resolution, matter to the outcomes of the game.

A classic example of advocacy for Illusionism is "Don't let a single dice roll ruin a good story".

In the skulker example there is GM narration. This narration fills in something unknown to the players (and, hitherto, unknown to the GM) - it can't but do that, because if the relevant fiction was already known to the players then the GM would be bound by it and hence would have no authority to narrate over the top of it.

But that's the only resemblance to Illusionism that I can see. Narration.

And I would query your claim that "the GM decides what is best for the game". That is not a very precise description. The GM _frames a situation_. Or the GM _narrates a consequence of a check_. And does these things in accordance with certain principle, primarily "go where the action is" ie follow dramatic need.

The GM doesn't have any at-large power to narrate stuff on the basis that it is "best for the game". I'm not really sure that "best for the game" is even a meaningful concept in this context.



hawkeyefan said:


> I just see a similarity in the GM having the ability to decide things on the fly. Whether that happens to be what's at the end of the left fork in a tunnel, or the affiliations and goals of an NPC....the GM is free to alter what is true until some point of commitment.



"Alter" and "establish" are not synonyms, though.

And there is another thing going on here. The idea of _the left fork in a tunnel_ suggests that we already have a whole lot of backstory established but unknown to the players (eg the classic dungeon map). In which case we already seem to be positing an approach to play where part of what is involved is the players learning what is in the GM's notes (in this case, the map). In which case it would be something like cheating for the GM to just change things around on the fly.

But in the sort of approach I am describing, there is no map of the tunnels prepared in advance in that classic fashion. (I will sometimes use a map as an element in _framing_ - especially in 4e - but that is something different.) So that the PCs went left rather than right is mere colour. The initial choice of a direction to go has no significance for resolution (though it may establish fictional positioning that comes to be of significance down the track).


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> For example, here's a look at two scenes:
> 
> Scene 1: "You find yourself lying on a rocky shore water lapping at your legs. It's dark. Very dark. You notice that there is something around your ankle...a manacle with a chain still attached. As your mind clears, you recall that you were in the hold of a ship. A slave ship, chained to the deck. A light flares up some distance away, you hear and see a boat several hundred yards away, and the sound of voices, voices you recognize. The slavers. What do you do?"
> 
> That was how one of my campaigns started. I took full control of the story at that stage, and it's a very hard frame. I then handed it over to the PCs. Where they went and what they did was up to them.
> 
> So let's say I had then have some encounters, they escaped the slavers, made their way into the caves around them (they were underground), and found the remains of an adventuring party, giving them weapons and supplies and a clear exit from the caverns beneath Waterdeep. So this was the "opening scene" that established where they came from, and why they were together. End scene 1.
> 
> Scene 2. Then cut to a tavern in Waterdeep, with the group together, waiting for an NPC. Somebody with information, names of the slavers and where they can be found. The person provides the information and the location where the NPC will be, others seem to be eavesdropping, and the PCs react to that, then make plans on how to confront the slavers. End scene 2.
> 
> This is another hard frame. It's a logical frame and goes to where the action is. It's a great dramatic sequence to start things, explain why they are together, what they are trying to accomplish. It skips past lots of things not related to the story. It provides all of the dramatic tension that's needed, and a clear starting point for the next scene.
> 
> And it also completely took the thrust of the story away from the characters. By skipping what happened after they escaped the caves, and then met in the tavern, were the decisions as to whether they intended to go after the slavers. Perhaps the characters didn't care about the slavers, or each other for that matter.  By skipping everything between scene 1 and scene 2, along with the specific framing of scene 2, the DM took control of the story away from the PCs.



And took control of the PCs away form the players.  That scene skip is a full-on railroad.



> I'm not saying the other way is bad, it's a great way to create a dramatic story. It's a style of story-telling that can be really exciting and dramatic. As somebody mentioned, it's a James Bond style of story-telling - there are clear start and end points to each scene, with the end of one pointing to the start of the next. There could be thousands of miles between them. Until you get to the end-game where the action is continuous. Sometimes there are a couple of these story arcs leading to the big continuous scenes. And it might be the exact type of story your players want to play.



It has its uses in a few specific situations:

- convention (limited time) games
- tournament games
- games where there is limited time to finish the campaign (e.g. a 1-20 game in a single college term)
- games where the DM has a very short attention span and gets bored easily (I've personally seen this, it wasn't pretty)

Beyond that, however...



> But that's not the way everybody wants to play. We find the stuff between "the action" to be where the real meat of the story often exists. The character development occurs in the scenarios like the angry owlbear where they learned something about themselves which altered the direction of the rest of the campaign.



...this is the way to go.  Slow down, take the time, and let them decide what to do on their own.  Assume the campaign will last forever, and that you've got forever to play it.



> Maybe some (most?) story now campaigns don't frame scenes as hard as I think they do. But that seems to be what they are advocating to me, in the same way that 4e recommended that you "skip to the fun parts."



I noticed that recommendation in 4e and thought it rather odd even then.



> Either way, the players have agreed that the DM should be framing the scenes dramatically, and skipping over the boring parts. It's not a bad thing, just a different type of approach than I prefer.



Actually it *is* a bad thing in that it bakes in an often-erroneous assumption of what parts of the game people are going to see as boring.  Sometimes what happens between the dramatic set-pieces is far more interesting and engaging than the set-pieces themselves!

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Both these claims are just false. As in, refuted by the actual experience of people running RPGs.
> 
> I can narrate a NPC doing something without knowing what that NPC's motivation is, and without even having an idea as to what it might be. Here is a concrete example: the Gynarch of Hardby is engaged to marry Jabal of the Cabal. Why? No one at the table knows. It's a mystery. I introduced this mystery into the game because I thought that it would spur one or more of the PCs to action, given their dispositions and concerns. And I was right about that - it did.



Where my assertion is that for this to have any weight at all, and for it to be consistently acted on and roleplayed by you the DM, you yourself must - must! - know the answer to "Why?" as soon as the mystery is presented.  It doesn't matter a whit whether the players and-or characters ever find out or not, but you have to know so you can be consistent in your narrations and actions and not play/write yourself into a corner.

Spurring them to action is great!  But *you need to know the answers right now*, because...



> When, in play (possibly our next session) a reason emerges, it won't be an "overwriting" of any earlier fiction, because _there was no earlier fiction_.



...when that reason emerges it has to be consistent with what has gone before; and the only way to ensure that is to have the backstory nailed in place beforehand.  The "earlier fiction" is in your head or your notes.



> Likewise in the skulker case. Subsequent episodes of play established that one of his motivations for supporting the hobgoblin army was to wield power in the city where he was an advisor to the baron (because a hobgboblin army created a state of siege which empowered the baron and hence his advisor). But that was not known to me, or anyone, when I first narrated him flying out of the hobgoblin fortress on a flying carpet. At that point the baron hadn't even been established as an element of the shared fiction, nor any sort of hobgoblin operations against the city.
> 
> Establishing this later stuff is not _rewriting_. It is simply _writing_. Had the game unfolded differently, the fiction would have been different. The city might never beecome anything more to play than a dot on a map; its form of government might have remained undiscovered; and it might have turned out that the yellow-robed skulker was not an advisor to anyone, and had no motivations connected to the baron or the city.



Different strokes, I guess.

You say you're good at sniffing out whether a DM is using pre-planned notes or not; by the same token I'm good at sniffing out inconsistencies and things in the fiction that in hindsight don't make sense, and I'm not shy about calling them out.



> I understand that you don't yourself GM in this fashion. But I don't get why it is so hard to see what's going on: that these bits of the fiction are authored by the GM when needed to establish framing or consequences, and not beforehand.



What I don't understand is how you can keep it all consistent.  If I'm a player in that game and we as a group see the skulker flying out of the Hob fortress I'm going to assume that he has some reason for being there and that said reason *is already locked in as a part of the hidden fiction*.  Doesn't matter if it ever becomes relevant or visible to the PCs or not; it's still part of the fiction, and if three years later we for some reason happen to find out what the guy was up to the answer given then would be exactly the same as it would be if we found out right now.

It's the same as the real world.  I see some guy walk out of a Starbucks (Starbucks...hobgoblin fortress...pretty much the same), get in his car, and drive away.  He doubtless had some reason or other for being in the Starbucks, and also had some reason for leaving at that moment.  Realistically I'll never know or care what those reasons are, but that's immaterial: they're known to the guy involved in the actions, are locked in as a fact of life, and will be the same whether told to someone right now or told to someone in 5 years.

The same is true of your guy flying out of the Hob fortress.  He knows why he's there, and why he's leaving at that particular moment...and if he knows that means you must know as, being an NPC, he's you.

So the time to determine those reasons is, at the very latest, right at the time the PCs see him fly out and leave.  Why?  Because - to repeat - in the fiction he knows what they are; and as he's you, you must also know.



> And there is another thing going on here. The idea of _the left fork in a tunnel_ suggests that we already have a whole lot of backstory established but unknown to the players (eg the classic dungeon map). In which case we already seem to be positing an approach to play where part of what is involved is the players learning what is in the GM's notes (in this case, the map). In which case it would be something like cheating for the GM to just change things around on the fly.



Exactly.  Which is why you can't make stuff up now that explains what happened then; you need to have made it up at the same time it happened, otherwise you are in fact changing things around on the fly - except that instead of changing from one thing to another thing you're changing from nothing to something.  This is just as big a change, like it or not.



> But in the sort of approach I am describing, there is no map of the tunnels prepared in advance in that classic fashion. (I will sometimes use a map as an element in _framing_ - especially in 4e - but that is something different.) So that the PCs went left rather than right is mere colour. The initial choice of a direction to go has no significance for resolution (though it may establish fictional positioning that comes to be of significance down the track).



You keep going on about something being "mere colour" as if it means something.  It doesn't.

Whether something has significance for resolution or establishes fictional positioning or is a meaningless diversion is irrelevant.  It's all an equally important part of the fiction and all an equally important part of the story being told.

We're in the forest on some important mission and we get attacked by a wandering pack of wolves.  While in-character I might be chafing at the delay, you can rest assured that the most important things to me-as-character (and thus, even by your definition, to the story) in that moment in that place is that I not be eaten by wolves; that we find a way to defeat or drive off these wolves; and that we not attract too much other unwanted attention in the process.  Even though in the grand scheme of things the wolves may be utterly irrelevant they inescapably do, once beaten, become part of the characters' story.

Lan-"my, what big teeth you have"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> the word "story" can have (at least) two meanings. It can refer to any narrated sequence of events. Or, it can mean a story in something like the literary sense - dramatic need, rising action, complication, climax etc.



Yes, and in this sort of milieu - discussing campaigns and their stories - I only use the first definition: a narrated sequence* of events; though the narration is occurring in a different manner (ongoing and continual) than this rather generic definition probably expects.  

* - in the case of a game or campaign, maybe not even all that sequential. 

The second definition might apply randomly now and then within a game, but if it comes up all the time in a game that's a red flag that there's some hard railroading going on in order to make it so; whether over the short term (a single encounter) or long term (a whole campaign).

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> he word "story" can have (at least) two meanings. It can refer to any narrated sequence of events. Or, it can mean a story in something like the literary sense - dramatic need, rising action, complication, climax etc.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, and in this sort of milieu - discussing campaigns and their stories - I only use the first definition: a narrated sequence* of events; though the narration is occurring in a different manner (ongoing and continual) than this rather generic definition probably expects.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The second definition might apply randomly now and then within a game, but if it comes up all the time in a game that's a red flag that there's some hard railroading going on in order to make it so; whether over the short term (a single encounter) or long term (a whole campaign).
Click to expand...


I can tell you - in fact, I can _promise you_ - that there are RPGs going on all over the world in which story in the second sense is happening regularly, not randomly, and _there is no railroading going on_.

*That's what the "standard narrativistic model" is for.* To deliver story, in the second sense, without railroading.

And I can tell you, from experience, that it works: it delivers exactly what is written on the tin. Story _now_.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Passwall doesn't care if there's a secret door there - it just makes an obvious way through by temporarily changing the architecture - where the Architecture check is based on what's been constructed into the building as noted on the DM's map (or bloody well should be - this idea of Schroedingers Secret Door just doesn't fly with me).



My point, though, is that if the use of Passwall to get through walls doesn't cause anti-climax or problematic "negation" of challenges, then finding a secret door via an Architecture check is not likely to cause those problems.



Lanefan said:


> Can, in your system, an existing secret door simply be missed on a search?  It's not about an absence of anything, it's about the presence of it being flat-out missed by the searcher (with or without possible consequences then or later).



I'll repost my earlier reply to you on this point:



pemerton said:


> Here's one way: the PCs learn (eg from a friend; from a blueprint) that a secret door is present in a certain place. They try to find it, and fail. Later on enemies come through the door.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> that ability to change things...having the notion or plan for the skulker to be a member of the Cult of the Dragon, but then changing that to have him instead be a Thayan wizard...that's the illusion.
> 
> Now, I said this was similar to Illusionism as the specific term you mean it to be. It's not identical to it. But I would think that any time the GM has idea A in place, and then it becomes idea B later on...that's a but of GM trickery.





hawkeyefan said:


> Sure, I get the concern about Illusionism in that sense.
> 
> What I am saying is that the mutability of backstory and story elements is along the lines of Illusionism (not that it must be Illusionism, although it can be) in the sense that it allows the GM leeway to go in multiple directions based on what the GM decides is best for the game by working in an area unknown to the players. I know that such leeway need not be about blocking the players' actions in some way.
> 
> I'm not ascribing any negativity to this technique....I think it's fine, generally (as always, table expectations and desires play a role here). I just see a similarity in the GM having the ability to decide things on the fly. Whether that happens to be what's at the end of the left fork in a tunnel, or the affiliations and goals of an NPC....the GM is free to alter what is true until some point of commitment.



Further to this.

Here is The Forge's definition of _illusionism_ - and in case the relevance of this definition is contested, well, that's where the term comes from:

A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features.​
Here is the definition that I wrote when composing this post, before Googling up the above:

_Illusionism_ refers to a GMing technique (or maybe a family of techniques) whereby the GM covertly manipulates the resolution mechanics and/or the fiction to ensure that certain outcomes occur within the shared fiction, regardless of the players' action declaration.​
So I'm pretty confident that my understanding is on the same page as that of The Forge.

Now, in the example of the GM not establishing, as part of the fiction, the motivation of an NPC until some appropriate moment of framing or adjudication: _how is that illusionism_, or anything like it? No control is being asserted over outcomes. Nothing is being done covertly. All the GM is doing is either framing - which is overt - or narrating a consequence in accordance with the procedures of the game in question - which is overt.

What is the supposed resemblance?


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Where my assertion is that for this to have any weight at all, and for it to be consistently acted on and roleplayed by you the DM, you yourself must - must! - know the answer to "Why?" as soon as the mystery is presented.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> *you need to know the answers right now*, because...
> 
> ...when that reason emerges it has to be consistent with what has gone before; and the only way to ensure that is to have the backstory nailed in place beforehand.



This just isn't true.

Chris Claremont, in X-Men 150, tells us that Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, whose motivation for wanting to rule the world is connected to protecting mutants from the sorts of threats that had killed his family in Europe.

This establishing of motivation didn't have to be known or planned as soon as Magneto was introduced as a character. In fact, it's inevitable in serial fiction that elements of the fiction, including character backstories and motivations, will be authored and elaborated after the initial introduction of the character. (Consider also the first time Wolverine pops his claws without wearing his costume, and another X-Man (Nightcrawler? - I don't have the issue in front of me) says "They're a part of you?!")

This actual play report from over six years ago describes, in some detail, how I ran an exploration scenario without pre-authoring:



pemerton said:


> After all the sandbox/railroading threads over the past several weeks, in my most recent session I decided to try running an exploration-heavy scenario to see how it played.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I learned that while sandboxing might rely heavily upon exploration, exploration can be done without sandboxing. Most of the interesting details of the exploration were worked out by me on the fly, whether as needed or even in response to player actions



Here are some of the details of the mystery that were established by me as part of the process of actually play:



pemerton said:


> This scenario involves a manor that once belonged to the most powerful wizard of a fallen empire, but has been abandoned for the past 1000 years, since the fall of that empire. The idea of the scenario is that the PCs will explore the manor and discover that the wizard went mad and killed all his apprentices, before then disappearing. The PCs will also learn some cultural and religous facts about the ancient empire, their sun worship and their burial practices. They will also have to battle the undead guardian spiders that are patrolling the manor, and hiding inside an ogre's skull on a pedestal in the laboratory.
> 
> I made the following tweaks to the scenario, so that it would fit my campaign world:
> 
> *The manor dates from the Nerathian empire (100 years ago rather than 1000 years ago) and the time period of the scenario is only a few years after the fall of Nerath;
> 
> *The manor became abandoned when the pending fall of Nerath to gnoll invaders (the downstream consequences of which have been a bit part of the campaign to date) led its wizard owner to go mad with the strain and kill his apprentices;
> 
> *The guardian spiders were mostly not undead but a Bloodweb spider swarm (this tied nicely into the spider-filled tunnels under the ruins that the PCs had already dealt with - the Large spider they killed in the gameworld "present" was the sole survivor of the many swarms of Tiny spiders they would encounter in the gameworld past);
> 
> *The religion of the dead mage was a particular cult combining worship of Bahamut (god of the east wind and also of the dragonborn - it is an already established fact of the campaign that the dragonborn empire had been in this region some time prior to Nerath), Kord, Pelor and Ioun - so a type of mystical sun, weather and strength worship;
> 
> *That the burial practices of the cult had the intention of trying to avoid the dead being dealt with by the Raven Queen, instead going directly to Mount Celestia or Hestavar as exalted (the party has a cleric, a paladin and a lapsed initiate of the Raven Queen, so this was likely to be an interesting point for the players);
> 
> *That the spiders in the skull _were_ undead spiders as the module stipulated;
> 
> *That the last work the wizard who owned the manor had been undertaking before he went mad was to try to find a way of harnessing the power of the Raven Queen without compromising the principles of his cult, in order to create more powerful defences by which Nerath might resist the invading gnolls - he snapped when his most religiously devout apprentice learned what he was doing and accused him of treachery.
> 
> The first two of these tweaks I worked out in advance. The rest I worked out during the course of play, as they became relevant to the exploration that the players/PCs were engaged in.



As I said, it's simply not true that this sort of thing can't be done without knowing in advance what is going on. As you can see from the above, the relevant theological motivations - burial practices, and then magical experiments that were the precursors to wizardly madness - were authored in the course of play.

So your claims of _must_ and _the only way_ are simply false. They are refuted by actual experience.



Lanefan said:


> You say you're good at sniffing out whether a DM is using pre-planned notes or not



No, I said I can tell if the game speaks to the dramatic needs I have established for my character, or not. And that that cannot be done while sticking to pre-planned notes.



Lanefan said:


> What I don't understand is how you can keep it all consistent.



A combination of memory, notes and a robust sense on the part of both GM and players of the shared fiction.



Lanefan said:


> He knows why he's there, and why he's leaving at that particular moment...and if he knows that means you must know as, being an NPC, he's you.



That's a bad argument. He also knows (presumably) whether he is left or right handed; whether he prefers the sexual company of men, women, both, or neither; etc - but I don't know any of those things.

I don't need to know anything at all about someone's motivations to narrate them flying out of a fortress on a flying carpet.



Lanefan said:


> You keep going on about something being "mere colour" as if it means something.  It doesn't.



It does to me. I don't enjoy RPGing for the colour. I enjoy it for the play, which means engaging with the fiction. Which means that the fiction has to be more than mere colour.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> My point, though, is that if the use of Passwall to get through walls doesn't cause anti-climax or problematic "negation" of challenges, then finding a secret door via an Architecture check is not likely to cause those problems.



Where mine is...well, are...that a) Passwall is a decent-level spell and thus by no means available to everyone (and even if it is, how often is it prepped?) whereas the ability to simply look for something is always-on for anyone; b) the use of Passwall leaves a rather obvious hole in the wall for a while (going by 1e, 5e probably made it shorter); and c) philosophically, having a secret door suddenly become part of the building where no secret door was before just because someone looks for it (yes, Schroedinger's Door) simply doesn't fly.  The building is what it is before the PCs get to it, secret doors and all.

I can even give a real-life example of this.  A few blocks down the road from where I live is a mostly-derelict building, quite close to the street, that now and then homeless people use (illegally) for shelter.  I walked past it every day for 15+ years on my way to work.  One day when I was walking past it a guy just ahead of me ducked around its corner, and as I got to the same corner and looked the way he went I saw what I'd always taken to be just a part of the wall sliding shut; and no sign of the guy.  "Cool", I thought, "a real-life secret door!"

I didn't know it was there until seeing this.  Obviously, however, it was.

Were I a character in a game world that secret door would have always been on the DM's map (though of course I-as-character wouldn't know this or even what a DM was) even though I-as-character had never bothered to search for it.  Had I for some reason bothered to search before seeing it in use, however, the act of my searching would not have brought it into existence; and I could easily have failed to find it even though it was in fact right there.

Which leads directly to...



> I'll repost my earlier reply to you on this point:
> 
> Here's one way: the PCs learn (eg from a friend; from a blueprint) that a secret door is present in a certain place. They try to find it, and fail. Later on enemies come through the door.



And I'll repost my question, for the third (fourth?) time, and put it in several different ways; and maybe this time you'll answer it instead of deflecting* it:
* - your deflection above gives them prior knowledge of where to look.


			
				Lanefan said:
			
		

> Can, in your system, an existing secret door simply be missed on a search? It's not about an absence of anything, it's about the presence of it being flat-out missed by the searcher (with or without possible consequences then or later).




Can, in your system, characters search for and fail to find an existing secret door they have no prior knowledge of?  As a character, can I search a wall and fail (without any other ramifications at the time) to find a secret door when in fact there is one present?  Or does my failure bake in to the fiction that there is no door there to be found by anyone even if that wall happens for whatever reason to be a very logical spot where a secret door would be?

Put another way, can the following scenario occur:

Day 1: for whatever reason we search for secret doors in hallway A, finding nothing (not because there's nothing to find but because we had a moment of incompetence and failed in our search; in fact there's a secret door halfway down the north side) and then carry on exploring elsewhere
Day 2: we find the Sword of Swordiness; we're now happy rich adventurers
Day 3: we happen to go through hallway A again only this time when we're halfway along it the Sword of Swordiness pulls sharply toward the north wall as it has found the secret door we missed on day 1; thus both revealing to us that it has an always-on "Detect Secret Doors" ability and making us happier richer adventurers as said secret door led to a treasure vault.

The reason I ask is this.  When searching for something like a secret door that you have no prior knowledge of there's several possible outcomes:

1. The search is successful and you find a door.
2. The search is unsuccessful in and of itself but you find a door anyway e.g. when the monsters on the other side hear you and attack.
3. The search is unsuccessful because there is no door there to find.
4. The search is unsuccessful because, while there's actually a door there to be found, you simply missed it; and a subsequent search by someone else might still find it (or e.g. you might come back a few hours later and see it standing ajar).

I want to know if all these outcomes are possible in your system; particularly #4.

Lan-"every time I walk by that building now I wonder to myself whether that secret door still works or whether it's been nailed shut"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> This just isn't true.
> 
> Chris Claremont, in X-Men 150, tells us that Magneto is a Holocaust survivor, whose motivation for wanting to rule the world is connected to protecting mutants from the sorts of threats that had killed his family in Europe.
> 
> This establishing of motivation didn't have to be known or planned as soon as Magneto was introduced as a character. In fact, it's inevitable in serial fiction that elements of the fiction, including character backstories and motivations, will be authored and elaborated after the initial introduction of the character. (Consider also the first time Wolverine pops his claws without wearing his costume, and another X-Man (Nightcrawler? - I don't have the issue in front of me) says "They're a part of you?!")



I'll have to take your word for the comics references; I only know the movies.



> It does to me. I don't enjoy RPGing for the colour. I enjoy it for the play, which means engaging with the fiction. Which means that the fiction has to be more than mere colour.



Well, to me the colour, the fiction, and the play are all intertwined parts (along with others) of the whole; which is the overall game which in turn is what I engage with.  On another level, the colour and the fiction are pretty much the same thing: the colour is the fiction, and the fiction is all colour.  

Or, put another way, you seem to be saying fiction = relevant and colour = irrelevant where to me it's all equally relevant.

I may or may not get to your play example tonight - it's getting mighty late here. 

Lan-"to me the name 'Claremont' - though highly relevant - has nothing to do with comics: it's the name of my high school"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> I disagree that the model was specifically a reaction against that sort of railroading play. The model, as far as I can tell, was specifically a reaction against shared-authorship in several forms.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> He states quite clearly what he thinks the problem is, and it has nothing to do with railroading



That's the problem, for narrativistic play, of a certain sort of shared narration. But it's not the reason for inventing RPGs that follow the "standard narrativistic model".

There is no need to speculate on this matter. Eero Tuovinen is not inventing the "standard narrativistic model". He is describing (in a post written in 2010) an approach to RPGing that was first expressly theorised at The Forge (see eg this essay from 2003), and he is referring to the way in which

games like Sorcerer, Dogs in the Vineyard, some varieties of Heroquest, The Shadow of Yesterday, Mountain Witch, Primetime Adventures and more games than I care to name all work​
Sorcerer is from 2002. It is designed by Ron Edwards, the author of the Forge essay I linked to. It is one of the earliest published expositions of the "standard narrativistic model". Ron Edwards does not make a secret of why he wanted to design this sort of game - he objected to the railroad-style play that was rampant in the late 80s and 90s RPG scene, with games like Vampire as the standard bearers.

DitV is from 2004. Its designer, Vincent Baker, also designed Apocalypse World. DitV is a fairly early and very highly regarded RPG design intended to generate _story_ without _railroading_, in virtue of its combination of framing principles and resolution system.

HeroQuest is a successor game to HeroWars, which was designed by Robin Laws and first published in 2000. The latest edition I know of - HeroQuest revised - is from 2009. Both the HeroWars Narrator's Guide and the HQ revised book have excellent advice for running a game without secret backstory as an element in adjudication, and for how to manage "closed scene" resolution.

The earliest RPG I know of which presents a version of the "standard narrativistic model" is Maelstrom Storytelling (1997) - it is one of the "more games" that Eero Tuovinen does not care to name. You can download a version of the core mechanic for free from DriveThruRPG. Here is Ron Edwards's description of that system, in the essay I linked to above (it opens with a quote from the Maelstrom rulebook):

From _Maelstrom_ (Hubris Games, 1997, author is Christian Aldridge):

*Narrative Tools*

... The whole premise of role-playing is the freedom the players have to take their characters in whatever direction they want. It is important to maintain this free will, and not lead the players with a heavy hand down a course only the narrator controls. Though the narrator may tell a good story, it loses the rich creative spirit of role-playing if the players have little say in what happens.​
Putting aside the synecdoche ("the whole premise," etc), two key features show up in this passage as well as in the whole of the Maelstrom game text. (1) No mention is made whatever of _seeming _to grant player control - it's real freedom he's talking about. (2) The freedom is specifically over what the character thinks is right and decides to do: the goal he or she brings into the current imaginary situation. The GM ("narrator" in this case) cannot wield any authority over what the characters are supposed to want, which therefore extends to a similar lack of authority over how any conflict during play is supposed to turn out.​
Part of the significance of this passage is that it also shows that the "standard narrativistic model" is not at all hostile to "shared authorship" as such. _The player_ has freedom to decide _what the character thinks is right and decides to do_. The GM _cannot wield authority over what the characters are supposed to want_, which therefore means the GM has no authority over how conflicts are supposed to turn out.

Eero Tuovinen makes the same point in describing the "standard narrativistic model" (I have bolded the key phrases):

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes *according to dramatic needs* (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . once *the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory* in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. *The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs*, so he makes choices on the part of the character.​
The players, not the GM, establish concrete characters and character needs. Thus, when the GM "goes where the action is", the GM is following hooks provided by the players.

In BW character building, elements of backstory that players can establish include significant components of the setting (eg, just confining myself to the events in the OP, the existence of the sorcerous cabal and of the balrog-possessed mage were both established by a player in building his PC).

Eero Tuovinen is objecting only to _one particular aspect of shared narration_, namely, the one he describes when he says that narrativistic RPGing

works, but only as long as you do not require the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice. If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character, not ask the player whether he’s OK with it . . .

I don’t find it convincing how lightly many GMs seem to give away their backstory authority even when playing games that absolutely rely on the GM’s ability to drive home hard choices by using these same powers.​
It is the GM's job to frame scenes, introduce complications, and narrate consequences. Eero Tuovinen is arguing that, given this, certain techniques don't fit with the model he is describing. But avoiding those techniques isn't the rationale of the model.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I stated: "That the "holy grail of RPG design" is that the *player's viewpoint* is that the entire game is based around "nothing by choices made in playing his character."
> 
> How can I misquote somebody I've copied and pasted?



I don't know how, but you've done it again. Here is the quote:

The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design . . .​
The holy grail, as he puts it, is that (i) the player helps create an amazing story, and does so (ii) with nothing but choices made in playing his/her PC. The reason this is able to happen is that, _prior to play_, the player establishes a PC with clear dramatic needs, and that, _once play begins_, the GM frames scenes and establishes consequences in a manner that "goes where the action is" ie in accordance with dramatic needs.

I'm not confused about the model. It informs basically all of my RPGing.



Ilbranteloth said:


> that's exactly the same thing you just said, and what I have been describing all along, that the players create the story by playing his/her PC. Not by authoring the backstory (secret or otherwise), and not by authoring the setting.



No. You are missing or ignoring the bits where (to quote) "the players [establish] concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes" and that these player-authored dramatic needs are what the GM follows in framing scenes.

You are also not addressing the various possibilities in action declaration. For instance, declaring "I look for a vessel!" or "I search for a secret door!" is the player playing his/her PC. How do we determine, though, whether or not that attempt succeeds? If the GM simply narrates failure on the basis of secret backstory ("Sorry, there's no vessel"; "You search, but find no secret doors") then how is that an instance of (to quote) the "process [of] choices lead[ing] to consequences which lead to further choices"? Or of the GM "going where the action is"?

That is not to assert that the BW/MHRP approach is the only way to handle these sorts of action declarations. DW does it differently. So does HeroWars/Quest. But no game that is interested in providing an experience that resemble Eero Tuovinen's "holy grail" is going to advocate that the GM simply draw a map and key in advance of play, and then respond to those sorts of action declarations simply by reading off those notes. Whatever sort of play experience that is going to provide, it is not an instance of Eero Tuovinen's "holy grail"!



Ilbranteloth said:


> Making the DM responsible to "frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise) by introducing complications." You are giving them more control over the story, or to put it a different way, taking control of the story away from the players.



Once again you seem to have missed or ignored the fact that _the players are the one's who establish those dramatic needs_. But - for the very reason you have been quoting and apparently agreeing with, namely, that it is not satisfying for the player to frame his/her own conflict - it is not the players' but the GM's job to put these needs under pressure by framing scenes.

To use a metaphor, one could say that the players provide the _material _- the thematic content, the dramatic needs - but the GM provides the _form_ - the concrete scene that puts those needs and that theme to the test.

If the GM does not do that, then either the players have to frame their own scenes or there won't be any scenes. If the players frame their own scenes with a free hand, then you get the very problem that Eero Tuovinen is describing. And if - as in classic dungeoncrawling D&D - they frame their own scenes using whatever material the GM has provided them with (and notice how that is an exact reversal of roles from the "standard narrativistic model"), then they have every incentive to minimise the pressure in those scenes (eg by searching for and disarming traps, sneaking about, avoiding needless conflict, etc). Which, whether or not it makes for fun play, does not generate _story_ at all.



Ilbranteloth said:


> To me, framing a scene means that there is a start and finish to the scene - the frames.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> whenever you hand over control to stop and start the scenes in order to frame them for dramatic purposes, you are also handing over control of the story to the DM



I think it is important to be clear on what Tuovinen means. He is not pioneering the terminology of "scene framing" in the RPG context. By "framing a scene" he means something in the neighbourhood of the "boxed text" in a module. Here is how Marvel Heroic RP describes the process (pp 33-35):

As the Watcher         *GM:*  , framing every Scene is your responsibility . . . A Scene ends when the central conflict or situation is resolved; this means you need to have a sense of what the Scene is about as you frame it. . . . If you’re the Watcher, you get things started by establishing who is present in a Scene and where. This is called *framing the Scene*, and it’s your chief responsibility in the game . . . Once you frame a Scene as the Watcher, it’s time to present the challenge to the players. . . . As a player, you now have the core situation - or at least the implication of one - laid out in front of you for this Scene. It’s time to drop into character, think about what your hero would do in this situation, and perhaps talk it over with the other players.             *GM:*  

Tuovinen is including "presenting the challenge" in his account of "framing the scene" - and you can see how, in the MHRP text, after the description of the GM's role in framing (including presenting the challenge) we then get the player-side description of the "standard narrativistic model": the player drops into character and responds to the situation that has been presented by the GM.

How the scene _resolves_ is not up to the GM. That's a function of the players' action declarations for their PCs, and the outcomes of those action declarations in accordance with the resolution mechanics. To quote Tuovinen,

The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules.​
None of these games includes a rule that just allows the GM to decide how things turn out!



Ilbranteloth said:


> By skipping everything between scene 1 and scene 2, along with the specific framing of scene 2, the DM took control of the story away from the PCs.



By PCs do you mean players?

In any event, from your description it is very hard for me to form any clear judgements, because eg I don't know anything about how scene 2 relates to dramatic needs established by the players, nor how its framing follows from consequences generated by the resolution of actions declared in scene 1.

For instance, in my 4e game the PCs were tricked by a group of undead spirits into coming close (the spirits were disguised as refugees huddled around a campfire), and then the undead - who had been conjured by a goblin shaman - attacked the PCs and defeated them. The PCs regained consciousness in a goblin prison cell.

That is not "taking control of the story away from the players" - rather, it is "establishing consequences as determined by the game's rules" - in this case, the rules dealing with what happens when a character is reduced to 0 hp.

Marvel Heroic RP has a rule whereby the GM can spend 2d12 from the Doom Pool to end a scene and narrate a resolution consistent with the current state of things. I did this in my first session: so the PCs who had mostly beaten up the bad guys at the Smithsonian got finish their mopping up off-screen; but in the aerial struggle between War Machine and Titanium Man, I narrated that War Machine, encased in energy rings by Titanium Man, fell to the ground somewhere in Florida, while Titanium Man was able to fly back to his secret base in Khazakstan.

Again, that is "establishing consequences as determined by the game's rules". The players now do their best to take steps to ensure that the Doom Pool doesn't build up to 2d12, so that they can avoid this happening again.

This relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s notion of "Walled Off Gardens". The idea of "consequences as determined by the game's rules" generally opens upon the possibility that _the players (and their PCs) won't get what they want_. The flip side of that is that the GM gets to narrate stuff that is adverse to those wants. Exactly how this is handled will vary from system to system, but it might include waking up in a goblin prison, or being defeated by Titanium Man who escapes back to Khazakstan.



Ilbranteloth said:


> the general guideline is to frame scenes around the action. This concept is largely what 4e recommended as well.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> that's not the way everybody wants to play. We find the stuff between "the action" to be where the real meat of the story often exists. The character development occurs in the scenarios like the angry owlbear where they learned something about themselves which altered the direction of the rest of the campaign.



I think you are misunderstanding the use of the word "action". Eero Tuovinen does not say that scenes should be framed around the action. He says the following:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to . . . frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is)​
The GM's job is to frame scenes around dramatic needs. This is then glossed by way of a slogan: "go where the action is". When, in my BW game, I told the player that he (as his PC) could see his brother across the crowd at the Hardby docks - for the first time in around 16 years, since they fled their tower that was under attack from orcs - that was _going where the action is_ ie framing in accordance with dramatic need.

As far as the owlbear moment is concerned - if that is the sort of character development you want in your game, then I don't understand why you would wait until a random encounter brings it about. So whereas you seem to think you're drawing some sort of contrast between the "standard narrativistic model" and your owlbear experience, in fact the whole point of the model is to generate that sort of experience _consistently throughout play_. That's why Luke Crane, in the BW books that I've quoted upthread, talks about characters changing in unexpected ways. Because things will happen that will provoke choices, including hard choices, and the way the consequences of those choices unfold will change the players' understanding of who his/her PC is.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> you seem to be saying fiction = relevant and colour = irrelevant where to me it's all equally relevant.



I'm saying that I play RPGs for the _play_. Which is predominantly action declaration and resolution. Which is about _engaging the fiction_ - as framing, as fictional positioning, as consequence.

Mere colour is part of this - there's nothing _wrong _with mentioning the sunny sky or the stony walls from time-to-time - but it's nowhere near the heart of the game for me. Because it doesn't bear upon the play that I have described. If it did, then it wouldn't be _mere_ colour.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Can, in your system, characters search for and fail to find an existing secret door they have no prior knowledge of?  As a character, can I search a wall and fail (without any other ramifications at the time) to find a secret door when in fact there is one present?



Yes. I'll repost that too:



pemerton said:


> suppose that a player declares a Perception check to look for a secret door at a dead end. And s/he declares that s/he (in character) is searching carefully (so as to get a bonus die). And the check fails, meaning that the GM is licensed to introduce a significant time-based complication: so the GM might narrate, "As you are carefully tapping the wall, listening for hollow places, you hear boots coming along the corridor - it sounds like the iron-shod boots of goblins! And then the wall in front of you opens - there _is_ a secret door, with goblins on the other side of it. It looks like you're just in time for a rendezvous of forces!"



There is a door; the search failed to reveal it; subsequently goblins come through it. In the example I posted the timeframe was minutes. But the same thing could take place in a time frame of hours or days or weeks if that was what made sense in the fiction (eg the search is for a secret door in the Valley of the Kings).




Lanefan said:


> When searching for something like a secret door that you have no prior knowledge of there's several possible outcomes:
> 1. The search is successful and you find a door.
> 2. The search is unsuccessful in and of itself but you find a door anyway e.g. when the monsters on the other side hear you and attack.
> 3. The search is unsuccessful because there is no door there to find.
> 4. The search is unsuccessful because, while there's actually a door there to be found, you simply missed it; and a subsequent search by someone else might still find it (or e.g. you might come back a few hours later and see it standing ajar).
> 
> I want to know if all these outcomes are possible in your system; particularly #4.



These are all descriptions of events in the fiction. But you seem to be also equating them with certain resolution procedures, eg that the occurrence of (4) in the fiction depends upon the GM having a note (mental, actual) that there is a secret door there, and that note is made _prior to the action declaration_ to look for the door.

That dependence may be important to you, but it is not a general feature of RPGing.

Also, 4 is no different from 2: the structure is the same, except that in 2 you seem to envisage the passage of moments, but in 4 the passage of hours.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> @_*Imaro*_: I'll ask again, how do _you_ think the number of words required by a prayer is estahblished?




The player creates the prayer... and that determines it's number of words.  



pemerton said:


> And I find it very bizarre that you seem to be contesting the designers' own published elaboration of their rules: 'The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table". What do _you_ think that is about?




Again nowhere does it say the player must speak this prayer outloud as his character.  I could just as easily, if the table agrees, state "My character Bethren says the prayer of the Weeping Moon _beseeching divine alertness during the hours of the night_" (Italicized portion is the prayer which is roughly 16 syllables)...  The point is it's left (intentionally I believe) ambiguous about whether the player actually has to speak the prayer out loud or if he just needs to create it (saying it within the fiction) and state his action.



pemerton said:


> Faith is not the only BW mechanic that requires the player to speak appropriate words. There is the Elven Spell-song Rhyme of Rules, and the Human Courtier lifepath trait Rapier Wit.




Hey I'm still open to b eing convinced... show me a passage form the book where the *player* is called on to speak (as opposed to the character) and I'm ready to concede.  So far you haven't done that so I stay convinced it's the character that must speak the prayer (in the game fiction) vs. the player.


----------



## pemerton

Imaro said:


> show me a passage form the book where the *player* is called on to speak (as opposed to the character) and I'm ready to concede.



Well, I quoted this from the Codex (orignially in the Adventure Burner):

The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table.​
That requires the player to _offer an invocation_. Not to describe his/her PC offering one.

I also mentioned Rapier Wit (Gold p 343; I haven't checked the Revised Character Burner citation) and Rhyme of Rules (Gold p 148; again, I haven't checked the Revised page number):

In a Duel of Wits, if the player can interject a searing _bon mot_ while his opponent is speaking, he gains +2D to his next verbal action.

Rhyme of Rules is . . . the only spell song that can be used as a FoRK . . . for any skill song test . . . for whch the player can recite a clever bit of folklore obliquely pertinent to the situation​


Imaro said:


> The player creates the prayer... and that determines it's number of words.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I could just as easily, if the table agrees, state "My character Bethren says the prayer of the Weeping Moon _beseeching divine alertness during the hours of the night_" (Italicized portion is the prayer which is roughly 16 syllables)



The italicised bit is a description of the prayer. It is not the actual prayer, and hence doesn't tell us how long the prayer takes to speak (and hence how many volleys).

The prayer has to be something like "O Weeping Moon, I beseech your divine aid, that I may remain alert during these night hours", or something similar. That is a prayer, not just a description of one, and hence allows adjudication of the time taken (23 syllables, or 24 if you count _hours_ as two; so three volleys); it also allows the table (and most importantly the GM) to affirm that the task suits the intent: because, if it is not, then (per the Codex/Adventure Burner), _the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table_.

Of course BW is not the only RPG to require speaking certain words (in character) as part of establishing the fictional positioning for an action declaration _and_ to adjudicate the time required the action in question. AD&D requires this for casting a Wish or Limited Wish spell, and it determines the casting time of that spell (AD&D PHB, pp 88, 94): "Casting time is the actual number of seconds - at six per segment - to phrase the _limited wish_."

The idea that there is something unorthodox or even objectionable about _actually requiring the player to state words_ in order to establish fictional positioning for action declaration is (I think) an idea that has more recent origins in the RPGing hobby.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Further to this.
> 
> Here is The Forge's definition of _illusionism_ - and in case the relevance of this definition is contested, well, that's where the term comes from:
> 
> A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features.​
> Here is the definition that I wrote when composing this post, before Googling up the above:
> 
> _Illusionism_ refers to a GMing technique (or maybe a family of techniques) whereby the GM covertly manipulates the resolution mechanics and/or the fiction to ensure that certain outcomes occur within the shared fiction, regardless of the players' action declaration.​
> So I'm pretty confident that my understanding is on the same page as that of The Forge.
> 
> Now, in the example of the GM not establishing, as part of the fiction, the motivation of an NPC until some appropriate moment of framing or adjudication: _how is that illusionism_, or anything like it? No control is being asserted over outcomes. Nothing is being done covertly. All the GM is doing is either framing - which is overt - or narrating a consequence in accordance with the procedures of the game in question - which is overt.
> 
> What is the supposed resemblance?




Haven't had much time to engage this thread, as responses take a lot of time and thought, but this one's been percolating for a few days, so i can take a quick crack at it:

So, this is a bit challenging, so stick with it and keep an open mind.  Nothing here is meant to denigrate story now games or anyone's preferred style, it's just a frank look at how story now games actually work and how their core design goal does create Illusionism.  This isn't a bad thing, I've enjoyed a few forays into well run story now games.  It's not my preferred style to run, but I'm agnostic to system when it comes to enjoying a game (unless the system actively fights the game style).

Story Now games are inherently built on Illusionism.  While the standard definition (which I'm keeping) points to specific instances, and works well, Story Now games actually incorporate illusionism in their basic premise:  make the game about the characters.  If the entire game pivots around the characters, to the point that even failures are supposed to be directly tied to player intents, then the game, it's concepts and mechanics, are forcing an outcome where the player intentions are the only thing that matters.  When that happens, there's a loss of agency, but a cunning, sneaky loss.  If every one of my declared intents matter, and nothing else does, then do they really matter?  Can I say that it's my intent as a player matters when nothing _but _my intent can matter?  This is a subtle issue, somewhat related to the 'when everyone is special' chestnut.  

To bring this to a sharper focus, let's look at the motivation of the skulker discussion.  Skipping the parts about authoring and fiction (I'm in the Schrodinger's Motivation camp, but that's not an inherent negative), when the players first see the skulker there's one overriding fact about the skulker's motivation:  it will hinge on what the players have declared as their intents.  When that will resolve isn't set, but when it does resolve, when we do find out the skulker's motivation, it will always, always bear on a declared intent by one or more of the players.  This is a force that manipulates the outcome of the fiction without regard to the player's action declaration -- no matter what the player actually declares, the fiction will be retroactively set according to their declaration.  While the definition is primarily aimed at the specific instance (in _this_ instance, the DM overruled a player declaration to have a set outcome occur), in Story Now games it's the whole game that does it.  It's not a single, concrete instance, it's the overruling design principle -- always make everything about the players.

Now, that's not necessarily bad (or even a little be bad), but it does invoke Illusionism because, from the player side, it appears as if your decisions matter.  But, the thing is, the specific decision you made doesn't really matter -- no matter what you decided, the outcome will still be about you.  The game creates an illusion of agency when the reality is that it doesn't really matter what you choose, the game will still be about that.  I may be able to risk my character, but I cannot ever risk the game -- it will always be about me.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Well, I quoted this from the Codex (orignially in the Adventure Burner):
> 
> The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table.​
> That requires the player to _offer an invocation_. Not to describe his/her PC offering one.
> 
> I also mentioned Rapier Wit (Gold p 343; I haven't checked the Revised Character Burner citation) and Rhyme of Rules (Gold p 148; again, I haven't checked the Revised page number):
> 
> In a Duel of Wits, if the player can interject a searing _bon mot_ while his opponent is speaking, he gains +2D to his next verbal action.
> 
> Rhyme of Rules is . . . the only spell song that can be used as a FoRK . . . for any skill song test . . . for whch the player can recite a clever bit of folklore obliquely pertinent to the situation​
> The italicised bit is a description of the prayer. It is not the actual prayer, and hence doesn't tell us how long the prayer takes to speak (and hence how many volleys).
> 
> The prayer has to be something like "O Weeping Moon, I beseech your divine aid, that I may remain alert during these night hours", or something similar. That is a prayer, not just a description of one, and hence allows adjudication of the time taken (23 syllables, or 24 if you count _hours_ as two; so three volleys); it also allows the table (and most importantly the GM) to affirm that the task suits the intent: because, if it is not, then (per the Codex/Adventure Burner), _the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table_.
> 
> Of course BW is not the only RPG to require speaking certain words (in character) as part of establishing the fictional positioning for an action declaration _and_ to adjudicate the time required the action in question. AD&D requires this for casting a Wish or Limited Wish spell, and it determines the casting time of that spell (AD&D PHB, pp 88, 94): "Casting time is the actual number of seconds - at six per segment - to phrase the _limited wish_."
> 
> The idea that there is something unorthodox or even objectionable about _actually requiring the player to state words_ in order to establish fictional positioning for action declaration is (I think) an idea that has more recent origins in the RPGing hobby.




If you're correct, that's a horrible mechanic.  I should never be _forced _to perform my character's actions to see them realized in game.  This is akin to making the player of the fighter stand up and act out their attack routine before resolving it.  The actual resolution doesn't require the precise words, spoken by the player -- the DM and the player can quickly negotiate a length to match the intent of the prayer/song/whatever and move on.  The mechanics should _never _force playacting.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> If you're correct, that's a horrible mechanic.  I should never be _forced _to perform my character's actions to see them realized in game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The mechanics should _never _force playacting.



Why not?

I'm about to start playing a BW campaign. I posted some details of my PC upthread - he is Faithful and hence I will have to be speaking prayers. I don't see it as horrible. I'm looking forward to it.

In conceptual terms, I relate this to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s remarks upthread about _authenticity_ and "Walled Off Gardens". There is something more demanding about being obliged to speak my character's prayers. I am expecting it to intensify the experience of play, and to make me more intimately inhabit my faithful character. (I had a similar experience, many many years ago now, playing a religious character in a Cthulhu freeform.)

(In social contexts in all the RPGs I GM (4e, BW, Cortex/MHRP) I generally expect the players to say what it is their PCs are saying, or at least to give me a pretty close third-person paraphrase. Otherwise how can one adjudicate?)


----------



## Nagol

pemerton said:


> Why not?
> 
> I'm about to start playing a BW campaign. I posted some details of my PC upthread - he is Faithful and hence I will have to be speaking prayers. I don't see it as horrible. I'm looking forward to it.
> 
> In conceptual terms, I relate this to @_*Campbell*_'s remarks upthread about _authenticity_ and "Walled Off Gardens". There is something more demanding about being obliged to speak my character's prayers. I am expecting it to intensify the experience of play, and to make me more intimately inhabit my faithful character. (I had a similar experience, many many years ago now, playing a religious character in a Cthulhu freeform.)
> 
> (In social contexts in all the RPGs I GM (4e, BW, Cortex/MHRP) I generally expect the players to say what it is their PCs are saying, or at least to give me a pretty close third-person paraphrase. Otherwise how can one adjudicate?)




Because it prevents players like me from ever using those mechanics.  I will say what I intend my character to convey.  I will provide a basic strategy which the character can be viewed as acting.  But, I know I am not particularly articulate *edit* and social cues are somewhat beyond me */edit*.  If a GM forces my skills into a game I usually tell them I plan to force _their_ skills into my next game like using an axe for 15 minutes or running 100 yards in less than 15 seconds before their intent can be adjudicated in-game (actually I typically just leave the game though I really wanted to see one GM dance a minuet after he tried to force me to perform jumping jacks in _Paranoia_).


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> If the entire game pivots around the characters, to the point that even failures are supposed to be directly tied to player intents, then the game, it's concepts and mechanics, are forcing an outcome where the player intentions are the only thing that matters.  When that happens, there's a loss of agency, but a cunning, sneaky loss.  If every one of my declared intents matter, and nothing else does, then do they really matter?  Can I say that it's my intent as a player matters when nothing _but _my intent can matter?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the specific decision you made doesn't really matter -- no matter what you decided, the outcome will still be about you.  The game creates an illusion of agency when the reality is that it doesn't really matter what you choose, the game will still be about that.



(1) It's not true to say that the specific decision doesn't really matter.

The players decide that their PCs travel to a city beseiged by hobgoblins, and involve themselves in the local politics. The baron becomes salient, The skulker (it turns out) is the baron's chief advisor.

Had the players made a different decision, the outcomes would almost certainly have been quite different.

(2) If everything in the game somehow relates to choices the players make (in build and play of their PCs), then there's no illusion in that - it says it right on the tin.

(3) There's no loss of agency that I can see, in either (1) or (2). The player's choice to play a Raven Queen devotee means that, as GM, I narrate an attack upon the baron by Orcus cultists. Had the player chosen to build and play a different PC, different situations would have been framed. Where is the player losing agency?


----------



## pemerton

Nagol said:


> Because it prevents players like me from ever using those mechanics.



That means that you wouldn't like that sort of game. But I don't see why that makes it a horrible mechanic.

I am pretty bad at tactical wargaming. Does that mean that tactical resolution systems in RPGs are "horrible mechanics" and that non-tactical systems like HeroWars/Quest simple contests are the only acceptable ones?

I know some people who are bad at probability and hence can't really use complex dice mechanics effectively. Does that make those "horrible mechanics".

And outside the RPG context, I'm terrible at bluffing and lack the patience necessary, and so am a ridiculously easy mark playing poker. Does that make poker a horrible game, or just one to which I'm not well suited?

I guess my feeling is that different games invoke different skills and inclinations, and it's not the measure of a "horrible mechanic: that it's not universally enjoyed.


----------



## Nagol

pemerton said:


> That means that you wouldn't like that sort of game. But I don't see why that makes it a horrible mechanic.
> 
> I am pretty bad at tactical wargaming. Does that mean that tactical resolution systems in RPGs are "horrible mechanics" and that non-tactical systems like HeroWars/Quest simple contests are the only acceptable ones?
> 
> I know some people who are bad at probability and hence can't really use complex dice mechanics effectively. Does that make those "horrible mechanics".
> 
> And outside the RPG context, I'm terrible at bluffing and lack the patience necessary, and so am a ridiculously easy mark playing poker. Does that make poker a horrible game, or just one to which I'm not well suited?
> 
> I guess my feeling is that different games invoke different skills and inclinations, and it's not the measure of a "horrible mechanic: that it's not universally enjoyed.






The difference in most of your counter examples is the play described in both inherent and obvious up-front as part of the game.  Tactical play in a tactical war game.  Bluffing in poker.  If you know you don't like certain things you know to stay away from those activities that feature those things.  Complex probabilities I do think are bad overall though.  Most humans do not grok the how the probabilities will work either in a particular instance or over a longer term.  

BW does not signal this form of play in integral or featured.  Including this ruling for some small subset whilst ignoring similar adjudication in similar situations is a sign of bad rules.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> Why not?
> 
> I'm about to start playing a BW campaign. I posted some details of my PC upthread - he is Faithful and hence I will have to be speaking prayers. I don't see it as horrible. I'm looking forward to it.
> 
> In conceptual terms, I relate this to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s remarks upthread about _authenticity_ and "Walled Off Gardens". There is something more demanding about being obliged to speak my character's prayers. I am expecting it to intensify the experience of play, and to make me more intimately inhabit my faithful character. (I had a similar experience, many many years ago now, playing a religious character in a Cthulhu freeform.)
> 
> (In social contexts in all the RPGs I GM (4e, BW, Cortex/MHRP) I generally expect the players to say what it is their PCs are saying, or at least to give me a pretty close third-person paraphrase. Otherwise how can one adjudicate?)




It'e entirely okay if YOU choose to speak your character's prayers aloud.  This isn't a matter of you looking forward to getting to play-act your character.  And I use play-act intentionally and separately from role-playing, which doesn't require play-acting.  A mechanic in a role-playing game that forces play-acting is actively uninviting to an entire swath of potential players.  That you don't find it so really isn't an argument.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Well, I quoted this from the Codex (orignially in the Adventure Burner):
> 
> The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table.​
> That requires the player to _offer an invocation_. Not to describe his/her PC offering one.




This is still ambiguous you can offer the prayer (that the player creates) to the GM without speaking it.  You write it down and hand it to him.



pemerton said:


> I also mentioned Rapier Wit (Gold p 343; I haven't checked the Revised Character Burner citation) and Rhyme of Rules (Gold p 148; again, I haven't checked the Revised page number):
> 
> In a Duel of Wits, if the player can interject a searing _bon mot_ while his opponent is speaking, he gains +2D to his next verbal action.​





Well this is optional it grants an incentive for speaking out loud by the player but it doesn't force you to. 



pemerton said:


> Rhyme of Rules is . . . the only spell song that can be used as a FoRK . . . for any skill song test . . . for which the player can recite a clever bit of folklore obliquely pertinent to the situation



Yep this one does seem to blur the line between player and character... though I'm wondering if this takes place in the game or does the player himself have to create the lore and it serve more as knowledge his character possess... Honestly I'm finding this game kind of obtuse when it comes to clearly explaining things.



pemerton said:


> The italicised bit is a description of the prayer. It is not the actual prayer, and hence doesn't tell us how long the prayer takes to speak (and hence how many volleys).




Okay assume the same situation where I hand the GM the prayer for assessment... or I speak it but not in character.  Are these options in BW?



pemerton said:


> The prayer has to be something like "O Weeping Moon, I beseech your divine aid, that I may remain alert during these night hours", or something similar. That is a prayer, not just a description of one, and hence allows adjudication of the time taken (23 syllables, or 24 if you count _hours_ as two; so three volleys); it also allows the table (and most importantly the GM) to affirm that the task suits the intent: because, if it is not, then (per the Codex/Adventure Burner), _the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table_.




Again, I'm failing to see how this *has to be* spoken.  It could just as easily be written down.



pemerton said:


> Of course BW is not the only RPG to require speaking certain words (in character) as part of establishing the fictional positioning for an action declaration _and_ to adjudicate the time required the action in question. AD&D requires this for casting a Wish or Limited Wish spell, and it determines the casting time of that spell (AD&D PHB, pp 88, 94): "Casting time is the actual number of seconds - at six per segment - to phrase the _limited wish_."




You could write the wish down, and given the advice around subverting AD&D wishes that was pretty popular probably should.  That's what i am getting at you keep inferring things have to be spoken (and in character at that) when they don't necessarily have to be and there is no actual passage in BW (at least so far) that states these things must be spoken in character by the player.



pemerton said:


> The idea that there is something unorthodox or even objectionable about _actually requiring the player to state words_ in order to establish fictional positioning for action declaration is (I think) an idea that has more recent origins in the RPGing hobby.




I think forcing this type of thing would definitely limit the appeal of your game (the actor play style and it's forms of fun/pleasure are not necessarily enjoyed by all and making this mandatory means anyone who doesn't enjoy it can't choose to opt out)... and I'm not sure I see it as objectively more authentic or helpful in getting into the mindset of your character... it's just a preference. 

My players and I often speak in character during the game when conversations between PC's and NPC's (or even PC's and PC's) take place but when it comes to action declarations... acting it out isn't enforced unless someone wants to pantomime something and then it's usually done in a humorous way (or because we've had a little too much to drink) as opposed to it being something that's judged to complete said task by the GM.


----------



## Campbell

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]

I am speaking only to the expectation that we will all play with integrity and follow the established fiction achieved through fictional positioning and utilizing the rules of the game. I do not expect that other characters will value and build on the things my character has to say. I expect that the other players will value my contributions to the fiction and consider my fictional positioning when making decisions for their characters. This is not something I meaningfully view as different from the expectation that players will not act on knowledge their character would not have.

There is also a fundamental difference between blocking and negation for me. While fiction is being established we have every opportunity to block the contribution. This can be done at Intent, Initiation, Execution, or Effect. The game has rules that allow us to block. A saving throw is one way. Once things have been established negating the implied fictional consequences is something I am not a fan of. Another player is free to decide what their character does. It is just an expectation of mine that they will have regard for who my character is, what just happened in the shared fiction, and the rules of the game. Vicious Mockery implies that you have been hurt in someway - so much so that it could kill you. It's words that cut. Failing the saving throw implies that your character has been affected by those words in some way. I expect that to be reflected in play - not just in the marking off of hp. How that happens I do not care - not my decision to make. Similarly, Bardic Inspiration implies actual inspiration - not just a bonus die.

This idea that we can meaningfully separate the fiction from the mechanisms and can pick and choose which forms of fictional positioning to pay attention to is something I am no fan of. It completely destroys any sense of skilled play of the fiction or what I believe separates role playing games from board games - as games we play in a shared fiction. I also do not view this as a feature of 5th Edition as written despite my concerns about story advocacy.  

My fiction getting all up in your fiction, and your fiction getting all up in your fiction is precisely the point. We are collaborating - not expressing our own individual creativity and precisely controlling the content of the fiction. This is my preferred form of playing a role playing game. It does not have to be anyone else's. The diversity of form we can experience in this hobby is something I value because it allows me to have radically different experiences that I could not easily get to have by only playing one game with a particular set of people. *Different games. Different people. Different aims.*

I would also disagree that in real life we do not place expectations on other people or that they do not place expectations on us. In social endeavors we do things on the basis of the expectations we have for other people. I would not participate in a conversation with someone who does not value my perspective or listen to what I really have to say. I would not go to work if I did not get paid for my labor. I would not open up emotionally to someone if I believed they were going to belittle my concerns. I mean everyone is always free to not meet my expectations or exceed them, and that will have an effect on my behavior going forward. There are social costs and risks involved in everything we do.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I'm not ignoreing the GM involvement. I'm expressly noting it.
> 
> In the real world, a change takes place: something that was unknown (the skulker's motivation) becomes known. Something that was unauthored (the skulker's motivation) becomes authored.
> 
> But there is no change _in, or to, the gameworld_. Within the fiction, the skulker's motivation has not changed. It is what it always was.




I am talking about the game, not the fiction in the game. Just about anything can be justified within the fiction in some way.....but the GM and his/her techniques and how those affect the players is part of the real world.

Now, my point about your element of the fiction writing itself, the fact that the GM has not authored a motivation for an NPC he decided to introduce so that such a motivation could later be established by what happens in the fiction.....that seems much more close to the fiction writing itself than the GM writing it. Is the GM free to decide whatever he wants? I thought that was part of teh whole point of this style of play....to limit GM authorship by sharing it with players. 



pemerton said:


> There are no REH Conan stories in which Conan casts a spell, but there are stories in which he finds secret doors.
> 
> And there are adventure films in which secret doors figure. It's a fairly common trope (it's not as if Gygax invented it from scracth!).




Sure....secret doors are fine as elements of story. However, you better believe that the author considers how they are introduced....not just having them show up because they would be convenient for the characters. 



pemerton said:


> In any event, in BW, the failed check obliged the GM to narrate a consequence of failure. New fiction gets established, adverse to the intention with which the action was declared. The example that has already come up in this thread is the search for the nickel-silver mace in the ruined tower - the check failed, and the consequence was the discovery, instead, of black arrows made by the mage's brother prior to being possessed by a balrog.




This I can see as a strong element in your style not present in a more GM driven style; all developments seem to come from some attempt by the PCs. So things go well or poorly based on how the PCs perform at their chosen tasks. 

In 5E D&D, the character who casts Passwall can just as easily find that there are further complications beyond the wall....hordes of enemies, a sheer drop, etc....but this is based on GM whim or pre-authoring such elements rather than on the results of PC actions.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> As I see it, the key feature of Illusionism is not that it is GM narration.
> 
> The key feature of Illusionism is that it is GM narration that covertly nullifies the significance or consequences of player action declarations for their PCs. The _illusion_ is that these action declarations, and their resolution, matter to the outcomes of the game.




I would think the key feature of Illusionism is the presence of an illusion.....something appearing one way, when in fact it is another. 




pemerton said:


> And I would query your claim that "the GM decides what is best for the game". That is not a very precise description. The GM _frames a situation_. Or the GM _narrates a consequence of a check_. And does these things in accordance with certain principle, primarily "go where the action is" ie follow dramatic need.
> 
> The GM doesn't have any at-large power to narrate stuff on the basis that it is "best for the game". I'm not really sure that "best for the game" is even a meaningful concept in this context.




I find there to be very little distinction between deciding what's best for the game, follow dramatic lead, frame a situation.....they all seem pretty similar in the context we're talking about. 




pemerton said:


> And there is another thing going on here. The idea of _the left fork in a tunnel_ suggests that we already have a whole lot of backstory established but unknown to the players (eg the classic dungeon map). In which case we already seem to be positing an approach to play where part of what is involved is the players learning what is in the GM's notes (in this case, the map). In which case it would be something like cheating for the GM to just change things around on the fly.
> 
> But in the sort of approach I am describing, there is no map of the tunnels prepared in advance in that classic fashion. (I will sometimes use a map as an element in _framing_ - especially in 4e - but that is something different.) So that the PCs went left rather than right is mere colour. The initial choice of a direction to go has no significance for resolution (though it may establish fictional positioning that comes to be of significance down the track).




Right. 

So if a GM draws a map, and then based on the PCs' actions, decides to switch the contents of two rooms in order to force a conflict with the bad guy, that's illusionism. 

But if a GM simply doesn't draw a map ahead of time, and instead decides that the dramatic need is for the PCs to face the bad guy, and so he frames such a situation....that's not. 

I feel like the entire way the game is played is along the lines of illusionism. Nothing is permanent until it is made so by PC action and GM adjudication.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> (1) It's not true to say that the specific decision doesn't really matter.
> 
> The players decide that their PCs travel to a city beseiged by hobgoblins, and involve themselves in the local politics. The baron becomes salient, The skulker (it turns out) is the baron's chief advisor.
> 
> Had the players made a different decision, the outcomes would almost certainly have been quite different.




But regardless of what they decide, the yellow skulker will still somehow show up and be involved. And he'll always somehow be related to their motivations and desires....



pemerton said:


> (2) If everything in the game somehow relates to choices the players make (in build and play of their PCs), then there's no illusion in that - it says it right on the tin.




So because an edition of D&D may have advocated for Illusionism, and therefore the players could expect it to be a component of the game, then that makes it not illusionism? 




pemerton said:


> (3) There's no loss of agency that I can see, in either (1) or (2). The player's choice to play a Raven Queen devotee means that, as GM, I narrate an attack upon the baron by Orcus cultists. Had the player chosen to build and play a different PC, different situations would have been framed. Where is the player losing agency?





The players can do nothing to avoid the yellow skulker's later involvement in the story. If that NPC had an established motivation and/or affiliation...let's say the Scarlet Brotherhood.....and the players decide to take their characters down a path that leads away from that, and instead engage in another part of the world....perhaps against Iuz....then they could avoid the yellow skulker and his machinations. 

But in your approach, there is no way for them to avoid him. He simply becomes an agent of whatever threat they are going to face....or perhaps even an ally of theirs. Things can still work out differently based on how the GM decides to take it based on dramatic need or whatever.....but that guy is going to come back into it one way or another.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Here are some of the details of the mystery that were established by me as part of the process of actually play:
> 
> ... various notes ...
> 
> As I said, it's simply not true that this sort of thing can't be done without knowing in advance what is going on. As you can see from the above, the relevant theological motivations - burial practices, and then magical experiments that were the precursors to wizardly madness - were authored in the course of play.



Where I'd have had most if not all of that pretty much set before the adventure even started, so that the results of any pre-investigation and information gathering done by the party would either a) agree with what was actually there or b) be known at the time at least by me-as-DM to be wrong (false rumours, etc.).

Note that I'm not saying I never make things up on the fly.  Sometimes I have no choice; if they've gone somewhere or done something I just didn't see coming I have to hit the curveball.  But at least the major stuff (in what you reported, the mixed-up religion and practices of the cult - and evidence of such - would certainly be among such things) would be in place beforehand, such that if the PCs start casting divinations or scrying the locale I'm on a solid and consistent footing when narrating the results they get.

That said, if your system doesn't have much by way of PC-available divination or scrying you're to some extent off the hook.  My system does, and I never know when they're going to pull 'em out of the toolbox.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Sorcerer is from 2002. It is designed by Ron Edwards, the author of the Forge essay I linked to. It is one of the earliest published expositions of the "standard narrativistic model". Ron Edwards does not make a secret of why he wanted to design this sort of game - he objected to the railroad-style play that was rampant in the late 80s and 90s RPG scene, with games like Vampire as the standard bearers.



And, of course, as with so many things that are designed primarily in objecton to something he went far too far the other way.



> DitV is from 2004. Its designer, Vincent Baker, also designed Apocalypse World. DitV is a fairly early and very highly regarded RPG design intended to generate _story_ without _railroading_, in virtue of its combination of framing principles and resolution system.
> 
> HeroQuest is a successor game to HeroWars, which was designed by Robin Laws and first published in 2000. The latest edition I know of - HeroQuest revised - is from 2009. Both the HeroWars Narrator's Guide and the HQ revised book have excellent advice for running a game without secret backstory as an element in adjudication, and for how to manage "closed scene" resolution.



I can't speak to Vincent Baker as I've not seen any of his stuff to know it, but the other two names you give - Ron Edwards and Robin Laws - are on their own enough to send me running for the hills: their main focus seems to be to try and overlay pompous ivory-tower theorizing onto an activity best done with dice or pencil in one hand and a beer in the other.

This Eero Tuovinen - whose name I'd not heard until this thread - seems from what you and others have quoted here to just be another such.



> You are also not addressing the various possibilities in action declaration. For instance, declaring "I look for a vessel!" or "I search for a secret door!" is the player playing his/her PC. How do we determine, though, whether or not that attempt succeeds? If the GM simply narrates failure on the basis of secret backstory ("Sorry, there's no vessel"; "You search, but find no secret doors") then how is that an instance of (to quote) the "process [of] choices lead[ing] to consequences which lead to further choices"?



First off, "Sorry, there's no vessel" is a poor response.  Better would be "You look around and don't see any", to allow for there in fact being a vessel that the searcher has simply missed.

That said, "choices leading to consequences [leading] to further choices" sounds like a quick way down some bizarre rabbit holes, and also at face value never allows the party to in effect go the wrong way to an eventual - or immediate - dead end.  Realism demands that sometimes the consequence(s) don't give any choices other than to retrace your steps and try something different.



> Or of the GM "going where the action is"?



In the vessel example there's already other action going on, which the searcher can join in with; or the searcher can try to think up another way to catch some blood.  In the secret door example, a flat failure means only that it's down to the players (as their characters) to go and find some action elsewhere because as far as they can tell there's none here.



> How the scene _resolves_ is not up to the GM. That's a function of the players' action declarations for their PCs, and the outcomes of those action declarations in accordance with the resolution mechanics.
> 
> None of these games includes a rule that just allows the GM to decide how things turn out!



True in all systems.  A DM using a canned module, for example, is in good faith bound to use that module as the basis for narration (e.g. look at the map, see there's a secret door right where the PCs are searching, then use the relevant game mechanics to determine success or failure in the search).



> For instance, in my 4e game the PCs were tricked by a group of undead spirits into coming close (the spirits were disguised as refugees huddled around a campfire), and then the undead - who had been conjured by a goblin shaman - attacked the PCs and defeated them. The PCs regained consciousness in a goblin prison cell.
> 
> That is not "taking control of the story away from the players" - rather, it is "establishing consequences as determined by the game's rules" - in this case, the rules dealing with what happens when a character is reduced to 0 hp.



And is one way of sidestepping what would otherwise have been a TPK.



> As far as the owlbear moment is concerned - if that is the sort of character development you want in your game, then I don't understand why you would wait until a random encounter brings it about.



Sometimes these things just naturally arise out of the run of play, without any prompting or framing by the DM and without any forethought by the player.  Seems fine to me.



> So whereas you seem to think you're drawing some sort of contrast between the "standard narrativistic model" and your owlbear experience, in fact the whole point of the model is to generate that sort of experience _consistently throughout play_. That's why Luke Crane, in the BW books that I've quoted upthread, talks about characters changing in unexpected ways. Because things will happen that will provoke choices, including hard choices, and the way the consequences of those choices unfold will change the players' understanding of who his/her PC is.



There's a rather large gulf between:
- these changes or developments being more or less constantly quasi-forced upon the characters as a central aspect of play, and 
- these changes or developments arising spontaneously and naturally out of play which is otherwise centered on something else (in this particular case, a wandering owlbear).

See the difference?

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I'm saying that I play RPGs for the _play_. Which is predominantly action declaration and resolution. Which is about _engaging the fiction_ - as framing, as fictional positioning, as consequence.
> 
> Mere colour is part of this - there's nothing _wrong _with mentioning the sunny sky or the stony walls from time-to-time - but it's nowhere near the heart of the game for me. Because it doesn't bear upon the play that I have described. If it did, then it wouldn't be _mere_ colour.



Yet you've claimed marauding wolves or wandering owlbears are also just colour; even though dealing with them obviously is going to involve some actions and resolutions.

That, and knowing the environment my character is surrounded by certainly helps me imagine the scene...and that imagination/immersion kind of is the heart of the game when everything else gets stripped away.

Re: secret doors:


> These are all descriptions of events in the fiction. But you seem to be also equating them with certain resolution procedures, eg that the occurrence of (4) in the fiction depends upon the GM having a note (mental, actual) that there is a secret door there, and that note is made prior to the action declaration to look for the door.
> 
> That dependence may be important to you, but it is not a general feature of RPGing.



I categorically disagree: it *is* a general feature of RPGing with the possible exception of a few niche gaming styles of which yours appears to be one.



> Also, 4 is no different from 2: the structure is the same, except that in 2 you seem to envisage the passage of moments, but in 4 the passage of hours.



Wasn't clear enough - 2 was supposed to imply the search "failed" because it was interrupted in progress, where 4 was going after the "failed but could have succeeded due to the presence of a secret door which may or may not be noticed much later".

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Well, I quoted this from the Codex (orignially in the Adventure Burner):
> 
> The player must offer an invocation appropriate to the moment and his idiom. If he doesn't, the GM can and should inform him that his task is inappropriate to his intent and stop the Faith dice before they hit the table.​
> That requires the player to _offer an invocation_. Not to describe his/her PC offering one.



Stupid question, but is it possible that the Codex is here perpetuating my pet peeve by conflating "player" and "character"?  Without seeing more of it I've no way of knowing how fast and loose they are when referring to players and characters...and if by player they in fact mean character in this passage then everyone's issues go away.



> The idea that there is something unorthodox or even objectionable about _actually requiring the player to state words_ in order to establish fictional positioning for action declaration is (I think) an idea that has more recent origins in the RPGing hobby.



I prefer my players to speak in character where possible but I'm also aware their characters are probably more familiar with the actual things they'd have to say in these instances than their players are; the characters live and breathe this stuff but the players don't.  So, in this case if someone wants to try inventing and saying their prayer I'm all for it, but I'm not going to penalize the character if the player isn't up to it.

Lan-"I tried a mechanic like this many years ago with Bards and it went over like a lead balloon"-efan


----------



## Aenghus

In my early days in the hobby I idolised the totally prepared style of play as a goal to strive for ie. fully prewritten material that the PCs explore and the players learn about. 

I can't remember the first time I encountered referees with a different style, a more improvisational style with few or no maps and limited preparation, where the referee riffs off the players actions and comments and improvises an adventure and a setting. I had my doubts about this style originally, seeing it as lazy and slapdash and potentially badwrongfun. Contributing to my poor impression of this style is that I was objectively worse at playing in that style, as it's harder for a player to prep for a improv-based game, and there's a lack of precendent to fall back on.

I've got a lot more comfortable with improvisation over the years, tho I still feel more comfortable with a moderately prepped game.

But the recent mention of the spell "_Passwall_" in recent thinking got me thinking. The _Passwall_ spell as written is for an old fashioned game with detailed maps and secret rooms full of loot. It's much less useful in a improvised game where the map might be some names of buildings or encounter areas with lines drawn between them indicating possible routes, only a mental map, or even no map at all. In improvised game I've seen referees treat spells like _Passwall_ as a plot coupon to transit from one scene or location to another, as supported by the fiction. They could even draw a new line on their network diagram if they wanted to. Referees were more amenable to such use in improvised games because they were looking for an excuse to transition the game from one scene to another and the spell use gave them that excuse, and involved expenditure of a limited resource, a fairly high level spell that the rules suggested should accomplish something concrete in the gameworld.

And when you can treat a spell as a plot coupon like that, its easier to consider using other skills and resources to accomplish equivalent things in producing scene transitions. Most narrative games have plot points, drama points or fate points etc for expending on such declarations and mechanics to adjudicate them.

Secondly,  the discussion on player-driven/narrative games and illusionism may have driven onto the rocks. I've never played any of those games, but it's obvious to me that if the point of a game is the addressing the motivations of the PCs and the dramatic goals of the players, the players are primarily invested in the game constantly moving to address those dramatic goals. The scene setting and verisimilitude of the gameworld are less important considerations, and only need to be sufficiently plausible to satisfy the participants. Most social contracts would deem it bad form to poke at the setting with the intention of disrupting it, or showing the setting is "only a film set with no substance". From a different play styles perspective this is true, but from the PoV of players primarily invested in their PCs exploring dramatic goals, irrelevant.

Technically, the PCs could be floating heads suspended in a void and still conduct the game so long as they had appropriate dramatic goals and means of addressing them. 

As the arbiter of whether a PCs dramatic concerns are being addressed is the player themselves, it's impossible to apply illusionism in a game like this to prevent pursuing relevant dramatic goals without that player noticing and presumably objecting. (Other sorts of illusionism might well be possible without immediate discovery, but not illusionism to frustrate the player's dramatic goals)

No style of play can survive being played in bad faith, every style of play has downsides that people downplay or ignore for the sake of the game and the other participants.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> The players can do nothing to avoid the yellow skulker's later involvement in the story.



Yes they can. They can make it clear (expressly or implicitly) that the skulker doesn't speak to any dramatic need.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> It'e entirely okay if YOU choose to speak your character's prayers aloud.  This isn't a matter of you looking forward to getting to play-act your character.



That's not what I said, though.

I said "I will have to be speaking prayers. I don't see it as horrible. I'm looking forward to it. . . . There is something more demanding about being obliged to speak my character's prayers. I am expecting it to intensify the experience of play".

Having a _permission_ to speak the prayers - which is what you refer to - is not the same as _being obliged_ to speak them - which is what I referred to. It is the latter that I am looking forward to, because the greater degree of demand it imposes is something that I am expecting to intensify the experience of play.



Nagol said:


> The difference in most of your counter examples is the play described in both inherent and obvious up-front as part of the game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> BW does not signal this form of play in integral or featured. Including this ruling for some small subset whilst ignoring similar adjudication in similar situations is a sign of bad rules.



I guess I don't agree with your description of what BW does and doesn't signal.

Here are some extracts: from the Gold rulebook, p 25, and from the Revised Duel of Wits chapter (the relevant text is not very different in Gold), pp 99, 103:

A task is a measurable, finite and quantifiable act performed by a character: attacking someone with a sword, studying a scroll or resting in an abbey. A task describes how you accomplish your intent. What does your character do? A task should be easily linked to an ability: the Sword skill, the Research skill or the Health attribute.

Inappropriate tasks are: “I kill him!” or “I convince him.” Those are intents. After such pronouncements, the first question any Burning Wheel player asks should be: How? By what means? The answer, “I stab him with my knife,” is an appropriate task description for a murderous character. “I persuade him to take my side by explaining his wife’s affair with the cardinal.” is appropriate in the second case. . . .

Don’t write out any speeches, just note your actions; let the oration come organically in play. Include the intent of the action in the roleplay. The maneuver chosen is the task. . . .

When scripting these maneuvers, players must speak their parts. Spitting out moves in a robotic fashion is not a viable use of these mechanics. The arguments must be made. Of course, no one expects us all to be eloquent, so just the main thrust or a simple retort usually suffices (but a little embellishment is nice).

Keep it simple and to the point. _Say what you need to in order to roll the dice._ A multipoint statement should be broken down into multiple actions across the exchange.​
The rulebooks makes it clear that, in general, the player has to give an account of the task and that, in Duel of Wits - which breaks the back-and-forth of an argument down into indvidually resolved components, that means _speaking the part_.

If a player doesn't want to do that, then s/he doesn't build a social-oriented character, or take the Courtier lifepath (which grants Rapier Wit, the train that requires a searing _bon mot_ to buff the next verbal action). If a player doesn't want to have to come up with prayers, s/he doesn't play a Faithful character.

There's nothing about the rulebook that implies that playing a Faithful character will be no different from the rather mechanical nature of clerical spellcasting in D&D: I mean, _Faith_ is labelled as an Emotional Attribute, and is lost if the player doesn't have a connected Belief. I think that these aspects of the game makes it pretty clear that playing a faithful character is going to be demanding in a somewhat distinctive fashion.



Ovinomancer said:


> A mechanic in a role-playing game that forces play-acting is actively uninviting to an entire swath of potential players.



Many things are unimviting to many people. The whole of D&D is obviously uninviting to some - perhaps many - potential players, in so far as there are people who like fantasy and like games yet don't play D&D (this is a favourite point made by  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]).

I don't think that's the measure of a "horrible mechanic". Does the mechanic deliver the roleplaying experience it is intended to? Yes. It's actually no different from the classic D&D wish mechanic (as I noted upthread), and I've never seen anyone suggest that that is a horrible mechanic. I think it's treated as obvious that you will have to speak your wish. Likewise for a prayer.



Imaro said:


> you can offer the prayer (that the player creates) to the GM without speaking it.  You write it down and hand it to him.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> assume the same situation where I hand the GM the prayer for assessment... or I speak it but not in character.  Are these options in BW?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'm failing to see how this *has to be* spoken.  It could just as easily be written down.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> You could write the wish down, and given the advice around subverting AD&D wishes that was pretty popular.



I don't think the BW rules really address the player who wants to communicate in the course of playing the game by _writing_ rather than _speaking_. In fact, every example of play I've ever read in a RPG rulebook assumes that the conversation of the game takes place by way of spoken rather than written communication.

If for some reason a player wanted to play the game, or parts of the game, by writing rather than speaking I guess that - as in any other RPG - that is something that a table would work out on an ad hoc basis.



Imaro said:


> this is optional it grants an incentive for speaking out loud by the player but it doesn't force you to.



Well, the only use of the trait - Rapier Wit - is to gain a buff, and you only get the buff by interjecting a searing _bvon mot_.



Imaro said:


> this one does seem to blur the line between player and character... though I'm wondering if this takes place in the game or does the player himself have to create the lore and it serve more as knowledge his character possess... Honestly I'm finding this game kind of obtuse when it comes to clearly explaining things.



I don't see what is obtuse at all: the ability can be used as a FoRK (ie an augment) for any skill song test "for which the player can recite a clever bit of folklore obliquely pertinent to the situation". That's not obtuse - the player must recite a clever bit of folklore pertinent to the situation. If you don't do the reciting, you don't get the FoRK.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Yes they can. They can make it clear (expressly or implicitly) that the skulker doesn't speak to any dramatic need.




I'm sure that is possible....but may prove difficult if next to nothjng has been established about the character or what he may be up to, or what his goals are.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> I'm sure that is possible....but may prove difficult if next to nothjng has been established about the character or what he may be up to, or what his goals are.



But then there's nothing at stake, is there, in having the skulker recur?

I mean, if the skulker is _that much_ of an empty shell, then having the skulker recur is nothing more than having a NPC figure later on - which seems pretty innocuous to me.

But if the skulker has any definition - eg "That skulking guy that other NPC told us about" then the players can fairly easily signal a complete lack of interest or active hostility to future recurrence.


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I would also disagree that in real life we do not place expectations on other people or that they do not place expectations on us. In social endeavors we do things on the basis of the expectations we have for other people.



Aboslutely! The social life of human beings is predicated upon expectations, from the most trivial (that people won't spit on you when you greet them) to the most profound (eg between family members, or in romantic relationships or deep friendships).

Social leisure activities are predicated upon expectations also (eg that if we go to a movie togther I won't talk the whole way through it). RPGs are nothing special in this regard.



Campbell said:


> Vicious Mockery implies that you have been hurt in someway - so much so that it could kill you. It's words that cut. Failing the saving throw implies that your character has been affected by those words in some way. I expect that to be reflected in play - not just in the marking off of hp. How that happens I do not care - not my decision to make. Similarly, Bardic Inspiration implies actual inspiration - not just a bonus die.
> 
> This idea that we can meaningfully separate the fiction from the mechanisms and can pick and choose which forms of fictional positioning to pay attention to is something I am no fan of. It completely destroys any sense of skilled play of the fiction or what I believe separates role playing games from board games - as games we play in a shared fiction. I also do not view this as a feature of 5th Edition as written



I think that what you say here would be controversial among many D&D players.

At least as I have experienced conversations about these matters, many D&D players are not that concerned with, and even sometimes hostile to, actually esablishing _at the table_ what is happening in the fiction when some mechanical event takes place.

And in fact I think big chunks of 3E/PF depend upon a lack of such concern - eg we have mechanical phenomena like +30 natural armour bonuses (which are double the armour bonuses granted by the most powerful of enchanted armours) and DC 60 locks, with no real attempt to establish what in the fiction these mechanical elements correspond to. Likewise eg Reflex saves that don't actually require moving (and so, by the rules, can be made while balancing on a spire surrounded by a pit of infinite depth), etc.

I think that 5e negates some of these issues (eg bonuses and DCs) via bounded accuracy, but not others (eg Reflex saves, action economy issues, etc). So I'm not surprised that you're getting some pusbhack from 5e-ers on your conception of how Vicious Mockery, Bardic Inspiration, etc work. (No one has yet mentioned how that would make, say, bards harder to play than fighters or even wizards, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that come up also.)


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> if a GM draws a map, and then based on the PCs' actions, decides to switch the contents of two rooms in order to force a conflict with the bad guy, that's illusionism.



It depends on what the point of the map is, and how it is used.

If the GM is using it as secret backstory to adjudicate action resolution, and if the players are meant to be using their skills together with their PC abilities to learn that secret backstory (this is how, eg, Moldvay Basic is played), then changing things is illusionism.

If the GM is using the map basically as a sketch or prompt for narrating on the fly, and it is not a source of secret backstory used for adjudication purposes, then redrawing it on the fly is not illusionism. It's just establishing the shared fiction, and doing so while taking some inspiration from prior brainstorming (encoded in the map). 



hawkeyefan said:


> But if a GM simply doesn't draw a map ahead of time, and instead decides that the dramatic need is for the PCs to face the bad guy, and so he frames such a situation....that's not.
> 
> I feel like the entire way the game is played is along the lines of illusionism. Nothing is permanent until it is made so by PC action and GM adjudication.



Nothing _is_. I mean, unicorns are neither permanent nor impermanent, because they don't exist.

In what you describe in the quote, there is no illusion. The GM is not tricking the players into thinking that their action declarations matter when they don't; or into thinking that s/he is using a fixed set of notes that the players can - through skilled play - try and disceren, when in fact s/he's not.

When the players in my BW game describe their PCs going through Hardby's catacombs, and I narrate some colour in the course of that, no one thinks I'm reading from a fixed (or even unfixed) map, or that their job is to try and suss out that map. They know it all depends on their Catacombs-wise rolls.

And here's another example which I've already posted upthread, but which you (and other posters) may have missed, as it didn't seem to get much response:

My main 4e game is at 30th level. Which is to say, in mechanical terms the PCs have reached their peak, and in story terms that are at the culmination of their Epic Destinies.

The main focus of the game has turned out to be this: _Is the Dusk War upon us?_

The PCs (and the players) know that the Dusk War is prophesied, and that there are certain signs of its coming.

One of these is that the Tarrasque will ravage the world. And when the Tarrasque entered the world and they confronted it, they found it being warded by Maruts, who were there to meet an obligation to the Raven Queen to ensure that no one interfered with the Tarrasque's end-of-days ravagings.

The PCs' response (which was chosen by the players) was that the Maruts had got their timing wrong - this was not the end-of-days ravaging of the Tarrasque, and hence not the one that the Maruts had to protect againsgt interferrence! And the PCs proved this to the Maruts by way of the ease with which one of their number was able to dispatch the Tarrasque near-singlehandedly: _the tarrasque, at least on this occasion, could not be the harbinger of the end times whom the Maruts were contracted to protect, because it clearly lacked the capacity to ravage the world_.

This resembles the absence of a map in this way: there is no pre-established timeline. But it differs from the map example in this way: the temporal location of events is not mere colour (unlike whether the interesting place is down the left or the right tunnel), and so is not going to be settled just through framing narration: whether or not the period in which the game is taking place is the time of the Dusk War, or not, is going to be determined via play, that is, via the consequences that follow from action resolution.


----------



## pemerton

Aenghus said:


> it's obvious to me that if the point of a game is the addressing the motivations of the PCs and the dramatic goals of the players, the players are primarily invested in the game constantly moving to address those dramatic goals.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> As the arbiter of whether a PCs dramatic concerns are being addressed is the player themselves, it's impossible to apply illusionism in a game like this to prevent pursuing relevant dramatic goals without that player noticing and presumably objecting.



Yes. This is what I've posted a couple of times now in response to [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION].


----------



## Ovinomancer

Aenghus said:


> In my early days in the hobby I idolised the totally prepared style of play as a goal to strive for ie. fully prewritten material that the PCs explore and the players learn about.
> 
> I can't remember the first time I encountered referees with a different style, a more improvisational style with few or no maps and limited preparation, where the referee riffs off the players actions and comments and improvises an adventure and a setting. I had my doubts about this style originally, seeing it as lazy and slapdash and potentially badwrongfun. Contributing to my poor impression of this style is that I was objectively worse at playing in that style, as it's harder for a player to prep for a improv-based game, and there's a lack of precendent to fall back on.
> 
> I've got a lot more comfortable with improvisation over the years, tho I still feel more comfortable with a moderately prepped game.
> 
> But the recent mention of the spell "_Passwall_" in recent thinking got me thinking. The _Passwall_ spell as written is for an old fashioned game with detailed maps and secret rooms full of loot. It's much less useful in a improvised game where the map might be some names of buildings or encounter areas with lines drawn between them indicating possible routes, only a mental map, or even no map at all. In improvised game I've seen referees treat spells like _Passwall_ as a plot coupon to transit from one scene or location to another, as supported by the fiction. They could even draw a new line on their network diagram if they wanted to. Referees were more amenable to such use in improvised games because they were looking for an excuse to transition the game from one scene to another and the spell use gave them that excuse, and involved expenditure of a limited resource, a fairly high level spell that the rules suggested should accomplish something concrete in the gameworld.
> 
> And when you can treat a spell as a plot coupon like that, its easier to consider using other skills and resources to accomplish equivalent things in producing scene transitions. Most narrative games have plot points, drama points or fate points etc for expending on such declarations and mechanics to adjudicate them.
> 
> Secondly,  the discussion on player-driven/narrative games and illusionism may have driven onto the rocks. I've never played any of those games, but it's obvious to me that if the point of a game is the addressing the motivations of the PCs and the dramatic goals of the players, the players are primarily invested in the game constantly moving to address those dramatic goals. The scene setting and verisimilitude of the gameworld are less important considerations, and only need to be sufficiently plausible to satisfy the participants. Most social contracts would deem it bad form to poke at the setting with the intention of disrupting it, or showing the setting is "only a film set with no substance". From a different play styles perspective this is true, but from the PoV of players primarily invested in their PCs exploring dramatic goals, irrelevant.
> 
> Technically, the PCs could be floating heads suspended in a void and still conduct the game so long as they had appropriate dramatic goals and means of addressing them.
> 
> As the arbiter of whether a PCs dramatic concerns are being addressed is the player themselves, it's impossible to apply illusionism in a game like this to prevent pursuing relevant dramatic goals without that player noticing and presumably objecting. (Other sorts of illusionism might well be possible without immediate discovery, but not illusionism to frustrate the player's dramatic goals)
> 
> No style of play can survive being played in bad faith, every style of play has downsides that people downplay or ignore for the sake of the game and the other participants.




I disagree -- a player's dramatic goals can be frustrated by softpedalling failure, as already discussed.  This is exactly the kind of Illusionism discussed, in that it removes the actual agency of a player's declarations and resolutions by continually pushing any real consequences of failure further and further out, presumably to the point that a success obviates them altogether.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> If you're correct, that's a horrible mechanic.  I should never be _forced _to perform my character's actions to see them realized in game.  This is akin to making the player of the fighter stand up and act out their attack routine before resolving it.  The actual resolution doesn't require the precise words, spoken by the player -- the DM and the player can quickly negotiate a length to match the intent of the prayer/song/whatever and move on.  The mechanics should _never _force playacting.




That reminds me of the AD&D statement in the DMG for Aerial servant that states:

"The spellcaster should be required to show you what form of protective inscription he or she has used when the spell is cast."

It was even stranger, though. The spell mentions the 3 forms, and the DMG (which was not for players' eyes at the time) shows them. But there isn't any indication that there are any differences in effect, regardless of the form. 

Never knew why that was mentioned at all.


----------



## Ovinomancer

double post


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> That's not what I said, though.



Well, you responded with quoting that you were looking forward to play-acting your prayers in game, so... should I go with you aren't looking forward to it or that you are?  Either way, your response completely missed the point I was making to stick to banalities.



> Many things are unimviting to many people. The whole of D&D is obviously uninviting to some - perhaps many - potential players, in so far as there are people who like fantasy and like games yet don't play D&D (this is a favourite point made by  [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]).



I'm not sure I've ever seen a tu quoque* argument for a _mechanic_.  That's a new one.

*essentially "other people do it, too" used a justification for something.



> I don't think that's the measure of a "horrible mechanic". Does the mechanic deliver the roleplaying experience it is intended to? Yes. It's actually no different from the classic D&D wish mechanic (as I noted upthread), and I've never seen anyone suggest that that is a horrible mechanic. I think it's treated as obvious that you will have to speak your wish. Likewise for a prayer.



Huh?  You never had to speak your wish, that wasn't a mechanic.  You could easily say, "Bob wishes for some sandwiches," and that was fine.  You never were required to say, "I, Bob, wish for some sandwiches."  But, again, this is a tu quoque argument -- that other bad mechanics exist isn't a justification for this one. 

The problem here is that this is a hidden gotcha.  You don't have to play act anything else in the game except prayers, songs, rhymes, and social encounters.  No playacting of leaping a chasm (at least, I don't think you have to stand up and hop to jump a chasm), no getting out the boffers to show how you swing your axe, none of that.  But, for that one thing that can be difficult (social interaction), these rules suddenly and inexplicably _require _that you play-act.  That's bad in the sense that it's uneven application, uneven expectations, and because forcing someone to playact is generally a bad call for a game in general.  Your table, fine, but for a game system to force that kind of interaction without _putting it up front on the tin_ is a bad deal.

It would be like picking up Amber and expecting an immersive, diceless story oriented roleplaying game and finding, in the middle, and detailed tactical wargame.

As an aside, cutting out parts of my argument that address your response as if they were said and then separating your quote of me by interleaving another response in between is extreme bad form.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I think that what you say here would be controversial among many D&D players.
> 
> At least as I have experienced conversations about these matters, many D&D players are not that concerned with, and even sometimes hostile to, actually esablishing _at the table_ what is happening in the fiction when some mechanical event takes place.
> 
> And in fact I think big chunks of 3E/PF depend upon a lack of such concern - eg we have mechanical phenomena like +30 natural armour bonuses (which are double the armour bonuses granted by the most powerful of enchanted armours) and DC 60 locks, with no real attempt to establish what in the fiction these mechanical elements correspond to. Likewise eg Reflex saves that don't actually require moving (and so, by the rules, can be made while balancing on a spire surrounded by a pit of infinite depth), etc.
> 
> I think that 5e negates some of these issues (eg bonuses and DCs) via bounded accuracy, but not others (eg Reflex saves, action economy issues, etc). So I'm not surprised that you're getting some pusbhack from 5e-ers on your conception of how Vicious Mockery, Bardic Inspiration, etc work. (No one has yet mentioned how that would make, say, bards harder to play than fighters or even wizards, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that come up also.)




5e has a handful of disassociated mechanics (fighter's superiority dice when tied to maneuvers). While it's possible to describe what happens when they use the Trip Attack for example, my issue is explaining why the fighter routinely forgets how to trip people. Yes, there is no specific restriction that anybody can attempt to trip somebody, and that you can uses the same mechanic minus the superiority die, but there are a great many people that argue RAW only a fighter with this maneuver can attempt a trip, because otherwise it would invalidate the fighter.

In terms of _viscious mockery_ I don't think everybody would agree that it's the words themselves that cause damage - it's the magic. It's the spell energy behind the words. The bardic inspiration would be the same thing.

As to whether the bard player has to spout insults, poetry, or song every time they use one or the other is up to the table and their style. Describing the exact nature of _viscious mockery_ each time it's used would be the same as describing the exact way your _fireball_ or _magic missile_ looks each time you use it. Or each swing of your sword for that matter.

Sure, I know that a lot of DM's now describe each swing of the sword, and it's an approach I can't stand. First because I still see your attack roll as the one attempt that gets through their defenses among many, rather than the 1 swing per die roll approach that it seems many players/DMs equate. But also because it gets really old after a while, and either repetitive, or ever more absurd in a player's or DM's approach to describe the same thing that's happened a thousand other times differently. Instead we establish the fictional aspect of a given mechanic (spell, whatever) once, and then describe it when it's important. Otherwise we already know what it looks like in the fiction and can imagine that on our own.

Since I don't like disassociated mechanics, I've changed the way superiority dice and maneuvers work in our game. But once we understand how the mechanic relates to the fictional world, we don't have to consistently repeat it. Another example would be a short rest following a battle. We establish early on what the party does following a battle once they feel there is no remaining imminent threat - looting the bodies, healing, collecting ammunition, how they deal with the bodies, cleaning weapons, adjusting armor, a swig of water or wine, a snack, or whatever. Once we know what occurs following a battle, then it occurs after every battle unless otherwise changed. There is no need to repeat it over and over.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> Huh?  You never had to speak your wish, that wasn't a mechanic.  You could easily say, "Bob wishes for some sandwiches," and that was fine.  You never were required to say, "I, Bob, wish for some sandwiches."  But, again, this is a tu quoque argument -- that other bad mechanics exist isn't a justification for this one.




_Wish_ has pretty much always required you to specify what you ask for...well, not as much as I thought. The DMG doesn't have any additional commentary on _wish_. The PHB states that "the exact terminology of the _wish_ spell is likely to be carried through. Later editions and articles have expanded this into a word game where the DM attempts to outwit the players based on how they specifically word the _wish_.

But, I agree with your fancy word. One poor mechanic doesn't justify another. Even if it's really, really hard to come up with a good mechanic.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

hawkeyefan said:


> Sure....secret doors are fine as elements of story. However, you better believe that the author considers how they are introduced....not just having them show up because they would be convenient for the characters.




There are lots of times that secret doors have existed in adventures, stories, movies, whatever that had everything to do with story that I felt were wildly out of place because the only reason they were there was for story purposes. Traps are even worse.

Many secret doors, or alternate (but relatively easily created) exits exist solely to move onto the next part of the story. I find them cheap and ill-placed and it ruins my immersion of the medium.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Nagol said:


> Because it prevents players like me from ever using those mechanics.  I will say what I intend my character to convey.  I will provide a basic strategy which the character can be viewed as acting.  But, I know I am not particularly articulate *edit* and social cues are somewhat beyond me */edit*.  If a GM forces my skills into a game I usually tell them I plan to force _their_ skills into my next game like using an axe for 15 minutes or running 100 yards in less than 15 seconds before their intent can be adjudicated in-game (actually I typically just leave the game though I really wanted to see one GM dance a minuet after he tried to force me to perform jumping jacks in _Paranoia_).




Yeah, as much as I've tried to speak in character via actual dialogue, I suck at it. I can describe what I am saying, but just don't have the acting chops to do it in the moment.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Ovinomancer said:


> If you're correct,



 Don't know about BW, but the references to AD&D sound familiar.  







Ovinomancer said:


> Huh?  You never had to speak your wish, that wasn't a mechanic.



 The classic adjudication of the AD&D 1e Wish was to closely parse and twist the exact phrasing.



Ovinomancer said:


> that's a horrible mechanic.  I should never be _forced _to perform my character's actions to see them realized in game.  This is akin to making the player of the fighter stand up and act out their attack routine before resolving it.



 I couldn't easily agree more.  I'm personally dead set against such 'player as resolution system' mechanics.  Horrid stuff, limiting for no good reason.  

Well, not for no reason, the idea is often to 'encourage RP' (conflating roleplaying with speaking in character).  It's a frustrated thespian (another slanted label I like to toss out) thing.



Ovinomancer said:


> So, this is a bit challenging, so stick with it and keep an open mind.



 "If you don't want to be seen as stupid or bigoted, you must agree with me?"    







Ovinomancer said:


> Nothing here is meant to denigrate story now games or anyone's preferred style



 If you feel the need to preface a diatribe against something with an assurance that's it's not, it probably is.  

IDK if you really meant to do either of those things but I started reading your post, and it immediately made me very suspicious.  But, I'm cynical, I project that sort of thing a lot.  ;(



Ovinomancer said:


> Story Now games are inherently built on Illusionism.  While the standard definition (which I'm keeping)



 So, 'Story Now,' and 'Illusionism' are both terms hatched in the catty environment of the Forge, among it's many convenient labels and theories that grew out of deeper and deeper examination of the false Role vs Roll dichotomy that consumed so much bandwidth in the 90s.  Personally, I find the vast majority of usages of Forge terminology to be for nothing more nor less than denigrating a game or style other people like, or building up one that you like, even though it has little to recommend it.  
That's my biased perception of the Forge, there, out in the open.  

That said, the definitions of 'Story Now' and 'Illusionism' make the two pretty fundamentally incompatible.  Illusionism is the probably-intended-to-be-pejorative label applied to a legitimate GMing technique, in which you move the story/campaign/action/whatever in a desirable (to you, the GM, it's very specific, that way) direction, in spite of the players taking actions that'd screw it up, /without tipping off the players that you're doing so/.  If you're not good at illusionism or don't even try, it's just "GM Force," which is the same thing, except the players get to grumble about it.

As best as I understand it, in 'Story Now' the GM isn't meant to have any such agendas to 'Force,' so, by definition, doesn't have the opportunity to engage in illusionism.  

Convenient, that.  

I could see making a case that games that wrap themselves in the 'Story Now' label don't really meat the definition, or that the Forgite term is pernicious nonsense in the first place, but if you're going to stick with their definitions, you can't make the case that 'Story Now' is based on Illusionism, because, by those definitions, the two are antithetical.
 points to specific instances, and works well, Story Now games act



Ovinomancer said:


> Can I say that it's my intent as a player matters when nothing _but _my intent can matter?  This is a subtle issue, somewhat related to the 'when everyone is special' chestnut.



 Like in the Incredibles, yeah, that's a point the insane villain makes.  ;P   The difference I see, though, is that it's about leveling, making everyone the same, when the Story Now concept doesn't go there, it doesn't making every one or every thing the same, it focuses on specific things, just things chosen by the players, rather than things chosen by the DM (which if the DM /makes/ the game focus on them, in spite of player decisions, is Forgite 'DM Force,' and if he successfully hides that he's doing so, 'Illusionism').



Ovinomancer said:


> when the players first see the skulker there's one overriding fact about the skulker's motivation:  it will hinge on what the players have declared as their intents.



 Sure, because otherwise it wouldn't be worth engaging.  In, I guess, the 'Story Never' style, you investigate the skulker, find out he has nothing to do even tangentially with anything you're concerned with, shrug, and never get that game time back. Then, you proceed to go searching for things that don't exist and uncovering things you don't care about.  



Ovinomancer said:


> Now, that's not necessarily bad (or even a little be bad), but it does invoke Illusionism because, from the player side, it appears as if your decisions matter.



 Not the definition of illusionism.  Arguably an 'illusion,' in the same sense that any game of imagination may be, but not the specific Forgite slanted label in question.




pemerton said:


> I'm about to start playing a BW campaign. I posted some details of my PC upthread - he is Faithful and hence I will have to be speaking prayers. I don't see it as horrible. I'm looking forward to it.
> 
> There is something more demanding about being obliged to speak my character's prayers.



There's certainly something more demanding about it.  But if you're not good at extemporizing 'good' (in the GM's judgement, I assume) prayers, you're not going to be able to play the character effectively, right?  That doesn't sound like a great mechanic, as a mechanic, even if the way it encourages speaking in character is desirable for reasons of other preferences....



pemerton said:


> That means that you wouldn't like that sort of game. But I don't see why that makes it a horrible mechanic.



 Because it closes off player options.  You can't play a character too different from yourself.  Because it's essentially imbalanced (it favors players who have the talents the resolution system requires), and even innately unfair (because evaluating the player's performance generally rests entirely on the GM, inviting bias).



> I am pretty bad at tactical wargaming. Does that mean that tactical resolution systems in RPGs are "horrible mechanics" and that non-tactical systems like HeroWars/Quest simple contests are the only acceptable ones?



 If it means you can't play a tactically adept PC because of that, yes.  If, OTOH, the system has ways of modeling such abilities without requiring the player providing it, not so much.  



> I know some people who are bad at probability and hence can't really use complex dice mechanics effectively. Does that make those "horrible mechanics".



 It's a strike against them, especially if the rewards for that form of system mastery are excessive.



> I'm terrible at bluffing and lack the patience necessary, and so am a ridiculously easy mark playing poker. Does that make poker a horrible game, or just one to which I'm not well suited?



 It makes playing a hand of poker a horrible resolution system for an RPG.



> I guess my feeling is that different games invoke different skills and inclinations, and it's not the measure of a "horrible mechanic: that it's not universally enjoyed.



Sure.  Functionality, clarity, playability, balance, basic fairness - lacking enough of those can make a mechanic horrible.  Player-as-resolution-system mechanics can easily lack every positive quality a mechanic should have.



Ovinomancer said:


> A mechanic in a role-playing game that forces play-acting is actively uninviting to an entire swath of potential players.  That you don't find it so really isn't an argument.





pemerton said:


> Many things are unimviting to many people. The whole of D&D is obviously uninviting to some - perhaps many - potential players, in so far as there are people who like fantasy and like games yet don't play D&D.
> 
> I don't think that's the measure of a "horrible mechanic".





Ovinomancer said:


> I'm not sure I've ever seen a tu quoque (essentially "other people do it, too" used a justification for something) argument for a _mechanic_.  That's a new one.



 Can't say I haven't seen it before.  Maybe not as much as appeals to popularity, a favored defense against all sorts of criticisms, _especially_ when defending D&D, which is, afterall, the #1 RPG.  And, of course, appeals to un-popularity like 'such-and-such is a horrible mechanic because lots of people wouldn't like it.'


----------



## tomBitonti

pemerton said:


> If the GM is using the map basically as a sketch or prompt for narrating on the fly, and it is not a source of secret backstory used for adjudication purposes, then redrawing it on the fly is not illusionism. It's just establishing the shared fiction, and doing so while taking some inspiration from prior brainstorming (encoded in the map).




Additional text omitted.

I've been trying to place these ideas within examples which help to illuminate the several different perspectives:

(1) Players are exploring a fixed map.  There are no random map elements: Creatures are in their specified location (with modifications due to schedules or alarms, but almost entirely predetermined).  There are no wandering encounters: All of the creatures in the locale are exactly specified, as are the creature motivations and treasure.

(1.1) The same as (1), but with detail limited to a restricted selection of elements.  For example, fixed encounters in outdoor areas, where the area detail is left undetermined.  Or, say, when exploring a vast unmappable Space Hulk, again, with preset encounters placed according to a GM outline.

(2) A fixed map but with substantial random elements, most commonly, encounters and treasure.  Player driven but to a slight degree, with, say, encounters generated according to whether the players are hasty or noisy.  This is a lot of standard D&D of all editions, and, I am thinking, this mode predominates "mainstream" play.

(2.1) Players are exploring a random map with all elements randomly determined.  However, all elements are generated based by a purely random process (say, a table lookup) which is not modifiable by the GM or by players except to prevent impossible placements.  Player driven to a slight degree, as what area is generated next is according to player decisions.  But, I'm thinking, most folks do not categorize this as player driven.

(3) Players are exploring a random map.  Elements are added per the players and GM according to expressed interest, with some random modification of the results, and some modification of the elements based on the use of limited GM and player resources.  This is more "indie" style -- from my limited perspective, which is very much with the more traditional style of D&D.

(3.1) Players are exploring a random map.  Elements are added as in (3).  Encounters, including the motivations of NPC actors, is also set or modified according to player and GM interest, again, possibly modified by the GM and players spending limited resources.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> That's the problem, for narrativistic play, of a certain sort of shared narration. But it's not the reason for inventing RPGs that follow the "standard narrativistic model".
> 
> There is no need to speculate on this matter. Eero Tuovinen is not inventing the "standard narrativistic model".




Since you kept referring to Eero Tuovinen's Standard Narrativistic Model, that's what I searched. His article was not talking about railroading. I'll certainly be happy to read the Forge article.



pemerton said:


> *Narrative Tools*
> 
> ... The whole premise of role-playing is the freedom the players have to take their characters in whatever direction they want. It is important to maintain this free will, and not lead the players with a heavy hand down a course only the narrator controls. Though the narrator may tell a good story, it loses the rich creative spirit of role-playing if the players have little say in what happens.​





I agree 100%.



pemerton said:


> Part of the significance of this passage is that it also shows that the "standard narrativistic model" is not at all hostile to "shared authorship" as such. _The player_ has freedom to decide _what the character thinks is right and decides to do_. The GM _cannot wield authority over what the characters are supposed to want_, which therefore means the GM has no authority over how conflicts are supposed to turn out.




I don't see how you read this into that statement though. When referring to shared-authoring, I'm specifically talking about the types that Eero was talking about in his article - backstory and setting, and more specifically that sort of shared authoring during the game. His examples also specifically imply that there is secret backstory that has great value (the villain is your father, the whole thing is a hoax, etc.).



pemerton said:


> Eero Tuovinen makes the same point in describing the "standard narrativistic model" (I have bolded the key phrases):
> 
> One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes *according to dramatic needs* (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . once *the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory* in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. *The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs*, so he makes choices on the part of the character.​
> The players, not the GM, establish concrete characters and character needs. Thus, when the GM "goes where the action is", the GM is following hooks provided by the players.




And the GM (that secret backstory/setting stuff again).



pemerton said:


> And,
> 
> In BW character building, elements of backstory that players can establish include significant components of the setting (eg, just confining myself to the events in the OP, the existence of the sorcerous cabal and of the balrog-possessed mage were both established by a player in building his PC).




But he also specifically advocates for secret backstory/setting, even if he's not calling it that.



pemerton said:


> Eero Tuovinen is objecting only to _one particular aspect of shared narration_, namely, the one he describes when he says that narrativistic RPGing
> 
> works, but only as long as you do not require the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice. If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character, not ask the player whether he’s OK with it . . .
> 
> I don’t find it convincing how lightly many GMs seem to give away their backstory authority even when playing games that absolutely rely on the GM’s ability to drive home hard choices by using these same powers.
> 
> It is the GM's job to frame scenes, introduce complications, and narrate consequences. Eero Tuovinen is arguing that, given this, certain techniques don't fit with the model he is describing. But avoiding those techniques isn't the rationale of the model.​





Well, to begin with, his premise to me seems to be that shared-authoring of backstory and setting in general should stop when the game commences. Since I hadn't read any of the Forge stuff, his model seems to very concisely address all of his earlier commentary on shared authoring during the game, which he spent quite a bit of the page discussing, and covered several different types of it as well. 

So to me, based on all the evidence I had, was that was why the model was written, and that he had in fact written it since you were calling it the Eero Tuovinen Standard Narrativistic Model.



pemerton said:


> I don't know how, but you've done it again. Here is the quote:
> 
> The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design . . .​
> The holy grail, as he puts it, is that (i) the player helps create an amazing story, and does so (ii) with nothing but choices made in playing his/her PC.




And as far as I can tell, that's what I said, and what I agree with 100%. 



pemerton said:


> The reason this is able to happen is that, _prior to play_, the player establishes a PC with clear dramatic needs, and that, _once play begins_, the GM frames scenes and establishes consequences in a manner that "goes where the action is" ie in accordance with dramatic needs.




OK, this is different. And while perhaps in this model this is true, it's not required. It's entirely possible for them to be playing with pregenerated characters and still use this model. Just as improvisational theater can start with predefined characters. So while the PC has clear dramatic needs, the player doesn't have to be the one to establish them.



pemerton said:


> I'm not confused about the model. It informs basically all of my RPGing.
> 
> No. You are missing or ignoring the bits where (to quote) "the players [establish] concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes" and that these player-authored dramatic needs are what the GM follows in framing scenes.




Again, the player doesn't have to establish or author all or any of the concrete characters, situations, and backstory.



pemerton said:


> You are also not addressing the various possibilities in action declaration. For instance, declaring "I look for a vessel!" or "I search for a secret door!" is the player playing his/her PC. How do we determine, though, whether or not that attempt succeeds? If the GM simply narrates failure on the basis of secret backstory ("Sorry, there's no vessel"; "You search, but find no secret doors") then how is that an instance of (to quote) the "process [of] choices lead[ing] to consequences which lead to further choices"? Or of the GM "going where the action is"?




I've already stated I disagree with his implication that the GM must "go to where the action is" and always a "process [of] choices lead[ing] to consequences which lead to further choices" etc.

One way you can determine whether the attempt succeeds is that they make a skill check of whatever nature. Even if it is in fact the basis of secret backstory (that there is no secret door there), then it also naturally leads to further choices. That is, anything else other than finding a secret door there.

Why should I provide alternative choices for them? Why should I limit their choices from literally almost anything to the 1, 2 or 3 options I toss at them? If they are searching for Smaug's lair, and I've described the terrain, they have their map and their text, I've told them about the bird, and they fail to put the pieces together, why should I provide another way for them to get in? Perhaps, just perhaps, these aren't the fabled heroes to save the day. Maybe they have to find another way in.

Maybe the real story isn't that they need a secret door to enter the lair of the dragon, it was only what was needed to set their path in that direction. To inspire the dwarves to reclaim their lost homeland, no matter the obstacles. 

How do we find out? By seeing what the characters do after they fail to find the secret door. For me to provide my solutions robs the players of the opportunity to find theirs.



pemerton said:


> That is not to assert that the BW/MHRP approach is the only way to handle these sorts of action declarations. DW does it differently. So does HeroWars/Quest. But no game that is interested in providing an experience that resemble Eero Tuovinen's "holy grail" is going to advocate that the GM simply draw a map and key in advance of play, and then respond to those sorts of action declarations simply by reading off those notes. Whatever sort of play experience that is going to provide, it is not an instance of Eero Tuovinen's "holy grail"!
> 
> Once again you seem to have missed or ignored the fact that _the players are the one's who establish those dramatic needs_. But - for the very reason you have been quoting and apparently agreeing with, namely, that it is not satisfying for the player to frame his/her own conflict - it is not the players' but the GM's job to put these needs under pressure by framing scenes.




Here is the quote once again:

_"The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design."_

There is nothing whatsoever that says the players must establish the dramatic needs. Nor that the DM has to provide dramatic needs. It only says that "he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character."

That's it. He makes decisions as his character. In fact, it doesn't even require a GM at it's core. The "holy grail" as defined in this sentence (and one I agree with) is that the players can essentially experience being that character. If it's through a computer game, some sort of complex randomized system, or with a GM in a defined game. 

The rest of his (or whoever wrote it originally) model is an opinion/model of how he or others think is a good way to achieve this holy grail.

I have not missed or ignored the "fact" that they players establish that, because it is not a requirement. It might be a requirement in the games you play, but for the players to make "nothing but choices made in playing his character" all they need to know is who the character is. If they are playing a Star Wars game, and they are Luke Skywalker, then they will be making choices as Luke Skywalker. Luke's character, his motivations, his backstory have all been authored by somebody else. But the player can still "create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character."



pemerton said:


> To use a metaphor, one could say that the players provide the _material _- the thematic content, the dramatic needs - but the GM provides the _form_ - the concrete scene that puts those needs and that theme to the test.




I like this metaphor, but disagree with the "puts those needs and that theme to the test."



pemerton said:


> If the GM does not do that, then either the players have to frame their own scenes or there won't be any scenes. If the players frame their own scenes with a free hand, then you get the very problem that Eero Tuovinen is describing. And if - as in classic dungeoncrawling D&D - they frame their own scenes using whatever material the GM has provided them with (and notice how that is an exact reversal of roles from the "standard narrativistic model"), then they have every incentive to minimise the pressure in those scenes (eg by searching for and disarming traps, sneaking about, avoiding needless conflict, etc). Which, whether or not it makes for fun play, does not generate _story_ at all.




There are more than two choices. The third is that the scenes are just that, scenes. Or to put it a different way, scenery. 

I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm going to save my Dad. I want my friends to be safe. I'm on some stupid forest moon, and want to get from here to there.

DM: You spot several stormtroopers ahead, with speeder bikes. _Not putting any need or theme to the test yet._

Luke: Have they spotted us?

DM: Doesn't look like it.

Luke: Great, no need to cause any trouble, we'll go back a mile, and circle about two miles to the east and hopefully not find any more.

Not a lot of dramatic framing going on. Nothing that's really putting those needs or theme to the test. Nor are they framing the scene themselves. He's just making a decision based on what is present in front of him.

Whether it's fun or not is subjective. But it does create story. 



pemerton said:


> I think it is important to be clear on what Tuovinen means. He is not pioneering the terminology of "scene framing" in the RPG context. By "framing a scene" he means something in the neighbourhood of the "boxed text" in a module. Here is how Marvel Heroic RP describes the process (pp 33-35):
> 
> As the Watcher         *GM:*  , framing every Scene is your responsibility . . . A Scene ends when the central conflict or situation is resolved; this means you need to have a sense of what the Scene is about as you frame it. . . . If you’re the Watcher, you get things started by establishing who is present in a Scene and where. This is called *framing the Scene*, and it’s your chief responsibility in the game . . . Once you frame a Scene as the Watcher, it’s time to present the challenge to the players. . . . As a player, you now have the core situation - or at least the implication of one - laid out in front of you for this Scene. It’s time to drop into character, think about what your hero would do in this situation, and perhaps talk it over with the other players.             *GM:*
> 
> Tuovinen is including "presenting the challenge" in his account of "framing the scene" - and you can see how, in the MHRP text, after the description of the GM's role in framing (including presenting the challenge) we then get the player-side description of the "standard narrativistic model": the player drops into character and responds to the situation that has been presented by the GM.
> 
> How the scene _resolves_ is not up to the GM. That's a function of the players' action declarations for their PCs, and the outcomes of those action declarations in accordance with the resolution mechanics.



        *GM:*  

Yes, how the scene _resolves_ is not up to the GM. But how the scene ends is. 

My discussion on framing doesn't really have to do with Eero's definition one way or the other. My examples were to show that how you frame the scene - where the scene starts, and also where it ends, along with what information you choose to include and how, has an impact on the story. And that anytime you (as a GM) skip from one scene to another, especially if you are trying to interpret where the story is going, you run the risk of taking the story away from the players.

If for no other reason, than the players don't get to decide anything about what they do in the intervening time. 



pemerton said:


> To quote Tuovinen,
> 
> The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules.​
> None of these games includes a rule that just allows the GM to decide how things turn out!




And I never said there was. I said that the DM can have an impact on the story on deciding where the scene ends. 

In my example, the situation was resolved - the players escaped the slavers and escaped the caverns. But by framing the next scene with the whole group ready to hunt down the slavers, I made a whole bunch of assumptions - starting with the one that the players would stick together. 



pemerton said:


> By PCs do you mean players?




Yes.



pemerton said:


> In any event, from your description it is very hard for me to form any clear judgements, because eg I don't know anything about how scene 2 relates to dramatic needs established by the players, nor how its framing follows from consequences generated by the resolution of actions declared in scene 1.




The dramatic need of the first scene was to:
1) Escape the slavers
2) Survive
3) Find a way out of the caverns

The dramatic purpose, as defined by the DM was:
1) To provide a reason for the players to be together (shipwreck)
2) To provide a reason to stay together (survive - escape too, although one of them could have used another as bait or barter so that might have backfired).

However, depending on the DM and what he reads into the play of the first scene, along with whatever prewritten, prethought, or improvised thought, the second scene was framed with the intention to keep the players together and to hunt down the slavers. It might have been directly taken from the PCs actually commentary about how "they'll stop the slavers" and similar. But had the scene been allowed to continue beyond the cave, things might have gone in a very different direction.



pemerton said:


> For instance, in my 4e game the PCs were tricked by a group of undead spirits into coming close (the spirits were disguised as refugees huddled around a campfire), and then the undead - who had been conjured by a goblin shaman - attacked the PCs and defeated them. The PCs regained consciousness in a goblin prison cell.
> 
> That is not "taking control of the story away from the players" - rather, it is "establishing consequences as determined by the game's rules" - in this case, the rules dealing with what happens when a character is reduced to 0 hp.




And I wouldn't invoke the game's rules at all when describing that scenario. They were just captured. Unless your rules specifically say that "when a character is reduced to 0 hit points they go to jail (and directly to jail)."

But, I'd also be interested in knowing how you were describing the combat. Because in my campaign knocking somebody unconscious happens when you're trying to knock somebody unconscious. If you're reduced to 0 hp you are stunned (in shock), and lose consciousness only after you fail your first death save. And at that point you're dying. If the goblins were attacking to capture, that would have been relatively obvious since they wouldn't have been stabbing them with swords. I hate the rules that say you can decide on the final blow that you just knock them unconscious instead of killing them. You have to make that decision before you stab them with your sword.



pemerton said:


> Marvel Heroic RP has a rule whereby the GM can spend 2d12 from the Doom Pool to end a scene and narrate a resolution consistent with the current state of things. I did this in my first session: so the PCs who had mostly beaten up the bad guys at the Smithsonian got finish their mopping up off-screen; but in the aerial struggle between War Machine and Titanium Man, I narrated that War Machine, encased in energy rings by Titanium Man, fell to the ground somewhere in Florida, while Titanium Man was able to fly back to his secret base in Khazakstan.
> 
> Again, that is "establishing consequences as determined by the game's rules". The players now do their best to take steps to ensure that the Doom Pool doesn't build up to 2d12, so that they can avoid this happening again.




That makes sense as "determined by the game's rues" and while I understand the rules, since part of many superhero games is specifically to emulate the storyboard style of comics (or at least the way people play them), it's not a rule I'd like or use.



pemerton said:


> This relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s notion of "Walled Off Gardens". The idea of "consequences as determined by the game's rules" generally opens upon the possibility that _the players (and their PCs) won't get what they want_. The flip side of that is that the GM gets to narrate stuff that is adverse to those wants. Exactly how this is handled will vary from system to system, but it might include waking up in a goblin prison, or being defeated by Titanium Man who escapes back to Khazakstan.




I agree that people may get what they don't want. And while the rules determine that (if for no other reason than the DM gets to describe what happens), I prefer for the action in the game to be dictated by the fiction, that is I don't like rules such as "spend from the Doom Pool to end the scene" or player action dice that allows them to write the scene. I prefer the game to be led by the fiction and supported by the rules.



pemerton said:


> I think you are misunderstanding the use of the word "action". Eero Tuovinen does not say that scenes should be framed around the action. He says the following:
> 
> One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to . . . frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is)​
> The GM's job is to frame scenes around dramatic needs. This is then glossed by way of a slogan: "go where the action is". When, in my BW game, I told the player that he (as his PC) could see his brother across the crowd at the Hardby docks - for the first time in around 16 years, since they fled their tower that was under attack from orcs - that was _going where the action is_ ie framing in accordance with dramatic need.
> 
> As far as the owlbear moment is concerned - if that is the sort of character development you want in your game, then I don't understand why you would wait until a random encounter brings it about. So whereas you seem to think you're drawing some sort of contrast between the "standard narrativistic model" and your owlbear experience, in fact the whole point of the model is to generate that sort of experience _consistently throughout play_. That's why Luke Crane, in the BW books that I've quoted upthread, talks about characters changing in unexpected ways. Because things will happen that will provoke choices, including hard choices, and the way the consequences of those choices unfold will change the players' understanding of who his/her PC is.




Well, that's really the crux of it to me. First, not every scene, as far as I'm concerned, needs to be dramatic. The owlbear scene was just a scene. They were claiming an inheritance, an unfinished, partially damaged castle. The owlbear had chosen to nest there. I wasn't expecting it to provide some sort of great character development, it just did. It also happened to be the home of a werebear (who to this day they still think is a druid) whom they befriended, a result that happened largely because of the owlbear encounter.

What I love to watch is how the story progresses solely by the actions and decisions of the characters. Normal, every day characters. A farmer kid that's out playing "ranger" with his buddies and stumbles across an ancient Netherese tomb. They've all been trained in basic martial skills to help defend the village, and they (probably naively) don't entirely understand all the risks. It's just an old tomb. So they explore. That's it. See where it leads. Not some big dramatic story arc, and particularly not one where I have to keep coming up with moments each time the dice tell me to according to dramatic needs or provoke thematic moments, or their character's needs or motivations. Sometimes things will. But much of life is just...life. Yet each little decision you make along the way has an impact on your future and who you are.

I found Eero's (or whoever's) analysis very interesting. Although I disagree with (and pointed out where and why) that it had to be that way to accomplish the same goal. Certainly there are games that are designed around that model quite closely. But I still feel (and know, from my own experiences), that to have an amazing story you don't have to have all of the elements he prescribes.

Bits and pieces undoubtedly exist in how I run games. But I've had players have amazing experiences playing a pregenerated character, and even those that have taken over other player's characters when those players left the game (and they played them very true to those original characters). 

The reason I distinguish framing from _framing_ is because it's a term that is used frequently, and even though there is a definition that is used by folks "in the know" for the rest of us it has quite different meanings.

My objection, no not really objection, just point is that tight framing and certain other framing techniques can be used to go as far as railroading the game. When playing with groups that want an epic story, and an epic feel, I use tighter framing and drive the story quite a bit at times. That's the kind of game they wanted. But most of the time I provide much (most) of the backstory and setting, and they provide the majority of the story. I provide a teeny amount, through the actions of the NPCs and such. 

Perhaps it's because I'm not a great story-teller. I can come up with schemes, plots, tie together a world full of events. But an interesting plot, with characters and in particular dialogue. Not a chance.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> Don't know about BW, but the references to AD&D sound familiar.   The classic adjudication of the AD&D 1e Wish was to closely parse and twist the exact phrasing.
> 
> I couldn't easily agree more.  I'm personally dead set against such 'player as resolution system' mechanics.  Horrid stuff, limiting for no good reason.
> 
> Well, not for no reason, the idea is often to 'encourage RP' (conflating roleplaying with speaking in character).  It's a frustrated thespian (another slanted label I like to toss out) thing.
> 
> "If you don't want to be seen as stupid or bigoted, you must agree with me?"     If you feel the need to preface a diatribe against something with an assurance that's it's not, it probably is.
> 
> IDK if you really meant to do either of those things but I started reading your post, and it immediately made me very suspicious.  But, I'm cynical, I project that sort of thing a lot.  ;(
> 
> So, 'Story Now,' and 'Illusionism' are both terms hatched in the catty environment of the Forge, among it's many convenient labels and theories that grew out of deeper and deeper examination of the false Role vs Roll dichotomy that consumed so much bandwidth in the 90s.  Personally, I find the vast majority of usages of Forge terminology to be for nothing more nor less than denigrating a game or style other people like, or building up one that you like, even though it has little to recommend it.
> That's my biased perception of the Forge, there, out in the open.
> 
> That said, the definitions of 'Story Now' and 'Illusionism' make the two pretty fundamentally incompatible.  Illusionism is the probably-intended-to-be-pejorative label applied to a legitimate GMing technique, in which you move the story/campaign/action/whatever in a desirable (to you, the GM, it's very specific, that way) direction, in spite of the players taking actions that'd screw it up, /without tipping off the players that you're doing so/.  If you're not good at illusionism or don't even try, it's just "GM Force," which is the same thing, except the players get to grumble about it.
> 
> As best as I understand it, in 'Story Now' the GM isn't meant to have any such agendas to 'Force,' so, by definition, doesn't have the opportunity to engage in illusionism.
> 
> Convenient, that.
> 
> I could see making a case that games that wrap themselves in the 'Story Now' label don't really meat the definition, or that the Forgite term is pernicious nonsense in the first place, but if you're going to stick with their definitions, you can't make the case that 'Story Now' is based on Illusionism, because, by those definitions, the two are antithetical.
> points to specific instances, and works well, Story Now games act
> 
> Like in the Incredibles, yeah, that's a point the insane villain makes.  ;P   The difference I see, though, is that it's about leveling, making everyone the same, when the Story Now concept doesn't go there, it doesn't making every one or every thing the same, it focuses on specific things, just things chosen by the players, rather than things chosen by the DM (which if the DM /makes/ the game focus on them, in spite of player decisions, is Forgite 'DM Force,' and if he successfully hides that he's doing so, 'Illusionism').
> 
> Sure, because otherwise it wouldn't be worth engaging.  In, I guess, the 'Story Never' style, you investigate the skulker, find out he has nothing to do even tangentially with anything you're concerned with, shrug, and never get that game time back. Then, you proceed to go searching for things that don't exist and uncovering things you don't care about.
> 
> Not the definition of illusionism.  Arguably an 'illusion,' in the same sense that any game of imagination may be, but not the specific Forgite slanted label in question.
> 
> 
> There's certainly something more demanding about it.  But if you're not good at extemporizing 'good' (in the GM's judgement, I assume) prayers, you're not going to be able to play the character effectively, right?  That doesn't sound like a great mechanic, as a mechanic, even if the way it encourages speaking in character is desirable for reasons of other preferences....
> 
> Because it closes off player options.  You can't play a character too different from yourself.  Because it's essentially imbalanced (it favors players who have the talents the resolution system requires), and even innately unfair (because evaluating the player's performance generally rests entirely on the GM, inviting bias).
> 
> If it means you can't play a tactically adept PC because of that, yes.  If, OTOH, the system has ways of modeling such abilities without requiring the player providing it, not so much.
> 
> It's a strike against them, especially if the rewards for that form of system mastery are excessive.
> 
> It makes playing a hand of poker a horrible resolution system for an RPG.
> 
> Sure.  Functionality, clarity, playability, balance, basic fairness - lacking enough of those can make a mechanic horrible.  Player-as-resolution-system mechanics can easily lack every positive quality a mechanic should have.
> 
> Can't say I haven't seen it before.  Maybe not as much as appeals to popularity, a favored defense against all sorts of criticisms, _especially_ when defending D&D, which is, afterall, the #1 RPG.  And, of course, appeals to un-popularity like 'such-and-such is a horrible mechanic because lots of people wouldn't like it.'




I dislike fisking, in general, as I find it impedes discussion and turns things into a point by point.  That said...

1) the caveats weren't lampshading, but were meant to provide assurances that I actually wasn't trying to insult a playstyle.  I'm much more interested in frank discussion that takes the bad in with the good and recognizes the underlying values at play, which can be easily taken as trying to insult.

b) Story Now vs Illusionsim:  you're absolutely right that those definitions were made to be antithetical.  That was part of my point, poorly made -- that despite this, there's still elements of Illusionism in Story Now games.  The DM has a wide lattitude to provide a story that can be moved to a point they want, for instance.  Examples would be introduction of fiction or framing in response to failures.  Yes, there's the idea that everything must be about the players, but it's fairly trivial to attach a preferred story element to a character's stated intents or beliefs or actions, especially if you do it beforehand.  There's also the Illusionism of soft-pedalling failures until the characters succeed.  But, the main thrust was that there's a very subtle from of Illusionism (as defined) throughout the entire concept because the DM uses their force, limited as it may be, to adapt whatever they introduce to be part of the story.  The skulker, as an example, was introduced by the DM, and then moved in the fiction to be relevant to the players, almost no matter what they players would have wanted otherwise.  No player said, "I want there to be a skulker", it was, as stated, introduced as framing -- a potential challenge.  Then it morphed to be in front of the characters as they did define what they cared about, until the skulker, now advisor to the Baron, _was _what they cared about.  This kind of thread can be followed in many story games (but not all, it's not guaranteed).

That was my point.  And I also agree that Forge-speak is generally too loaded with smug to be of more than limited use.  It's custom built to define things not wanted as bad, and things wanted as good, so if you engage using the terms and their assigned definitions you're automatically adopting the good/bad assignments.  Makes it very hard to argue a point against while using the terminology.  I've adopted it here because I find it self-contradictory (mildly, at least) and because it's preferred by those with whom I'd like to discuss the point.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I think that what you say here would be controversial among many D&D players.



Many, but not all...



> At least as I have experienced conversations about these matters, many D&D players are not that concerned with, and even sometimes hostile to, actually esablishing _at the table_ what is happening in the fiction when some mechanical event takes place.



Where personally, in the pursuit of realism I often do want to tie the fiction to the mechanics where such can relatively easily be done; while recognizing that some things, e.g. hit points*, flat-out can't be tied to reality and simply have to be accepted for what they are for the sake of playability.

* - even there, for both the sake of realism and to allow poison to work as it should, I still maintain that any hit point damage involves a small measure of physical harm - hit points to me are a mix of meat and luck, being mostly (but not entirely) luck when you're near full and mostly meat when you're getting close to 0.



> And in fact I think big chunks of 3E/PF depend upon a lack of such concern - eg we have mechanical phenomena like +30 natural armour bonuses (which are double the armour bonuses granted by the most powerful of enchanted armours) and DC 60 locks, with no real attempt to establish what in the fiction these mechanical elements correspond to. Likewise eg Reflex saves that don't actually require moving (and so, by the rules, can be made while balancing on a spire surrounded by a pit of infinite depth), etc.
> 
> I think that 5e negates some of these issues (eg bonuses and DCs) via bounded accuracy, but not others (eg Reflex saves, action economy issues, etc).



1e, perhaps surprisingly, negates a lot of them too; at least through the low-mid levels.  There's still some rather gaping holes - dex-based saves vs. area-effect stuff where the victim really has nowhere to hide being but one such, as you note - but it's way better than 3e-PF-4e which all kinda take realism and throw it out the window.

Lan-"I'm having a real time - just taking what's not mine"-efan

p.s. HUGE props to anyone who can tell me the rather obscure song that line is from!


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> Sure, I know that a lot of DM's now describe each swing of the sword, and it's an approach I can't stand. *First because I still see your attack roll as the one attempt that gets through their defenses among many, rather than the 1 swing per die roll approach that it seems many players/DMs equate.* But also because it gets really old after a while, and either repetitive, or ever more absurd in a player's or DM's approach to describe the same thing that's happened a thousand other times differently. Instead we establish the fictional aspect of a given mechanic (spell, whatever) once, and then describe it when it's important. Otherwise we already know what it looks like in the fiction and can imagine that on our own.
> 
> Since I don't like disassociated mechanics, I've changed the way superiority dice and maneuvers work in our game. But once we understand how the mechanic relates to the fictional world, we don't have to consistently repeat it. Another example would be a short rest following a battle. We establish early on what the party does following a battle once they feel there is no remaining imminent threat - looting the bodies, healing, collecting ammunition, how they deal with the bodies, cleaning weapons, adjusting armor, a swig of water or wine, a snack, or whatever. Once we know what occurs following a battle, then it occurs after every battle unless otherwise changed. There is no need to repeat it over and over.



This.

Very much this.

Which speaks to the example upthread from (was it [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ?) regarding the character who wouldn't let the campfire go out.  Who the bleep wants to roleplay camping for the night (after maybe the first night or two) every single time?  I would hazard a guess that parties in my current campaign have collectively spent between 1000 and 2000 nights camping while field adventuring - in forests, on trails, in dungeon complexes, etc.   Would you want to have roleplayed all those?

Thought not. 

The first few times, sure.  After that I just ask for a list of who's on watch when, and assume standard operating procedure unless (infrequently) there's reason not to.

After-battle resting is an excellent example of the same sort of thing.

I bolded another bit in the quote above with which I also wholeheartedly agree.

Lan-"roll initiative: a pack of marauding wolves attacks the camp..."-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> This.
> 
> Very much this.
> 
> Which speaks to the example upthread from (was it [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ?) regarding the character who wouldn't let the campfire go out.  Who the bleep wants to roleplay camping for the night (after maybe the first night or two) every single time?  I would hazard a guess that parties in my current campaign have collectively spent between 1000 and 2000 nights camping while field adventuring - in forests, on trails, in dungeon complexes, etc.   Would you want to have roleplayed all those?
> 
> Thought not.
> 
> The first few times, sure.  After that I just ask for a list of who's on watch when, and assume standard operating procedure unless (infrequently) there's reason not to.
> 
> After-battle resting is an excellent example of the same sort of thing.
> 
> I bolded another bit in the quote above with which I also wholeheartedly agree.
> 
> Lan-"roll initiative: a pack of marauding wolves attacks the camp..."-efan




Arguably, the player that set up a core facet of his character to be about keeping the campfire burning. 

While I have some disagreements with pemerton, I can grok his position and concepts.  You don't seem to have tumbled to the basic difference in play discussed here, as you always take whatever pemerton says and then place it in your gamestyle rather than trying to figure out how it could possibly work in his.

And the way the campfire thing works is that it's largely not going to show up every night, but it will definitely show up, and, when it does, the play will center around the importance of that campfire in that situation -- say, keeping the fire alight in a holy shrine during a hurricane because it prevents the undead sequestered there from rising up and destroying that town that's super important to this other PC.  If the undead do rise, well, PC #3 will be there with his oath to defend all life against the forces of undeath.  And PC #4 might not have a direct reflection to their ideals in this particular scene, but they'll be engaged in the next one.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Ovinomancer said:


> I dislike fisking, in general, as I find it impedes discussion and turns things into a point by point.



 The medium - especially with the short attention spans of our time - does lend itself to that.  

I prefer to respond to something while it's fresh in my mind, and presumably, that of anyone reading.  :shrug:



> 1) the caveats weren't lampshading, but were meant to provide assurances that I actually wasn't trying to insult a playstyle.  I'm much more interested in frank discussion that takes the bad in with the good and recognizes the underlying values at play, which can be easily taken as trying to insult.



 I didn't think you were lampshading, but I'm still not much persuaded by the style of providing an assurance you're not doing something, then doing it.  I don't have a cute term for it, like 'fisking,' but, chalk it up to another stylistic preference.



> b) Story Now vs Illusionsim:  you're absolutely right that those definitions were made to be antithetical.  That was part of my point, poorly made -- that despite this, there's still elements of Illusionism in Story Now games.



 There really aren't, if you insist on abiding by the definitions.  Maybe we could attack the definitions, themselves, or the games as not really fitting the definitions... 



> The DM has a wide lattitude to provide a story that can be moved to a point they want, for instance.



 Oh, Story Now doesn't make illusionism impossible, it just doesn't have a foundation in it (which I thought was your point), and it blithely assumes the GM won't have an direction to apply GM Force, /to/. 

Of course a GM could 'betray' the Story-Now agenda of some Forgite designer's baby and pull some illusionism on his unsuspecting players.  Heck, his game might well be better for it.



> But, the main thrust was that there's a very subtle from of Illusionism (as defined) throughout the entire concept because the DM uses their force, limited as it may be, to adapt whatever they introduce to be part of the story.



 That does not fit the definition of illusionism.  It's a little inside-out, really.  In Illusionism, the GM has a preconceived notion/agenda/goal/story/whatever that he wants to make happen, and he uses 'GM Force' to make it happen regardless of the player's decision/intent, thereby 'robbing them of agency,' but, does so without letting on that it's happening, so the players still experience the positive feel of exercising agency, as well as the positive of participating in a story that holds together and is entertaining.  It's a have-your-cake-and-share-it-with-everyone-and-eat-it-all-yourself technique.   



> I also agree that Forge-speak is generally too loaded with smug to be of more than limited use.  It's custom built to define things not wanted as bad, and things wanted as good, so if you engage using the terms and their assigned definitions you're automatically adopting the good/bad assignments.  Makes it very hard to argue a point against while using the terminology.  I've adopted it here because I find it self-contradictory (mildly, at least) and because it's preferred by those with whom I'd like to discuss the point.



  I don't object to "Illusionism" as much as many other Forge terms, because it evokes the image of a stage magician wowing his audience, even (especially) when there's audience participation.  The audience aren't fooled in the sense they believe it's really magic, and they don't go there expecting the tricks to be obvious or revealed.  There's none of the 'broken social contract' it implies.  I find it fair-to-middling term for a legitimate & effective GMing technique.  

But, aside from that, I don't see the contradiction.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> It depends on what the point of the map is, and how it is used.
> 
> If the GM is using it as secret backstory to adjudicate action resolution, and if the players are meant to be using their skills together with their PC abilities to learn that secret backstory (this is how, eg, Moldvay Basic is played), then changing things is illusionism.
> 
> If the GM is using the map basically as a sketch or prompt for narrating on the fly, and it is not a source of secret backstory used for adjudication purposes, then redrawing it on the fly is not illusionism. It's just establishing the shared fiction, and doing so while taking some inspiration from prior brainstorming (encoded in the map).




Okay....that's a distinction, yes. But can you see how these two statements you've provided are similar? 



pemerton said:


> Nothing _is_. I mean, unicorns are neither permanent nor impermanent, because they don't exist.




Wait, what?!?!?!


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ilbranteloth said:


> Since you kept referring to Eero Tuovinen's Standard Narrativistic Model, that's what I searched. His article was not talking about railroading. I'll certainly be happy to read the Forge article.




So the Forge stuff is initially pretty interesting. But then it's kind of reiterating a sort of problem I'm seeing in the threads altogether. We (and I'll include myself in "we" although it's not really my intent) seem to get stuck in our own little world of RPGs instead of looking at them as a whole.

Yes, the entire group of articles is supposed to be about RPGs as a whole, but then in each subsection of his GNS theory, he basically says every play style is incompatible with the rest. I don't think that's true.

I would place myself largely in the simulationst description he provides. But, I disagree that it's not compatible with a narrative approach, as least as he's defining it. 

I don't see anything resembling Eero's model. But he states that what differentiates the narrative model from simulations is "premise." 

In the section on "pastiche" he has the following statement:

_"Jesse: Now we come to a point of personal confusion. Pastiche. I still don't get it, in any medium. If the Situation involves "...class conflict, people being trapped by their social position, repressed romance..." and the GM lets the players resolve it anyway they like, then how is that not Narrativist?

Me: It is Narrativist. What you're describing is not pastiche, or more clearly, it typically does not produce pastiche. The key is the "resolve it any way they like" part."_

I don't know if this is what we do, but here's the sort of advice that's in my (modified) PHB:

*Wealth*
Look around your home. Think about your parents or friend’s homes. Most people’s wealth is tied up in material things. Now imagine you live in a fantasy/pseudo-medieval world with no banks. No stock market or investments.
Again, most of your wealth is tied up in material things. But they are also tied up in specific material things. What you choose to spend your money on is different than your parents, friends, and other acquaintances. What we spend our money on is actually a big part of who we are. We value it, protect it, want to increase it.
Wealth appears in D&D in the same ways. Yes, creatures such as dragons hoard coins, but many treasures are the mundane items, often decorated, or imported from far-away lands, deeds for property, art, furniture, and such. Bartering is also a common method of trade.

*Adventuring Day*
People are creatures of habit. A typical adventuring day will start with awakening and mornfeast at dawn, a slake at the end of harbright, a break for highsunfeast (also to rest horses or animals, a highthar at tharsun, and evenfeast near the end of eventide. Most will sleep from shortly after nightfall until godswake.
When traveling, animals are generally expected to work from sunrise to sunset, or thereabouts, with a rest at highsun, meaning that they are relieved of their burdens, fed and watered. Regular breaks are given throughout the day to avoid overexerting them.

*Long Rest*
In addition to resting about every 4 hours, it’s most common for people to stop a bit longer, perhaps an hour for lunch, and sometime before twilight to set up camp, prepare dinner, and settle down for the night, unless there’s a compelling reason not to.
Stopping for the night generally includes such things as maintaining equipment, and minor repairs on armor, sharpening weapons, sparring and practicing, learning new skills, storytelling and songs, food and drink, and preparing sleeping accommodations. Animals are relieved of their burdens, fed and watered, and often groomed.
Storytelling and songs are a long-held tradition by travelers, as they are the primary source of news between towns and cities. Although a fire and such boisterous noise might seem to be a danger in the wild, it’s helpful to keep most of the wildlife away, and a good watch is essential either way.

I don't have that much descriptive text in it, most of it is updated rules and such. I won't pretend it's great writing, but it's there to help set the stage and expectation that their characters are people.

When helping to develop their characters and backstories (which is now a table process - we roll characters at the table, and anybody can help give input and such into the initial creation), I, and we, are looking for ways to instill personality. What do they like, dislike, etc. Yes, but also what really drives them? What did they want to be when they grow up? Where do they stand on the local politics? How religious are they (bearing in mind it's a fairly religious world)? We're looking to start defining real principles - what would they never do? What would they almost never do, and what would it take to cross that line? What would they kill for? What would they die for? 

We know from experience that regardless of what we cover at this point, it will change over the course of the campaign, especially the first few sessions as they start to flesh out their personality and character. We're OK with that. What's on the paper isn't as important as what happens in the campaign (the same as what might be in the DM notes). As things continue, the characters become more concrete. Outside of the group creation, each player and I will expand on the known backstory as we wish before, and usually we're going back and forth on this during the first couple of weeks.

I want them to look at the game from the character's perspective, not - oh, I'm out of spells, time for a long rest. My rules changes include things like separating recovery of abilities from rests to support the fiction and the world better. They should have a good idea of what motivates their character, although they aren't required to share that with the rest of the group at that time. It can be revealed during the course of the game if they wish. 

The world I present is a combination of the setting, the people, news, rumors and gossip that the PCs know, although that doesn't preclude them from knowing more later, and things that occur over time. Some I predetermine, at least in very rough outline, but a lot during the course of play. Nothing is really finalized until it comes out in play.

I listen to the players, and know their backstories, and over time some of the events and encounters might relate directly to those motivations, desires, fears, whatever. Of course, if they choose to pursue some of their motivations directly, then a lot more of what's going on relates directly to that.

Much of the drama comes from fairly standard moral dilemmas. Although the general outlook in the world is more permissive, or perhaps more accepting of death and killing, it is still something that I point out from the beginning is something that usually gives people pause. Particularly their first killing. On the other hand, hunting, killing animals like wolves and predators, along with monsters (including orcs, etc.) is not something that is generally questioned at all. On the other hand, during the course of adventuring, they very well may come across individuals or creatures (like the owlbear) that cause them to question that. They wouldn't question an owlbear that's a threat to a village necessarily, but one that is far from civilization they see as no longer a monster or threat.

So as far as I can tell, it's a hybrid of the Forge theories, and as I pointed out in my assessment of Eero's model that's it's pretty close to what he describes, with a few differences. And of those differences, some of them sometimes apply, such as when I introduce scenes that do relate to the characters more directly, although not normally to a specific goal or story "theme." 

In other words, the story or the game doesn't have a "premise" as defined by Ron Edwards. But each character has premises, and those are addressed within the game, usually in the course of the player playing the character, but also at times directly by the story.

I don't specifically focus on challenging those premises, although I don't necessarily avoid it either. But I also don't build encounters like so many seem to describe in their D&D games either. I don't build things to balance for character composition or level. I don't design "interesting" combats encounters, nor do I build "non-combat" encounters. They have encounters, scenes, scenarios, with monsters and other creatures, NPCs, locations, etc. Sometimes there's an intention behind the design - bandits are robbing travelers, for example. Sometimes it's more specific, a group of Zhentarim are hunting for the PCs to steal the sword they are bragging about. Sometimes it's more directly connected to the PCs, a longtime rival has framed one of the PCs for a crime. Often it's just an encounter. Randomly determined, prepared, whatever. 

Our focus is on the story. The story of the characters. The players have multiple characters, so it's also the story of a village to some degree, although some groups travel far, never to return. Sometimes it's a bigger story arc, a somewhat powerful villain, a dragon, a lich, or some other larger enemy that threatens a family, a village, or a region. It's about the growth of those characters. The lives of those characters. Past characters remain in the campaign, marry, have kids, grandkids (sometimes they are the living or dead ancestors of new characters), they grow old. 

But the thrust and direction of the story is up to the players. They decide how they fit into the world and how they react to it. Of the many characters, some become great heroes, some villains, some just folks that have a few adventures and settle down. 

Is this what he means when he says "The key is the "resolve it any way they like" part"?

Are we simulationists? Narrativists? I've had a few power-gamers, rules-lawyers and munchkinizers over the years too. Some left, others shifted from trying to maximize/break the rules to finding clever solutions to the challenges that the characters meet. Are they gamists? What's our campaign?

I find that as I look back at my games, some things I don't think I do too much (hand over backstory/setting) I probably do more than I think. Other things I think I do all the time, I don't.

All of this interesting to think about, debate and discuss, because I find a little something to bring back to my game and make it better. Obviously that doesn't mean I'll agree with everything at the same time. But as I think I've said before, it's often as important to figure out what you don't want, as it is to figure out what you do.

His concept of "bangs" perhaps is one that I can look at leveraging more specifically. I like things to have dynamics, so it's not something I'd like to use every encounter or scene, and maybe not every session. The concept is not new obviously, and I've heard other terms. And despite the fact that I'm not sure I like the terminology, I understand why he used it and what he's getting at.

The thing I probably liked the most in his essays, though, was his concept that RPGs are about exploration. Perhaps that's the key - sometimes we're simply exploring the setting, exploring the place the PCs have within it. And sometimes we're exploring the specific story of one or more PCs. So perhaps we primarily shift between simulation and narratavism? That a game doesn't have to be one or the other at all times?


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> The medium - especially with the short attention spans of our time - does lend itself to that.
> 
> I prefer to respond to something while it's fresh in my mind, and presumably, that of anyone reading.  :shrug:
> 
> I didn't think you were lampshading, but I'm still not much persuaded by the style of providing an assurance you're not doing something, then doing it.  I don't have a cute term for it, like 'fisking,' but, chalk it up to another stylistic preference.
> 
> There really aren't, if you insist on abiding by the definitions.  Maybe we could attack the definitions, themselves, or the games as not really fitting the definitions...
> 
> Oh, Story Now doesn't make illusionism impossible, it just doesn't have a foundation in it (which I thought was your point), and it blithely assumes the GM won't have an direction to apply GM Force, /to/.
> 
> Of course a GM could 'betray' the Story-Now agenda of some Forgite designer's baby and pull some illusionism on his unsuspecting players.  Heck, his game might well be better for it.
> 
> That does not fit the definition of illusionism.  It's a little inside-out, really.  In Illusionism, the GM has a preconceived notion/agenda/goal/story/whatever that he wants to make happen, and he uses 'GM Force' to make it happen regardless of the player's decision/intent, thereby 'robbing them of agency,' but, does so without letting on that it's happening, so the players still experience the positive feel of exercising agency, as well as the positive of participating in a story that holds together and is entertaining.  It's a have-your-cake-and-share-it-with-everyone-and-eat-it-all-yourself technique.
> 
> I don't object to "Illusionism" as much as many other Forge terms, because it evokes the image of a stage magician wowing his audience, even (especially) when there's audience participation.  The audience aren't fooled in the sense they believe it's really magic, and they don't go there expecting the tricks to be obvious or revealed.  There's none of the 'broken social contract' it implies.  I find it fair-to-middling term for a legitimate & effective GMing technique.
> 
> But, aside from that, I don't see the contradiction.




Yeah, so, this post is why I dislike fisking.  It makes actual discussion nearly impossible.  The only way to respond to the barrage of individual thoughts is to fisk back, and that begins to lose the structure and context of the original argument, and then you just end up arguing about arguments and have no idea what the initial point of contention was..  And 'the medium and short attention spans lend themselves to fisking' as an excuse?  Really?  You have to chop up the post, which takes way more work that hitting 'Reply with Quote' and then replying.  

Still, I'll try to address the highlights.

The definitions of Story Now and Illusionism are written to be mutually exclusive, yes, but not explicitly so, so there's plenty of room to slide in an argument using those definition.  So Illusionism is the subversion of player intent with DM intent in a manner that's not obvious to the player (or it's failed Illusionism, natch).  I maintain that Story Now games are still susceptible to this occurring.  Less so than "traditional" gaming (for lack of a better term atm)?  Sure, but still doable.  I go back to making a game about demons being something you can do regardless of player declarations.  Takes more work (especially to do it subtly), but you can do it.  You can even drive to a plot you prefer.  Specifics are much harder, but a skilled DM can lead the players into caring about things he introduces (maybe as framing, maybe as failure narration).  Done well, the players will continue to think it's their idea all along.  This is pretty much the same set of skills as pulling a con, but much easier as the players have already bought into the premise of the con -- a game.  After that...

And, yes, I know the rejoinder:  but that's not playing the game with integrity.  Well, neither is offering a choice that doesn't matter in "traditional" gaming, so I don't see how that's a valid counter.   All forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity, no matter what system you play.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> Yeah, so, this post is why I dislike fisking.  It makes actual discussion nearly impossible.  The only way to respond to the barrage of individual thoughts is to fisk back, and that begins to lose the structure and context of the original argument, and then you just end up arguing about arguments and have no idea what the initial point of contention was..  And 'the medium and short attention spans lend themselves to fisking' as an excuse?  Really?  You have to chop up the post, which takes way more work that hitting 'Reply with Quote' and then replying.
> 
> Still, I'll try to address the highlights.
> 
> The definitions of Story Now and Illusionism are written to be mutually exclusive, yes, but not explicitly so, so there's plenty of room to slide in an argument using those definition.  So Illusionism is the subversion of player intent with DM intent in a manner that's not obvious to the player (or it's failed Illusionism, natch).  I maintain that Story Now games are still susceptible to this occurring.  Less so than "traditional" gaming (for lack of a better term atm)?  Sure, but still doable.  I go back to making a game about demons being something you can do regardless of player declarations.  Takes more work (especially to do it subtly), but you can do it.  You can even drive to a plot you prefer.  Specifics are much harder, but a skilled DM can lead the players into caring about things he introduces (maybe as framing, maybe as failure narration).  Done well, the players will continue to think it's their idea all along.  This is pretty much the same set of skills as pulling a con, but much easier as the players have already bought into the premise of the con -- a game.  After that...
> 
> And, yes, I know the rejoinder:  but that's not playing the game with integrity.  Well, neither is offering a choice that doesn't matter in "traditional" gaming, so I don't see how that's a valid counter.   All forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity, no matter what system you play.




I learn new terms on this forum almost every day...

I think his objection to short attention spans and the medium was referring to the people reading the posts, not the process of creating the post.

I do wonder whether it's better to fisk (now that I know the term...) instead of responding to the post in a block like this. I'm still on the fence...

For what it's worth, according to Ron Edward's article on Narrativism, what he terms "force" techniques (of which he classifies illusionism as one) are incompatible with narrative play:

_"Producing a story via Force Techniques means that play must shift fully to Simulationist play. "Story" becomes Explored Situation, the character "works" insofar as he or she fits in, and the player's enjoyment arises from contributing to that fitting-in. However, for the Narrativist player, the issue is not the Curtain at all, but the Force. Force-based Techniques are pure poison for Narrativist play and vice versa. The GM (or a person currently in that role) can provide substantial input, notably adversity and Weaving, but not specific protagonist decisions and actions; that is the very essence of deprotagonizing Narrativist play."_

Although I don't entirely follow why the GM can't introduce illusionism via non-protagonist decisions and actions and remain within narrative play. But maybe that's just me.

I do disagree that "all forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity" though. Unless those at the table have agreed not to play with it, that is. Playing with integrity simply means playing within the rules, or perhaps the rules and spirit of the game. If the game rules allow the use of illusionism, then it's use is with integrity.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Ilbranteloth said:


> For what it's worth, according to Ron Edward's article on Narrativism, what he terms "force" techniques (of which he classifies illusionism as one) are incompatible with narrative play:



 Yeah, Ron was really big on declaring things incompatible, incoherent, or impossible.  I mean, he was a designer working in an industry where designing for anything other than the 500lb gorilla meant finding a teeny niche market to cater too (and maybe build up), and the more wedges you can drive into the hobby to open up little niches like that, the more design work you could do.  Maybe it was, to some extent, all 'sour grapes' anyway - talented designers disappointed that they could design games so much 'better' than the leading one, but never un-seat it from the top spot, nor even come anywhere near it's success, looking to explain that 'failure.' 



Ovinomancer said:


> Still, I'll try to address the highlights.



 Oh, stop being such a martyr.  ;P

Anyway, I think we've cleared things up, since we've gone from:



Ovinomancer said:


> Story Now games are inherently built on Illusionism.  While the standard definition (which I'm keeping) points to specific instances, and works well, Story Now games actually incorporate illusionism in their basic premise:  make the game about the characters.  If the entire game pivots around the characters, to the point that even failures are supposed to be directly tied to player intents, then the game, it's concepts and mechanics, are forcing an outcome where the player intentions are the only thing that matters.



  That may well require some smoke and mirrors, but not necessarily in the service of _GM intent_.

To:



Ovinomancer said:


> So Illusionism is the subversion of player intent with DM intent in a manner that's not obvious to the player (or it's failed Illusionism, natch).  I maintain that Story Now games are still susceptible to this occurring.  Less so than "traditional" gaming (for lack of a better term atm)?  Sure, but still doable.



 So not "inherently built on," but merely "susceptible too."  That fits fine.  

And, sure, that's part of what makes Illusionism such a useful technique:  you can deploy it in spite of the game, itself, trying to stop you.  The more 'above board' a game plays, the less pervasive the opportunities to do so, but you can always set up a magician's force (my favorite example of illusionism), whether you're hiding a map behind a DM screen, or 'scene framing' for the indie crowd.  Heck, if your players are convinced a game isn't susceptible to illusionism, that just makes the technique that much more potent.

Worst case, a purist can declare a 'Story Now' game besmirched by illusionism "No True Story Now game!"



> And, yes, I know the rejoinder:  but that's not playing the game with integrity.  Well, neither is offering a choice that doesn't matter in "traditional" gaming, so I don't see how that's a valid counter.   All forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity, no matter what system you play.



 For the Forger definition of 'integrity,' specifically chosen to make GM Force & Illusionism sound unsavory.  

If I'm signed up to run a game that promises to be an entertaining experience evocative of a chosen genre, Illusionism is a technique that I can use to deliver.  
Delivering on my promises is acting with integrity.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ilbranteloth said:


> I learn new terms on this forum almost every day...
> 
> I think his objection to short attention spans and the medium was referring to the people reading the posts, not the process of creating the post.
> 
> I do wonder whether it's better to fisk (now that I know the term...) instead of responding to the post in a block like this. I'm still on the fence...
> 
> For what it's worth, according to Ron Edward's article on Narrativism, what he terms "force" techniques (of which he classifies illusionism as one) are incompatible with narrative play:
> 
> _"Producing a story via Force Techniques means that play must shift fully to Simulationist play. "Story" becomes Explored Situation, the character "works" insofar as he or she fits in, and the player's enjoyment arises from contributing to that fitting-in. However, for the Narrativist player, the issue is not the Curtain at all, but the Force. Force-based Techniques are pure poison for Narrativist play and vice versa. The GM (or a person currently in that role) can provide substantial input, notably adversity and Weaving, but not specific protagonist decisions and actions; that is the very essence of deprotagonizing Narrativist play."_
> 
> Although I don't entirely follow why the GM can't introduce illusionism via non-protagonist decisions and actions and remain within narrative play. But maybe that's just me.
> 
> I do disagree that "all forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity" though. Unless those at the table have agreed not to play with it, that is. Playing with integrity simply means playing within the rules, or perhaps the rules and spirit of the game. If the game rules allow the use of illusionism, then it's use is with integrity.




The point there was that if, as the DM, you offer a choice, but there's no real choice there, that's not being very honest with your players.  If you don't offer a choice, or if something is mutable as to fit into any choice even if the final destination is different, I agree with you.  Example: DM has prepared some encounters for a travel segment.  These encounters are meant to set a tone for an area that the players are travelling through.  Allow players to engage in choices during travel, but using those encounters anyway is a kind of Illusionism I can get behind.  The 'pick a direction' and the result no matter what is 'you find my adventure' isn't.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> Oh, stop being such a martyr.  ;P
> 
> Anyway, I think we've cleared things up, since we've gone from:
> 
> That may well require some smoke and mirrors, but not necessarily in the service of _GM intent_.
> 
> To:
> 
> So not "inherently built on," but merely "susceptible too."  That fits fine.
> 
> And, sure, that's part of what makes Illusionism such a useful technique:  you can deploy it in spite of the game, itself, trying to stop you.  The more 'above board' a game plays, the less pervasive the opportunities to do so, but you can always set up a magician's force (my favorite example of illusionism), whether you're hiding a map behind a DM screen, or 'scene framing' for the indie crowd.  Heck, if your players are convinced a game isn't susceptible to illusionism, that just makes the technique that much more potent.
> 
> For the Forger definition of 'integrity,' specifically chosen to make GM Force & Illusionism sound unsavory.
> 
> If I'm signed up to run a game that promises to be an entertaining experience evocative of a chosen genre, Illusionism is a technique that I can use to deliver.
> Delivering on my promises is acting with integrity.




I can agree with this.  My last 2 campaigns were 'hey, I have a plot, it'll be fun, it's about saving the universe from bad stuff, if you even don't like it we can do something else' as a buy-in to a Big Plot game to 'hey, I'll run, but it's a rough time at work right now, I can do one of the WotC adventure paths'.  Both require Illusionism and force because they have a plot.  The former more Illusionism, as they'll find parts of the plot no matter what (what they do with it was the 'play to find out' part, with the entire last act not scripted at all so that the mystery was bare and they could approach it however they wanted).  The latter is more force, as some things have to happen according to the scripted adventure path.  I find I'm not enjoying the current game very much.  I've never much liked being restricted by previously written stuff because it doesn't evolve with my game.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> The point there was that if, as the DM, you offer a choice, but there's no real choice there, that's not being very honest with your players.  If you don't offer a choice, or if something is mutable as to fit into any choice even if the final destination is different, I agree with you.  Example: DM has prepared some encounters for a travel segment.  These encounters are meant to set a tone for an area that the players are travelling through.  Allow players to engage in choices during travel, but using those encounters anyway is a kind of Illusionism I can get behind.  The 'pick a direction' and the result no matter what is 'you find my adventure' isn't.




Not being honest does not equal "without integrity" in the context of a game. Bluffing in poker is not honest, but it is integral to the game and playing with integrity. Bringing extra aces is not.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

OK, so here's a new question, and I've been reading through the various forum posts on the Forge but I'm not satisfied with the answers.

Ron's assertion is that Narrativism and Simulationalism can't be part of the same game. 

The discussion that I'm seeing on Forge implies that Narrativism (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=1072.0) really seems to be arguing about shared-authoring - and while it's not spelled out there, they seem to be objecting to what Eero did - shared authoring of backstory and setting during the game. The implication being it's an inherent part of narrativism.

Does narrativism require (extensive) shared-authoring of backstory and setting during the game? Eero certainly seems to argue against that very thing. 

If that's the case, why would a simulationist approach be incompatible with a narrativist approach? Because it seems to be that's what my game tends to be, a combination of the two. 

The only place I can see that is drastically different is that I don't regularly challenge the character's motivations or premise during conflict resolution. But is it really necessary for every die roll, every scene or every conflict to relate directly to the motivations and premise of the characters? At the very least, if there are multiple characters, it's probably very difficult for every conflict/scene to relate directly to the motivations of all of them.

If narrativism is concerned with the quality of the story, that it relate to the character's motives, etc. why does every scene, or even every action have to relate to that? Isn't that just a preference of story style rather than content? What if every session does? Is that enough? Does that make it a hybrid?

On the other hand, in order for actions, events, etc. to relate to the character's motives, then the DM has to introduce story elements. I do, and I think they should, but there are some simulationist sandbox purists that feel that any DM input in regards to setting and story once the game has begun to be off-limits and infringing on player/character agency. If it's not in place on the map before the session, or determined randomly, it's not acceptable. I won't get into the paradox that the DM can still exert as much control as they'd like via preparation (or lack of preparation) of material. 

I disagree with this anyway, but it highlights once again how any time that the DM takes control of the story via framing, preparation, or spur of the moment whim, that it takes away agency from the players, if for a brief moment. 

Again, I agree this is true, but I don't agree it's a bad thing.

It seems to me that there is a pretty wide middle ground where simulationists can utilize tools and techniques of narrativism to provide the quality of story that narrativism is supposed to provide. And likewise, a narrative game can utilize rules that maintain the integrity and consistency of the setting while still focusing heavily on the characters and their motivations. That's certainly where I like to live. Perhaps my real objection to narrative rules is that they are hyper-focused on ensuring that every moment relate to the motivations and premise of the characters, instead of allowing a bit of a wider view of the action?


----------



## hawkeyefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> OK, so here's a new question, and I've been reading through the various forum posts on the Forge but I'm not satisfied with the answers.
> 
> Ron's assertion is that Narrativism and Simulationalism can't be part of the same game.
> 
> The discussion that I'm seeing on Forge implies that Narrativism (http://indie-rpgs.com/archive/index.php?topic=1072.0) really seems to be arguing about shared-authoring - and while it's not spelled out there, they seem to be objecting to what Eero did - shared authoring of backstory and setting during the game. The implication being it's an inherent part of narrativism.
> 
> Does narrativism require (extensive) shared-authoring of backstory and setting during the game? Eero certainly seems to argue against that very thing.
> 
> If that's the case, why would a simulationist approach be incompatible with a narrativist approach? Because it seems to be that's what my game tends to be, a combination of the two.
> 
> The only place I can see that is drastically different is that I don't regularly challenge the character's motivations or premise during conflict resolution. But is it really necessary for every die roll, every scene or every conflict to relate directly to the motivations and premise of the characters? At the very least, if there are multiple characters, it's probably very difficult for every conflict/scene to relate directly to the motivations of all of them.
> 
> If narrativism is concerned with the quality of the story, that it relate to the character's motives, etc. why does every scene, or even every action have to relate to that? Isn't that just a preference of story style rather than content? What if every session does? Is that enough? Does that make it a hybrid?
> 
> On the other hand, in order for actions, events, etc. to relate to the character's motives, then the DM has to introduce story elements. I do, and I think they should, but there are some simulationist sandbox purists that feel that any DM input in regards to setting and story once the game has begun to be off-limits and infringing on player/character agency. If it's not in place on the map before the session, or determined randomly, it's not acceptable. I won't get into the paradox that the DM can still exert as much control as they'd like via preparation (or lack of preparation) of material.
> 
> I disagree with this anyway, but it highlights once again how any time that the DM takes control of the story via framing, preparation, or spur of the moment whim, that it takes away agency from the players, if for a brief moment.
> 
> Again, I agree this is true, but I don't agree it's a bad thing.
> 
> It seems to me that there is a pretty wide middle ground where simulationists can utilize tools and techniques of narrativism to provide the quality of story that narrativism is supposed to provide. And likewise, a narrative game can utilize rules that maintain the integrity and consistency of the setting while still focusing heavily on the characters and their motivations. That's certainly where I like to live. Perhaps my real objection to narrative rules is that they are hyper-focused on ensuring that every moment relate to the motivations and premise of the characters, instead of allowing a bit of a wider view of the action?




I agree. I feel like my current game has many aspects, and that at any point there is a certain approach that I am using as the DM, and that approach changes based on what the game seems to call for. I've had moments that were as predetermined as the most railroady of games, and other moments where what happened next was entirely in the players' hands, and points in between. 

I think perhaps it's safe to say that at any specific point, perhaps a game must be either player driven or GM driven and not both, but that over the course of time, like an entire campaign, a game certainly can be both.


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## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> a player's dramatic goals can be frustrated by softpedalling failure, as already discussed. This is exactly the kind of Illusionism discussed



There's no illusion - the player can tell!



Ovinomancer said:


> you responded with quoting that you were looking forward to play-acting your prayers in game



No. I responded by saying that I'm looking forward to being obliged to speak the prayers. You may not think the difference between permission and obligation matters here. I do - the _obligation_, and the demands that go with that, are what I am looking forward to.



Ovinomancer said:


> forcing someone to playact is generally a bad call for a game in general.



Why?

Monopoly forces you to count (squares). Chess forces you to remember and anticipate (sequences and combinations of moves). Crosswords for you to spell. Pictionary requires you to draw.

Games require players to do things. What is so bad about requiring people to speak for their characters?



Ovinomancer said:


> this is a hidden gotcha



Who is it hidden from?

I posted a whole chunk of rules extracts from the books upthread, in reply to  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]. The book says that task as well as intent has to be established. The rules for Duel of Wits state that arguments must be spoken. The rules for Faith say that prayers must be spoken.



Ovinomancer said:


> You don't have to play act anything else in the game except prayers, songs, rhymes, and social encounters.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> for a game system to force that kind of interaction without putting it up front on the tin is a bad deal.



How do you know what it says on the tin? Have you ever read the BW rulebooks - or even the free extracts that can be downloaded?

Is anyone who buys a game whose slogan is "Fight for what you believe" and that, in the prologue by Jake Norwood, is said to "demand more-than-usual attention from the player." and promises "player-driven stories of white-knuckled action, heart-rending decisions and triumph against the odds" going to be shocked to read rules saying that, when your character speaks, you have to establish the task by speaking as your character?

Where are the queues of people who bought BW and thought they had been lied to? It's the most _honest_ RPG I've ever encountered.


----------



## Manbearcat

Imaro said:


> Ok that makes things clearer, I wasn't aware the stakes were set with total transparency... but how does setting these stakes beforehand like this not lead to some constraint on creativity.




Apocalypse World systems have at their core bell curves in two ways:

1)  The % of outcomes with the 10 + being on one side, the 6- on the other, and the very heavy dose of 7-9s in the big fat middle.

2)  The potential variance in outcomes also follows the curve.  The 10+ and 6- are constrained (with the 10+ being completely constrained and the 6- being mostly constrained) while the 7-9 is extraordinarily unconstrained with a deep pool of possibilities.  

The 7-9 is where the magic happens. This is (obviously) by design.  Put them both together and you get the significant majority of move results yielding (a) the player gets some of what they want while (b) their characters gets some stuff they don't want (a hard bargain, a difficult choice, a worse outcome, a new danger, a latent danger made manifest, etc).

So, yes a 6- is (generally across the breadth of 6- outcomes) less constrained than the 10+ result (which is utterly constrained - "that thing happens").  Both of them are massively more constrained than the 7-9 results which are bounded only by Agenda, Principles, and the fictional positioning.  Now you will have the stray move where you have to close down all prospects for results on a 6- except for one because that is what the situation calls for.  Sometimes it is implicit, but in those cases, the stakes are so high that you still want to make sure everyone is on the same page.  Examples of this would be things like:

* Defy Danger (Cha) to convince the undecided, but teetering 5th vote on an issue right before the vote occurs 
* A massive fall/sufficiently threatening scenario killing a PC or hireling/companion
* A significantly costly scenario destroying precious equipment or perhaps damaging Hireling/Companion Loyalty enough (if against their nature) that they leave you.


So does preemptively, explicitly constraining a 6- outcome on a move constrain creativity if the 25ish% chance for that move is realized?  Yes, but I would say that is just going to be an inevitable outgrowth of certain high stakes situations where the fictional positioning is aligned against you (Blades in the Dark gives fictional positioning the formal qualities of _Controlled_, _Risky_, and _Desperate_..._Desperate _being the kind of situation we're talking about here where severity of, and attendant constraints on, outcome would come to pass).  I would also say that such situations are significant outliers (both in terms of total moves made and in % chance of manifesting in a given period of play...in all the PBtA sessions I've GMed, I've had probably 40ish such moves, out of over 1000 moves made, and about 8-10ish realized) in a game such that their input on any "relative constraint formula" one might try to derive would be borderline irrelevant.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> And, yes, I know the rejoinder:  but that's not playing the game with integrity.  Well, neither is offering a choice that doesn't matter in "traditional" gaming, so I don't see how that's a valid counter.   All forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity, no matter what system you play.



Not sure I'd go this far, but...

And then comes the next question: does the end (a fun enjoyable immersive consistent game) justify the means (illusionism and sleight-of-hand on the DM's part)?  Personally, I say yes it does.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Games require players to do things. What is so bad about requiring people to speak for their characters?



Were it up to me, in a perfect game every word said by any player* at the table would be said in character (or be directly describing a character's actions) except when game mechanics interrupted e.g. dice rolls.  That said, I wouldn't expect players who may not themselves have prayed in 30 years to be able to come up with a prayer-in-8-syllables on the spot: slack would certainly be cut.

* - as opposed to the DM, who would still have to jump back and forth between narration, mechanics, and speaking in character as the NPCs.

In other words, instead of speaking *for* their character I'd rather they speak *as* their character.  Getting players to do this, however, when they'd rather talk about snacks or football or gossip is about as effective as herding cats.



> Where are the queues of people who bought BW



Good question.  I don't think I know anyone who has it, bought or otherwise, beyond ENWorlders.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> So does preemptively, explicitly constraining a 6- outcome on a move constrain creativity if the 25ish% chance for that move is realized?



Minor nitpick, but relevant here:

On 2d6 the chance of getting a 6 or less is 40% (15 outcomes of the 36 possible)
The chance of getting 7, 8 or 9 is also 40% (also 15 out of 36)
The chance of getting 10 or higher is 20%. (only 6 out of 36)

Lan-"carry on"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> In, I guess, the 'Story Never' style, you investigate the skulker, find out he has nothing to do even tangentially with anything you're concerned with, shrug, and never get that game time back. Then, you proceed to go searching for things that don't exist and uncovering things you don't care about.



This made me want to "laugh" with your post, but I went for XP instead as I thought that was a better overall summary of my response.



Tony Vargas said:


> You can't play a character too different from yourself.  Because it's essentially imbalanced (it favors players who have the talents the resolution system requires), and even innately unfair (because evaluating the player's performance generally rests entirely on the GM, inviting bias).



I don't agree with this.

It's not unbalanced, in the sense that no one is _forced_ to play a Faithful character. And it's not anymore unfair than other mechanics - the detailed melee resolution system for BW is a complex system of blind declaration over approx 3 to 6 actions (depending on stats) and then simultaneous resolution, with a limited ability to redeclare actions at a cost. So predicting and bluffing are crucial skills; and my character, who is a knight, is likely to suffer in melee because I'm not especially good at those things, whereas my GM is excellent at them! I'm hoping that my armour and my faith will carry me through!

But I don't agree that it precludes playing a character very different from oneself - depending, I guess, on the dimensions of difference. It's against board rules for me to say too much about the ways I do or don't resemble my Faithful PC, but I'm certainly not a Knight Templar or very much like one, and nor am I sworn to cleanse my ancestral homeland of evil, so I certainly feel I will be playing a character who is very different from me.


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> Minor nitpick, but relevant here:
> 
> On 2d6 the chance of getting a 6 or less is 40% (15 outcomes of the 36 possible)
> The chance of getting 7, 8 or 9 is also 40% (also 15 out of 36)
> The chance of getting 10 or higher is 20%. (only 6 out of 36)
> 
> Lan-"carry on"-efan




The average PBtA move is made at right around (but ever so slightly better than) 2d6+1, so a a little bit less than 27.78 %.  You get modest vertical growth in power in the course of play, so that will decrease modestly with time.  It also decreases modestly due to horizontal power growth giving players more options to make moves that don't leverage PC weakness.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> Were it up to me, in a perfect game every word said by any player* at the table would be said in character (or be directly describing a character's actions) except when game mechanics interrupted e.g. dice rolls.  That said, I wouldn't expect players who may not themselves have prayed in 30 years to be able to come up with a prayer-in-8-syllables on the spot: slack would certainly be cut.
> 
> * - as opposed to the DM, who would still have to jump back and forth between narration, mechanics, and speaking in character as the NPCs.
> 
> In other words, instead of speaking *for* their character I'd rather they speak *as* their character.  Getting players to do this, however, when they'd rather talk about snacks or football or gossip is about as effective as herding cats.
> 
> Lanefan




I've had the best luck with players remaining in character for the highest percentage of time when the percentage of players at the table buy into it. And it's not always because more players "police" the table. A lot of it has to do with the percentage of time the table as a whole remains in that mode.

Oddly enough, it also seems to be more likely when the players at the table aren't close friends. If the group is coming together primarily to play the game without as many shared outside interests, it tends to stay focused on the game itself.

However, as a "non-actor" type myself, I consider the distinction of "as" and "for" to be irrelevant. "I will talk to the guard to get a sense as to whether he can be bribed - to see if he's got a family, debts, is he greedy, is he more concerned about keeping his job, or making quick coin, etc." to be functionally and fundamentally the same immersion as him striking up a conversation in character, with me responding in character as the guard.

Yes, there can be subtleties at play if you're good at creating dialogue, but a descriptive approach can also be faster. Particularly if the situation involves multiple NPCs at a given time (which brings its own oddities when there is but a single DM producing dialogue for the NPCs).

The immersion is different, perhaps similar to the difference between a novel written in first person vs third person.

The point, though, is the less they talk about anything other than what their character is saying/doing, the less immersive the experience is.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Not sure I'd go this far, but...
> 
> And then comes the next question: does the end (a fun enjoyable immersive consistent game) justify the means (illusionism and sleight-of-hand on the DM's part)?  Personally, I say yes it does.
> 
> Lanefan




Means always matter.  Always.

Now, it could be that the difference in means is slight, and comes down to personal preference, but that doesn't remove their meaning.


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> There's no illusion - the player can tell!
> 
> No. I responded by saying that I'm looking forward to being obliged to speak the prayers. You may not think the difference between permission and obligation matters here. I do - the _obligation_, and the demands that go with that, are what I am looking forward to.
> 
> Why?
> 
> Monopoly forces you to count (squares). Chess forces you to remember and anticipate (sequences and combinations of moves). Crosswords for you to spell. Pictionary requires you to draw.
> 
> Games require players to do things. What is so bad about requiring people to speak for their characters?
> 
> Who is it hidden from?
> 
> I posted a whole chunk of rules extracts from the books upthread, in reply to  [MENTION=23935]Nagol[/MENTION]. The book says that task as well as intent has to be established. The rules for Duel of Wits state that arguments must be spoken. The rules for Faith say that prayers must be spoken.
> 
> How do you know what it says on the tin? Have you ever read the BW rulebooks - or even the free extracts that can be downloaded?
> 
> Is anyone who buys a game whose slogan is "Fight for what you believe" and that, in the prologue by Jake Norwood, is said to "demand more-than-usual attention from the player." and promises "player-driven stories of white-knuckled action, heart-rending decisions and triumph against the odds" going to be shocked to read rules saying that, when your character speaks, you have to establish the task by speaking as your character?
> 
> Where are the queues of people who bought BW and thought they had been lied to? It's the most _honest_ RPG I've ever encountered.




Man, but this post is a mastercraft of passive-aggressive pettiness.  I ask that you stop short quoting me and leave the context and in your next response you cut down to _sentence fragments_.  That's not honest engagement, which is amusing given that last line of yours.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> Some posts, threads etc have triggered this question in my mind:
> 
> [size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​
> In the context of 5e, GM "judgement calls" can also fall into the domain of "rulings not rules."
> 
> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)
> 
> My feeling is that the answer is a complex one.
> 
> In a FRPG session I ran yesterday, the action was in a bedroom in a mage's tower, where a wizard had been lying unconsciousness on a divan recovering from a terrible wound, but then was rather brutally decapitated by an assassin. One of the players, whose PC ran into the room just as the decapitation took place, asked whether there was a vessel in the room in which the PC could catch the decapitated mage's blood.*
> 
> I resolved this by setting a DC for a Perception check - and because, as the player argued with some plausibility, it was likely that a room for convalescing in would have a chamber pot, jug/ewer, etc - I set the DC fairly low. The player succeeded, and the PC was able to grab the vessel and catch the blood as desired.
> 
> Setting the DC is a judgement call. Depending whether it is set high or low, the action is likely to unfold one way or another - so setting the DC definitely matters to what is likely to emerge as downstream story.
> 
> But I don't see it as railroading. The issue of whether or not the blood might be caught in a vessel had not even occurred to me until the player raised it. And there was no preconception, on my part, of any ultimate destination for the action.
> 
> On the other hand, had I decided simply that the room contains no vessel, because I had already decided that I didn't want the storyline to include shenanigans with a blood-filled chamber pot, I think that would count not only as a judgement call, but as one that has a railroading effect.
> 
> I'm guessing, though, that there are other posters who would see one or both cases differently from me!
> 
> 
> [size=-2]* If you want to know why, the answer is in this thread.[/size]




So after all the discussion, I wanted to get back to the OP, perhaps my perception has changed a bit.

For railroading to occur, I think that there has to be at least three things present:
1) a predetermined plot/story outcome by the DM, or at least a consistent bias to the DMs plot/story/preferences
2) an action/adjudication by the DM that disregards the player's actions in the determination of the results. That is, the players actions and choices don't have a meaningful impact on the plot/story.
3) the players don't want, or have the expectation that the DM won't do, #1 _and_ #2

For example, if the DM is just fudging rolls, or making soft adjudications to avoid killing the PCs, I'm not sure that qualifies as railroading. It's not really directing the action toward a predetermined conclusion, other than saying that the characters won't die, or perhaps just won't die here. That sort of approach can be a flag that perhaps railroading is happening. In other words, it might be a symptom of railroading.

In other words, I'd consider railroading more of a big picture problem, than a specific scene or specific task issue.

Another aspect that I think is often not mentioned in discussions of railroading, is #3. If the players are explicitly playing a game in which they expect the DM to keep them on track, it's not a railroad.

Is it possible for the DM to railroad without a predetermined plot/story? I think so. That is, the DM might not have an end-game or even a particular story line. But they might have prepared material and their goal is to keep the PCs within that material. It might be totally improvised, but as the game progresses, the DM consistently forces the outcomes to be favorable to their own preferences. 

That leads to another potential gray area. Illusionism. I think railroading isn't just about the choices presented, but that regardless of the choices, the players/characters actions and choices don't have a meaningful impact on the plot/story. Illusionism is a related subject, but refers to a specific choice. Railroading is related to multiple choices over time. I'm more forgiving of illusionism I guess, but why?

_Perhaps it's the magnitude of the infraction, and the intent that bothers me more. The times when I have used illusionism is when the players have a goal, but that goal isn't location based. For example, they are hunting for an ancient Netherese tomb. We know the tomb is in the mountains, but it's not specifically placed. The players don't need to know that, though. They just need to know that it takes time, and with skill, interpretation of the clues they have, and a little luck, they'll find it. So the specific direction they take in the mountains isn't really the issue I'm addressing, it's time and creative play and problem solving, combined with skill (either through passive or active checks). If I pre-place it, I've set a direction, but all of the other details aren't described yet. The specific terrain, the local creatures, etc. That's all determined during play. Technically it's illusionism, since no matter which direction they go will get them to the tomb. The amount of time it takes is still variable. They will still engage the rules, and make decisions, and those decisions (measured by "good and creative, or really way off base considering the clues") will have an impact as well. So I guess it's that i've really just set different criteria for "locating" the tomb than picking the right direction. As such, the physical location of the tomb is somewhat dependent on a criteria other than me arbitrarily selecting the location.

Other times have been when I do have an encounter sketched out, and it's just something that will happen. Again, the specific location doesn't matter. It's the who or what that matters. So once again, the criteria for the encounter is something other than location-specific, and the implementation of that encounter (it could be just my placement based on the session, it could be a random percentage, or even an entry on a random encounter table), is something other than they select the right place to walk.

So I guess I see illusionism as a tool that can be used in a negative manner, and can certainly be used for railroading. But sometimes it's used (or perhaps something very similar) to place events, locations, or encounters based on criteria other than arbitrary DM preference. (Which is perhaps more of a narrative approach?). The DM still has some control over the final placement, but it's also determined in part by player/characters actions/decisions and/or engagement of other rules. Wow, it can all be so complicated...but I digress..._

Another question - is it possible for the DM to railroad to the players preferences? Point #3 above is specifically to address the situation where a specific story is expected. The original Dragonlance adventures could be construed this way. Or if the players want to play _The Fellowship of the Ring_ or the original Star Wars trilogy. The general plot is known, and while there could be some deviation in the specifics, ultimately there are a few things that have to happen.

And what about published modules, then, particularly APs? Some are presented as linear plots, some as locational, some as linear with multiple roads leading to the same conclusion. They really aren't all that different than the Dragonlance/LotR/Star Wars question. Certain major things have to happen, and certain choices need to be made to remain on the AP. 

In my opinion, railroading is a negative thing. That is, it's something the players don't want. So if the players agree that part of the DM's job is to keep things moving in the "right" direction, it cannot be a railroad. The trick for DMs in these situations is to hide the fact that they are providing more direction to the story. Although, especially in the case when a given plot is known by all ahead of time, the players have to actively suspend disbelief for heavy-handed redirection. Although I guess that's really no different than the sort of plot holes and leaps of logic that often occur in stories in other mediums.

--

So no, I don't think your scene even remotely resembles railroading, especially since the alteration of the scene was initiated by the player. I would have run it a bit differently.

In your specific example above, I would not have required a Perception check. If the player's argument is plausible, then I'd just go with the idea that there is a vessel of some sort. A Perception check isn't to determine _if_ something is there, it's to determine if they notice it. So if it's a common item like that, and it's plainly visible in the room (once it's been determined that it's likely there), then there's no need for a roll.

However, I might have considered some sort of Dexterity check to get the bowl under the body quickly enough. But that's really more a question of how much blood they were trying to catch and how quickly they would exsanguinate. But ultimately I don't see much point in even that, realistically they would have time to get a fair amount, and there aren't significant consequences for failure, so I probably wouldn't have required a check for that either.

Setting the DC, the scene itself - what you put in the room, what you don't, how you actually describe the scene, etc. can all shape the fiction itself. That is, regardless of play style, the DM will have some impact on the fiction just in the process of being a DM. How much influence they have, or how much the players want the DM to have is a question of play style.


----------



## innerdude

Ilbranteloth said:


> For railroading to occur, I think that there has to be at least three things present:
> 1) a predetermined plot/story outcome by the DM, or at least a consistent bias to the DMs plot/story/preferences
> 2) an action/adjudication by the DM that disregards the player's actions in the determination of the results. That is, the players actions and choices don't have a meaningful impact on the plot/story.
> 3) the players don't want, or have the expectation that the DM won't do, #1 _and_ #2




I think that's a very fair, concise definition. 

I was thinking through your example about "finding the thing in the tomb in the mountains," how the placement of the tomb isn't necessarily the relevant portion of actual play---it's the player's actions, their approach, how they're utilizing resources, etc. 




Ilbranteloth said:


> They just need to know that it takes time, and with skill, interpretation of the clues they have, and a little luck, they'll find it. So the specific direction they take in the mountains isn't really the issue I'm addressing, it's time and creative play and problem solving, combined with skill (either through passive or active checks). If I pre-place it, I've set a direction, but all of the other details aren't described yet. The specific terrain, the local creatures, etc. That's all determined during play. Technically it's illusionism, since no matter which direction they go will get them to the tomb. The amount of time it takes is still variable. They will still engage the rules, and make decisions, and those decisions (measured by "good and creative, or really way off base considering the clues") will have an impact as well. So I guess it's that i've really just set different criteria for "locating" the tomb than picking the right direction. As such, the physical location of the tomb is somewhat dependent on a criteria other than me arbitrarily selecting the location.




See, this I _totally_ relate to . . . And in my mind, it isn't "illusionism" if the players have already agreed as a group that the tomb is central to their PC's needs/agenda. If they've already made that decision, then I ABSOLUTELY want to ensure that they make it to the tomb, at least so long as that objective remains part of what the PCs are pursuing. If something along the way derails the PCs' needs or desire to actually GO to the tomb, and I then FORCE THEM to go to the tomb anyway . . . that's when the railroading starts. 

The other thing is, in the sense of "scene framing," the real goal is to present relevant _obstacles_ to the players/PCs that they will enjoy _overcoming_. I've discovered I have to be willing to re-frame scenes as the PCs' intent/objectives change. In some ways it's better to simply identify what the PCs' objectives are, and then identify a list of obstacles that could potentially be framed into scenes that will appropriately challenge those objectives/needs. And this list of obstacles need not be specific to a place or individual NPC(s). It's more about identifying generally, "What would stop the PCs from achieving their objective of X?" 

For example, suppose the PCs objective is to reveal the treachery of a councilor to a king. Potential obstacles might include: 


The councilor completely hiding his tracks by destroying any information related to his treachery and eliminating "those in the know" -- thus, the PCs' goal is find enough relevant clues/information/witnesses before the councilor succeeds in insulating himself. 
Active intervention by a faction allied with the councilor--a faction that either openly supports, or at least isn't opposed to the councilor having his way. 
Lack of trust on the king's part that the party is acting in good faith--due to reasons established explicitly in the PCs' backstories. 
The political/cultural climate around the king's court is openly hostile to the PCs due to certain, explicit factors that are relevant to the PCs' backstories and stated objective(s). 

Once I've established the obstacles in general terms, I can then start framing in the actual relevant bits (locations, NPCs, potential encounters) based on the PCs' existing experiences and their declared action declarations, while maintaining appropriate consistency with prior events / established fiction. And as the PCs' needs/objectives evolve, you have to be willing to metaphorically "reshuffle the deck" and change the nature of the obstacle to the PCs' goals. And while there's a definite "fail forward" component to this kind of play as well, eventually the "future stakes" become the _actual_ stakes, and the final outcome of success or failure is determined.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Setting the DC, the scene itself - what you put in the room, what you  don't, how you actually describe the scene, etc. can all shape the  fiction itself. That is, regardless of play style, the DM will have some  impact on the fiction just in the process of being a DM. How much  influence they have, or how much the players want the DM to have is a  question of play style.




This, exactly. And it largely goes back to intent --- "Am I as GM trying to actively serve my own intent, or am I serving the intent of the players'/PCs' goals?" Sometimes, you can do both at once. Sometimes, you go with the players' intent. I've just found that very, very rarely does a game feel "fun" to me when the GM solely serves their own intent. And interestingly, in many cases the GM may feel that they're not trying to "push an agenda," but are rather simply trying to "stop the players from becoming too powerful / getting their way"---without realizing that this is, in fact, still an agenda. My current GM seems to suffer from this. It's like he's afraid that if he lets us succeed "too much" in our PCs' intent, it will somehow lessen the experience.


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> It's not unbalanced, in the sense that no one is _forced_ to play a Faithful character.



 That'd, at minimum, mean it's not unfair, I suppose.  The 'balance' issue (which is just one of several with player-as-resolution-system mechanics) would be if you played such a character and the requirement (and/or the GM's evaluation of how you lived up to it) particularly favored or disfavored your.  

You could just avoid playing characters with player-talent requirements you don't neatly fill (in your GM's estimation), but...



> But I don't agree that it precludes playing a character very different from oneself - depending, I guess, on the dimensions of difference.



 Different from yourself in terms of the talent being tested for resolution.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> Means always matter.  Always.
> 
> Now, it could be that the difference in means is slight, and comes down to personal preference, but that doesn't remove their meaning.




Not being one who likes absolutes...

I think means matter only when the participants care about the means. At least when we're talking about a game.

In other words if the players don't object to DM tools or techniques such a illusionism, sleight of hand, fudging, etc., then the means don't matter.

To put it a different way, Lan- "I don't care how my DM does it, as long as he does it" - efan tells his DM: This is the result I want (a fun enjoyable immersive consistent game), and of all of the tools and techniques available to you, I don't have any objections.

In which case the specific tool or technique is irrelevant, as long as the result (a fun enjoyable immersive consistent game) occurs. 

A different example: A player tells me they are going to search the passage for traps. I ask them how. They tell me that they are going to cast _fog cloud_, then a _gust_ cantrip to blow flour over the dampened hallway and see what it sticks to.

"Yes, as the fog clears, you notice a fine trip wire covered in flour about 1/2 from the floor."

Does the fact I didn't make a skill check matter? That is, did the means matter?

It might be fair to say that means always matter to you. Although I suspect if we tested that theory we'd find it's not 100% consistent either. At least that's what I keep finding when I challenge my own positions. 

Having said that, I wonder: what is your opinion is of the "finding the tomb in the mountains" example I just posted (#1573)? 

1) If the goal is to find the tomb in the mountains, if placement is finalized during the game, is that illusionism? 

2) Is it illusionism if the placement is via engagement of the rules (such as random determination)? If different than #1, why?

3) Is it different if we're referring to the player's goal or DM's goal?

4) Is it different if there is no goal to find a/the tomb? That is, if they are just wandering and the DM has a tomb to place and just selects a location in game? If so, why?

I'm not sure I have definitive answers myself just yet...


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> The average PBtA move is made at right around (but ever so slightly better than) 2d6+1, so a a little bit less than 27.78 %.  You get modest vertical growth in power in the course of play, so that will decrease modestly with time.  It also decreases modestly due to horizontal power growth giving players more options to make moves that don't leverage PC weakness.



Ah - wasn't aware of the +1.  Thanks!


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> I've had the best luck with players remaining in character for the highest percentage of time when the percentage of players at the table buy into it. And it's not always because more players "police" the table. A lot of it has to do with the percentage of time the table as a whole remains in that mode.
> 
> Oddly enough, it also seems to be more likely when the players at the table aren't close friends. If the group is coming together primarily to play the game without as many shared outside interests, it tends to stay focused on the game itself.



That's a factor.  And when the players are all otherwise friends (which is the case in my crew), another factor is how often they see each other outside the game.  For my own game I in theory have a rather big advantage in that 4/5 of us usually go to brunch on Sunday morning and do our gabbling there.  Theory, however, remains just theory; we still take forever to get off the ground each Sunday night and it's not the 5th person's fault - he's the quiet one. 



> However, as a "non-actor" type myself, I consider the distinction of "as" and "for" to be irrelevant. "I will talk to the guard to get a sense as to whether he can be bribed - to see if he's got a family, debts, is he greedy, is he more concerned about keeping his job, or making quick coin, etc." to be functionally and fundamentally the same immersion as him striking up a conversation in character, with me responding in character as the guard.
> 
> Yes, there can be subtleties at play if you're good at creating dialogue, but a descriptive approach can also be faster. Particularly if the situation involves multiple NPCs at a given time (which brings its own oddities when there is but a single DM producing dialogue for the NPCs).



Yeah, that's where being a bit of a ham can come in handy. 



> The point, though, is the less they talk about anything other than what their character is saying/doing, the less immersive the experience is.



Er...I think your first "less" in there wants to be "more", otherwise this statement goes against what we're both kind of agreeing on. 

Lan-"still trying to find a way to get experience points for chewing scenery"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> See, this I _totally_ relate to . . . And in my mind, it isn't "illusionism" if the players have already agreed as a group that the tomb is central to their PC's needs/agenda. If they've already made that decision, then I ABSOLUTELY want to ensure that they make it to the tomb, at least so long as that objective remains part of what the PCs are pursuing. If something along the way derails the PCs' needs or desire to actually GO to the tomb, and I then FORCE THEM to go to the tomb anyway . . . that's when the railroading starts.



This is all fine.

However, what if the players-as-characters somehow don't realize* the tomb is central to their needs and goals until and unless they get there?

* - could be from faulty (or complete lack of) information gathering ahead of time - they see the tomb only as a side trek; or from the tomb holding long-lost information that once found will put the party's goals in a new light (e.g. clear evidence in the tomb shows the pharoahs were all demonic so maybe our stated goal of restoring their line isn't such a good idea after all), or whatever....



> The other thing is, in the sense of "scene framing," the real goal is to present relevant _obstacles_ to the players/PCs that they will enjoy _overcoming_.



Relevant obstacles, yes; but I'm not sold on the built-in assumption those obstacles will necessarily be overcome.  Not every story has to have a happy ending.



> This, exactly. And it largely goes back to intent --- "Am I as GM trying to actively serve my own intent, or am I serving the intent of the players'/PCs' goals?" Sometimes, you can do both at once.



This, I suppose, is the ideal state. 







> I've just found that very, very rarely does a game feel "fun" to me when the GM solely serves their own intent. And interestingly, in many cases the GM may feel that they're not trying to "push an agenda," but are rather simply trying to "stop the players from becoming too powerful / getting their way"---without realizing that this is, in fact, still an agenda. My current GM seems to suffer from this. It's like he's afraid that if he lets us succeed "too much" in our PCs' intent, it will somehow lessen the experience.



Maybe your current DM is simply keeping an eye on the long term health and sustainability of the campaign.  Succeeding too much might not lessen the experience but it likely will shorten it. 

Lan-"of course, you can always ply the DM with enough beer that he forgets his agenda, and then proceed as you will"-efan


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> That's a factor.  And when the players are all otherwise friends (which is the case in my crew), another factor is how often they see each other outside the game.  For my own game I in theory have a rather big advantage in that 4/5 of us usually go to brunch on Sunday morning and do our gabbling there.  Theory, however, remains just theory; we still take forever to get off the ground each Sunday night and it's not the 5th person's fault - he's the quiet one.
> 
> Er...I think your first "less" in there wants to be "more", otherwise this statement goes against what we're both kind of agreeing on.
> 
> Lan-"still trying to find a way to get experience points for chewing scenery"-efan




Oops, I changed the sentence in midstream it appears. 

Yes, how often you see each other probably helps. Although, that makes me wonder why I haven't done the same thing at the gaming table that we do with model railroad ops sessions. Have everybody come a half-hour or hour early (maybe for pizza) to get the non-gaming stuff out of the way.

Actually, in my case it was because most of the group was from work, and we didn't get out until 8:00 or 9:00 at night. So we wanted to "hit the ground running." But I think that if we just acknowledge that we don't do that, and officially get the other stuff out of the way, we'd be better off.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ilbranteloth said:


> Not being one who likes absolutes...
> 
> I think means matter only when the participants care about the means. At least when we're talking about a game.
> 
> In other words if the players don't object to DM tools or techniques such a illusionism, sleight of hand, fudging, etc., then the means don't matter.
> 
> To put it a different way, Lan- "I don't care how my DM does it, as long as he does it" - efan tells his DM: This is the result I want (a fun enjoyable immersive consistent game), and of all of the tools and techniques available to you, I don't have any objections.
> 
> In which case the specific tool or technique is irrelevant, as long as the result (a fun enjoyable immersive consistent game) occurs.



Your example is someone vetting the means available as appropriate to achieve their ends.  Not sure how this runs counter to my statement that means matter.



> A different example: A player tells me they are going to search the passage for traps. I ask them how. They tell me that they are going to cast _fog cloud_, then a _gust_ cantrip to blow flour over the dampened hallway and see what it sticks to.
> 
> "Yes, as the fog clears, you notice a fine trip wire covered in flour about 1/2 from the floor."
> 
> Does the fact I didn't make a skill check matter? That is, did the means matter?



Yes.  To me, I'm fine with this, but someone else may want dice to be involved.  That person wouldn't be happy with this outcome.  Therefore, means do matter.

You really don't seem to be asking if the means matter but if the means you selected were appropriate.  That question shows that means matter.



> It might be fair to say that means always matter to you. Although I suspect if we tested that theory we'd find it's not 100% consistent either. At least that's what I keep finding when I challenge my own positions.



It would be 100% true, because 'means matter' is the core upon which I build my moral outlook.  It is one of my foundational truths.  It is my most continuously challenged foundational block..


> Having said that, I wonder: what is your opinion is of the "finding the tomb in the mountains" example I just posted (#1573)?
> 
> 1) If the goal is to find the tomb in the mountains, if placement is finalized during the game, is that illusionism?
> 
> 2) Is it illusionism if the placement is via engagement of the rules (such as random determination)? If different than #1, why?
> 
> 3) Is it different if we're referring to the player's goal or DM's goal?
> 
> 4) Is it different if there is no goal to find a/the tomb? That is, if they are just wandering and the DM has a tomb to place and just selects a location in game? If so, why?
> 
> I'm not sure I have definitive answers myself just yet...



1) Depends.  If the placement ends up not regarding any player choice made in finding it, then yes, it's Illusionism.  If it's placement is affected by player choice, then no, it's not.  Either way may be just fine, I don't hold that Illusionism is, in and of itself, something to be avoided.

2) no, by definition.

3) I don't see this question as relevant.  Illusionism can exist (or not) with either.

4)  No, because Illusionism requires the subversion of a player's desired intent or the mechanics of the game.  This subversion can be to thwart or assure -- either works.


----------



## Tony Vargas

Lanefan said:


> Lan-"still trying to find a way to get experience points for chewing scenery"-efan



 Mimics.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Tony Vargas said:


> Mimics.




Uh, wouldn't that be the scenery chewing you?


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Wait, what?!?!?!



I was responding to your characerisation of a GM's prep/ideas/brainstorming as "not permanent". My point is that, qua _element of the shared fiction_ it is neither permanent nor impermanent, becuase it is not part of the shared fiction at all. (Just as unicorns, not being part of our world, are neither a permanent nor impermanent part of it.)

The distinction isn't meant to be facetious. And it relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s point, made somewhere upthread, that in some approaches to RPGing the GM's status is closer to that of just another player.

Players have ideas for stuff they would like to have in the fiction, from the short term - "I want to cut this orc's head off!" - to the long term - "My guy would like to build a fortress on the plains outside Greyhawk and attract some followers as a result." But those ideas don't, automatically, become part of the shared fiction. They are regulated by rules, mechanics and associated techniques.

For instance, the stuff about castles and followers might be regulated in part by rules about class build (eg AD&D fighters, the Leadership feat in 3E) and in part by rules about gold pieces as a player resource (an AD&D fighter doesn't get a castle for free). Possibly also action resolution rules (maybe the PC needs to recruit an engineer-architect to supervise the building of the castle, which is a type of social encounter).

The stuff about chopping off an orc's head is, in most RPGs, regulated by action resolution rules - in many RPGs by a distinct set of combat mechanics.

So, going back to GMing techniques - a GM who has sketched out a map as a mixture of brainstorming, ideas, and preparation for framing hasn't established anything in the shared fiction either. It has the same status as the player's plans for orc heads and castles. When the right opportunity comes along, the GM - like the player - has a power to make this stuff part of the shared fiction, but - like the player - this is regulated in various ways but - unlike the player  - the regulations are different: they are regulations that constrain framing, narration of consequences of player action declarations for their PCs, etc.

Just as there is no illusion in a player having notes on his/her PC sheet about stuff s/he would like to come true in the fiction - but that may or may not, depending on how the game unfolds - so there is no illusion in a GM having notes about stuff that s/he thinks might come true in the fiction - but that may or may not, depending on how the game unfolds.



hawkeyefan said:


> Okay....that's a distinction, yes. But can you see how these two statements you've provided are similar?



To me they don't seem very similar.

One describes an approach to play in which the GM's notes _establish the content of the shared fiction_, and on that basis are then _used to adjudicate action resolution_ - which upthread I have described as "secret backstory" being an element of framing that is unknown to the players. In this sort of RPGing, an important part of play is for the players to learn what is in the GM's notes. (Eg this is the essence of classic D&D exploration RPGing.)

The other describes a GM brainstorming and making notes about stuff that might or might not become part of the shared fiction depending how actual play unfolds. This sort of play is very different from classic exploration RPGing. The players aren't solving puzzles and "beating the dungeon". In that sense, there is no "winning", because whuile there are unresolved dramatic needs and everyone is enjoying playing the GM is going to keep throwing challenges in front of the PCs (and thereby the players). The focus of play is completely different, although many of the trappings of play (dice, character sheets, framings, action declarations, people writing down stuff that records the established fiction) might be similar.



Ovinomancer said:


> Illusionism is the subversion of player intent with DM intent in a manner that's not obvious to the player (or it's failed Illusionism, natch). I maintain that Story Now games are still susceptible to this occurring.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> a skilled DM can lead the players into caring about things he introduces (maybe as framing, maybe as failure narration).



Do you have any actual play examples of "story now" illusionism in mind? Do you have any thoughts on how you think the GM can disregard the players signals, sent via PC build and/or play, without the players noticing?

I've personally never encountered it, nor encountered anyone actually complaining about it. And that's not a coincidence: it doesn't make any sense in this context. _Illusionism_ involves a type of pretence, and - in cases where the players aren't along for the ride - also a type of deception.

But in "story now" play there is no need for any pretence! Eg consder the example given by Eero Tuovinen in ]the essay I've linked to several times now:

If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character​
There is no illusion here: the GM thinks it would be interesting and challenging for the player, in playing his/her PC, to have to engage with the villain's claim to be the PC's father. And the GM isn't hiding that; by throwing the chalenge out there, the GM is overtly making clear that s/he thinks this will be interesting and challenging.

So if one is looking for "pitfalls" of "story now" RPGing, I think the main one is not that raised by Tuovinen (ie the undermining of dramatic tension that can arise if certain narrational authority (especially over framing) is handed from the GM to the player) - that is generally easy to avoid. As far as I'm aware, from reading and from experience, the main issue facing "story now" RPGing is the failure of the GM to successfully engage the players, by misjudguing what will be experienced as interesting and challenging - which is not about illusionism, but about poor framing and poor failure narration.

For instance, in the OP game, the first session begins with a PC who has, as one Belief, that he will acquire thiings from which he can enchant items necessary to free his brother from the possession of a balrog. And the same PC has Apocalypse-wise skill. So I open by describing the PC in the bazaar of Hardby, where a peddler has an angel feather for sale.

Many sessions later, in framing a scene in Hardby in which that PC is present, I describe a wild preacher, warning the assembled crowd of the threat of the pending apocalypse, and the collusion of the nobility of Hardby in its coming.

And then, when the same PC is trying to meet with a cleric to have his mummy rot cured, through a series of framing narrations I established that his brother - possessed by a balrog - was the son of Bernard the Holy, once a young priest at the court where both brothers were born but now an abbot in Furyondy and known as the most holy man in the lands.

There is no illusion about the fact that I think these things - angels; evangelists; holy men with unacknowledged sons who are possessed by balrogs - are interesting. In introducing them into the fiction I am responding to player-generated signals: a desire for enchantable curios; skill in Apocalpyse-wise; the hope to meet a cleric; the hope to free one's brother from possession. For the reasons given by Eero Tuovinen, I am not _asking_ the player whether or not I should make these part of the fiction - those framing/narration decisions are mine to make, as GM, not the player's. And obviuosly in making these decisions I am hoping that the player will find these interesting ways of building on and riffing on those expressed concerns.

I don't need to hide that hope of mine, or pretend I'm doing something I'm not. There's no illusion.

This, again, relates back to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s remarks about the GM being "just another player" and also about the nature of engagement with the fiction. Different approaches to RPGing pose different risks and impose different demands.

If we play a session of Moldvay Basic, and it is boring or frustrating because the PCs fail to find any of the treasures, all the secret door dice come up unsuccessful, and all that happens is a few encounters with wandering giant rates - well, that's like going out fishing and having no luck. Sometimes that happens, but it's no one's _fault_. It's a risk inherent in dungeon exploration that the players will not do very well.

If we play a session of classic Dragonlance, and it is boring, the group can blame the module writer - "What a badly written module!"

If we play a session of Burning Wheel, and it's boring because or frustrating because the situations fall flat, and don't speak to the PCs' dramatic needs, and so nothing of dramatic signficance happens - well, that means either that _the players didn't clearly establish dramatic needs for their PCs_ or that _the GM responded poorly to those hooks_. In my game, given that I do have clear dramatic needs signalled by the players, a flat session would be my fault, for the second of those two possible reasons.

The idea of "illusionism" just doesn't have any purchase in this last case. The risks, the demands, the pitfalls, are different.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> Your example is someone vetting the means available as appropriate to achieve their ends.  Not sure how this runs counter to my statement that means matter.
> 
> 
> Yes.  To me, I'm fine with this, but someone else may want dice to be involved.  That person wouldn't be happy with this outcome.  Therefore, means do matter.
> 
> You really don't seem to be asking if the means matter but if the means you selected were appropriate.  That question shows that means matter.
> 
> 
> It would be 100% true, because 'means matter' is the core upon which I build my moral outlook.  It is one of my foundational truths.  It is my most continuously challenged foundational block..
> 
> 1) Depends.  If the placement ends up not regarding any player choice made in finding it, then yes, it's Illusionism.  If it's placement is affected by player choice, then no, it's not.  Either way may be just fine, I don't hold that Illusionism is, in and of itself, something to be avoided.
> 
> 2) no, by definition.
> 
> 3) I don't see this question as relevant.  Illusionism can exist (or not) with either.
> 
> 4)  No, because Illusionism requires the subversion of a player's desired intent or the mechanics of the game.  This subversion can be to thwart or assure -- either works.




Weren't you the one that didn't like Fisking? 

Although I'm also not just being clever (OK, mostly), because isn't Fisking a means to an end? In which case it always matters. That doesn't mean it always has to be consistent, though. I opted not to Fisk in my either of my responses to you since you indicated you object to its use.

And no, I _was_ asking if the means matter. Because my point is, in those situations the means only matter if somebody objects to them. Otherwise which ever means you use is irrelevant, or in other words, doesn't matter. In which case they don't _always_ matter. Such as Fisking.

Regardless, I think that's an excellent foundation for your moral outlook and don't mean any disrespect. I just think that in a game, the means matter differently depending on the rules. For example, lying or deception is something that I think the majority of us would agree is not a good means to an end (although we might debate white lies, and certain situations), but few if any would say that bluffing in poker, or deception in other games that rely on it as wrong.

I'm also a bit confused between this comment: "I don't hold that Illusionism is, in and of itself, something to be avoided."

And your statement in post #1555: "All forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity, no matter what system you play." They seem contradictory to me, although it might just be me. My assumption, of course, is that it's always desirable to play with integrity.

Also, regarding point #4.
So if I build a city, and provide two roads, one to the west and one to the east, and place the city on whichever road the players take - is it not Illusionism if the players desired intent is not subverted? If they have no idea what might lie either way, and don't have any particular goal in mind when taking the road they select, is it still Illusionism? Assuming, of course, that the mechanics of the game allow the DM to place the city where he sees fit. In other words, D&D doesn't restrict the DM's ability to place things to during the session only.

I guess part of what I'm getting at is whether the context determines whether it is actually illusionism or not, or does it just determine whether a player might object to the illusionism or not?


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I was responding to your characerisation of a GM's prep/ideas/brainstorming as "not permanent". My point is that, qua _element of the shared fiction_ it is neither permanent nor impermanent, becuase it is not part of the shared fiction at all. (Just as unicorns, not being part of our world, are neither a permanent nor impermanent part of it.)
> 
> The distinction isn't meant to be facetious. And it relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s point, made somewhere upthread, that in some approaches to RPGing the GM's status is closer to that of just another player.
> 
> Players have ideas for stuff they would like to have in the fiction, from the short term - "I want to cut this orc's head off!" - to the long term - "My guy would like to build a fortress on the plains outside Greyhawk and attract some followers as a result." But those ideas don't, automatically, become part of the shared fiction. They are regulated by rules, mechanics and associated techniques.
> 
> For instance, the stuff about castles and followers might be regulated in part by rules about class build (eg AD&D fighters, the Leadership feat in 3E) and in part by rules about gold pieces as a player resource (an AD&D fighter doesn't get a castle for free). Possibly also action resolution rules (maybe the PC needs to recruit an engineer-architect to supervise the building of the castle, which is a type of social encounter).
> 
> The stuff about chopping off an orc's head is, in most RPGs, regulated by action resolution rules - in many RPGs by a distinct set of combat mechanics.
> 
> So, going back to GMing techniques - a GM who has sketched out a map as a mixture of brainstorming, ideas, and preparation for framing hasn't established anything in the shared fiction either. It has the same status as the player's plans for orc heads and castles. When the right opportunity comes along, the GM - like the player - has a power to make this stuff part of the shared fiction, but - like the player - this is regulated in various ways but - unlike the player  - the regulations are different: they are regulations that constrain framing, narration of consequences of player action declarations for their PCs, etc.
> 
> Just as there is no illusion in a player having notes on his/her PC sheet about stuff s/he would like to come true in the fiction - but that may or may not, depending on how the game unfolds - so there is no illusion in a GM having notes about stuff that s/he thinks might come true in the fiction - but that may or may not, depending on how the game unfolds.
> 
> To me they don't seem very similar.
> 
> One describes an approach to play in which the GM's notes _establish the content of the shared fiction_, and on that basis are then _used to adjudicate action resolution_ - which upthread I have described as "secret backstory" being an element of framing that is unknown to the players. In this sort of RPGing, an important part of play is for the players to learn what is in the GM's notes. (Eg this is the essence of classic D&D exploration RPGing.)
> 
> The other describes a GM brainstorming and making notes about stuff that might or might not become part of the shared fiction depending how actual play unfolds. This sort of play is very different from classic exploration RPGing. The players aren't solving puzzles and "beating the dungeon". In that sense, there is no "winning", because whuile there are unresolved dramatic needs and everyone is enjoying playing the GM is going to keep throwing challenges in front of the PCs (and thereby the players). The focus of play is completely different, although many of the trappings of play (dice, character sheets, framings, action declarations, people writing down stuff that records the established fiction) might be similar.
> 
> Do you have any actual play examples of "story now" illusionism in mind? Do you have any thoughts on how you think the GM can disregard the players signals, sent via PC build and/or play, without the players noticing?
> 
> I've personally never encountered it, nor encountered anyone actually complaining about it. And that's not a coincidence: it doesn't make any sense in this context. _Illusionism_ involves a type of pretence, and - in cases where the players aren't along for the ride - also a type of deception.
> 
> But in "story now" play there is no need for any pretence! Eg consder the example given by Eero Tuovinen in ]the essay I've linked to several times now:
> 
> If the player character is engaged in a deadly duel with the evil villain of the story, you do not ask the player to determine whether it would be “cool” if the villain were revealed to be the player character’s father. The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character​
> There is no illusion here: the GM thinks it would be interesting and challenging for the player, in playing his/her PC, to have to engage with the villain's claim to be the PC's father. And the GM isn't hiding that; by throwing the chalenge out there, the GM is overtly making clear that s/he thinks this will be interesting and challenging.
> 
> So if one is looking for "pitfalls" of "story now" RPGing, I think the main one is not that raised by Tuovinen (ie the undermining of dramatic tension that can arise if certain narrational authority (especially over framing) is handed from the GM to the player) - that is generally easy to avoid. As far as I'm aware, from reading and from experience, the main issue facing "story now" RPGing is the failure of the GM to successfully engage the players, by misjudguing what will be experienced as interesting and challenging - which is not about illusionism, but about poor framing and poor failure narration.
> 
> For instance, in the OP game, the first session begins with a PC who has, as one Belief, that he will acquire thiings from which he can enchant items necessary to free his brother from the possession of a balrog. And the same PC has Apocalypse-wise skill. So I open by describing the PC in the bazaar of Hardby, where a peddler has an angel feather for sale.
> 
> Many sessions later, in framing a scene in Hardby in which that PC is present, I describe a wild preacher, warning the assembled crowd of the threat of the pending apocalypse, and the collusion of the nobility of Hardby in its coming.
> 
> And then, when the same PC is trying to meet with a cleric to have his mummy rot cured, through a series of framing narrations I established that his brother - possessed by a balrog - was the son of Bernard the Holy, once a young priest at the court where both brothers were born but now an abbot in Furyondy and known as the most holy man in the lands.
> 
> There is no illusion about the fact that I think these things - angels; evangelists; holy men with unacknowledged sons who are possessed by balrogs - are interesting. In introducing them into the fiction I am responding to player-generated signals: a desire for enchantable curios; skill in Apocalpyse-wise; the hope to meet a cleric; the hope to free one's brother from possession. For the reasons given by Eero Tuovinen, I am not _asking_ the player whether or not I should make these part of the fiction - those framing/narration decisions are mine to make, as GM, not the player's. And obviuosly in making these decisions I am hoping that the player will find these interesting ways of building on and riffing on those expressed concerns.
> 
> I don't need to hide that hope of mine, or pretend I'm doing something I'm not. There's no illusion.
> 
> This, again, relates back to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s remarks about the GM being "just another player" and also about the nature of engagement with the fiction. Different approaches to RPGing pose different risks and impose different demands.
> 
> If we play a session of Moldvay Basic, and it is boring or frustrating because the PCs fail to find any of the treasures, all the secret door dice come up unsuccessful, and all that happens is a few encounters with wandering giant rates - well, that's like going out fishing and having no luck. Sometimes that happens, but it's no one's _fault_. It's a risk inherent in dungeon exploration that the players will not do very well.
> 
> If we play a session of classic Dragonlance, and it is boring, the group can blame the module writer - "What a badly written module!"
> 
> If we play a session of Burning Wheel, and it's boring because or frustrating because the situations fall flat, and don't speak to the PCs' dramatic needs, and so nothing of dramatic signficance happens - well, that means either that _the players didn't clearly establish dramatic needs for their PCs_ or that _the GM responded poorly to those hooks_. In my game, given that I do have clear dramatic needs signalled by the players, a flat session would be my fault, for the second of those two possible reasons.
> 
> The idea of "illusionism" just doesn't have any purchase in this last case. The risks, the demands, the pitfalls, are different.




Isn't the classic case of Illusionism the GM providing two choices that lead to the same event or encounter? Are you saying that there is no point where the DM could provide two choices while having a result in mind and that's the only result presented? How would you know whether the GM actually had two results in mind? If the result is speaking to the character's motivations I don't think there would be any way you could tell that he didn't actually have a second result available.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I was responding to your characerisation of a GM's prep/ideas/brainstorming as "not permanent". My point is that, qua _element of the shared fiction_ it is neither permanent nor impermanent, becuase it is not part of the shared fiction at all. (Just as unicorns, not being part of our world, are neither a permanent nor impermanent part of it.)




Yeah....I was making a joke that you broke my heart by telling me unicorns weren't real.

As for the rest of it, we're not going to agree, so I'll stop trying to make my point.


----------



## pemerton

Tony Vargas said:


> The 'balance' issue (which is just one of several with player-as-resolution-system mechanics) would be if you played such a character and the requirement (and/or the GM's evaluation of how you lived up to it) particularly favored or disfavored your.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Different from yourself in terms of the talent being tested for resolution.



You seem to be running together the system described for BW with a system in which the resolution mechanic itself is the players' performance.

The only requirement is that the player speak (the argument, the prayer, the bon mot, the bit of folklore). The resolution itself is by way of "say 'yes' or roll the dice".

So as a player I either meet the threshold for action declaration or not. If I do, then the dice determine whether or not my declared task realises my declared intent.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Isn't the classic case of Illusionism the GM providing two choices that lead to the same event or encounter?



I dunno. Where is this classic case coming from? I don't think it's what The Forge had foremost in mind when coining the term.

Sometimes "choices" and narration are just colour. It's clear that nothing turns on them.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> If we play a session of Moldvay Basic, and it is boring or frustrating because the PCs fail to find any of the treasures, all the secret door dice come up unsuccessful, and all that happens is a few encounters with wandering giant rates - well, that's like going out fishing and having no luck.



"Wandering giant rates"...you must have peeked at my utility bills when I wasn't looking. 


> Sometimes that happens, but it's no one's _fault_. It's a risk inherent in dungeon exploration that the players will not do very well.



Which is quite realistic; and fine with me.

Lanefan


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Means always matter.  Always.



My high school math teachers kept telling me this as well; and I never bought it then either.  

Whatever problem they'd set or question they'd put on a test, I could often find a way in my brain to somehow work it out and come up with the correct answer (the end), which I'd dutifully write down.

Then I'd lose marks for not showing my work (the means).

Most of the time I couldn't "show my work" if I tried; I'd no idea what steps I'd gone through in my head to get the answer, I only knew I had it and that it was correct.  And that's the only thing that matters as far as I'm concerned; that the end answer is right regardless how it was arrived at, assuming good faith (i.e. no cheating).  Better that than line after line of shown work to arrive at a wrong answer.

Lan-"while producing these, my friend - the means justify the end"-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ilbranteloth said:


> Weren't you the one that didn't like Fisking?
> 
> Although I'm also not just being clever (OK, mostly), because isn't Fisking a means to an end? In which case it always matters. That doesn't mean it always has to be consistent, though. I opted not to Fisk in my either of my responses to you since you indicated you object to its use.
> 
> And no, I _was_ asking if the means matter. Because my point is, in those situations the means only matter if somebody objects to them. Otherwise which ever means you use is irrelevant, or in other words, doesn't matter. In which case they don't _always_ matter. Such as Fisking.



I'm glad you've learned a new term, but if you go back, you'll see that fisking is the _line by line_ dissection of a post.  Putting in breaks at the concrete thoughts/questions isn't fisking.  And you asked some very discrete, if related, questions there.  As you have here.  Clearly, if you go back through the thread, I haven't complained about breaks between points, nor have I been shy about using that technique myself.  It's when it goes to the line by line breaking up of a post into pieces smaller than an coherent argument that I begin to have issues.

And I was making the point that if you've looked to the means, and don't have a problem with them, then you've vetted and approved those means.  Having multiple means that you approve of doesn't mean they don't matter, especially since you not caring doesn't mean the next person doesn't care.

The result of this is that the ends do not justify the means.  Means matter.



> Regardless, I think that's an excellent foundation for your moral outlook and don't mean any disrespect. I just think that in a game, the means matter differently depending on the rules. For example, lying or deception is something that I think the majority of us would agree is not a good means to an end (although we might debate white lies, and certain situations), but few if any would say that bluffing in poker, or deception in other games that rely on it as wrong.
> 
> I'm also a bit confused between this comment: "I don't hold that Illusionism is, in and of itself, something to be avoided."
> 
> And your statement in post #1555: "All forms of Illusionism are not playing with integrity, no matter what system you play." They seem contradictory to me, although it might just be me. My assumption, of course, is that it's always desirable to play with integrity.




"The means matter" does not mean that you cannot ever consider the ends and do a cost/benefit analysis.  If you have to kill yourself to prep to avoid Illusionism, that's not a better outcome for the game -- there may rapidly be no game.  "The means matter" means that how you do it still matters, even if you make that choice.  If you choose Illusionism, you own that choice; it will reflect in the integrity of the game and may anger your players if they discover it.  "A better game" is not a reason to do anything to achieve it.  Heck, you could say that your game would be better with more minis, but you can't afford them, so you rob a liquor store to buy some more minis.  If means don't matter, this is okay.  Since that's clearly counter-factual, what we're actually discussing here is personal evaluations of the cost/benefit equations for gaming.  And, as such, I do not hold that Illusionism (which is not playing with integrity) is always an evil.  And, yes, that also would mean that not playing with integrity isn't always an evil.  If playing with integrity ends up being something that you do not enjoy or actively causes you mental or emotional anguish, I'm fine with you not.  This is something we do for fun, not a morality exercise.



> Also, regarding point #4.
> So if I build a city, and provide two roads, one to the west and one to the east, and place the city on whichever road the players take - is it not Illusionism if the players desired intent is not subverted? If they have no idea what might lie either way, and don't have any particular goal in mind when taking the road they select, is it still Illusionism? Assuming, of course, that the mechanics of the game allow the DM to place the city where he sees fit. In other words, D&D doesn't restrict the DM's ability to place things to during the session only.
> 
> I guess part of what I'm getting at is whether the context determines whether it is actually illusionism or not, or does it just determine whether a player might object to the illusionism or not?



Yes, it is, because you've offered a meaningless choice.  The players make a choice (East or West) and believe it to be meaningful.  It is not -- the same destination is at the end of both choices.  You've subverted the player's intent to make a meaningful choice.  That the destination they find is one they wanted to find is outside the bounds of the East/West choice mattering.

Now, if you gave them a choice of East or West, but they knew that both curve to the North to the City, but one path is through the Very Dangerous (We Mean It!) Swamps of Very Danger and the other is through the Darkgrim Forest of Grim Darkness, and the dangers of the journey vary based on path, then it's not Illusionism.  This is because the choice offered to the players of which road to take has a meaningful outcome, even if the final destination is the same.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> My high school math teachers kept telling me this as well; and I never bought it then either.
> 
> Whatever problem they'd set or question they'd put on a test, I could often find a way in my brain to somehow work it out and come up with the correct answer (the end), which I'd dutifully write down.
> 
> Then I'd lose marks for not showing my work (the means).
> 
> Most of the time I couldn't "show my work" if I tried; I'd no idea what steps I'd gone through in my head to get the answer, I only knew I had it and that it was correct.  And that's the only thing that matters as far as I'm concerned; that the end answer is right regardless how it was arrived at, assuming good faith (i.e. no cheating).  Better that than line after line of shown work to arrive at a wrong answer.
> 
> Lan-"while producing these, my friend - the means justify the end"-efan




You didn't use the correct means, and lost points.  How is this showing that means don't matter, again?  I feel like I missed something.

And recall, you're talking to an engineer.  _Lives _depend on the math work I do.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> You didn't use the correct means, and lost points.  How is this showing that means don't matter, again?  I feel like I missed something.
> 
> And recall, you're talking to an engineer.  _Lives _depend on the math work I do.




So that would mean that the results matter.  If you got to the result by addition instead of multiplication, why would it matter? Unless we have a different definition of "matters."


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ilbranteloth said:


> So that would mean that the results matter.  If you got to the result by addition instead of multiplication, why would it matter? Unless we have a different definition of "matters."



The right result by accident is still an accident.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm glad you've learned a new term, but if you go back, you'll see that fisking is the _line by line_ dissection of a post.  Putting in breaks at the concrete thoughts/questions isn't fisking.  And you asked some very discrete, if related, questions there.  As you have here.  Clearly, if you go back through the thread, I haven't complained about breaks between points, nor have I been shy about using that technique myself.  It's when it goes to the line by line breaking up of a post into pieces smaller than an coherent argument that I begin to have issues.




Ok. The definitions I see are "point-by-point" not "line-by-line." But it's not really worth debating that here anyway. My fault.



Ovinomancer said:


> And I was making the point that if you've looked to the means, and don't have a problem with them, then you've vetted and approved those means.  Having multiple means that you approve of doesn't mean they don't matter, especially since you not caring doesn't mean the next person doesn't care.




Sure it does. If your group has determined that 10 different means are acceptable. Then which one of those 10 you use doesn't matter.



Ovinomancer said:


> The result of this is that the ends do not justify the means.  Means matter.
> 
> "The means matter" does not mean that you cannot ever consider the ends and do a cost/benefit analysis.  If you have to kill yourself to prep to avoid Illusionism, that's not a better outcome for the game -- there may rapidly be no game.  "The means matter" means that how you do it still matters, even if you make that choice.  If you choose Illusionism, you own that choice; it will reflect in the integrity of the game and may anger your players if they discover it.  "A better game" is not a reason to do anything to achieve it.  Heck, you could say that your game would be better with more minis, but you can't afford them, so you rob a liquor store to buy some more minis.  If means don't matter, this is okay.  Since that's clearly counter-factual, what we're actually discussing here is personal evaluations of the cost/benefit equations for gaming.  And, as such, I do not hold that Illusionism (which is not playing with integrity) is always an evil.  And, yes, that also would mean that not playing with integrity isn't always an evil.  If playing with integrity ends up being something that you do not enjoy or actively causes you mental or emotional anguish, I'm fine with you not.  This is something we do for fun, not a morality exercise.




Actually, one of the reasons I love D&D is that it can provide a safe place to explore complex psychological and morality questions with a group of friends. Nor did I say you could "do anything" do achieve it. 



Ovinomancer said:


> Yes, it is, because you've offered a meaningless choice.  The players make a choice (East or West) and believe it to be meaningful.  It is not -- the same destination is at the end of both choices.  You've subverted the player's intent to make a meaningful choice.  That the destination they find is one they wanted to find is outside the bounds of the East/West choice mattering.
> 
> Now, if you gave them a choice of East or West, but they knew that both curve to the North to the City, but one path is through the Very Dangerous (We Mean It!) Swamps of Very Danger and the other is through the Darkgrim Forest of Grim Darkness, and the dangers of the journey vary based on path, then it's not Illusionism.  This is because the choice offered to the players of which road to take has a meaningful outcome, even if the final destination is the same.




So, considering this and other answers, I think I've come to a potential definition of Illusionism.

Illusionism is the illusion of a choice.

The classic example is along these lines: The DM has prepared an encounter. We'll say it's an ogre.
The characters have a choice - could be a fork in the road, but we'll say the forest or the swamp.
Regardless of the choice made, the players encounter the ogre.

Scenario #1
1) The players are given a choice.
2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM doesn't place the prepared encounter until after the choice is made.

What about a random result? It's the same fundamental thing:
Scenario #2
1) The players are given a choice.
2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM determines the results randomly after the choice is made.

What about when the result isn't prepared ahead of time?
Scenario #3
1) The players are given a choice.
2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM determines the results on the fly after the choice is made.

So what's different about them?
Well, in scenario #1 there is no choice. There's only one result. 

In scenario #2 there also is no choice. There are multiple possible encounters, but still only one actual result (roll on the random table).

In scenario #3 there is also no choice. The _result_ can be be authored to relate to the choice. But there is still no choice.

It's really just the method of producing the result that differs. Otherwise they are identical, at the point of making the choice, there is no choice.

Now a term that has come up a number of times is "meaningful choice." For the choice to be meaningful, they need to have information ahead of time, and the information has to relate to the results. That is, it helps them make a choice. 

In scenario #1, the DM could provide clues as to what lies ahead, and they could be different for the forest and swamp, and yet still relate to the prepared encounter. In addition, the characters could later go down the other path, and the DM could provide a solution then that still relates to the information given. In which case there are now two meaningful choices.

In scenario #2, there could be two tables of random results, and the information provided could differentiate between the two. So a meaningful choice could be made - table #1 or table #2. But this is no longer scenario #2, because now there is actually a choice (table #1 or table #2)

In scenario #3, the DM can base the results off of the information provided to the players. Then when the choice is made, the result authored will be meaningful. But it's still the same state of scenario #1 - there is no other result until the DM authors one.

Other than scenario #2, there is still no meaningful choice. The _results_ may be meaningful, but that's different than a meaningful _choice_.

It seems to me that the idea of Illusionism lacking a _meaningful_ choice is a bit of a red herring. It sounds like it should matter in the definition of Illusionism, but it doesn't actually change the underlying mechanism. Either there is a choice or there isn't. And Illusionism being the illusion that there is a choice.

For example, you have two actual choices. Down road #1 is an ogre, and down road #2 is a dragon. Whether you have any information to help you make that decision, or the information you have is false because somebody is trying to get you killed and wants you to meet the dragon, it's not Illusionism. Because you have an actual choice.

Note that there are situations where there is no viable choice. But that's not illusionism. You captured by a tribe of orcs, and you have the choice of being sacrificed to their volcano god (thrown in the volcano) or dragon god (being fed to a dragon). There isn't a _good_ choice, but it's not Illusionism. There _is_ a choice, and it's clear that there is a choice. You just don't like either of the results.

Scenario #3 makes it easy to make it seem like the choice was meaningful. In fact, the GM is usually instructed, or even bound by rules, to ensure that the result directly relates to the information available and the choice that was made. But it's essentially a more sophisticated application of Illusionism. The illusion being that there is actually a choice. Because the DM could provide a result that doesn't relate to the information or the choice. The DM is in full control of the result because the result hasn't been fixed before the choice has been made. The rules may instruct the DM to provide a solution that relates to the information and/or the choice. But that's different than an actual choice. It's really just instructing the DM to ensure that the result makes it appear that they made a meaningful choice.

The only way to avoid Illusionism is to ensure that any choices provided have at least two actual results. Which means the results need to be pre-determined, even if it's only moments before the choice during the course of play that the DM comes up with the potential results. 

To go back to the original post, what about railroading? Is Illusionism railroading? 

Well, in all three cases the DM is still in control of where the action goes. That is, they have control of the story when providing the results. With both scenario #1 and #2, the DM can prepare results that are acceptable to them and the adventure at hand. Thus they can be used to keep the adventure "on track." But they can do the same thing in scenario #3, in that the only results they provide on the fly also keep the adventure on track. 

The advantage of Illusionism, when used with skill, is that it's more subtle, potentially undetectable, compared to a more overt approach, such as, "no, you can't go there."  A "you can't go there" approach can be dungeon walls, a cave-in, an enemy force too great to defeat, or any number of other options that place a boundary on where the adventure can go.

On the other hand, it's easy to avoid, there just needs to be an actual choice - at least two different results - before the choice is made.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> The right result by accident is still an accident.




And? I'm not sure I'm following what you're trying to say here. 

If you get the correct results, how you get there doesn't matter. In your example regarding robbing a liquor store, the means still don't inherently matter. They only matter because we've decided that certain means (robbing a liquor store) are unacceptable.

The means only matter because we've decided they matter. On the other hand, if we decide the means don't matter, then the means don't matter. There are certain means that we, as a society, have decided matter. 

Regardless, I think we can agree that we're going to disagree here, and should probably leave it at that.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> My high school math teachers kept telling me this as well; and I never bought it then either.
> 
> Whatever problem they'd set or question they'd put on a test, I could often find a way in my brain to somehow work it out and come up with the correct answer (the end), which I'd dutifully write down.
> 
> Then I'd lose marks for not showing my work (the means).
> 
> Most of the time I couldn't "show my work" if I tried; I'd no idea what steps I'd gone through in my head to get the answer, I only knew I had it and that it was correct.  And that's the only thing that matters as far as I'm concerned; that the end answer is right regardless how it was arrived at, assuming good faith (i.e. no cheating).  Better that than line after line of shown work to arrive at a wrong answer.
> 
> Lan-"while producing these, my friend - the means justify the end"-efan




Because you didn't follow the directions.

The test wasn't to determine if you could get the right answer. The test was to see if you learned the means. Getting the correct result with the means is just confirmation that you learned the means.

If you showed your work line by line but arrived at the wrong answer, then you obviously didn't learn the means.

If you didn't show the means, they can't confirm that you learned it.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I dunno. Where is this classic case coming from? I don't think it's what The Forge had foremost in mind when coining the term.
> 
> Sometimes "choices" and narration are just colour. It's clear that nothing turns on them.




Well, that's the only way I've seen the term Illusionism defined on various blogs and forums. 

Now that I go look at the Forge definition:

"_Illusionism
A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features. See Illusionism: a new look and a new approach and Illusionism and GNS. Term coined by Paul Elliott._"

Here's a definition that was posted in a different forum thread on the Forge:
_"Quote from: wfreitag

I offer the following definition:Illusionism: Any practice used by a gamemaster during play, without the consent of the players, that constrains the players' ability to control the player-characters' major decisions."_

That's a pretty broad definition.

Of course, in the thread this is then torn apart, and the final post ends with:

_"One key point: no matter what, the term from now on must go back to Paul Elliot's original description - retroactive story-fitting, by the GM, based on non-story-creating actions by the players. 

That puts us in a Terminology discussion. Either Paul Elliot's description is the only meaning of Illusionism, and I must rename the front-loaded-story method; or the term Illusionism may apply to either of the two methods, and they become sub-sets. I have plenty to say about this, but I also think the authority regarding this issue is Paul Elliott."_

Huh? Retroactive story-fitting, by the GM, based on non-story-creating actions by the players? How does that relate to the term "Illusionism?" It doesn't seem to relate to the Forge Glossary definition at all. 

It certainly doesn't relate to any other blog post or forum thread I've seen. 

So my other post on Illusionism doesn't directly apply, perhaps. Do I create a new term? This is one of the inherent problems I see occur repeatedly on forums and such - there are trendy terms that are created and debated, but then they are spread across the internet and used in wildly different ways. Or in this case, the example becomes the definition to somebody, since it is repeated in multiple places, and folks like me take those forum posts, etc. at face value.

Of course, now I've also perpetuated the problem. Although I don't recall the other references I've seen mention The Forge as the original source, so even if I stumbled across it, I wouldn't know that's the original source. 

Plus, when I look at the Forge Glossary (quoted above) I ask, "what techniques?" If it's a family of techniques, what are they? Pointing to forum threads where the participants don't agree (and send the discussion into multiple separate threads) doesn't define it.

Another inherent problem is that just because somebody initially defined it, doesn't mean it was a definition that withstood critical deconstruction. Clearly they didn't have a universal agreement at the Forge on the definition, although I don't know their process from forum debate to final definition. 

Of course, as we know, the initial intent is often irrelevant in the face of the use of others. Regardless of what the intended definition was, it can be irrelevant if the common usage is different.

So what _are_ we talking about when we're discussing Illusionism? What do you mean specifically? Even if you point me to the Forge definition, which one?

The bigger question is do the rest of the people in the thread agree that's what we're talking about?

My definition is one that focuses is choice. There is an illusion that there is a choice, when there isn't. The Forge definition seems to be a bit broader, but related. That there is an illusion that their actions and choices matter, but they don't. It's not necessarily related to an individual choice, but the session, adventure, or campaign as a whole.

So my definition may be one of the techniques, but not the whole. What are other techniques that apply?


----------



## Tony Vargas

pemerton said:


> You seem to be running together the system described for BW with a system in which the resolution mechanic itself is the players' performance.



 I've 0 familiarity with BW, so was off on a pet peeve player-as-resolution-system tangent.



> The only requirement is that the player speak (the argument, the prayer, the bon mot, the bit of folklore). The resolution itself is by way of "say 'yes' or roll the dice".
> 
> So as a player I either meet the threshold for action declaration or not. If I do, then the dice determine whether or not my declared task realises my declared intent.



 Fair enough, it sounds like any other 'encourage RP' mechanic, but still sounds like it could limit concept choices...


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> You didn't use the correct means, and lost points.  How is this showing that means don't matter, again?



Because the point of the exercise is the end, not the means.



> And recall, you're talking to an engineer.  _Lives _depend on the math work I do.



As lives depend on the work you do, isn't that a very strong motivation to *just get it right* no matter what it takes to do so?  Here in particular it would seem the ends being correct are paramount and the choice of means to get them there is almost irrelevant.

(side note: can't 'recall' something I didn't know in the first place - cool!  )

In a much less serious vein, the same applies to how we run our games.  The end result is what matters, not the means by which it is achieved; and if to get the desired end result (an enjoyable game people will want to play again next week) means I have to sometimes dive into my well-stocked bag of DM tricks and pull out a rabbit or two then I'm going to reach in and start grabbing ears.

I'm not perfect.  I don't always reach for the bag at the right time, or pull out the right rabbit when I do.  Sometimes the rabbit even bites me, in that my meddling only makes things worse.  But, hey...them's the breaks - and maybe I'll know better next time. 

Lan-"sir, there's a vorpal bunny in your top hat"-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ilbranteloth said:


> Ok. The definitions I see are "point-by-point" not "line-by-line." But it's not really worth debating that here anyway. My fault.
> 
> 
> 
> Sure it does. If your group has determined that 10 different means are acceptable. Then which one of those 10 you use doesn't matter.
> 
> 
> 
> Actually, one of the reasons I love D&D is that it can provide a safe place to explore complex psychological and morality questions with a group of friends. Nor did I say you could "do anything" do achieve it.
> 
> 
> 
> So, considering this and other answers, I think I've come to a potential definition of Illusionism.
> 
> Illusionism is the illusion of a choice.
> 
> The classic example is along these lines: The DM has prepared an encounter. We'll say it's an ogre.
> The characters have a choice - could be a fork in the road, but we'll say the forest or the swamp.
> Regardless of the choice made, the players encounter the ogre.
> 
> Scenario #1
> 1) The players are given a choice.
> 2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM doesn't place the prepared encounter until after the choice is made.
> 
> What about a random result? It's the same fundamental thing:
> Scenario #2
> 1) The players are given a choice.
> 2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM determines the results randomly after the choice is made.
> 
> What about when the result isn't prepared ahead of time?
> Scenario #3
> 1) The players are given a choice.
> 2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM determines the results on the fly after the choice is made.
> 
> So what's different about them?
> Well, in scenario #1 there is no choice. There's only one result.
> 
> In scenario #2 there also is no choice. There are multiple possible encounters, but still only one actual result (roll on the random table).
> 
> In scenario #3 there is also no choice. The _result_ can be be authored to relate to the choice. But there is still no choice.
> 
> It's really just the method of producing the result that differs. Otherwise they are identical, at the point of making the choice, there is no choice.
> 
> Now a term that has come up a number of times is "meaningful choice." For the choice to be meaningful, they need to have information ahead of time, and the information has to relate to the results. That is, it helps them make a choice.
> 
> In scenario #1, the DM could provide clues as to what lies ahead, and they could be different for the forest and swamp, and yet still relate to the prepared encounter. In addition, the characters could later go down the other path, and the DM could provide a solution then that still relates to the information given. In which case there are now two meaningful choices.
> 
> In scenario #2, there could be two tables of random results, and the information provided could differentiate between the two. So a meaningful choice could be made - table #1 or table #2. But this is no longer scenario #2, because now there is actually a choice (table #1 or table #2)
> 
> In scenario #3, the DM can base the results off of the information provided to the players. Then when the choice is made, the result authored will be meaningful. But it's still the same state of scenario #1 - there is no other result until the DM authors one.
> 
> Other than scenario #2, there is still no meaningful choice. The _results_ may be meaningful, but that's different than a meaningful _choice_.
> 
> It seems to me that the idea of Illusionism lacking a _meaningful_ choice is a bit of a red herring. It sounds like it should matter in the definition of Illusionism, but it doesn't actually change the underlying mechanism. Either there is a choice or there isn't. And Illusionism being the illusion that there is a choice.
> 
> For example, you have two actual choices. Down road #1 is an ogre, and down road #2 is a dragon. Whether you have any information to help you make that decision, or the information you have is false because somebody is trying to get you killed and wants you to meet the dragon, it's not Illusionism. Because you have an actual choice.
> 
> Note that there are situations where there is no viable choice. But that's not illusionism. You captured by a tribe of orcs, and you have the choice of being sacrificed to their volcano god (thrown in the volcano) or dragon god (being fed to a dragon). There isn't a _good_ choice, but it's not Illusionism. There _is_ a choice, and it's clear that there is a choice. You just don't like either of the results.
> 
> Scenario #3 makes it easy to make it seem like the choice was meaningful. In fact, the GM is usually instructed, or even bound by rules, to ensure that the result directly relates to the information available and the choice that was made. But it's essentially a more sophisticated application of Illusionism. The illusion being that there is actually a choice. Because the DM could provide a result that doesn't relate to the information or the choice. The DM is in full control of the result because the result hasn't been fixed before the choice has been made. The rules may instruct the DM to provide a solution that relates to the information and/or the choice. But that's different than an actual choice. It's really just instructing the DM to ensure that the result makes it appear that they made a meaningful choice.
> 
> The only way to avoid Illusionism is to ensure that any choices provided have at least two actual results. Which means the results need to be pre-determined, even if it's only moments before the choice during the course of play that the DM comes up with the potential results.
> 
> To go back to the original post, what about railroading? Is Illusionism railroading?
> 
> Well, in all three cases the DM is still in control of where the action goes. That is, they have control of the story when providing the results. With both scenario #1 and #2, the DM can prepare results that are acceptable to them and the adventure at hand. Thus they can be used to keep the adventure "on track." But they can do the same thing in scenario #3, in that the only results they provide on the fly also keep the adventure on track.
> 
> The advantage of Illusionism, when used with skill, is that it's more subtle, potentially undetectable, compared to a more overt approach, such as, "no, you can't go there."  A "you can't go there" approach can be dungeon walls, a cave-in, an enemy force too great to defeat, or any number of other options that place a boundary on where the adventure can go.
> 
> On the other hand, it's easy to avoid, there just needs to be an actual choice - at least two different results - before the choice is made.




This was largely the point I was trying to get at re: Illusionism in story now games.  The rejoinder was 'but it obvious and not hidden, so it's not Illusionism."


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> Because you didn't follow the directions.
> 
> The test wasn't to determine if you could get the right answer. The test was to see if you learned the means.



To see if I learned their particular version of the means, you mean. 



> Getting the correct result with the means is just confirmation that you learned the means.
> 
> If you showed your work line by line but arrived at the wrong answer, then you obviously didn't learn the means.
> 
> If you didn't show the means, they can't confirm that you learned it.



I'm not there to learn the means, even if that's what they're trying to teach me; I'm there to learn how to figure out the right answer because I realize that in the end that's what the goal is: the right answer.  If their means work for me, then great.  If I can do it in my head, however, why waste time and brain space learning a bunch of needless intervening steps?

Lan-"and don't read into this that I'm some sort of mathematical savant, as I'm most certainly not"-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

Ilbranteloth said:


> And? I'm not sure I'm following what you're trying to say here.
> 
> If you get the correct results, how you get there doesn't matter. In your example regarding robbing a liquor store, the means still don't inherently matter. They only matter because we've decided that certain means (robbing a liquor store) are unacceptable.
> 
> The means only matter because we've decided they matter. On the other hand, if we decide the means don't matter, then the means don't matter. There are certain means that we, as a society, have decided matter.
> 
> Regardless, I think we can agree that we're going to disagree here, and should probably leave it at that.



Yes.  The ends justify the means will never be something I agree to.

Above, you said that if the group has okayed ten different methods to having a good game, then it doesn't matter which is picked.  This is creating a subset of all means and then limiting choice.  Yes, these specific ten methods are okay with the group, but what about and eleventh?  Is it okay if, as a DM, I use the eleventh unknownest to the players with the knowledge that they'd object if they knew so long as the end result is the same?

Also, let's say two of the methods accepted are 1) the DM does a tremendous amount of work and pre-prepares everything; and 2) the DM prepares a few things he thinks will be fun and uses Illusionism to guide the players to those things.  The end result of both is a fun game for the players.  Are you, as a DM, going to say that it doesn't matter which of the two methods you use?  Because, I can tell you, it certainly matters to me.  Which gets back to why I don't always think Illusionism is a bad thing while; sometimes the alternative isn't feasible or preferable.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> Because the point of the exercise is the end, not the means.



I think you might have misidentified the exercise's goals.  It wasn't to see if you learned the answers, but to see if you learned _how _to find the answers.  If you can't show the how, you haven't learned it.



> As lives depend on the work you do, isn't that a very strong motivation to *just get it right* no matter what it takes to do so?  Here in particular it would seem the ends being correct are paramount and the choice of means to get them there is almost irrelevant.
> 
> (side note: can't 'recall' something I didn't know in the first place - cool!  )
> 
> In a much less serious vein, the same applies to how we run our games.  The end result is what matters, not the means by which it is achieved; and if to get the desired end result (an enjoyable game people will want to play again next week) means I have to sometimes dive into my well-stocked bag of DM tricks and pull out a rabbit or two then I'm going to reach in and start grabbing ears.
> 
> I'm not perfect.  I don't always reach for the bag at the right time, or pull out the right rabbit when I do.  Sometimes the rabbit even bites me, in that my meddling only makes things worse.  But, hey...them's the breaks - and maybe I'll know better next time.
> 
> Lan-"sir, there's a vorpal bunny in your top hat"-efan



Good grief, no, no, and again, no.  You do not want someone designing your house, road, bridge, game consol, tv, electric grid with a process of 'just get it right.'  Gah, that's terrifying.

And, as for the games, you've been arguing in a thread for weeks about the means to achieve a game end, and you now say it doesn't matter?  If the goal of a session is the save the Prince from the Dragon, are you going to get the same fun from flipping over a card and if it's a heart, you succeed, otherwise you keep flipping until you get a heart as you would from a session of D&D with a stocked dungeon as you would from a Story Now game like Burning Wheel where the DM makes it up on the fly?  Come on, man, you can't have argued for pages and pages and then claim it doesn't all matter.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> Yes.  The ends justify the means will never be something I agree to.



Fair enough...but what about the means justifying the end?

If for example a DM does all the right things, ticks all the boxes, transparency all over the place, goes to the action, etc. etc. and still manages to come up with a garbage game that doesn't last three sessions, what's the point?



> Above, you said that if the group has okayed ten different methods to having a good game, then it doesn't matter which is picked.  This is creating a subset of all means and then limiting choice.  Yes, these specific ten methods are okay with the group, but what about and eleventh?  Is it okay if, as a DM, I use the eleventh unknownest to the players with the knowledge that they'd object if they knew so long as the end result is the same?



Depends how good you are at hiding what you're doing, I suppose. 



> Also, let's say two of the methods accepted are 1) the DM does a tremendous amount of work and pre-prepares everything; and 2) the DM prepares a few things he thinks will be fun and uses Illusionism to guide the players to those things.  The end result of both is a fun game for the players.  Are you, as a DM, going to say that it doesn't matter which of the two methods you use?  Because, I can tell you, it certainly matters to me.  Which gets back to why I don't always think Illusionism is a bad thing while; sometimes the alternative isn't feasible or preferable.



Agreed, in that the DM has choice over what means are used and is most likely going to use those which give the best result in the most efficient manner.  But that's down to the DM, and I'm looking at it from the player side.  The players don't care - they've got a fun game to play in no matter what goes on behind the screen - and why should they?  This has kind of been my point all along: if the players have a fun game to play in, it doesn't - or shouldn't - matter to them how it came to be so.

Lan-"the old line about the placid-looking duck on the lake who is in fact paddling like hell beneath the surface comes to mind"-efan


----------



## Aenghus

I think different players and play groups care about different sorts of player agency and prioritise different things. A conventional dungeon crawling game might prioritise fair challenge and exploration of highly detailed dungeons. PC survival is a very relevant concern and a constant challenge in the face of the deadly dangers of the dungeon. I find games like this either discourage excessive risk taking, or have high PC casualty rates, or involve DM fudging to moderate casualty rates despite apparent high risk moves.

A player driven dramatic game might prioritise the players being about to make meaningful personal decisions relevant to their dramatic goals. This might entail some degree of script immunity, so players can feel able to make appropriate decisions for their PCs without having to worry about undramatic wounding or death. So long as scenes allow players to feel they are addressing their dramatic goals meaningfully, they mightn't care as much about strong scene framing that would be objectionable in some other styles of play. However, even temporary obstacles to pursuing personal goals might be objectionable in this style, when there might be no guarantee of any addressing of personal goals in another style.

For me, I try to evaluate play styles with respect to their particular goals of play,  not by goals they aren't designed to value or achieve.

Appropriate challenge levels also depend on the tastes of the participants, some games prefer high challenge, others prefer low challenge. Some involve high PC physical risk, others have some level of script immunity. Some have some level of dictated personality change, others assign the player total control of the PCs personality. 

In most academic subjects, explaining the means by which results are arrived at is important for marking schemes, evidence of learning the curriculum, and as evidence against cheating. Some players care deeply about the means by which decisions are made in their game, others don't.


----------



## Lanefan

Ovinomancer said:


> And, as for the games, you've been arguing in a thread for weeks about the means to achieve a game end, and you now say it doesn't matter?



I've been saying that for some time, too; mostly in response to pemerton in question of his rationale for disliking certain types of DMing styles.  I think I've even been somewhat consistent, though obviously I've a rather biased viewpoint on that. 



> If the goal of a session is the save the Prince from the Dragon, are you going to get the same fun from flipping over a card and if it's a heart, you succeed, otherwise you keep flipping until you get a heart as you would from a session of D&D with a stocked dungeon as you would from a Story Now game like Burning Wheel where the DM makes it up on the fly?  Come on, man, you can't have argued for pages and pages and then claim it doesn't all matter.



Actually, I can; and - if I can explain it - here's how:

First, I'll ignore your flipping-a-card example as  - let's face it - being a little over the top on the hyperbole meter. 

As for the other two, they're almost different discussions.

I've been arguing against the BW model all the way along for a couple of reasons: first, that there's a severe risk of inconsistency arising within the fiction; second, that I'm not sold on any game that makes the PCs bigger than the game world (the no-special-snowflakes argument); and third, being probably easiest to describe as the "Schroedinger's Secret Door" philosophical issue where something can appear just because it's looked for (kind of like a dream sequence, or what happened to Alice down the rabbit hole) and my dislike thereof.  That's one discussion.  System matters.

The other things I've been arguing about come mostly from within the "D&D with a stocked dungeon" model and the greater game around it, to do with the means of presenting said game and-or dungeon to the players.  Here I've also been consistent (I think!) in saying that the ends trump the means - if the game is fun and the players want to come back, who (from the player side) cares whether it took some illusionism or DM finagling or rabbits out of hats to get it there?  The DM does what the DM does, and has choice of various means and may not even always use the same ones - that's all up to her and irrelevant to the players.  Put another way and going back to the math-test analogy, if the players get the "right answer" the DM doesn't (and shouldn't) have to show her work!

Some other posters have sort of combined these two discussions into a discussion about the means of presenting a BW-style game; here I simply maintain my position that within the system the means of presentation don't matter very much to the players while at the same time opposing elements of the system itself, as noted just above.

I hope this makes sense. 

Lan-"at what point does a thread become a rope, and then a hawser, and then an anchor chain..."-efan


----------



## Ovinomancer

Lanefan said:


> I've been saying that for some time, too; mostly in response to pemerton in question of his rationale for disliking certain types of DMing styles.  I think I've even been somewhat consistent, though obviously I've a rather biased viewpoint on that.
> 
> Actually, I can; and - if I can explain it - here's how:
> 
> First, I'll ignore your flipping-a-card example as  - let's face it - being a little over the top on the hyperbole meter.
> 
> As for the other two, they're almost different discussions.
> 
> I've been arguing against the BW model all the way along for a couple of reasons: first, that there's a severe risk of inconsistency arising within the fiction; second, that I'm not sold on any game that makes the PCs bigger than the game world (the no-special-snowflakes argument); and third, being probably easiest to describe as the "Schroedinger's Secret Door" philosophical issue where something can appear just because it's looked for (kind of like a dream sequence, or what happened to Alice down the rabbit hole) and my dislike thereof.  That's one discussion.  System matters.
> 
> The other things I've been arguing about come mostly from within the "D&D with a stocked dungeon" model and the greater game around it, to do with the means of presenting said game and-or dungeon to the players.  Here I've also been consistent (I think!) in saying that the ends trump the means - if the game is fun and the players want to come back, who (from the player side) cares whether it took some illusionism or DM finagling or rabbits out of hats to get it there?  The DM does what the DM does, and has choice of various means and may not even always use the same ones - that's all up to her and irrelevant to the players.  Put another way and going back to the math-test analogy, if the players get the "right answer" the DM doesn't (and shouldn't) have to show her work!
> 
> Some other posters have sort of combined these two discussions into a discussion about the means of presenting a BW-style game; here I simply maintain my position that within the system the means of presentation don't matter very much to the players while at the same time opposing elements of the system itself, as noted just above.
> 
> I hope this makes sense.
> 
> Lan-"at what point does a thread become a rope, and then a hawser, and then an anchor chain..."-efan




Wait, let me understand.  System matters, but means don't.  I'm at a complete loss, now.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> he also specifically advocates for secret backstory/setting, even if he's not calling it that.



He says that the GM is in charge of framing scenes and managing backstory.

He doesn't say anything about _secret_ backstory. And for good reason. In the traditional fashion in which secret backstory is used, it is inimical to the "standard narrativistic model" that Eero Tuovinen is describing.;



Ilbranteloth said:


> Here is the quote once again:
> 
> _"The fun in these games from the player’s viewpoint comes from the fact that he can create an amazing story with nothing but choices made in playing his character; this is the holy grail of rpg design."_
> 
> There is nothing whatsoever that says the players must establish the dramatic needs.



Yes there is: _these games. Which he has outined as including the players creating PCs who have dramatic needs, which then provide the hooks for GM framing of scenes._


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Which speaks to the example upthread from (was it [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] ?) regarding the character who wouldn't let the campfire go out.  Who the bleep wants to roleplay camping for the night (after maybe the first night or two) every single time?



Well, I'm hoping to play this character today.

But I think you might be slightly missing the point of the Instinct. It's not about roleplaying camping. It's about, in circumstances where my PC is camping, it being within my power as a player to insist that the campfire is alight (because my PC has an Instinct to keep it burning). This is relevant for various things, including light and defence in dramatic moments.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> according to Ron Edward's article on Narrativism, what he terms "force" techniques (of which he classifies illusionism as one) are incompatible with narrative play:
> 
> _"Producing a story via Force Techniques means that play must shift fully to Simulationist play. "Story" becomes Explored Situation, the character "works" insofar as he or she fits in, and the player's enjoyment arises from contributing to that fitting-in. However, for the Narrativist player, the issue is not the Curtain at all, but the Force. Force-based Techniques are pure poison for Narrativist play and vice versa. The GM (or a person currently in that role) can provide substantial input, notably adversity and Weaving, but not specific protagonist decisions and actions; that is the very essence of deprotagonizing Narrativist play."_



The style of "simulationism" that Edwards describes here is (roughly) what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] were, upthread, describing as "storyteller" GMing.

A lof of Adventure Path RPGing falls under this description: the player's job is to create a PC who "fits in", and the player gains pleasure from playing that PC and discovering (which Edwards calls "exploring") the largely pre-authored story.

CoC is also a posterchild for this sort of RPGing.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Does narrativism require (extensive) shared-authoring of backstory and setting during the game?



It's more complicated than that.

For instance, _whether or not there is a vessel in the room_ and _whether or not the villain is my PC's father_ are both matters of backstory and setting. But they have very different relationships to the dramatic trajectory of play: the first is about the availability of means (something to catch blood) to an end (brining the blood to my master), and the player is not the one who put that end into play (the decapitation was the result of failure by the PCs to outrace the assassin); the second is itself about the dramatic stakes of the situation.

Different systems use different approaches for establishing the availability and significance of means. Eg MHRP says that players can just narrate their existence, but its resolution system is very abstract, and so (eg) the Thing punching you and the Thing hitting you over the head with a steel girder (a means narrated into existence by the player) won't matter to resolution unless other mechanical steps are take (eg to turn the girder into an asset).

Whereas BW is more strict about players narrating means into existence, and is much more gritty in its expectations about the relationship between fiction and resolution: for instance, if a player wants an iron bar for his/her PC to hit things with this can't just be narrated into being; a check will be required. But hitting with a fist vs hitting with an iron bar is mechanically significant in itself.

Narrativist play is generally going to be averse to the idea that the whole situation, and every ficitonal element within it (girders, iron bars, vessels, NPC motivations) has been established in total, in advance by the GM without regard to the dramatic purpose the situation is serving at some particular moment of play.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Ron's assertion is that Narrativism and Simulationalism can't be part of the same game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> in order for actions, events, etc. to relate to the character's motives, then the DM has to introduce story elements. I do, and I think they should, but there are some simulationist sandbox purists that feel that any DM input in regards to setting and story once the game has begun to be off-limits and infringing on player/character agency. If it's not in place on the map before the session, or determined randomly, it's not acceptable.



And so there you have one reason why Edwards might be right!



Ilbranteloth said:


> why would a simulationist approach be incompatible with a narrativist approach? Because it seems to be that's what my game tends to be, a combination of the two.
> 
> The only place I can see that is drastically different is that I don't regularly challenge the character's motivations or premise during conflict resolution. But is it really necessary for every die roll, every scene or every conflict to relate directly to the motivations and premise of the characters?



That's what "story now" play is aimed at: story _NOW_!


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> He says that the GM is in charge of framing scenes and managing backstory.
> 
> He doesn't say anything about _secret_ backstory. And for good reason. In the traditional fashion in which secret backstory is used, it is inimical to the "standard narrativistic model" that Eero Tuovinen is describing.;




The player doesn't know that the villain is their father. That is part of their backstory. Since it is not known to the player until it is revealed, it is a secret part of his backstory. 

I know you'll have something to say about when the GM determines that - is it preplanned or is it made up on the spot. Just like what I was saying about a "meaningful" choice being a red herring in my post about...illusionary choices (have no idea what to call it at this point!), I think that whether the DM knows about it at the beginning of the campaign, a couple of sessions before it's revealed, or even a few moments before he reveals it is irrelevant in whether it's classified as "secret" backstory.

I would also be surprised if there aren't points in Story Now games where something like that might occur to the GM during a session, and they realize that it's not the right time to reveal it, so it waits for a later time, even several sessions later.

But really, the point is that Eero specifically points out backstory elements that the player themselves does not know and are not authored by them. That to me = secret backstory.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ilbranteloth said:


> The player doesn't know that the villain is their father. That is part of their backstory. Since it is not known to the player until it is revealed, it is a secret part of his backstory.
> 
> I know you'll have something to say about when the GM determines that - is it preplanned or is it made up on the spot. Just like what I was saying about a "meaningful" choice being a red herring in my post about...illusionary choices (have no idea what to call it at this point!), I think that whether the DM knows about it at the beginning of the campaign, a couple of sessions before it's revealed, or even a few moments before he reveals it is irrelevant in whether it's classified as "secret" backstory.
> 
> I would also be surprised if there aren't points in Story Now games where something like that might occur to the GM during a session, and they realize that it's not the right time to reveal it, so it waits for a later time, even several sessions later.
> 
> But really, the point is that Eero specifically points out backstory elements that the player themselves does not know and are not authored by them. That to me = secret backstory.




There are several posts that I could use to initiate this conversation, but this is as good as any (as there are several relevant bits).

I've recounted a few times one of my favorite moments GMing Dogs in the Vineyard (the best game from The Forge and in competition for my favorite game period).  

One of my players chose a Relationship at 1d4 with his brother which was (something like) "my brother raised me when our parent's died...he's my hero."  1d4 is the worst die possible.  It doesn't signify the closeness of the relationship, however.  It just means that when the PC's brother is involved in one of our conflicts, it will serve to complicate matters rather than help.  

This is a signal from the player (a).  So I have this to work with up front.

So the PCs have struck out to a town on the periphery of the territory that attracts drifters, desperadoes, and general rabble-rousers.  It is having all kinds of troubles because of it.  There is a reason for this traffic;  a powerful rancher outside of the territory is subsidizing a brothel.  Now prostitution is very much against the faith.  

When the Dogs arrive in the foyer of the building, the PC mentioned above sees a familiar hat on the coffee table; his brother's.  The other Dogs know the hat too and they're all taken aback.  The relevant PC says with absolute certitude something like "if the man who took this left him a shallow grave...there is going to be hell to pay."

From this I learn:

b)  the PC is willing to risk a hell of a lot for his brother (fights with multiple gunmen are lethal) including potentially his oath as a Dog (cold-blooded killing may be in the cards here...let us find out).

c)  the player has expressed interest that the hat signifies something bad potentially befalling his brother (and a revenge scenario perhaps arising from it) rather than his brother's heroic status being on the line (eg what if his brother is sinning in the brothel?).

So, given (a) and then (b) and (c) above, what is an appropriate Story NOW approach:

1)  I shouldn't have made the hat his brother's.  I mean...what are the odds?  That isn't very realistic.  A better choice would have been to have just made it a dusty hat smelling of sweat, booze (sin), and gunpowder (possibly sin).  That is still very relevant to the general premise of the game (vulnerable, gun-toting Paladins risking everything to mete out justice and protect The Faith in a Wild West that never was) if not the specific thematic material signaled in (a).

2)  Yes, go with the brother's hat, but even if the fiction hasn't established the nature of the hat's place there, if I thought it would be interesting to find out what happens if the brother does indeed reveal a serious moral downfall and sin against The Faith here, I should keep it that way and ignore (c).


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Manbearcat said:


> There are several posts that I could use to initiate this conversation, but this is as good as any (as there are several relevant bits).
> 
> I've recounted a few times one of my favorite moments GMing Dogs in the Vineyard (the best game from The Forge and in competition for my favorite game period).
> 
> One of my players chose a Relationship at 1d4 with his brother which was (something like) "my brother raised me when our parent's died...he's my hero."  1d4 is the worst die possible.  It doesn't signify the closeness of the relationship, however.  It just means that when the PC's brother is involved in one of our conflicts, it will serve to complicate matters rather than help.
> 
> This is a signal from the player (a).  So I have this to work with up front.
> 
> So the PCs have struck out to a town on the periphery of the territory that attracts drifters, desperadoes, and general rabble-rousers.  It is having all kinds of troubles because of it.  There is a reason for this traffic;  a powerful rancher outside of the territory is subsidizing a brothel.  Now prostitution is very much against the faith.
> 
> When the Dogs arrive in the foyer of the building, the PC mentioned above sees a familiar hat on the coffee table; his brother's.  The other Dogs know the hat too and they're all taken aback.  The relevant PC says with absolute certitude something like "if the man who took this left him a shallow grave...there is going to be hell to pay."
> 
> From this I learn:
> 
> b)  the PC is willing to risk a hell of a lot for his brother (fights with multiple gunmen are lethal) including potentially his oath as a Dog (cold-blooded killing may be in the cards here...let us find out).
> 
> c)  the player has expressed interest that the hat signifies something bad potentially befalling his brother (and a revenge scenario perhaps arising from it) rather than his brother's heroic status being on the line (eg what if his brother is sinning in the brothel?).
> 
> So, given (a) and then (b) and (c) above, what is an appropriate Story NOW approach:
> 
> 1)  I shouldn't have made the hat his brother's.  I mean...what are the odds?  That isn't very realistic.  A better choice would have been to have just made it a dusty hat smelling of sweat, booze (sin), and gunpowder (possibly sin).  That is still very relevant to the general premise of the game (vulnerable, gun-toting Paladins risking everything to mete out justice and protect The Faith in a Wild West that never was) if not the specific thematic material signaled in (a).
> 
> 2)  Yes, go with the brother's hat, but even if the fiction hasn't established the nature of the hat's place there, if I thought it would be interesting to find out what happens if the brother does indeed reveal a serious moral downfall and sin against The Faith here, I should keep it that way and ignore (c).




In regards to #1 - the odds might be low. But don't Story Now games sort of have a higher incidence of coincidences like this, since you're attempting to tie everything back to the characters and their motivations?

I can think of a lot of possibilities for the hat being there. But again, isn't that also discouraged in Story Now games? That is, thinking of possibilities ahead of time?

Based on what you've described with the Relationship role, the brother has to come into play at some point, right? I think the hat is a very cool way to go about it.

So my question is this - the hat _was_ there. Now what? Can you start to define the brother's place in the story even though he's still offscreen? Or do you have to wait until the right circumstance?

There are all sorts of reasons you can come up with as to why the hat was there, but not his brother. If the brother doesn't show up now, you've just planted a seed that the brother is present in some manner. It could be any number of sessions before the brother actually shows up, right? 

If it were me, I would not have the brother show up yet. Right now it's just the hat.

I'm also curious as to when you decided the brother's hat was on the table.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Well, I'm hoping to play this character today.
> 
> But I think you might be slightly missing the point of the Instinct. It's not about roleplaying camping. It's about, in circumstances where my PC is camping, it being within my power as a player to insist that the campfire is alight (because my PC has an Instinct to keep it burning). This is relevant for various things, including light and defence in dramatic moments.



So in effect the presence of your character simply adds a minor but perhaps-significant-now-and-then twist to the party's standard overnight operating procedure, and things go on from there.  That sounds cool. 

Lan-"keep your night light burning"-efan

p.s. that line is from another somewhat obscure song; again big props to anyone who knows it.


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> There are several posts that I could use to initiate this conversation, but this is as good as any (as there are several relevant bits).
> 
> I've recounted a few times one of my favorite moments GMing Dogs in the Vineyard (the best game from The Forge and in competition for my favorite game period).
> 
> One of my players chose a Relationship at 1d4 with his brother which was (something like) "my brother raised me when our parent's died...he's my hero."  1d4 is the worst die possible.  It doesn't signify the closeness of the relationship, however.  It just means that when the PC's brother is involved in one of our conflicts, it will serve to complicate matters rather than help.
> 
> This is a signal from the player (a).  So I have this to work with up front.
> 
> So the PCs have struck out to a town on the periphery of the territory that attracts drifters, desperadoes, and general rabble-rousers.  It is having all kinds of troubles because of it.  There is a reason for this traffic;  a powerful rancher outside of the territory is subsidizing a brothel.  Now prostitution is very much against the faith.
> 
> When the Dogs arrive in the foyer of the building, the PC mentioned above sees a familiar hat on the coffee table; his brother's.  The other Dogs know the hat too and they're all taken aback.  The relevant PC says with absolute certitude something like "if the man who took this left him a shallow grave...there is going to be hell to pay."
> 
> From this I learn:
> 
> b)  the PC is willing to risk a hell of a lot for his brother (fights with multiple gunmen are lethal) including potentially his oath as a Dog (cold-blooded killing may be in the cards here...let us find out).
> 
> c)  the player has expressed interest that the hat signifies something bad potentially befalling his brother (and a revenge scenario perhaps arising from it) rather than his brother's heroic status being on the line (eg what if his brother is sinning in the brothel?).
> 
> So, given (a) and then (b) and (c) above, what is an appropriate Story NOW approach:
> 
> 1)  I shouldn't have made the hat his brother's.  I mean...what are the odds?  That isn't very realistic.  A better choice would have been to have just made it a dusty hat smelling of sweat, booze (sin), and gunpowder (possibly sin).  That is still very relevant to the general premise of the game (vulnerable, gun-toting Paladins risking everything to mete out justice and protect The Faith in a Wild West that never was) if not the specific thematic material signaled in (a).
> 
> 2)  Yes, go with the brother's hat, but even if the fiction hasn't established the nature of the hat's place there, if I thought it would be interesting to find out what happens if the brother does indeed reveal a serious moral downfall and sin against The Faith here, I should keep it that way and ignore (c).




You question is confusing.  1) is a past tense, a potential rewrite of the established framing, while 2) is a path forward.  And you don't have an option where you honor all of a, b, and c.  Essentially, you've given two options, neither of which I'd pick.

Also, something I'm not sure I'm grasping, but the dice pool mechanic in Dogs is that the complications come from having to use more than 3 dice to 'raise' a conflict, meaning the d4 will be more likely to cause a complication.  Was there a challenge here, and the hat is framed in because 3 or more dice were used, or did you frame in the hat so that the brother could plausibly be used in a complication?  Why did you choose to frame the brother's hat there to begin with?


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> You question is confusing.  1) is a past tense, a potential rewrite of the established framing, while 2) is a path forward.  And you don't have an option where you honor all of a, b, and c.  Essentially, you've given two options, neither of which I'd pick.




Maybe its confusing because my language/format didn't coherently illuminate what I was trying to get at?  Maybe this will do better:

I wasn't asserting anything on my own behalf.  I was trying to solicit  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] 's perceptions of correct GMing for a Story NOW agenda (as Dogs is) in such a situation.  I was asking if he thought 1 or 2 was more appropriate.

I've seen a lot of sympathy for "realism" and a lot of aversion to "go to the (thematically signaled or system-premised) action" in this thread, so I framed things to take into account those components so as to gain insight into the mental processing he thinks a GM should undergo.



Ovinomancer said:


> Also, something I'm not sure I'm grasping, but the dice pool mechanic in Dogs is that the *complications come from having to use more than 3 dice to 'raise' a conflict, meaning the d4 will be more likely to cause a complication. * Was there a challenge here, and the hat is framed in because 3 or more dice were used, or did you frame in the hat so that the brother could plausibly be used in a complication?  Why did you choose to frame the brother's hat there to begin with?




I think you mean:

"complications come from having to use more than 2 dice to 'See' in a conflict, triggering Fallout equal to the number of dice used to See (and scaled according to the type of combat), meaning the d4 will be more likely to complicate the Dog's life rather than aid it."

Is that correct?

There is also the component that Blood Relations come free at 1d6 in Dogs, so the player in question specifically chose to allocate their 1d4 Relation PC build die when they could have allocated a 1d6 if the brother came into play later.  Therefore, the player specifically signaled (a) they want their relationship to their brother to carry thematic weight in play (such that "go to the action" or Dog's "at every moment, drive play toward conflict" means that his brother needs to be a provocative centerpiece of play) and (b) they want it to complicate their character's life rather than aid it (there is also Reward Cycle stuff here because Fallout isn't just injury, but also xp and growth).

Finally, I framed the hat there, rather than just his brother getting down with a prost, because (1) I'm typically (but not always) of the opinion that the slow simmer/implication of dramatic weight is more impactful than expository dialogue or being straight slapped in the face and (2) I wanted to leave it open-ended as to what was happening.  (2) Allows for me to solicit player input through reaction and avoid metaplot by keeping backstory loose and firming it up only when its continuity/on-screen relevant (therefore getting some "play to find out action" for myself).


----------



## Ovinomancer

Manbearcat said:


> Maybe its confusing because my language/format didn't coherently illuminate what I was trying to get at?  Maybe this will do better:
> 
> I wasn't asserting anything on my own behalf.  I was trying to solicit  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] 's perceptions of correct GMing for a Story NOW agenda (as Dogs is) in such a situation.  I was asking if he thought 1 or 2 was more appropriate.
> 
> I've seen a lot of sympathy for "realism" and a lot of aversion to "go to the (thematically signaled or system-premised) action" in this thread, so I framed things to take into account those components so as to gain insight into the mental processing he thinks a GM should undergo.



Still doesn't make sense as written.  Let me substitute a simpler frame for illustration:

I did a thing.  Which do you think:

1) should I have done a different thing? or;
2) what should the thing really be?

See?  1) is asking if you were correct to end up with your vignette at all.  2) is asking if, since you've already established the hat, what should it be?  These choices aren't coherent with each other, and seem to get at entirely different questions.  I could, for instance, answer both 1 and 2 -- you shouldn't have done it, but now that you have it should be the brothers.  Or neither -- you should have done it, but it shouldn't be the brother's hat.  They're not actually different choices, as presented.



> I think you mean:
> 
> "complications come from having to use more than 2 dice to 'See' in a conflict, triggering Fallout equal to the number of dice used to See (and scaled according to the type of combat), meaning the d4 will be more likely to complicate the Dog's life rather than aid it."
> 
> Is that correct?



Well, I meant 3 or more, but that's it, too, so yes, thanks.


> There is also the component that Blood Relations come free at 1d6 in Dogs, so the player in question specifically chose to allocate their 1d4 Relation PC build die when they could have allocated a 1d6 if the brother came into play later.  Therefore, the player specifically signaled (a) they want their relationship to their brother to carry thematic weight in play (such that "go to the action" or Dog's "at every moment, drive play toward conflict" means that his brother needs to be a provocative centerpiece of play) and (b) they want it to complicate their character's life rather than aid it (there is also Reward Cycle stuff here because Fallout isn't just injury, but also xp and growth).
> 
> Finally, I framed the hat there, rather than just his brother getting down with a prost, because (1) I'm typically (but not always) of the opinion that the slow simmer/implication of dramatic weight is more impactful than expository dialogue or being straight slapped in the face and (2) I wanted to leave it open-ended as to what was happening.  (2) Allows for me to solicit player input through reaction and avoid metaplot by keeping backstory loose and firming it up only when its continuity/on-screen relevant (therefore getting some "play to find out action" for myself).



Ah, cool, wasn't clear on how you were using this, as I've read DitV, but never had the opportunity to play.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ilbranteloth said:


> In regards to #1 - the odds might be low. But don't Story Now games sort of have a higher incidence of coincidences like this, since you're attempting to tie everything back to the characters and their motivations?
> 
> I can think of a lot of possibilities for the hat being there. But again, isn't that also discouraged in Story Now games? That is, thinking of possibilities ahead of time?
> 
> Based on what you've described with the Relationship role, the brother has to come into play at some point, right? I think the hat is a very cool way to go about it.
> 
> So my question is this - the hat _was_ there. Now what? Can you start to define the brother's place in the story even though he's still offscreen? Or do you have to wait until the right circumstance?
> 
> There are all sorts of reasons you can come up with as to why the hat was there, but not his brother. If the brother doesn't show up now, you've just planted a seed that the brother is present in some manner. It could be any number of sessions before the brother actually shows up, right?
> 
> If it were me, I would not have the brother show up yet. Right now it's just the hat.
> 
> I'm also curious as to when you decided the brother's hat was on the table.




1)  See my post above to  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION].  I wasn't asserting my own opinion.  I was soliciting yours.  I may not have framed things in a way to get that across.

When you say "Story Now games sort of have a higher incidence of coincidences like this," that is exactly correct.  Table time for the players and on-screen time for the fiction should be spent "on the action".  Baker's axiom for this in Dogs is "at every moment, drive play toward conflict."

But I was asking you personally about it because I've seen a lot of concern for "realism fidelity" and "table time/on-screen time exclusively spent on 'the action' " aversion throughout this thread (not necessarily all from you).

2)  See my post directly above to Ovinomancer on GMing this scenario.  To help, I'm going to give you some Dog's specific GMing direction straight from Vincent Baker:

a)  "Follow the players' lead about what's important and what's not."

b)  When you create The Towns, "something's wrong (Pride, Sin, False Doctrine, False Priesthood, Hate & Murder), of course...that's what makes the game interesting."

c)  Setup; "you need some NPCS with claims to the PCs time, some NPCs who can't ignore the PCs' arrival, some NPCs who've done harm, but *for reasons anybody could understand*."

d)  Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story".  Just play The Town.  Present the PC's with choices; "provoke the players to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!"  Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved.  (DitV 137-139)

e)  Reflect between Towns with the players.  Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "push them a little bit further in the next Town."


----------



## Manbearcat

Ovinomancer said:


> Still doesn't make sense as written.  Let me substitute a simpler frame for illustration:
> 
> I did a thing.  Which do you think:
> 
> 1) should I have done a different thing? or;
> 2) what should the thing really be?
> 
> See?  1) is asking if you were correct to end up with your vignette at all.  2) is asking if, since you've already established the hat, what should it be?  These choices aren't coherent with each other, and seem to get at entirely different questions.  I could, for instance, answer both 1 and 2 -- you shouldn't have done it, but now that you have it should be the brothers.  Or neither -- you should have done it, but it shouldn't be the brother's hat.  They're not actually different choices, as presented.




That's fine.  Whatever way gets the point across and conveys the question at the heart.

I was trying to evaluate his mental processing discretely with respect to both (1) and (2).  

With (1) I was investigating the thread-wandering questions of:

- "Is realism fidelity prioritized?"
- "If so, why is "constant on-screen action for a PC" a problem to realism?  I ask this because (a) just because "the action" is what we (the players) spend table time on doesn't mean there isn't plenty of mundane activity (dusting out your boots, having a piss, lighting a pipe and enjoying a sunset) happening in any given setting inhabitant's life.  We are just aren't spending time on it.  Further still, forget about genre fiction (which should be more what we're aiming toward), (b) there are plenty of folks in real life whose lives are constantly riddled with hardship, tragedy, conflict, and significant (moral etc) weight from moment to moment.  Why can't our Dogs in a Wild West shot through with supernatural and mundane sin be just like those folks?

With (2) I was investigating his thoughts on the GM or player driven angle of this thread:

- "Who ultimately decides what is important and what is not (see the post directly above for what Dog's designer has to say about that)?"



Ovinomancer said:


> Well, I meant 3 or more, but that's it, too, so yes, thanks.




You're welcome and no problem.  I also changed "Raise" to "See" (you Raise with 1 or 2 dice while you See with as many as it takes with 3 or more being required triggering Fallout).



Ovinomancer said:


> Ah, cool, wasn't clear on how you were using this, as I've read DitV, but never had the opportunity to play.




I highly, highly recommend it.  Its a beautiful, fun, provoking game...especially so if you like the genre and the thematically relevant material (which I suspect most TTRPG players and D&D players specifically do).  I don't want to go too deeply into its dice mechanics, Reward Cycles, etc (that will mostly distract from our discussion), but any issues you may find with them can easily be remedied by saavy gamers (which I believe you've got 2 decades + under your belt).


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)





Ilbranteloth said:


> For railroading to occur, I think that there has to be at least three things present:
> 1) a predetermined plot/story outcome by the DM, or at least a consistent bias to the DMs plot/story/preferences
> 2) an action/adjudication by the DM that disregards the player's actions in the determination of the results. That is, the players actions and choices don't have a meaningful impact on the plot/story.
> 3) the players don't want, or have the expectation that the DM won't do, #1 _and_ #2
> 
> <snip>
> 
> In my opinion, railroading is a negative thing. That is, it's something the players don't want. So if the players agree that part of the DM's job is to keep things moving in the "right" direction, it cannot be a railroad.



So, in the OP I mentioned your (1), implied (2), and took (3) for granted.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I would not have required a Perception check. If the player's argument is plausible, then I'd just go with the idea that there is a vessel of some sort. A Perception check isn't to determine _if_ something is there



I take this to be a statement of your techniques, and that eg the last sentence is not claiming that I made a mistake.


----------



## Manbearcat

Not sure if I answered a couple of things explicitly so...



Ilbranteloth said:


> I can think of a lot of possibilities for the hat being there. But again, isn't that also discouraged in Story Now games? That is, thinking of possibilities ahead of time?




Prep and thinking about things ahead of time isn't what Story NOW games try to avoid.  Its the thinking about things ahead of time of times in high-res setting, firmed-up backstory, metaplot-ish chunks.  Backstory, setting, and tropes need to have a lack-of-fixedness and broad-brush type considerations when it comes to prep.  

You might have a flash card with Betrayal, Infidelity, Border Dispute, Temptation written on it.  Then you'll have your NPCs and roughish Town info like I wrote above.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Based on what you've described with the Relationship role, the brother has to come into play at some point, right? I think the hat is a very cool way to go about it.




Thank you.  This is the kind of stuff you do as a Dogs GM.  You might do the same thing by putting a potential social conflict (that may likely escalate) in a saloon where one of the dogs has a d6 Trait "I've licked my affair with whiskey".



Ilbranteloth said:


> So my question is this - the hat _was_ there. Now what? Can you start to define the brother's place in the story even though he's still offscreen? Or do you have to wait until the right circumstance?
> 
> There are all sorts of reasons you can come up with as to why the hat was there, but not his brother. If the brother doesn't show up now, you've just planted a seed that the brother is present in some manner. It could be any number of sessions before the brother actually shows up, right?
> 
> If it were me, I would not have the brother show up yet. Right now it's just the hat.




Well, with respect to the specific scenario that played out, this gets into system-specific stuff including the table deciding what is at stake in the social conflict to come with the rancher-subsidized, owner/operator of the brothel.  Not sure if you want to go that deep into Dogs.  

Generally speaking, the brother's place in the unfolding conflict doesn't need to be cemented until either (a) the rules say it does (the codified results of some play procedure) or (b) the fiction says it does (he shows up and its inescapable what is at hand...he's having sex with the prost...he's dead in a shallow grave...he admits lost the hat in a gambling hall).



Ilbranteloth said:


> I'm also curious as to when you decided the brother's hat was on the table.




When the player signaled the nature of his brother's relationship (the fiction of it and he wanted it to be a complication), I knew my job was to provoke the PC with the betrayal of that heroic status (through sin), dire peril (his brother getting caught up in something), death/loss (and therefore tempt the Dog to escalate things toward murder), or something thereabouts.  

I sneakily used an NPC confession in that same session to tease out whether this particular Dog would feel worse if someone precious died vs if someone precious fell from grace (I used a testimonial and the player of the PC commented on it with his own testimonial).  That made me think of the hat (because the border dispute and the brothel were already in play).  Things went from there.


----------



## pemerton

innerdude said:


> it isn't "illusionism" if the players have already agreed as a group that the tomb is central to their PC's needs/agenda. If they've already made that decision, then I ABSOLUTELY want to ensure that they make it to the tomb, at least so long as that objective remains part of what the PCs are pursuing.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> in the sense of "scene framing," the real goal is to present relevant _obstacles_ to the players/PCs that they will enjoy _overcoming_. I've discovered I have to be willing to re-frame scenes as the PCs' intent/objectives change. In some ways it's better to simply identify what the PCs' objectives are, and then identify a list of obstacles that could potentially be framed into scenes that will appropriately challenge those objectives/needs.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Once I've established the obstacles in general terms, I can then start framing in the actual relevant bits (locations, NPCs, potential encounters) based on the PCs' existing experiences and their declared action declarations, while maintaining appropriate consistency with prior events / established fiction. And as the PCs' needs/objectives evolve, you have to be willing to metaphorically "reshuffle the deck" and change the nature of the obstacle to the PCs' goals.



Right.

This is what I've been posting: there's no _illusion_ in framing the PCs into scenes their players want them to be framed into. And there's no _illusion_ in the GM engaging in prep/brainstorming which inform that framing.

The difference between,  on the one hand, prep/brainstorming, and on the other hand, authoring elements of the fiction which are secret from the players and will be used to adjudicate outcomes, is pretty crucial to this.



innerdude said:


> in many cases the GM may feel that they're not trying to "push an agenda," but are rather simply trying to "stop the players from becoming too powerful / getting their way"---without realizing that this is, in fact, still an agenda. My current GM seems to suffer from this. It's like he's afraid that if he lets us succeed "too much" in our PCs' intent, it will somehow lessen the experience.



Personally, I find this a really toxic approach to GMing. It feels like the worst of the Gygaxian legacy with none of the good bits of that legacy!

In D&D play I think it is in part an artefact of (i) mechanical weaknesses conjoined with (ii) certain design features - because (i) the game breaks down when the PCs gain a certain degree of mechanical prowess, and (ii) various NPC/monster opponents are "locked in" to certain HD/levels of challenge, the GM feels it is important to contain things within those parameters.

For me, this is one of the striking elements of 4e - it mostly avoids (i), being mechanically playable across the full spectrum of levels, and it is very flexible vis-a-vis (ii) because of the way its NPC/monste-building rules allow levelling up or down very easily with a degree of autonomy from the details of the fiction.

But stepping back a bit from the details of D&D and thinking about the point more generally, my own view is that if the PCs succeed at _this_, that's no reason why I as GM can't go on to challenge them (and thereby their players) by way of _that_.

And at least in my experience, there is no "cheapening of the experience" by the players getting to have experiences of their PCs doing well engaging things they care about.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Isn't the classic case of Illusionism the GM providing two choices that lead to the same event or encounter?



I made a long post about the absence of pretence in "story now" play, and that the main pitfall is that the GM's framing and narration misfire - ie the GM fails to identify engaging challenges/choices for the players.

I don't really understand how the post above, that you made in response to my long post, is relevant to anything that I said!

For a start, you seem to be assuming that the game is _not a story now one_! Because in a "story now" game, the GM doesn't just "provide two choices". _You come to a fork in the road - which way do you go?_ is not (to borrow Eero Tuovinen's phrasing) an example of a GM "fram[ing] scenes according to dramatic needs" or "framing . . . an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . that provokes choices on the part of the character."

Rather, it is exactly an example of the sort of "exploration of situation" gaming that you quoted Ron Edwards upthread _contrasting_ with "story now" RPGing.

So if I sit down to play (say) BW, and the GM says "You come to a fork in the road - which way to you go?" and there is nothing else at stake, no indication of how this choice might relate to something that matters to my PC (and therefore me as a player) then issues of _illusionism_ are not even on the table. Rather, there is the more basic problem that I flagged in the post to which you replied that _this GM doesn't seem to know how to frame engaging scenes_.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Are you saying that there is no point where the DM could provide two choices while having a result in mind and that's the only result presented? How would you know whether the GM actually had two results in mind? If the result is speaking to the character's motivations I don't think there would be any way you could tell that he didn't actually have a second result available.



Again, none of this really makes any sense from the point of view of "story now" RPGing!

If the GM thinks an encounter would be interesting and engaging, then why is s/he not just framing my PC into it? Why is s/he "hiding" it behind "which fork do you take"? It's not illusionism, it's just bad GMing in the "story now" context.



Ilbranteloth said:


> So if I build a city, and provide two roads, one to the west and one to the east, and place the city on whichever road the players take - is it not Illusionism if the players desired intent is not subverted? If they have no idea what might lie either way, and don't have any particular goal in mind when taking the road they select, is it still Illusionism?



What approach to RPGing are you envisaging?

If it's a Gygaxian or Cook/Marsh-style hexcrawl, then either you've written up the map in advance, or are generating it randomly as the PCs move across it. So there is not just "placing a city".

If you are playing a "story now" game, then why do we care whether the PCs are travelling east or west. If nothing is at stake, why are we wasting time on that? If the interesting thing is going to occur when the PCs arrive at the city, then just narrate - "As you travel along the road, you see a city on the horizon".

If you are using the second technique but pretending to the players you are using the first technique, well that looks like it might be illusionism - but is any here doing that?



hawkeyefan said:


> As for the rest of it, we're not going to agree, so I'll stop trying to make my point.



Obviously it's your prerogative to disagree with whomever you want to - but which bits are you disagreeeing with?

Do you think I'm wrong in saying that the main threat to good "story now" RPGing is not illusionism - for which there's no scope, because you can't _hide_ whether or not something engages the PCs' dramatic needs - but rather a failure to frame engaging scenes?


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Do you think I'm wrong in saying that the main threat to good "story now" RPGing is not illusionism - for which there's no scope, because you can't _hide_ whether or not something engages the PCs' dramatic needs - but rather a failure to frame engaging scenes?




This needs +1 and reiteration.

Illusionism isn't a threat to Story NOW games failing.  A Story NOW game might fail because one of a few things:

1)  The PC build mechanics, dice mechanics, and Reward Cycles aren't tightly and coherently integrated enough to provoke the precise feel/emotional provocation that they're intended to.

2)  The experience is too mentally demanding on players who are really just looking for casual content consumption.

3)  The GM struggles to consistently frame engaging scenes with interesting decision-points that are premise-relevant.

4)  The GM struggles to consistently frame scenes that intimately engage with the pressure points/thematic heft of the PCs which was signaled by the players.

From the GM side, 3 and 4 is the biggest adversary to overcome.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Illusionism is the illusion of a choice.





Ilbranteloth said:


> Now that I go look at the Forge definition:
> 
> "Illusionism
> A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features. See Illusionism: a new look and a new approach and Illusionism and GNS. Term coined by Paul Elliott."



Notice that the Forge definition - which is the one that      [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] expressly has in mind - doesn't define Illusionism as the "illusion of choice". The _illusion_ in illusionism is that _the resulotion outcomes_ that _appear_ to result from player-character decisions _in fact_ result from the covert GM exertion of force.

The illusion is an illusion about the process of authorship, namely, how were the new elements of the shared fiction (ie the "resolution outcomes") established?

If the GM exercise authorial power overtly then there is no illusion and hence no illusionism. Here are two examples of overt GM exercise of authorial power:

(1) The group is playing the Keep on the Borderlands. The GM reads some introductory text, and then tells the players "You have taken lodgins at the Keep, and following the directions given to you by the good worthies of that place you now stand at the entrance to the valley. Before you stretches the wooded valley floor, while to either side of you rise the valley walls. Caves dot the hillsides like grim eyes looking down at you. What do you do?"

(2) From the OP game. The players have both just failed in a contest Speed check against the assassin. I, as GM, tell them "As you race to the room where Joachim is resting unconscious, you see that Halika has beaten you there. She calmly raises the ritual sword inlaid with the evil eye that she took from the orc captain in the Bright Desert, and then brings it down in a swift strike <rolls some dice - note that all dice rolls are seen by all participants - for the NPC to see if her decapitation succeeds: it does> and Joachim's head is lopped off, falling to the floor."

One of the players adds "And rolls across the floor to lie next to the body of the unconscious elf" (another PC, the tower mage's bodyguard, who had been blasted unconscious by the wizard-assassin Halika).​
The first is pretty classic - the GM presents the starting situation of the module to the players. No illusionism.

The second is pretty standard for "story now" or "standard narrativistic model" RPGing - the players failed a check, and the consequence ensues, in this case being that the NPC has a chance to decapitate the unconscious mage, which she does. No illusionism.

A classic example of illusionism is quite common in "event-style" modules: the module presents a chance for the PCs to acquire a clue. If the PCs don't acquire the clue, then the module has some fall-back advice for the GM whereby a friendly NPC provides the clue instead.

This is illusionism because it _appears_ that the resolution outcome - ie do the players get the information or not - turns upon a player decision (eg whether or not to search a room, or interrogate a prisoner) but in fact it does not. Another example would be where a GM uses some sort of deus-ex-machina device to save an NPC who is losing in combat: this is illusionism because it _appears_ that the resolution outcome (the NPC's life or death) depends up on the player decisions (eg in declaring attack actions) but in fact it doesn't.

In illusionistic play the players' decisions about such matters as whether to search, or whether to atack, provide _colour_ (eg the PCs acquired the clue through their own efforts rather than needing to be told) but don't determine outcomes.



Ilbranteloth said:


> "what techniques?" If it's a family of techniques, what are they?



Here are some: ignoring or fudging dice rolls; manipulating the fiction "behind the screen" to eg introduce deus-ex-machina story elements (the example above, of the NPC who supplies the "missed" clue, is an instance of this); exerting various sorts of social pressure to ensure that the players don't declare "problematic" or "disruptive" actions.      [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has especially emphasised the last of those in this thread. An example - which, judging both from GMing advice I've read and ENworld threads I've participated in, is fairly common - is the following: the players and their PCs know that a certain NPC (say, the vizier) is a villain, and want to declare an attack action against said NPC, but the GM - by way of social pressure and soft authority - "blocks" that action declaration (eg "You can't do that in front of the emperor!") - thereby making the outcome of the situation a result of GM force rather than players' decisions for their PCs.



Ilbranteloth said:


> The classic example is along these lines: The DM has prepared an encounter. We'll say it's an ogre.
> The characters have a choice - could be a fork in the road, but we'll say the forest or the swamp.
> Regardless of the choice made, the players encounter the ogre.
> 
> Scenario #1
> 1) The players are given a choice.
> 2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM doesn't place the prepared encounter until after the choice is made.
> 
> What about a random result? It's the same fundamental thing:
> Scenario #2
> 1) The players are given a choice.
> 2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM determines the results randomly after the choice is made.
> 
> What about when the result isn't prepared ahead of time?
> Scenario #3
> 1) The players are given a choice.
> 2) The results aren't fixed until the choice is made. The DM determines the results on the fly after the choice is made.



Until we know what the players think will be the consequence of this choice, we can't know whether or not any illusionism is involved, becaus illusionism is about the covert exertion of influence over the content of the shared fiction.

This also goes to the claims by      [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION],      [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] and      [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION] that "story now" RPGing can involve illusionism. In "story now" RPGing, either (i) the players already know what is at stake in the choice, in which case if the GM then overrides that the use of force is overt, not illusionistic; or (ii) the players don't know what is at stake in the choice, in which case the GM is failing to do his/her job properly (ie to frame scenes that engage player-authored dramatic needs and thereby provoke PC choices) and that failure is overt.

This is why the concept of "illusionism" is simply not apposite in relation to "story now"/"narravitistic" RPGing.



Ilbranteloth said:


> The only way to avoid Illusionism is to ensure that any choices provided have at least two actual results. Which means the results need to be pre-determined



Huh? This is just false. Here's one (of myriad) counterexamples:

In my 4e game, at a certain point the PCs were travelling through the Underdark on their quest to find Torog's Soul Abattoir. This was being resolved as skill challenge. A check (either Nature, Dungeoneering or Perception - I don't recall anymore) was made and failed, and hence the skill challenge failed - which is to say that the PCs' desire to successfully navigate the Underdark was thwarted. I narrated the PC fighter falling through a thin sheet of stone in the floor into an uderground river that carried him away.​
There was no pre-determining of results. The final check occurred in the context of exploring an abandoned duergar fungus farm - and the existence of that farm, the existence of the thin bit of stone, the fact that the thin bit of stone was over a river that might carry a PC away - was all authored in the course of the session, as elements of framing and resolution.

This also highlights why your "fork in the road" example doesn't have any real bearing upon "story now" play: as you present it, there is nothing of dramatic significance at stake in the choice, and so the player decision to go left or to go right, or to go to the forest or to go to the swamp, is mere colour. It's not the resolution of a scene. It's the players' participation in framing a scene. Once it is established whether the PCs are in a forest or in a swamp, and the GM tells them that they are confronted by an ogre, well then we have a scene that might speak to dramatic need and provke a choice. (At which point the colour might become more than mere colour, because the fictional positioning is different in a forest - "We climb into trees where the ogre can't reach us!" - compared to a swamp - "We lead the ogre into muddy ground where its great weight means it gets bogged".)

EDIT: I saw this, which says the same thing I'm saying:



Manbearcat said:


> A Story NOW game might fail because one of a few things:
> 
> 1)  The PC build mechanics, dice mechanics, and Reward Cycles aren't tightly and coherently integrated enough to provoke the precise feel/emotional provocation that they're intended to.
> 
> 2)  The experience is too mentally demanding on players who are really just looking for casual content consumption.
> 
> 3)  The GM struggles to consistently frame engaging scenes with interesting decision-points that are premise-relevant.
> 
> 4)  The GM struggles to consistently frame scenes that intimately engage with the pressure points/thematic heft of the PCs which was signaled by the players.
> 
> From the GM side, 3 and 4 is the biggest adversary to overcome.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I've been arguing against the BW model all the way along for a couple of reasons: first, that there's a severe risk of inconsistency arising within the fiction



And I continue to retort that this is mere assertion, with no evidence base to support it.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> The player doesn't know that the villain is their father. That is part of their backstory. Since it is not known to the player until it is revealed, it is a secret part of his backstory.



No. _It's not part of any backstory until the moment of revelation._

As I posted upthread in reply to   [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan,



pemerton said:


> IMy point is that, qua _element of the shared fiction_ it is neither permanent nor impermanent, becuase it is not part of the shared fiction at all.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The distinction isn't meant to be facetious. And it relates to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION]'s point, made somewhere upthread, that in some approaches to RPGing the GM's status is closer to that of just another player.
> 
> Players have ideas for stuff they would like to have in the fiction, from the short term - "I want to cut this orc's head off!" - to the long term - "My guy would like to build a fortress on the plains outside Greyhawk and attract some followers as a result." But those ideas don't, automatically, become part of the shared fiction. They are regulated by rules, mechanics and associated techniques.
> 
> For instance, the stuff about castles and followers might be regulated in part by rules about class build (eg AD&D fighters, the Leadership feat in 3E) and in part by rules about gold pieces as a player resource (an AD&D fighter doesn't get a castle for free). Possibly also action resolution rules (maybe the PC needs to recruit an engineer-architect to supervise the building of the castle, which is a type of social encounter).
> 
> The stuff about chopping off an orc's head is, in most RPGs, regulated by action resolution rules - in many RPGs by a distinct set of combat mechanics.
> 
> So, going back to GMing techniques - a GM who has sketched out a map as a mixture of brainstorming, ideas, and preparation for framing hasn't established anything in the shared fiction either. It has the same status as the player's plans for orc heads and castles. When the right opportunity comes along, the GM - like the player - has a power to make this stuff part of the shared fiction, but - like the player - this is regulated in various ways but - unlike the player  - the regulations are different: they are regulations that constrain framing, narration of consequences of player action declarations for their PCs, etc.




A GM making a note - "If the appropriate situation arises, X claims to by Y's rather" - is not establishing any backstory, secret or otherwise. It's just brainstorming.

You are also disregarding what Eero Tuovinen says about the GM narrating the revelation:

The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character​
In other words, all that the GM's narration establishes is that _this NPC claims to be the PC's father_. Nothing is established, in virtue of that, about who the PC's father is.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Eero specifically points out backstory elements that the player themselves does not know and are not authored by them.



The only thing that is established as true in the fiction is that the claim has been made. Which the player knows.

I've given examples, in this very thread, of events similar to what Eero Tuovinen describes:

The discovery that the mage PC's brother enchanted cursed black arrows _before_ being possessed by a balrog, which suggests that _his evil caused his possession_ rather than that _his possession caused his evil_. This was a "challenging revelation" narrated as a consequence of failure.

The revelation that the two brothers don't have the same father - that the possessed brother is the son of Bernard the Holy. This was a slightly less "challenging revelation" narrated as part of framing. The fact that it is less challenging was relevant to my decision to narrate it as part of framing rather than as a consequence of failure.​
This sort of GMing is completely different from (say) a standard mystery adventure module, where _the answers are all written in the module_, and the GM will adjudicate action declarations by reference to those answers.

If one thinks of the father example, for instance, one can imagine the player setting out to establish it as true that the claim is false. _That would not be possible_ in a "secret backstory"-driven game; but is eminently feasible in a "story now" game.

Another example that I posted upthread - also in reply to   [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan - exmplifies the same features:



pemerton said:


> My main 4e game is at 30th level. Which is to say, in mechanical terms the PCs have reached their peak, and in story terms that are at the culmination of their Epic Destinies.
> 
> The main focus of the game has turned out to be this: _Is the Dusk War upon us?_
> 
> The PCs (and the players) know that the Dusk War is prophesied, and that there are certain signs of its coming.
> 
> One of these is that the Tarrasque will ravage the world. And when the Tarrasque entered the world and they confronted it, they found it being warded by Maruts, who were there to meet an obligation to the Raven Queen to ensure that no one interfered with the Tarrasque's end-of-days ravagings.
> 
> The PCs' response (which was chosen by the players) was that the Maruts had got their timing wrong - this was not the end-of-days ravaging of the Tarrasque, and hence not the one that the Maruts had to protect againsgt interferrence! And the PCs proved this to the Maruts by way of the ease with which one of their number was able to dispatch the Tarrasque near-singlehandedly: _the tarrasque, at least on this occasion, could not be the harbinger of the end times whom the Maruts were contracted to protect, because it clearly lacked the capacity to ravage the world_.
> 
> This resembles the absence of a map in this way: there is no pre-established timeline. But it differs from the map example in this way: the temporal location of events is not mere colour (unlike whether the interesting place is down the left or the right tunnel), and so is not going to be settled just through framing narration: whether or not the period in which the game is taking place is the time of the Dusk War, or not, is going to be determined via play, that is, via the consequences that follow from action resolution.



The claim that _the Dusk War is upon upon us!_ is the challenging revelation. The PCs deny it. Play will show whether or not they are right. This game _literally could not be played_ if I as GM had already decided whether or not the Dusk War has come. That would turn the game from a struggle over the fate of the world into a mystery or puzzle-solving game - an instance of what you quote Ron Edwards describing as "exploration of situation".

I don't want to play a game in which the players explore the situation. I want to play a game in which they _drive_ the situation. This is utterly at odds with the truth and the outcome of the situation already being established in the form of "secret backstory".



EDIT: This also seemed relevant:



Manbearcat said:


> 1)  I shouldn't have made the hat his brother's.  I mean...what are the odds?  That isn't very realistic.  A better choice would have been to have just made it a dusty hat smelling of sweat, booze (sin), and gunpowder (possibly sin).  That is still very relevant to the general premise of the game (vulnerable, gun-toting Paladins risking everything to mete out justice and protect The Faith in a Wild West that never was) if not the specific thematic material signaled in (a).
> 
> 2)  Yes, go with the brother's hat, but even if the fiction hasn't established the nature of the hat's place there, if I thought it would be interesting to find out what happens if the brother does indeed reveal a serious moral downfall and sin against The Faith here, I should keep it that way and ignore (c).



I take it that, implicitly, there is a third option: leave (c) on the table and play to find out?

EDIT THE SECOND: I've read on, so I think the answer is - yes, there is a third option, but   [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] seems not be to be very keen on it.

Needless to say, as per my post just above this, I think that the presence of that third option is crucial to GMing this sort of game, and that is why "secret backstory" is, on the whole, inimical - because it answers the question before it is even asked in play!


----------



## pemerton

double


----------



## pemerton

I played my BW character yesterday, and I then GMed a session of MHRP-style Cortex Fantasy.

Here is some stuff that is relevant to the discussion around approaches to RPGing and how the shared fiction is established.

*Burning Wheel*
In the BW session, we first spent a bit of time with the GM explaining to me where things were going to be located on the map of Greyhawk. Generally, BW favours a loose approach to world creation and world geography but we've been using GH in the campaign where I'm GM, so this made sense. I don't know what he had or hadn't read online about the Principality of Ulek and the Pomarj, and how much he just made up himself, but in any event this was all good stuff to establish some basic framing for the campaign.

Then, after some introductory framing explaining that Aramina (my travelling companion) and I (ie my PC) are wandering through the frontier, witnessing abandoned homesteads with signs of flight, I declared a couple of initial checks: a Homestead-wise check (untrained) to learn more about the circumstances of abandonment of this particular ruined homestead, which succeeded, and hence (in this case) extracted some more narration of backstory from the GM; and then a Scavenging check, looking for the gold that the homesteaders would have left behind in their panic and which the orcs would have been too lazy to find.

Unfortunately this second check failed, which meant that orcs from a raiding party had virtually infiltrated the homestead before I noticed them. Aramina panicked (failed Steel check) but I commanded her to make for the horse (successful Command check to overcome her hesitation), but then - following through on the failed Scavenging check - the GM called for opposed Speed checks. Aramina lost, so the orcs surrounded her. I tied with the orcs, so made it to the horse but (given the tie) the GM then called for another check - my Knots check vs the orcs' Speed to see if I could unloose the knot tying the horse to the post before the orcs closed. I couldn't, and so we were in combat.

The orcs were threatening Aramina but (triggering my instinct) I was able to interpose myself to protect her. I beat up the orcs - go plate-and-mail against orcish spears (needing one roll of 4+ on six dice to deflect their blows) and a "versus armour" rating of 3 with my mace, meaning they need to roll 4 such successes with their 3 dice for their leather armour to deflect my blows! At one point I did roll a 1 on my armour check, though, and so my breast plate lost a die of protection.

The orcs were part of a larger raiding party, with mumakil. I think the GM was hoping I might chase the mumakil, but I have no animal handling, animal lore etc and so the mumakil remained nothing but mere colour.

The larger raiding party was chased off by a force of elves. I'm not surprised that elves should show up - my GM loves elves!, just like I'm notorious for using undead and demons - but the interaction with the elves probably took an unexpected turn. 

I (again, in character) told Aramina to try to staunch the wounds of one of the fallen orcs, so we might interrogate them, while mounting the horse to go and meet up with the elves and look for their leader. I tried an untrained Heraldry check to recognise the elves' arms, and failed - so the elven leader was not too taken by me! In this there was cross-narration by me and the GM, but it ran in the same direction: as I was saying (in character) that I don't recognise the elven leader's arms and wondered who he was, he (spoken by the GM) was telling me that he didn't like my somewhat discourteous look. The GM is entitled to narrate such a thing - I failed my check, after all.

I don't know what, if anything, the GM had in mind for the elves, but one of my Beliefs is that fame and infamy shall no longer befall my ancestral estate. So I invited the elf to travel with his soldiers south to my ancestral estate, where we might host them. The GM had the elf try and blow me off, but I was serious about this and so called for a Duel of Wits. Unfortunately my dice pool was very weak compared to the elf's (6 Will dice being used for untrained Persuasion, so slightly weaker than 3 Persuasion dice vs 7 Will dice and 6 Persuasion dice) and so despite my attempt as a player to do some clever scripting I was rebuffed by the elf without getting even a compromise.

As I said, I don't know what the GM had in mind for the elves but I'm pretty sure the GM hadn't anticipated this. So I don't know what he anticipated for the elves' departure, but in the game it followed my failure to persuade the elf to join me. In the course of discussion the elf did mention that one orc - who may or may not have fallen in battle, he wasn't sure - was wearing a shield bearing the crest of the Iron Tower. I think the GM was expecting me to pursue this orc, but I didn't, for two reasons: (i) having been rebuffed by the elven leader, I wanted to head off in a different direction, and (ii) I'm a bit worried that Aramina is too squishy for hunting orcs!, and I'm pretty vulnerable too to being swarmed. If we return back this way once the orcs have had a few days to move out, we might then search the woods for the shield.

So the session ended with Aramina and I riding out following the river to the NW, but along the southern (ie Ulek) bank, and then setting up camp at the end of the day. Aramina was angry that I made us ride out, once the elves had left and in order to avoid any trouble from orc survivors, without having any lunch: from the mechanical point of view I was angling for a Fate point for being Disciplined, and for a Fate point for Araamina's fiery temper. I expect to start the next session trying to persuade Aramina to beat out the dint in my breastplate (she has Mending skill; I don't) and then some Cooking and maybe some campfire action.

Upthread, I quoted a bit from the BW rules where Luke Crane says that if, as a player, you're not grabbed by the story, it's your job to make things interesting! As I've said, I don't know what the GM had in mind for the elves but I did my bit to make it interesting. I think the GM's favourite part of the session was the fight with the orcs, but mine was the Duel of Wits with the elf. Even though I lost, I (i) got some good advancement checks, and (ii) enjoyed speaking my arguments as the rules require - especially my "avoiding of the topic" (which, mechanically, allows me to use my Will in defence rather than my untrained Persuasion), and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation.

This was the first time this GM has ever GMed a session. It was a fun session. My choices clearly mattered, in the ways I've described above. The GM had a sheet of paper in front of him with about half-a-page of print out, and I think that had some notes that he was using to help manage his orcs and his elves (as well as some stablocks from the rulebook). But the actual events of play clearly weren't pre-scripted: they couldn't have been, because they were driven by my action declarations, which is as it should be in BW.

*Cortex Fantasy*
This is a much more light-hearted RPG than BW. The characters are more two-dimensional, and the whole experience is much less gritty.

The PCs started the session separated in a dungeon. After a bit of hijinks finishing off an un-resolved conflict from our last session, I spent a Doom Pool die to rejoin the two groups. In the fiction, this was a combination of a successful creation of a "Secret Exit" asset by one of the PCs (who had been on his own in a necromantically cursed room with many burial niches in its walls, out of which zombies had come, and who - in wolf form, with his wolf companions - was crawling through an empty zombie niche looking for a way out) and a failed attempt by one of the two PCs in the other chamber (where they'd just fought giant spiders) to find a secret exit from the chamber: I narrated that, as he turned away from the wall in frustration, his sword-hilt struck a roundel and pressed it into the stone, opening a secret door.

This secret door led into a hidden chamber with a pack of ghouls - the same chamber into which the wolves were crawling following the winding ghoul-tunnels that lay beyond the zombie niches.

(Bringing the two groups together powered down the wolf PC, who is strongest solo, and also one of the other two PCs, who - at that point, before spending XP to swap things around - was strongest in a pair rather than solo or in a team. It also made my life as GM a bit easier.)

After dispatching the ghouls (the wolf PC getting the benefit of his "Secret Exit" asset - the ghouls didn't expect an attack via their tunnels!), the PCs followed strange piping music down a hitherto-hidden tunnel leading out of the ghouls' secret room to the lair of a Crypt Thing. The berserker attacked but missed. I think the wolf skin-changer tried something - I can't remember what - but with little success. But then the Doom Pool build up to 2d12 and so I was able to spend it to end the scene - in the fiction, the Crypt Thing teleported them all into an empty room on a lower dungeon level. Mechanically, this landed them all with a d12 Lost in the Dungeon complication.

After taking a rest (ie a Transition scene), they headed out and I described the next scene - a pillared hall with murals, flickering braziers, and a living statue guarding great doors. While the two warriors dispatched the statute, the skinchanger read the mural to try and work out where in the dungeon he was - mechanically, he successfully eliminated his Lost in the Dungeon complication. The swordthane did the same after dispatching the statue, and then helped the berserker also to read the mural/map before the latter then broke down the door. The skinchanger had continue to study the mural/map and had worked out the Path to the Treasure (a d10 or d12 - I can't remember precisely - asset).

On the other side of the door was the land of the svartalfar: a land of faerie fire, of deadly traps, and with the glint of gold. The PCs were confronted by four dark elves - a young fighter, an experience fighter, a C/F/MU and a F/MU (mechanically, I was using 4 statblocks from facing pages of the Civil War sourcebook: one I can't remember, but the other three were Lady Deathstrike and Moonstone - both good dark elven names - and Radioactive Man, who made a good drow wizard once I respecced his Radiation Control as Earth and Stone Control). The skinchanger used his Cunning expertise and his established knowledge of the path to the treasure to bluff Moonstone, the C/F/MU, into taking him to the dark elven treasure vaults - also picking up Milestone-based XP in the process for leaving his allies in a risky situation - and ended up finishing the scene with a huge (d12+) treasure asset. The other PCs finished off the three remaining dark elves, but not before the F/MU brought the stone crashing down, blocking off the tunnels the skinchanger and Moonstone had travelled through.

Next session will be a new act, I think, with the skinchanger needing a new Milestone now that he's finished off one by taking the treasure and leaving the dungeon; and probably beginning with the other two PCs having left the land of the dark elves after long wanderings through subterranean tunnels.

Although much of the detail of the setting is introduced by me as GM in the course of framing, key elements are introduced by the players, mostly in the form of assets - the tunnels into the ghoul room; the fact that the murals in the pillared hall have a map of the dungeon; and the drow treasure (and my Scene Distinction Glint of Gold was itself a riff on the fact that the skinchanger PC had established a Path to Treasure asset). The framing itself was all spontaneous as needed, although the stat blocks were mostly prepared in advance (I'd written up Ghouls and a Crypt Thing, used the MHRP book for dark elves, and only the Living Statute was written up by me ex tempore).

But this account should also make it fairly clear why the notion of "illusionism" just has no purchase in this game. Everything's on the surface: the Scene Distinctions, the Doom Pool growing or shrinking (it started the session at 2d6, 1d8, 2d10 and ended at 1d6, 1d8), the assets and complications, the NPCs in a scene, etc. There's nothing even remotely analogous to a fork in the road with the same encounter destined to occur down either path.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Needless to say, as per my post just above this, I think that the presence of that third option is crucial to GMing this sort of game, and that is why "secret backstory" is, on the whole, inimical - because it answers the question before it is even asked in play!



Of course it answers the question, for the DM; and that's the point.  The players don't know - they're playing to find out.

On a broader scale, in order to present a coherent relevant game world (and game, for all that) to the players through the eyes of their characters the DM has to have knowledge of said game world that the players (and characters) don't.

And while you say it's mere colour whether the characters turn east or west at a fork in the road, it's still very relevant to me as a player: I want to know where I am within the world.  If we already have a map - either pre-made by the DM or made by us on a previous visit to the area - I'll be looking at it to see where we are, where we might be going, and what might be waiting for us either on the way or when we get there based on geographical clues; and if we don't already have a map we will once I've drawn it as we go along.

It's the stuff you call "colour" that gives the game world its depth and richness, and eventually makes it familiar to us both as characters and players once we've explored it a bit.  Instead of jumping from one dramatic encounter location to another, take 30 seconds or a minute or even more and describe what we see on the way - particularly if where we're travelling is new to us.  And if we want to stop at one of the nameless villages, let us.

An example: quite early in my current campaign the various adventurers started using a town called Torcha as their home base, as it was the nearest decent-sized place to where the adventuring was.  About 110-ish miles (or 6 days' walk) to the south is the port town of Karnos.  The first time any PCs made this trip* I made a point of describing the countryside they were passing through, the types of people they were meeting on the road, the villages and waystations they'd see, and so forth...all in the name of immersion, depth, and giving them a sense of this place that I had a pretty good notion would become quite familiar to them over time.  Since then various PCs have made that trip probably a hundred times or more all in; but other than varying the weather I know the players** already have an idea in mind what it's going to look like thus I don't have to describe it all again: they can imagine it on their own based on that first description. (exception: if there's a new player I'll repeat the descriptions)

* - in fact en route to some adventuring; they'd been recruited in Torcha to do some investigating in Karnos: this a prelude to what would become a variant on the Slavers' A-series.  Some would say I should have jumped straight to Karnos (where the action was) once they left Torcha and skipped everything in between; I think the game would have been lessened if I had.

** - players, not characters this time; the Torcha-Karnos road is going to look pretty much the same no matter who's walking it, so in this case the descriptions are more for the players than the characters.

Lan-"9 years later and they're still using Torcha as a home base"-efan


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> On a broader scale, in order to present a coherent relevant game world (and game, for all that) to the players through the eyes of their characters the DM has to have knowledge of said game world that the players (and characters) don't.



You keep asserting this, but - as I posted not far upthread - with no actual evidence. You haven't presented any evidence that those of us running games without secret backstory lack "coherent relevant game worlds".


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> You keep asserting this, but - as I posted not far upthread - with no actual evidence. You haven't presented any evidence that those of us running games without secret backstory lack "coherent relevant game worlds".



If you-as-DM don't know ahead of time that Col. Mustard did it in the Library with a +3 Mace then how can you possibly provide consistent clues and frame consistent scenes to that effect?

Conversely, if all you have is an obviously-murdered corpse (let's say of the sister of one of the PCs, to make it dramatically relevant; and let's say that PC's player had already agreed to this out of session, to forestall that argument) and even you-as-DM don't know ahead of time how it died or at whose hand, then how on earth can the players hope to roleplay their PCs to investigate the murder and track down the killer?  Sure they can ask questions of NPCs, conduct searches, and all the rest...and you-as-DM then have to role-play those NPCs, narrate the search results, and so on...which means you-as-DM are still supplying the answers.  Wouldn't it just make your job easier to know ahead of time what happened, so you can provide real or false clues and evidence along the way and know for yourself which is which?

Lan-"campaigns without mystery are campaigns without life"-efan


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## tomBitonti

Lanefan said:


> If you-as-DM don't know ahead of time that Col. Mustard did it in the Library with a +3 Mace then how can you possibly provide consistent clues and frame consistent scenes to that effect?
> 
> Conversely, if all you have is an obviously-murdered corpse (let's say of the sister of one of the PCs, to make it dramatically relevant; and let's say that PC's player had already agreed to this out of session, to forestall that argument) and even you-as-DM don't know ahead of time how it died or at whose hand, then how on earth can the players hope to roleplay their PCs to investigate the murder and track down the killer?  Sure they can ask questions of NPCs, conduct searches, and all the rest...and you-as-DM then have to role-play those NPCs, narrate the search results, and so on...which means you-as-DM are still supplying the answers.  Wouldn't it just make your job easier to know ahead of time what happened, so you can provide real or false clues and evidence along the way and know for yourself which is which?
> 
> Lan-"campaigns without mystery are campaigns without life"-efan




If you could generate a murder plot by random means, then the decision points could be shifted in time from before the session to within the session.

This doesn't change much, though, since as soon as players start looking for clues, much of the plot will need to be decided.  All that it changes is that the DM doesn't know ahead of time how the plot will resolve.

If you then take the random plot generation and allow it to be biased based on players' interest, that adds in a bit of the players driving the resolution.

This is the same as writing software using "late" or "lazy" resolution: Deferring all resolutions to as late a point as possible.

That is, in theory.  Getting this to work at the table sounds troublesome, and seems to me would not work very well without a system which has built in mechanisms to help the GM.  Which is kind-of of what the more dynamic systems seem to be doing.  Or that seem to be trying to do.

Edit: I'm wondering how well dynamic resolution handles building tension.  When the GM knows the plot, he or she can work at building tension towards the eventual resolution.  I suspect that is what "Go to the Action" (not sure if I'm using the correct term there) is all about: Moving the resolution to a field which is exciting to the player.

That brings up (to me) interesting questions about the psychology of resolution and how much consistency is required to be psychologically satisfying.  I'm thinking that this varies a lot between different people, and that difference is expressing itself within the dialog and preferences that are being displayed in this thread.

Thx!
TomB


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Obviously it's your prerogative to disagree with whomever you want to - but which bits are you disagreeeing with?
> 
> Do you think I'm wrong in saying that the main threat to good "story now" RPGing is not illusionism - for which there's no scope, because you can't _hide_ whether or not something engages the PCs' dramatic needs - but rather a failure to frame engaging scenes?




It's hard to say what I am disagreeing with. I have acknowledged that your playstyle is not Illusionism in the Forge-established meaning of the word as you are using it. I've said that repeatedly....yet your responses always go back to making that point. So, it's hard to engage since you seem to be disputing something other than what I am saying. 

My original point was that there are elements common to both the playstyle you are putting forth (or at least in my interpretation of such) and a more traditional playstyle where GM force and illusionism come into the picture. 




pemerton said:


> No. _It's not part of any backstory until the moment of revelation._
> 
> As I posted upthread in reply to   [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan,
> 
> A GM making a note - "If the appropriate situation arises, X claims to by Y's rather" - is not establishing any backstory, secret or otherwise. It's just brainstorming.




I disagree with you about this, to a certain extent. Not so much about the brainstorming aspect, or that such musings cannot be changed. But in the establishment of backstory. Perhaps some will see this as a pedantic point, but I think there is a subtle but important distinction here that may be a big factor. 

If a GM introduces an NPC and has even a faint idea that the NPC will have a fate along the lines of being the father of one of the PCs, then I think something has been established. Not within the game world, I know, but established in the mind of the GM. I would expect that if that is the GM's intention....if he's even considered this as a possibility for this NPC....then that's going to affect how he uses the NPC. He's already putting that NPC into a position of importance. Certainly the PCs will latch onto the mysterious villain more than they will the shopkeeper who sold them some rope and a lantern. 

The GM is very likely steering things in this manner. The degree to which he does so will vary greatly from GM to GM, I'm sure....but I'm sure it's there in many games. 

So let's say there are two NPCs....a mysterious figure whom the PCs have run into and who seems opposed to them in some way. They don't know that much about this guy, other than that he's incredibly dangerous, and that very few people know about him. The GM has an idea that this NPC could be related to one of the PCs, could in fact be the father that the player had determined was an important element for the character. All framing or story establishment or scenario construction or whatever term you want to use is made with this in mind. It's never openly established in the fiction, but it's certainly not contradicted, and it's there in the back pocket of the GM to introduce when the time is right. 

So the GM's ideas have already affected things to some extent. The fact that nothing is so definitive as to be a contradiction if the GM's brainstormed idea doesn't come to fruition doesn't change the fact that this idea has influenced things. At the very least, the game world will take shape in such a way as to not contradict the possibility of the GM's idea. 

So, I think that even brainstorming helps to establish things to some extent....an extent that could in fact be important, and have an impact on how the game takes shape. Yes, these things could change....much in the same way that two rooms on a map can be swapped. This state of potential flux is the similarity I spoke of above. 





pemerton said:


> In other words, all that the GM's narration establishes is that _this NPC claims to be the PC's father_. Nothing is established, in virtue of that, about who the PC's father is.
> 
> The only thing that is established as true in the fiction is that the claim has been made. Which the player knows.




Yes, the narration of the GM only establishes that the NPC has claimed to be the PC's father. This is entirely true. This can also be the case in a GM driven game. Let's say I am running a very backstory heavy game....it's plot heavy and there is little focus on the personal lives of the PCs. But I decide to change that and have the big bad guy turn out to be one of the PC's father. But then, as we build up to hat, something happens that makes me decide to change that....so I decide the unassuming shopkeeper is actually the PC's dad, and has been helping the PCs because he hopes they can stop the big bad, who was the shopkeeper's enemy long ago.....

Yes, there would be some proponents of GM driven games that would insist that the villain is the father because that's what the GM was going for. But not all GM driven games must be so. The technique you are describing is not unique to your chosen games. 



pemerton said:


> If one thinks of the father example, for instance, one can imagine the player setting out to establish it as true that the claim is false. _That would not be possible_ in a "secret backstory"-driven game; but is eminently feasible in a "story now" game.




Not be possible? Why not? 

I don't disagree with it being very feasible in the "story now" approach. 



pemerton said:


> Another example that I posted upthread - also in reply to   [MENTION=61721]Hawke[/MENTION]yfan - exmplifies the same features:
> 
> The claim that _the Dusk War is upon upon us!_ is the challenging revelation. The PCs deny it. Play will show whether or not they are right. This game _literally could not be played_ if I as GM had already decided whether or not the Dusk War has come. That would turn the game from a struggle over the fate of the world into a mystery or puzzle-solving game - an instance of what you quote Ron Edwards describing as "exploration of situation".
> 
> I don't want to play a game in which the players explore the situation. I want to play a game in which they _drive_ the situation. This is utterly at odds with the truth and the outcome of the situation already being established in the form of "secret backstory".




I don't follow your reasoning here at all. "Are these the end times?" or some variant on that is probably a really common element in many games, regardless of approach. And I would expect almost any GM to say that the answer is up to the PCs. Even if it's a pure railroad all along and all that matters is if the PCs defeat the big bad in the final encounter. If they beat the big bad, it ain't the end times....if they don't, it is. Up to the PCs, isn't it? 

Again, I think you are assuming that a GM driven game must be the opposite of the story now/player driven approach that you prefer....so you assign attributes to it that may or may not apply. This is why I've described my game as a mix of both elements.....because I don't see them as mutually exclusive opposites.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Manbearcat said:


> 1)  See my post above to  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION].  I wasn't asserting my own opinion.  I was soliciting yours.  I may not have framed things in a way to get that across.
> 
> When you say "Story Now games sort of have a higher incidence of coincidences like this," that is exactly correct.  Table time for the players and on-screen time for the fiction should be spent "on the action".  Baker's axiom for this in Dogs is "at every moment, drive play toward conflict."
> 
> But I was asking you personally about it because I've seen a lot of concern for "realism fidelity" and "table time/on-screen time exclusively spent on 'the action' " aversion throughout this thread (not necessarily all from you).
> 
> 2)  See my post directly above to Ovinomancer on GMing this scenario.  To help, I'm going to give you some Dog's specific GMing direction straight from Vincent Baker:
> 
> a)  "Follow the players' lead about what's important and what's not."
> 
> b)  When you create The Towns, "something's wrong (Pride, Sin, False Doctrine, False Priesthood, Hate & Murder), of course...that's what makes the game interesting."
> 
> c)  Setup; "you need some NPCS with claims to the PCs time, some NPCs who can't ignore the PCs' arrival, some NPCs who've done harm, but *for reasons anybody could understand*."
> 
> d)  Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story".  Just play The Town.  Present the PC's with choices; "provoke the players to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!"  Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved.  (DitV 137-139)
> 
> e)  Reflect between Towns with the players.  Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "push them a little bit further in the next Town."






Manbearcat said:


> 1)  See my post above to  [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION].  I wasn't asserting my own opinion.  I was soliciting yours.  I may not have framed things in a way to get that across.
> 
> When you say "Story Now games sort of have a higher incidence of coincidences like this," that is exactly correct.  Table time for the players and on-screen time for the fiction should be spent "on the action".  Baker's axiom for this in Dogs is "at every moment, drive play toward conflict."
> 
> But I was asking you personally about it because I've seen a lot of concern for "realism fidelity" and "table time/on-screen time exclusively spent on 'the action' " aversion throughout this thread (not necessarily all from you).
> 
> 2)  See my post directly above to Ovinomancer on GMing this scenario.  To help, I'm going to give you some Dog's specific GMing direction straight from Vincent Baker:
> 
> a)  "Follow the players' lead about what's important and what's not."
> 
> b)  When you create The Towns, "something's wrong (Pride, Sin, False Doctrine, False Priesthood, Hate & Murder), of course...that's what makes the game interesting."
> 
> c)  Setup; "you need some NPCS with claims to the PCs time, some NPCs who can't ignore the PCs' arrival, some NPCs who've done harm, but *for reasons anybody could understand*."
> 
> d)  Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story".  Just play The Town.  Present the PC's with choices; "provoke the players to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!"  Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved.  (DitV 137-139)
> 
> e)  Reflect between Towns with the players.  Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "push them a little bit further in the next Town."




Got it.

I'll start with these statements:

a) Yes

b) There are a lot of ways to make something interesting besides "something's wrong" and I don't see a need to limit it to just that option. However, there _is_ always something interesting going on, but it's not always immediately evident. This doesn't mean that I pre-determine something (although I often do), but it plays off the first point - sometimes the town isn't important to them. Sometimes it's just a place to rest, recover, take a break, and reprovision for example. 

c) This depends on the characters. Not every adventure is NPC driven, although that's always an option and a lot of fun.

d) Totally agree. Although the town and the NPCs, etc. have their own stories. And while I agree that as a DM I will obviously provide things in the world, and they will sometimes initiate (or imply) conflict, I object to having to always drive toward conflict. (And I don't see how you can ever resolve all conflict in a town.)

e) Use what they've gained lost and given - yes, listen to the PCs to find ways to build on the stories. But as a DM I'm not pushing them to anything. It's up to the PCs to determine where they go next. Some (NPC driven) story arcs will be more compelling toward a certain direction, but not always.

Point a) specifically says the DM should follow the lead of the players about what's important and not. Moreso I think the players should be the primary authors of the story - as Eero pointed out, the DM is in control of the backstory and setting, the players in control of the story. Steps b) and c) continue in that approach, but then d) and e) instruct the DM to drive the story.

You asked about "realism fidelity" and "table time/on-screen time exclusively spent on 'the action' "

The "realism fidelity" is, at least for me, in-world consistency. I do have a lot of rules that relate to "realism" but they aren't related to the story directly so don't really apply here. From what I understand about a lot (but not all) Story Now games is that they are largely self-contained. That is, they aren't part of an ongoing campaign. So whatever comes up in the course of that game, of however many sessions, isn't relevant once you start a new game (story). But if the characters, locations, NPCs, and such continue from one campaign to another, that consistency can become more important. Some people won't care - if you play the HotDQ AP and then move onto OotA AP in 5e D&D, you don't really have to have consistency. But they are also largely self-contained, and they players will probably start with new characters for the second adventure.

For somebody like me, who had been running a continuous campaign from the release of the Forgotten Realms in 1987 until 4e came out, 4e _really_ created problems. I kept up with the published timeline, with the various story arcs from novels, etc. occurring (mostly in the background), etc. So when they jumped ahead 100 years, it totally screwed existing campaigns like mine. Do we jump ahead the 100 years and drop all of our existing story arcs? And since the timeline has detailed some major events in the near future for us, do we incorporate those? In the end, once 5e came out, we've jumped ahead (made easier by new groups of players), but it was pretty annoying. As a result, though, I've also taken advantage of the shift to bring things closer to the way my campaign was during AD&D rules, and have modified the 5e rules to support that.

In and of itself, the Story Now approach makes for an interesting and fun game. And there really isn't a reason why I can't do the same thing in D&D. Sure, the rules don't specifically support it in the same way, in that the rules don't make you address the fiction directly as they are more mechanical in nature. But they don't prevent me from doing it either. But the instructions (all of the ones you list above) can easily be worked into the game.

So what I think I'm finding is that, for me, the "problem" with Story Now _games_ is that they are very specialized. I like long form campaigns. I like to see the same group of characters work through life, growing and changing on the way. Where the journey is as important as the goal. With an ever-growing cast provided by the players, some of which relate to other characters/stories, others that don't. Story Now games are designed to be a movie - or a more short form approach. The focus is generally on conflict, a specific story line, and maintains much closer focus on that, since it's got a much shorter amount of time to address it than a series that has 22 episodes a year for 10 years.

Most of my campaigns literally run for years. Players have multiple characters, and NPCs or events that happened several years ago can come back into play. While I use a published campaign world, a significant portion of the organizations, villains and other NPCs are all directly from prior campaigns. The world is populated by people the players "know." In many cases these are older PCs that are no longer in active service (although they can be). 

The canvas is different. It's more of a Tolkien approach, where he was as interested in the linguistics (not us - beyond me), and the history and world itself as the stories within it. My primary focus as the DM is providing an environment where the players can write whatever story they'd like. The world is the way it is because of the things that have come before. And figuring out what came before is also interesting.

From the character perspective, it gives you time to let the character grow. To find out what makes them tick, and makes them different from your other characters. Not that you can't do that in Story Now, but you're dealing with a shorter time-table, and a more intense scenario usually.

The Story Now approach often has the same problem that I have with a lot of current TV series. For example, Hawaii Five-O - my wife loves it. Except that every single week you have a small group of law enforcement involved in large gun battles with villains toting automatic weapons. In Hawaii. Why would anybody vacation there? The place is obviously crawling with out-of-control criminal elements.

It's ludicrous. The number of times law enforcement gets into gun battles with automatic weapon-toting criminals is quite low across the entire country. And it makes news when it happens. Usually national news. That type of show strains credibility with me and is another type of "realism fidelity."

It doesn't mean you can't have a great story in all that. Of course you can. I just prefer that I don't have that type of story every week. 

The Story Now approach is very good at what it does. I think it would be a much better fit than earlier RPG attempts at James Bond. Mission-based would fit very well with the narrower focus of Story Now. Traditionally, Bond hasn't explored much about the character, but the last few movies have been more interested in how the job, the world, etc. weighs on him. Firefly, being episodic in nature and where the setting changes in each episode (or it's within the self-contained setting of the ship itself. Star Trek, etc. All of those would be well suited to that style. Really anything where the setting serves only as a backdrop. Where the characters don't really get involved in the politics and things like that. What it doesn't do is long-form dungeon-crawl, hex-crawl, how do the characters fit into the world as a whole approach. It is, in fact, often their stated goal to avoid all of that.

But I'm interested in more than that. Our campaigns have long-term story arcs for each character. But there are many short story arcs, and story arcs that tie the characters together, of course. But then sometimes they don't. My campaigns aren't party-based. They can be, like _Fellowship of the Ring._ But then, like that book, they sometimes split up. Permanently. They go separate ways. We play through their stories too if we want. Sometimes it's just a character that they are ready to retire, so the player and I work out what their goals are going forward, and they become an NPC. Until they decide to pick them up again. If ever. 

At any given time with say, six players, there are a good dozen or so story arcs occurring. And a given session might not address any of them directly. And they aren't all "conflicts" in the sense that we're always trying to ramp up the action. I don't drive them toward a specific story or plot, even if it evolves between us as a group. They have _lots_ of stories and plots, and pick what and when they want to engage in any given plot.

They aren't always "conflict" - could be mystery, could be comedy, whatever. Police and legal procedurals are interesting to me because they can cover a whole lot of ground in the human condition. In the world, in the stories, and in the characters. You can do this in Story Now games, but it's not optimized for that. In general, their focus is on a single type of story, with rules that strongly direct the story (or the DM) to create that type of story.

Most of the elements and concepts from Story Now games are solid and helpful. And the more I'm going through this thread, the more I'm finding that I use (or can use) a lot of the techniques. More importantly, to me anyway, is that they are also quite limiting in their approach. They tell one type of story very, very well. And they either don't support other types of stories, or they do it relatively poorly. (Does that mean it can't be done? Of course not.)

Table-time spent on the action is directly related to the type of story. Assuming a drama, hour-long TV shows spend more time on character development, outside of the main setting (police station, hospital, law firm, fire department, etc.) and in. They have the ability to dig a bit deeper than a 1/2 hour show that has to maintain a tighter focus. But I like dynamics. The periods between the action enhance the action, make it more intense, but in a different way.

Can you have a long-term campaign with a Story Now system? Dungeon World seems to be interested in the same type of worlds and general concept as D&D. But it doesn't encourage anything outside of the immediate story to be addressed in any way. It doesn't encourage cataloging and recording the places and people of the world for future use, or delving into the history, events, and ongoing plots that are (currently) independent of the PCs. Consistency isn't as important as the current story. That's fine. The goals are different. They just don't readily support my goals and needs.

One thing I can say, is that there is nothing within your description, or really the descriptions of anybody else's games that I object to. And I like a lot of the ideas and stories themselves. The only thing I do object to from time to time is _how_ the story is generated. Like in the OP [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] made a Perception check to determine whether a vessel was there or not. Personally, I don't mind randomly determining whether or not a vessel was there, although as I noted it really probably didn't need to be a random check. But the idea that a characters Perception check, which is designed to determine if they notice something is there, as opposed to determine whether something is there or not, rubs me the wrong way. It's the same thing that bothers a number of folks as the idea that the act of searching for a secret door determines whether the door is actually there or not.

Now [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is used to the Story Now approach, which is more concerned with the scene or goal, rather than a mechanical task. And if everybody is on the same page with that, then allowing the Perception check to determine that the vessel is there isn't an issue. And there's no reason in a Story Now game that he can't decide that it just doesn't belong there, in which case it's not there regardless of the check. But to a lot of us, those are two different things: Is there a secret door present? And if so, can the character find it? One is a determination of setting, not story, in my world. The second is a use of a skill. For the original example, it was a question of story.

I like to treat my campaign like the real world. The world, as it is, is independent of the actions of the NPCs. And it's independent upon the actions of the PC (me). When I'm developing the campaign, I treat them as such. The stories can act upon the world, and the world can act upon the story, etc. That doesn't mean that I can't add a secret door if it seems appropriate in that location. But the answer is based on entirely different questions than whether it would serve the story here. Why would there be a secret door here? That's really the question that needs to be answered, not whether the character successfully detected an as-yet nonexistent secret door.

Is [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] wrong? Of course not. We just have different goals, and different approaches in reaching those goals.

As i'm writing this, my wife is watching _The Secretary_, a TV show about the Secretary of State if you're not familiar with it. So far (nearly a third of the episode) we've seen the Secretary of State for all of about 2 minutes. So far this episode is about a number of different plots, and multiple characters. I'm sure some of those will circle back to the Secretary, but not all of them. This is exactly the sort of thing we enjoy. With some of them carrying to future episodes, some not, and so on. Ironically, I'm not a fan of spotlighting, however, where one episode focuses on one character, etc. But depending on what's going on, the session will sometimes do that naturally - where the players choose to focus on something that's important to one character in particular, rather than me as the DM.

So for me, the Story Now techniques are a a great addition to the DM's toolbox. I'll continue to try to learn more so I can incorporate them into my campaign. But it's one tool, or perhaps group of tools, that will join the others in my toolbox, to be used where and how it works in my campaign.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> On a broader scale, in order to present a coherent relevant game world (and game, for all that) to the players through the eyes of their characters the DM has to have knowledge of said game world that the players (and characters) don't.






pemerton said:


> You keep asserting this, but - as I posted not far upthread - with no actual evidence. You haven't presented any evidence that those of us running games without secret backstory lack "coherent relevant game worlds".




How about I think that _I_ am incapable of presenting a coherent relevant game world to the players through the eyes of their characters if I (the DM) don't have some prepared material and knowledge of said game world that the characters don't?

Does that work for you?


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> If one thinks of the father example, for instance, one can imagine the player setting out to establish it as true that the claim is false. That would not be possible in a "secret backstory"-driven game; but is eminently feasible in a "story now" game.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Not be possible? Why not?
Click to expand...




Lanefan said:


> If you-as-DM don't know ahead of time that Col. Mustard did it in the Library with a +3 Mace then how can you possibly provide consistent clues and frame consistent scenes to that effect?



I have put these two quotes together because Lanefan's rhetorical question provides the answer to hawkeyefan's non-rhetorical one.

It's important, in my post that was quoted by [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], that I said "player", not "PC". That is, I am not talking just about the _PC_ setting out to prove that the claim of fatherhood is false - which presumably is possible in any game - but the _player_ setting out to make it the case _in the shared fiction_ that the claim is false.

In a "secret backstory" game, whether or not the NPC is the father is (presumably) known to the GM (if it's not, then there's no secret backstory!), and so the player's action declarations can't actually establish this bit of the fiction. All they can do is uncover it (which is what I have referred to upthread as "learning the contents of the GM's notes"). If the PC cast a Commune spell and asked "Who is my father?" or "Is the NPC my father?", the GM would provide the answer written in his/her notes.

Upthread I've already posted examples of the PCs trying to solve mysteries, and how this works in a "story now" framework where there is no "secret backstory". Here's one such:

*Mystery*: why did the PC's brother become possessed by a balrog?

*Clue* - _narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Scavenging check_: the PC searches the ruined tower where he and his brother once lived and worked, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he left behind 14 years ago when fleeing attacking orcs; but instead, he finds cursed black arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom.

*Further clue* - _narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Aura Reading check_: the PC reads the magical aura of the arrows, hoping to learn who made them - it was his brother!​
The clues point towards an answer to the mystery - the PC's brother was evil, and hence a fitting receptacle for balrog possession. They are narrated by the GM in accordance with the "challenging revelation" approach described by Eero Tuovinen.

The mechanics of the system are important here: every action declaration is resolved according to "say 'yes' or roll the dice". There is no automatic success comparable to classic D&D commune. So the aura reading is a check, which can result in failure, which enables me as GM to narrate another clue that points in the unhappy direction.

Here's another example:

*Mystery*: is the Dusk War upon us!

*Clue* - _introduced by GM as part of framing_: the tarrasque has risen from out of the earth and is wreaking havoc - this is one of the prophesied signs of the Dusk War.

*Further clue* - _introduced by GM as part of framing_ (partly unprompted, partly in the course of discussion between the PCs and a NPC, partly in response to knowledge checks which were, in effect, requests for more framing detail): the tarrasque is surrounded by maruts who in ancient days made an agreement with the Raven Queen to ensure that no one would interfere with the tarrasque carrying out its rampage at a herald of the Dusk War.

The PCs responded to this by having one of their number attack the tarrasque and single-handedly bloody it, while the other PCs explained to the maruts that they had made an error in their cosmological calculations: this could _not_ be the tarrasque heralding the Dusk War, because the ease with which it was being defeated meant that it could not be the harbinger of the end times. It must be some lesser precursor to that prophesied event. (Mechanically, this was both successful combat actions and success in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)​
In a "secret backstory" game the PCs presumably could persuade the maruts, but whether or not the prophesied end of days was here or not would itself be something already known to the GM (if not, then there is no secret backstory).



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't follow your reasoning here at all. "Are these the end times?" or some variant on that is probably a really common element in many games, regardless of approach. And I would expect almost any GM to say that the answer is up to the PCs. Even if it's a pure railroad all along and all that matters is if the PCs defeat the big bad in the final encounter. If they beat the big bad, it ain't the end times....if they don't, it is. Up to the PCs, isn't it?



I am not talking about a world-threatening villain that the PCs might try and stop. I'm talking about a prophesied end-of-days - the Ragnarok or the Apocalypse.

The answer to the question _is the Dusk War upon us_ is, in the fiction, either _yes_ or _no_: it's either the end times, or it's not. But at the table, in the real world, the answer is not known. The players, like their PCs, want the answer to be _no_. There are NPCs - including the Raven Queen, it seems - who want the answer to be _yes_. Of course, the PCs don't have the causal power _in the fiction_ to establish the answer - it's a cosmological truth. But the players, at the table, have the causal power to shape the fiction. That is the difference from a "secret backstory" game, where the answer to the question is settled in the GM's notes. (Again, if there is no such answer then we're not talking about a "secret backstory" game.)



Lanefan said:


> Conversely, if all you have is an obviously-murdered corpse (let's say of the sister of one of the PCs, to make it dramatically relevant; and let's say that PC's player had already agreed to this out of session, to forestall that argument) and even you-as-DM don't know ahead of time how it died or at whose hand, then how on earth can the players hope to roleplay their PCs to investigate the murder and track down the killer?  Sure they can ask questions of NPCs, conduct searches, and all the rest...and you-as-DM then have to role-play those NPCs, narrate the search results, and so on...which means you-as-DM are still supplying the answers.



First, a subsidiary point: the GM does not seek the player's agreement out of session. That would be making the mistake that Eero Tuovinen describes, of getting the player to author his/her own challenge. It is the GM's job to narrate the murder, whether as framing or as a consequence of a failed check. (As [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I were discussing not far upthread, which of these, if either, is appropriate narration is the sort of decision a "story now" GM has to make all the time; if the GM gets it wrong, then the situation will fall flat, or fail to provoke a choice on the part of the player.)

Second, the main points.

(A) In a "story now"/"narrativistic" game the GM is _going where the action is_, in accordance with dramatic need. The sister _has some significance_. The sister's murder _has some significance_ (eg it opens up the town council to control by the PC's rivals). The PC has someone in mind as the suspect. In short, the scene will _provoke some choice_ on the part of the player. That choice will involve action declarations, which will be successful (in which case things unfold the way the PC hoped) or will fail (in which case things unfold unhappily for the PC).

Which leads to the other main point:

(B) It's simply not correct that "you-as-DM are still supplying the answers". Look at the examples I've given in this post; or other examples from upthread, like whether or not there is a vessel in the room where the unconscious mage has been decapitated. If the player's action declaration for his/her PC succeeds, then it is the player, not the GM, who is shaping the fiction. The player's successful Perception check established the presence of a vessel in the room. The players' successful defeat of the tarrasque made it plausible that it was not, in fact, the Dusk War harbinger but only some lesser incarnation.

Think about (A) and (B) in relation to the example [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted not far upthread, of the discovery of the brother's hat in the brothel. I don't know DitV's resolution system, but I can easily imagine how this might unfold in BW:

The PC picks up the hat from the hook in the foyer and strides into the main parlour of the brothel. He draws his pistol, holds up the hat, and calls out "The owner of this here hat had better come out here now, or I'll come and find him!"

At the table, the GM calls for a Command check, with (say) Conspicuous, Oratory and Intimidate folded in as augments.

If the check succeeds, some NPC stranger stumbles sheepishly out of one of the bedrooms, and the scene now evolves into a social encounter as the PC tries to find out how the NPC came by the brother's hat.

If the check fails, then the PC (and player) have not got what they want. So the GM narrates the brother coming out of a bedroom into the parlour, pulling up his britches as he comes. Now the situation has taken a very different turn . . .​
Because of (A), there is no fumbling around by the players or the GM wondering where to go to look for clues. The situation is charged with dramatic need. The player can declare actions. The GM can supply engaging framing.

Because of (B), the GM as much as the players is _playing to find out_. The resolution of the mystery will not be determined by the GM. It's not the GM who supplies the answers. The answers are generated by the consequences of action declaration: if the player succeeds, the PC's intent is realised; if the player fails, the GM narrates some consequence adverse to the PC's intent.

Note that, even on failure, _the GM is not sole arbiter_. It is the player who established the intent of the action declaration, and hence who establishes the parameters (_adversity to_ or _negation of_ that intent) that govern the GM's narration of consequences of failure.



Lanefan said:


> Wouldn't it just make your job easier to know ahead of time what happened, so you can provide real or false clues and evidence along the way and know for yourself which is which?



Would it make my job easier as a baker of cakes for my family to buy one at the shop? To me, that sounds like giving up on my job.

As I've repeatedly posted, _I don't want to play an RPG where the main goal of play is for the players to find out what I have written in my notes_. And if my players want to find out what I think would make for a good mystery, well, they can read my novels! But as far as RPGing is concerned, I want to play to find out. For me, that's what RPGing is.



hawkeyefan said:


> My original point was that there are elements common to both the playstyle you are putting forth
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If a GM introduces an NPC and has even a faint idea that the NPC will have a fate along the lines of being the father of one of the PCs, then I think something has been established. Not within the game world, I know, but established in the mind of the GM. I would expect that if that is the GM's intention....if he's even considered this as a possibility for this NPC....then that's going to affect how he uses the NPC.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The GM is very likely steering things in this manner.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So the GM's ideas have already affected things to some extent.



Sorry, I hadn't realised that any of this had been taken to be in contention.

Yes, the GM has ideas. Otherwise the GM couldn't frame scenes or narrate consequences. But I don't know what you mean by "steering things in this manner".

Consider one of the examples I posted around six or so posts upthread, from one of the sessions I participated in over the weekend: my GM included elves in the situation, because he like elves. And no doubt he had some ideas about what might happen with the elves (just as a GM might have ideas about NPCs and their connections to PC parenthood).

So, with whatever ideas he had in mind, the GM narrated the presence of the elf captain. I initiated the social exchange; and it seemed fairly clear to me that the GM had not expected me (in character as my PC) to try to persuade the elven captain to bring himself and his company to my PC's ancestral estate. The interaction of stat blocks, scripting (ie blind action declarations, which is how BW handles complex conflict resolution) and the dice dictated that the elf captain rebuffed my PC's invitation; but while the attempt failed utterly, as I posted upthread it nevertheless (i) got me some good advancement checks, (ii) let me have fun speaking my arguments as the rules require, and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation. Following the interaction with the elf captain, I was the one who then chose that my PC and his companion would head off in a different direction from the elves without taking any lunch (which we had originally been planning to eat at the ruined homestead).

So anyway, as I've said, I don't know what you have in mind when you refer to the GM "steering things" in an episode of play like this. If you simply mean that the GM determines some elements of the fiction as part of framing - eg the elf, who didn't want to come back to my ancestral estate but rather to return to Celene with a fallen comrade - then as I said I didn't realise that was in contention. But if you mean something more, I'm missing what that is.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think you are assuming that a GM driven game must be the opposite of the story now/player driven approach that you prefer....so you assign attributes to it that may or may not apply. This is why I've described my game as a mix of both elements.....because I don't see them as mutually exclusive opposites.



Well, as I've said upthread I don't know enough about your game to form any opinion on it.

But I think the contrast between the sort of approach that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is advocating for - in which the GM authors the backstory in advance, and the players' job includes finding that out in the course of play - and the sort of approach that I prefer, is a fairly clear one.

For all I know, you run a game in which you frame scenes according to dramatic need, and establish the content of the fiction in the sort of fashion that I have described: the interaction of framing, action declarations and consequences. Ron Edwards discusses this in two essays:

Sh*t! I'm playing Narrativist 
In Simulationist play, morality cannot be imposed by the player or, except as the representative of the imagined world, by the GM. Theme is already part of the cosmos; it's not produced by metagame decisions. Morality, when it's involved, is "how it is" in the game-world, and even its shifts occur along defined, engine-driven parameters. The GM and players buy into this framework in order to play at all. . . .

Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary. . . .

The _Now _refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. To do that, they relate to "the story" very much as authors do for novels, as playwrights do for plays, and screenwriters do for film at the creative moment or moments. Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another. The Now also means "get to it," in which "it" refers to any Explorative element or combination of elements that increases the enjoyment of that issue I'm talking about.

There cannot be any "_the _story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). . . .

Jesse: I'm just still a little confused between Narrativism and Simulationism where the Situation has a lot of ethical/moral problems embedded in it and the GM uses no Force techniques to produce a specific outcome. I don't understand how Premise-expressing elements can be included and players not be considered addressing a Premise when they can't resolve the Situation without doing so.

Me: There is no such Simulationism. You're confused between Narrativism and Narrativism, looking for a difference when there isn't any.​
It's very clear to me that Lanefan is running a game that, in Edwards' framework, would count as "simulationist" because "exploration of situation and setting". I think the same is true for [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], but probably with a greater focus on setting and character rather than situation. But you, [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], haven't said enough about how you run your game, or provided examples of play that would illustrate your techniques. So I can't tell.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> Of course it answers the question, for the DM; and that's the point.  The players don't know - they're playing to find out.




So this assertion, which [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has made as well, is one I object to for no specific reason. It just bugs me. 

I think it's because of the statement that "the players are trying to figure out what's in the DMs notes." And I disagree.

The characters are trying to accomplish their goals, whatever they may be. Some of that is probably to uncover various mysteries of life, and mysteries in their life. The only one that can provide those answers is the DM.

Just because I know something that the players don't doesn't mean the players are "playing to find out." The players might find out, they might not. They might not care to find out. 

For example, I'm adopted. I have no interest in searching out my biological "parents." They aren't my parents.

I have a secret backstory, and I don't care. Just because the DM has thought of secret backstory for the characters doesn't mean that it will ever come into play.

More importantly, it should only come into play if: 

They player wants it to; and/or
It adds something of value to the campaign.

So regardless of what I might have thought regarding a character's secret backstory 2 years ago, it isn't "real" until it comes into play. And guess what? Many times that secret backstory changes over time too. What popped into my head during a session 2 years ago is a note I make, and I play with it. Can I do something with this? Can it add something interesting to the campaign? Where might it lead? Is it really compelling?

When one of my players declared his character was divorced, I didn't really think about it. Then, when I was looking for a way to tie a particular NPC into the story a little tighter, because he was going to be a foil for that particular character, it occurred to me that it's his hated ex-brother-in-law, whom he had stated had something to do with the divorce.

And guess what, all backstory unknown to the player/character is secret backstory. Whether it's authored in the moment, or it occurs to the DM earlier on, it's still secret backstory for that character. Just as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] asserts that authoring the fiction doesn't alter the fiction.


----------



## Poisonthorns Duelist

Players should be having fun. End of story. Most player's don't like to be railroaded and it ruins their experience, but sometimes it is a better alternative than not having much ready for them. You just need to figure out how important the story you crafted is to you and whether or not it would be worth it.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> I played my BW character yesterday, and I then GMed a session of MHRP-style Cortex Fantasy.
> 
> Here is some stuff that is relevant to the discussion around approaches to RPGing and how the shared fiction is established.
> 
> *Burning Wheel*
> In the BW session, we first spent a bit of time with the GM explaining to me where things were going to be located on the map of Greyhawk. Generally, BW favours a loose approach to world creation and world geography but we've been using GH in the campaign where I'm GM, so this made sense. I don't know what he had or hadn't read online about the Principality of Ulek and the Pomarj, and how much he just made up himself, but in any event this was all good stuff to establish some basic framing for the campaign.
> 
> Then, after some introductory framing explaining that Aramina (my travelling companion) and I (ie my PC) are wandering through the frontier, witnessing abandoned homesteads with signs of flight, I declared a couple of initial checks: a Homestead-wise check (untrained) to learn more about the circumstances of abandonment of this particular ruined homestead, which succeeded, and hence (in this case) extracted some more narration of backstory from the GM; and then a Scavenging check, looking for the gold that the homesteaders would have left behind in their panic and which the orcs would have been too lazy to find.
> 
> Unfortunately this second check failed, which meant that orcs from a raiding party had virtually infiltrated the homestead before I noticed them. Aramina panicked (failed Steel check) but I commanded her to make for the horse (successful Command check to overcome her hesitation), but then - following through on the failed Scavenging check - the GM called for opposed Speed checks. Aramina lost, so the orcs surrounded her. I tied with the orcs, so made it to the horse but (given the tie) the GM then called for another check - my Knots check vs the orcs' Speed to see if I could unloose the knot tying the horse to the post before the orcs closed. I couldn't, and so we were in combat.
> 
> The orcs were threatening Aramina but (triggering my instinct) I was able to interpose myself to protect her. I beat up the orcs - go plate-and-mail against orcish spears (needing one roll of 4+ on six dice to deflect their blows) and a "versus armour" rating of 3 with my mace, meaning they need to roll 4 such successes with their 3 dice for their leather armour to deflect my blows! At one point I did roll a 1 on my armour check, though, and so my breast plate lost a die of protection.
> 
> The orcs were part of a larger raiding party, with mumakil. I think the GM was hoping I might chase the mumakil, but I have no animal handling, animal lore etc and so the mumakil remained nothing but mere colour.
> 
> The larger raiding party was chased off by a force of elves. I'm not surprised that elves should show up - my GM loves elves!, just like I'm notorious for using undead and demons - but the interaction with the elves probably took an unexpected turn.
> 
> I (again, in character) told Aramina to try to staunch the wounds of one of the fallen orcs, so we might interrogate them, while mounting the horse to go and meet up with the elves and look for their leader. I tried an untrained Heraldry check to recognise the elves' arms, and failed - so the elven leader was not too taken by me! In this there was cross-narration by me and the GM, but it ran in the same direction: as I was saying (in character) that I don't recognise the elven leader's arms and wondered who he was, he (spoken by the GM) was telling me that he didn't like my somewhat discourteous look. The GM is entitled to narrate such a thing - I failed my check, after all.
> 
> I don't know what, if anything, the GM had in mind for the elves, but one of my Beliefs is that fame and infamy shall no longer befall my ancestral estate. So I invited the elf to travel with his soldiers south to my ancestral estate, where we might host them. The GM had the elf try and blow me off, but I was serious about this and so called for a Duel of Wits. Unfortunately my dice pool was very weak compared to the elf's (6 Will dice being used for untrained Persuasion, so slightly weaker than 3 Persuasion dice vs 7 Will dice and 6 Persuasion dice) and so despite my attempt as a player to do some clever scripting I was rebuffed by the elf without getting even a compromise.
> 
> As I said, I don't know what the GM had in mind for the elves but I'm pretty sure the GM hadn't anticipated this. So I don't know what he anticipated for the elves' departure, but in the game it followed my failure to persuade the elf to join me. In the course of discussion the elf did mention that one orc - who may or may not have fallen in battle, he wasn't sure - was wearing a shield bearing the crest of the Iron Tower. I think the GM was expecting me to pursue this orc, but I didn't, for two reasons: (i) having been rebuffed by the elven leader, I wanted to head off in a different direction, and (ii) I'm a bit worried that Aramina is too squishy for hunting orcs!, and I'm pretty vulnerable too to being swarmed. If we return back this way once the orcs have had a few days to move out, we might then search the woods for the shield.
> 
> So the session ended with Aramina and I riding out following the river to the NW, but along the southern (ie Ulek) bank, and then setting up camp at the end of the day. Aramina was angry that I made us ride out, once the elves had left and in order to avoid any trouble from orc survivors, without having any lunch: from the mechanical point of view I was angling for a Fate point for being Disciplined, and for a Fate point for Araamina's fiery temper. I expect to start the next session trying to persuade Aramina to beat out the dint in my breastplate (she has Mending skill; I don't) and then some Cooking and maybe some campfire action.
> 
> Upthread, I quoted a bit from the BW rules where Luke Crane says that if, as a player, you're not grabbed by the story, it's your job to make things interesting! As I've said, I don't know what the GM had in mind for the elves but I did my bit to make it interesting. I think the GM's favourite part of the session was the fight with the orcs, but mine was the Duel of Wits with the elf. Even though I lost, I (i) got some good advancement checks, and (ii) enjoyed speaking my arguments as the rules require - especially my "avoiding of the topic" (which, mechanically, allows me to use my Will in defence rather than my untrained Persuasion), and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation.
> 
> This was the first time this GM has ever GMed a session. It was a fun session. My choices clearly mattered, in the ways I've described above. The GM had a sheet of paper in front of him with about half-a-page of print out, and I think that had some notes that he was using to help manage his orcs and his elves (as well as some stablocks from the rulebook). But the actual events of play clearly weren't pre-scripted: they couldn't have been, because they were driven by my action declarations, which is as it should be in BW.
> 
> *Cortex Fantasy*
> This is a much more light-hearted RPG than BW. The characters are more two-dimensional, and the whole experience is much less gritty.
> 
> The PCs started the session separated in a dungeon. After a bit of hijinks finishing off an un-resolved conflict from our last session, I spent a Doom Pool die to rejoin the two groups. In the fiction, this was a combination of a successful creation of a "Secret Exit" asset by one of the PCs (who had been on his own in a necromantically cursed room with many burial niches in its walls, out of which zombies had come, and who - in wolf form, with his wolf companions - was crawling through an empty zombie niche looking for a way out) and a failed attempt by one of the two PCs in the other chamber (where they'd just fought giant spiders) to find a secret exit from the chamber: I narrated that, as he turned away from the wall in frustration, his sword-hilt struck a roundel and pressed it into the stone, opening a secret door.
> 
> This secret door led into a hidden chamber with a pack of ghouls - the same chamber into which the wolves were crawling following the winding ghoul-tunnels that lay beyond the zombie niches.
> 
> (Bringing the two groups together powered down the wolf PC, who is strongest solo, and also one of the other two PCs, who - at that point, before spending XP to swap things around - was strongest in a pair rather than solo or in a team. It also made my life as GM a bit easier.)
> 
> After dispatching the ghouls (the wolf PC getting the benefit of his "Secret Exit" asset - the ghouls didn't expect an attack via their tunnels!), the PCs followed strange piping music down a hitherto-hidden tunnel leading out of the ghouls' secret room to the lair of a Crypt Thing. The berserker attacked but missed. I think the wolf skin-changer tried something - I can't remember what - but with little success. But then the Doom Pool build up to 2d12 and so I was able to spend it to end the scene - in the fiction, the Crypt Thing teleported them all into an empty room on a lower dungeon level. Mechanically, this landed them all with a d12 Lost in the Dungeon complication.
> 
> After taking a rest (ie a Transition scene), they headed out and I described the next scene - a pillared hall with murals, flickering braziers, and a living statue guarding great doors. While the two warriors dispatched the statute, the skinchanger read the mural to try and work out where in the dungeon he was - mechanically, he successfully eliminated his Lost in the Dungeon complication. The swordthane did the same after dispatching the statue, and then helped the berserker also to read the mural/map before the latter then broke down the door. The skinchanger had continue to study the mural/map and had worked out the Path to the Treasure (a d10 or d12 - I can't remember precisely - asset).
> 
> On the other side of the door was the land of the svartalfar: a land of faerie fire, of deadly traps, and with the glint of gold. The PCs were confronted by four dark elves - a young fighter, an experience fighter, a C/F/MU and a F/MU (mechanically, I was using 4 statblocks from facing pages of the Civil War sourcebook: one I can't remember, but the other three were Lady Deathstrike and Moonstone - both good dark elven names - and Radioactive Man, who made a good drow wizard once I respecced his Radiation Control as Earth and Stone Control). The skinchanger used his Cunning expertise and his established knowledge of the path to the treasure to bluff Moonstone, the C/F/MU, into taking him to the dark elven treasure vaults - also picking up Milestone-based XP in the process for leaving his allies in a risky situation - and ended up finishing the scene with a huge (d12+) treasure asset. The other PCs finished off the three remaining dark elves, but not before the F/MU brought the stone crashing down, blocking off the tunnels the skinchanger and Moonstone had travelled through.
> 
> Next session will be a new act, I think, with the skinchanger needing a new Milestone now that he's finished off one by taking the treasure and leaving the dungeon; and probably beginning with the other two PCs having left the land of the dark elves after long wanderings through subterranean tunnels.
> 
> Although much of the detail of the setting is introduced by me as GM in the course of framing, key elements are introduced by the players, mostly in the form of assets - the tunnels into the ghoul room; the fact that the murals in the pillared hall have a map of the dungeon; and the drow treasure (and my Scene Distinction Glint of Gold was itself a riff on the fact that the skinchanger PC had established a Path to Treasure asset). The framing itself was all spontaneous as needed, although the stat blocks were mostly prepared in advance (I'd written up Ghouls and a Crypt Thing, used the MHRP book for dark elves, and only the Living Statute was written up by me ex tempore).
> 
> But this account should also make it fairly clear why the notion of "illusionism" just has no purchase in this game. Everything's on the surface: the Scene Distinctions, the Doom Pool growing or shrinking (it started the session at 2d6, 1d8, 2d10 and ended at 1d6, 1d8), the assets and complications, the NPCs in a scene, etc. There's nothing even remotely analogous to a fork in the road with the same encounter destined to occur down either path.




Well, in regard to the possibility of illusionism (in the fork in the road sense), that would depend on the GM's intentions. You'd have to actually attempt it, I think. Some GMs might never use the technique in any game system. That doesn't really prove it _can't_ be done. Just that it wasn't attempted.

In terms of the stories, I could step through the description step-by-step and it would work just fine in D&D. There's nothing that I see that isn't similar to things that have happened in my campaigns.

I do have a question, though: At a couple of points you mention that "mechanically you were thinking" such-and-such. I try to tweak my rules so the players think as the characters in the world, not take actions based on what they might gain or lose in the mechanics. To put it a different way, I try to ensure the benefits and drawbacks of a mechanical rule matches that in the game world. 

Do you find that the actions in the game are more driven by the rules, or supported by the rules? Or is that more because you're trying to explain what happened?

For example: "I declared a couple of checks - an homestead-wise check..." Because in my campaign it would just be, "I want to examine the homesteads a little closer to see if I can determine why they were abandoned." Depending on the circumstance, I would either give an answer (because their passive Perception and/or Investigation are sufficient), or ask for an Investigation check. One of the rules of thumb I like is that players should never declare skills, they should declare actions. I will ask for a skill check if it's needed.

For example, in my campaign this:



pemerton said:


> Unfortunately this second check failed, which meant that orcs from a raiding party had virtually infiltrated the homestead before I noticed them. Aramina panicked (failed Steel check) but I commanded her to make for the horse (successful Command check to overcome her hesitation), but then - following through on the failed Scavenging check - the GM called for opposed Speed checks. Aramina lost, so the orcs surrounded her. I tied with the orcs, so made it to the horse but (given the tie) the GM then called for another check - my Knots check vs the orcs' Speed to see if I could unloose the knot tying the horse to the post before the orcs closed. I couldn't, and so we were in combat.
> 
> The orcs were threatening Aramina but (triggering my instinct) I was able to interpose myself to protect her. I beat up the orcs - go plate-and-mail against orcish spears (needing one roll of 4+ on six dice to deflect their blows) and a "versus armour" rating of 3 with my mace, meaning they need to roll 4 such successes with their 3 dice for their leather armour to deflect my blows! At one point I did roll a 1 on my armour check, though, and so my breast plate lost a die of protection.




Would play out more like this:

First, I don't know how a failed scavenging check (to find something - or an investigation check) would result in an orc raiding party infiltrating the homestead before you or your companions noticed. This is the sort of disconnect that I think bothers a lot of people with the Story Now approach. Why not a Stealth check vs. Passive Perception (perhaps with disadvantage since you're focused on something else)? This would have been your surprise check. I get that it's very similar - you were so focused on what you were doing that you failed to notice them. But if your character is one that has a high perception and a low investigation, it could be a sore point.

So Aramina panicked (obviously not surprised) (not sure a check is needed here, just role-playing) and you command her to make for the horse. Many players would object to the actions of another PC taking even this little bit of control of their character (or is she an NPC)? If it's a PC, it would be up to them to decide if they follow your command. If it is an NPC, then it would have been a Persuasion check if it was necessary (as I said, I use passive skills frequently, so this would probably initially be addressed with a passive check since you're probably not intending to use your action to do it).

I don't use initiative in my combat, instead I'd consider the positioning of the orcs and your character, along with the actions you're taking to determine what's happening when. In this case, the orcs were in closing range already (within about 90 feet in my campaign), Aramina noticed them and wasn't surprised. You were, so they got the jump on you. Getting to the horses and untying the knot would take longer than the orcs reaching Aramina (particularly since you were surprised), but the orcs weren't rushing to the attack either (at least it didn't sound like it), giving you time to get between them. 

So Aramina turns to head toward the horse, but the orcs intervene, block her path and begin to surround her. Not sure how many times you've tied a horse to a post, but I wouldn't expect you to need to make a check to untie it. However, if you asked or indicated that you wanted to untie the horse first I would either determine that the orcs were faster that you moving over to the horse and untying it, or we'd make a reaction check (essentially an opposed initiative check) to see who would resolve their action first.

Since you could determine that the orcs would get to Aramina before you could untie the horse, you rush over to protect her instead. Combat ensues. I do have armor damage in my campaign, and without going through an actual combat, I couldn't tell you if the armor was damaged or not, but we'll agree it was.

So to write it with a better flow:

You were so intent on digging through the rubble you didn't notice the orcs (failed surprise check) until Aramina reacted in a panic. As they close with weapons drawn, you yell to Aramina to get to the horses. Hoping you can get them untied to make a quick escape you start to move toward them ("can I untie the horses before Aramina is attacked?"), but the orcs got too much of a jump on you and are spreading out to surround Aramina ("You doubt it, they're too close." "OK, I'll move to protect Aramina instead."). So instead you move between her and as many of the orcs as you can, and the battle begins!

I use a lot of passive checks, so your untrained Heraldry check wouldn't have required a roll, either you know it or you don't. "The elf notices the brief perplexed look on your face as you fail to recognize his herald."


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> How about I think that _I_ am incapable of presenting a coherent relevant game world to the players through the eyes of their characters if I (the DM) don't have some prepared material and knowledge of said game world that the characters don't?



That may well be true! I'm not going to gainsay someone else's estimation of his/her abilities. I'm just wary of generalisation from one's own case across the whole of RPG-dom.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Manbearcat said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm going to give you some Dog's specific GMing direction straight from Vincent Baker:
> 
> a) "Follow the players' lead about what's important and what's not."
> 
> b) When you create The Towns, "something's wrong (Pride, Sin, False Doctrine, False Priesthood, Hate & Murder), of course...that's what makes the game interesting."
> 
> c) Setup; "you need some NPCS with claims to the PCs time, some NPCs who can't ignore the PCs' arrival, some NPCs who've done harm, but for reasons anybody could understand."
> 
> d) Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story". Just play The Town. Present the PC's with choices; "provoke the players to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!" Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved. (DitV 137-139)
> 
> e) Reflect between Towns with the players. Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "push them a little bit further in the next Town."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Point a) specifically says the DM should follow the lead of the players about what's important and not. Moreso I think the players should be the primary authors of the story - as Eero pointed out, the DM is in control of the backstory and setting, the players in control of the story. Steps b) and c) continue in that approach, but then d) and e) instruct the DM to drive the story.
Click to expand...


I think this may relate to  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s comments about "GM steering".

In what way do you see (d) and (e) as instructing the GM to drive the story?

As I see it, (d) instructs the GM to "go where the action is" - it's another statement of the _framing_ role of the GM, whereby the GM has to frame scenes that speak to theme/premise and thereby provoke choices by the players for their PCs.

If we think about  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the PC's brother's hat in the brothel, that is the GM "keep[ing] play driven towards conflict". It's the _player_, not the GM, who chose to make the brother a significant element in play; and it is the player who will make the choices that determine the outcomes.

(e) is another instruction about framing, and the use of consequences from previous situations to inform new situations. Those consequences will be the result of player action declarations, which in turn were made in response to framings that spoke to the thematic concerns established by the players. So I'm not seeing how it is "GM driven". Are you able to articulate what you mean by "GM driven"?



Ilbranteloth said:


> the idea that a characters Perception check, which is designed to determine if they notice something is there, as opposed to determine whether something is there or not, rubs me the wrong way.



The Perception check _did_ determine if the PC noticed that something is there. Of course, a necessary condition of noticing that something is there is that it _be_ there.

So from the fact that the PC notices it - which is established by the Perception check - we can infer that it is there.

This is certainly not opposed to the design of Perception and other knowledge checks in this system.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I think it's because of the statement that "the players are trying to figure out what's in the DMs notes." And I disagree.
> 
> The characters are trying to accomplish their goals, whatever they may be. Some of that is probably to uncover various mysteries of life, and mysteries in their life. The only one that can provide those answers is the DM.
> 
> Just because I know something that the players don't doesn't mean the players are "playing to find out." The players might find out, they might not. They might not care to find out.



By "playing to find out" I mean something quite different from  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]. The slogan comes - I believe - from Apocalypse World/PtbA games. I contrast it with RPGing where "secret backstory" matters to resolution - because in the latter case the GM is not playing to find out: s/he already knows.

And I don't undertand why you disagree with my reference to the players finding out what is in the GM's notes. If (to quote you) _the only one who can provide those answers is the DM_, then that precisely seems to be the players finding out what is in the GM's notes.

The vessel example is a (small) instance of "playing to find out" and the contrast with the players learning what is in the GM's notes: I did not have pre-written notes, nor create some notes on the spot by rolling on a "random stuff in a wizard's chamber" table. It was _the resolution of the player's action declaration_ ("I look for a vessel to catch the spilling blood!") that determined that particular aspect of the fiction. That is an example of what I mean by "playing to find out". And that method can be generalised beyond _vessels in wizardly chambers_ to other things (eg Why did a balrog possess my brother? Is the Dusk War upon us? Why is my brother's hat hanging in the foyer of this brothel? What is the attitude of this elven captain to the human nobility? etc).

That's the difference between what Ron Edwards calls "exploring setting and situation" and what he calls "narrativism"/"story now" and Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narrativistic model".



Ilbranteloth said:


> In and of itself, the Story Now approach makes for an interesting and fun game. And there really isn't a reason why I can't do the same thing in D&D. Sure, the rules don't specifically support it in the same way, in that the rules don't make you address the fiction directly as they are more mechanical in nature. But they don't prevent me from doing it either.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The Story Now approach often has the same problem that I have with a lot of current TV series. For example, Hawaii Five-O - my wife loves it. Except that every single week you have a small group of law enforcement involved in large gun battles with villains toting automatic weapons. In Hawaii. Why would anybody vacation there? The place is obviously crawling with out-of-control criminal elements.
> 
> It's ludicrous.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The Story Now approach is very good at what it does. I think it would be a much better fit than earlier RPG attempts at James Bond. Mission-based would fit very well with the narrower focus of Story Now.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Can you have a long-term campaign with a Story Now system?



Two things.

(1) Non-4e D&D actually will give you some push-back if you try to run it "story now". One example I pointed to a few posts upthread is the fact that spells, including information-gathering spells, tend to grant players automatic successes. Hence they aren't able to be adjudicated by way of "say 'yes' or roll the dice". Which means they don't support the sort of setting-of-stakes and adjudication-of-outcomes that is important to "story now" play.

(2) I feel that some your remarks - in this and earlier posts - are projecting some conception of "story now" that doesn't fit with the reality of these games.

Eg they are not generally "mission based". There is no reason why campaigns can't be lengthy - BW is designed for play over tens of sessions, although MHRP is designed for shorter sequences of play. And the "action" can be anything from gunfights to cooking. My BW PC has Cooking skill, and I'm expecting that to matter. And as I posted upthread, I'm expecting the next session to begin with me trying to persuade my wizard companion to mend the dent in my armour.

D&D doesn't really have the mechanics to make these rather prosaic matters a significant part of the game, but BW does.


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> So this assertion, which [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] has made as well, is one I object to for no specific reason. It just bugs me.
> 
> I think it's because of the statement that "the players are trying to figure out what's in the DMs notes." And I disagree.
> 
> The characters are trying to accomplish their goals, whatever they may be. Some of that is probably to uncover various mysteries of life, and mysteries in their life. The only one that can provide those answers is the DM.
> 
> Just because I know something that the players don't doesn't mean the players are "playing to find out." The players might find out, they might not. They might not care to find out.



Fair enough.  I used the phrase as it seems to be one that pemerton swears by, to make the point that where in his game everyone is playing to find out in my game everyone except the DM is playing to find out.  In either case *what* they're finding out may or may not be what anyone thought they might before the session started.



> Just because the DM has thought of secret backstory for the characters doesn't mean that it will ever come into play.
> 
> More importantly, it should only come into play if:
> 
> They player wants it to; and/or
> It adds something of value to the campaign.



I'm not so much thinking of individual characters' secret backstory as secret backstory in the game as a whole.  The gate guard is in fact a spy for the Phonecians.  The next full moon will bring an unexpected outbreak of werewolves.  The party's mentor who supposedly supports the king is secretly trying to overthrow him and the party have been (unknowingly) aiding this.  Col. Mustard did it in the Tower with a +3 Mace.  All the little (or not so little) things that a DM knows and that PCs (and thus players) don't.

Maybe they'll never meet the gate guard.  They might just happen to be out of town when the werewolves hit.  But they're starting to wonder about their so-called mentor...



> And guess what, all backstory unknown to the player/character is secret backstory. Whether it's authored in the moment, or it occurs to the DM earlier on, it's still secret backstory for that character.



And for the game as a whole if it's on a larger scale. 







> Just as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] asserts that authoring the fiction doesn't alter the fiction.



I made it all the way to the end before you lost me.   I don't get this one.  How can you author (as in, either generate or add to) the fiction without changing it, either from what is was to what it is or from nothing at all to what it is?

Lan-"secret backstory is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists"-efan


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> The Perception check _did_ determine if the PC noticed that something is there. Of course, a necessary condition of noticing that something is there is that it _be_ there.
> 
> So from the fact that the PC notices it - which is established by the Perception check - we can infer that it is there.
> 
> This is certainly not opposed to the design of Perception and other knowledge checks in this system.



If the perception check fails does that automatically mean there is not a vessel there, or that there might be and it just wasn't seen?



> By "playing to find out" I mean something quite different from [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]. The slogan comes - I believe - from Apocalypse World/PtbA games. I contrast it with RPGing where "secret backstory" matters to resolution - because in the latter case the GM is not playing to find out: s/he already knows.



Exactly!  The DM already knows!  That's the whole point - it's her job - she's supposed to already know! 



> The vessel example is a (small) instance of this: I did not have pre-written notes, nor create some notes on the spot by rolling on a "random stuff in a wizard's chamber" table. It was _the resolution of the player's action declaration_ ("I look for a vessel to catch the spilling blood!") that determined that particular aspect of the fiction. That is an example of what I mean by "playing to find out".



That's not playing to find out, that's playing to dream up.  Sorry, but I can't live in Schroedinger World.

That said, have you read Robert Jordan's _Wheel of Time_ series?  I ask because your style of play brings to mind his Tel'heran'rhiod (sp?) dreamworld, which kind of works like that - whatever you successfully think up comes out real unless someone else is in the dream and thinking something else that disagrees.



> Eg they are not generally "mission based". There is no reason why campaigns can't be lengthy - BW is designed for play over tens of sessions, although MHRP is designed for shorter sequences of play.



Tens of sessions is nothing.  Can it handle ten years and 500+ sessions with multiple interweaving parties in the field at the same time, possibly affecting the world and each other as they go?


> And the "action" can be anything from gunfights to cooking. My BW PC has Cooking skill, and I'm expecting that to matter. And as I posted upthread, I'm expecting the next session to begin with me trying to persuade my wizard companion to mend the dent in my armour.
> 
> D&D doesn't really have the mechanics to make these rather prosaic matters a significant part of the game, but BW does.



I posit you really don't need mechanics for this in the slightest.  In fact, for something so basic and tranquil as sitting around the campfire the use of mechanics would just get in the way of roleplaying.

This to me is a failing of some games (I first really noticed it with 3e) - the so-called need to have a mechanic for everything, and everything represented by a mechanic.

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> I'm not so much thinking of individual characters' secret backstory as secret backstory in the game as a whole.  The gate guard is in fact a spy for the Phonecians.  The next full moon will bring an unexpected outbreak of werewolves.  The party's mentor who supposedly supports the king is secretly trying to overthrow him and the party have been (unknowingly) aiding this.  Col. Mustard did it in the Tower with a +3 Mace.  All the little (or not so little) things that a DM knows and that PCs (and thus players) don't.



When I'm thinking about "secret backstory" I'm thinking about this stuff too, but in particular about it _being used to adjudicate action resolutions_ - so eg if a PC asks the guard to carry a message, then the GM decides whether or not the Phoenicians learn the content of the message not by reference to the _overt_ context of the framing and action declaration, but by reference to the secret knowledge that the guard is a spy.



Lanefan said:


> I used the phrase as it seems to be one that pemerton swears by, to make the point that where in his game everyone is playing to find out in my game everyone except the DM is playing to find out.  In either case *what* they're finding out may or may not be what anyone thought they might before the session started.



When the answers are found by looking up the GM's notes (or rolling on a table to generate answers on the fly; or the GM making a call based on what seems "realistic" for the situation) then the GM is not finding out. The GM might be surprised that the players learned that the guard is a spy, but did not learn that the mentor is a traitor to the king, but none of these revelations is in itself surprising for the GM, because the GM authored all of them.



Lanefan said:


> How can you author (as in, either generate or add to) the fiction without changing it, either from what is was to what it is or from nothing at all to what it is?



When REH authored the Conan stories, he changed the world - it now contains stories that previously it didn't.

But from the perspective of the fiction he didn't change anything about Conan, or the Black Circle, or the Turanian cavalry, etc. _Being authored_ is something that occurs in the real world, but it's not a property that things have _within the world of the fiction_.



Lanefan said:


> That's not playing to find out, that's playing to dream up. Sorry, but I can't live in Schroedinger World.
> 
> That said, have you read Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series? I ask because your style of play brings to mind his Tel'heran'rhiod (sp?) dreamworld, which kind of works like that - whatever you successfully think up comes out real unless someone else is in the dream and thinking something else that disagrees.



Upthread you insisted on distinguishing player from PC, but now you're running them together. The PC didn't dream anything up. He looked for a vessel and saw one.


----------



## Sadras

pemerton said:


> *Mystery*: why did the PC's brother become possessed by a balrog?




Pemerton who decided on this? Was this (1) PC backstory and the PCs wanted to explore it or was it (2) an unhappy result of a check or was it (3) narration by a DM?

(1) and (3) is standard practice by all DMs, as for (2) see below.



> *Clue* - _narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Scavenging check_: the PC searches the ruined tower where he and his brother once lived and worked, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he left behind 14 years ago when fleeing attacking orcs; but instead, he finds cursed black arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom.




If the Scavenging check was a success could you not provide the same 'unhappy' clue. 




> *Further clue* - _narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Aura Reading check_: the PC reads the magical aura of the arrows, hoping to learn who made them - it was his brother![/indent]




Again, are you saying that if the Aura Reading was a success you as DM could not narrate the above? And would the player call you out on an "unhappy result"? I find 'yes' on those answers hard to believe.



> The clues point towards an answer to the mystery - the PC's brother was evil, and hence a fitting receptacle for balrog possession. They are narrated by the GM (snip).




Thing is if you as DM are doing the narrating for both success and failure and can swing either way, happy or unhappy, without objection by the players then I'm wondering why this thread is still on-going.


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Can it handle ten years and 500+ sessions with multiple interweaving parties in the field at the same time, possibly affecting the world and each other as they go?



As far as I'm aware the answer is "yes", because Luke Crane discusses this sort of thing, in relation to his home game, in the Adventure Burner.



Lanefan said:


> If the perception check fails does that automatically mean there is not a vessel there, or that there might be and it just wasn't seen?



This is no different from the secret door upthread. Exactly the same principles apply.

If the check is failed and consequences have to be narrated by the GM, one essential component of those consequences is that the intent was not realised: the PC does not see a vessel suitable for catching the blood in. The rest has to be established by the GM in accordance with the general principles that by now have been discussed at great length.

Whether or not it would make sense, somewhere down the track, to narrate the existence of a vessel in the room, would depend utterly on the context. If, as is probably more likely, the matter never comes up again, then we will never know whether or not there was a vessel there that was overlooked, or there was no vessel there.

This is not uncommon for works of fiction. How long does Conan keep his fingernails? Presumably there is some fact of the matter or other, but REH never tells us.



Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> My BW PC has Cooking skill, and I'm expecting that to matter. And as I posted upthread, I'm expecting the next session to begin with me trying to persuade my wizard companion to mend the dent in my armour.
> 
> D&D doesn't really have the mechanics to make these rather prosaic matters a significant part of the game, but BW does.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I posit you really don't need mechanics for this in the slightest.  In fact, for something so basic and tranquil as sitting around the campfire the use of mechanics would just get in the way of roleplaying.
> 
> This to me is a failing of some games (I first really noticed it with 3e) - the so-called need to have a mechanic for everything, and everything represented by a mechanic.
Click to expand...


I'm not that interested in roleplaying sitting around the campfire. If I want to sit around and talk to people, I'll do that in real life rather than doing it while pretending to be someone else.

What I'm interested in is the dramatic and thematic significance of the things I mentioned. Will my (that is, my PC's) cooking sustain me and Aramina? Can I persuade her to mend my armour even though she's angry with me? I don't see how to put these questions into play without mechanics.

The context is extremely different from 3E. I would very strongly assert that 3E doesn't have the mechanics to make these prosaic matters a significant part of the game. I mean, just for starters, 3E has no mechanic whereby success or failure on a Cooking check contributes to wellbeing while travelling; it has no mechanic for damage to armour, and hence for repair of armour; and it has no mechanic for adjudicating arguments between characters.

4e can handle the first of these - a Nature check made to cook could be part of a journey resolved as a skill challenge - but it also doesn't have the armour thing, and while it has a mechanic for adjudicating arguments with NPCs (skill challenges) it doesn't have such a mechanic that would work well for an argument between companions.


----------



## pemerton

Sadras said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> *Mystery*: why did the PC's brother become possessed by a balrog?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Pemerton who decided on this? Was this (1) PC backstory and the PCs wanted to explore it or was it (2) an unhappy result of a check or was it (3) narration by a DM?
> 
> (1) and (3) is standard practice by all DMs, as for (2) see below.
Click to expand...


The possession of the PC's brother by a balrog was authored by the player as part of PC generation.

I don't think (1) is standard practice for all GMs: that is, at least on the basis of this thread, not all GMs treat it as standard practice to make the subject-matter of PC backstories the focus of play. For instance, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has said that there is no guarantee that PC backstory, family, etc will be a focus of play in his game. I think other posters may have said something similar - [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], for instance, has said that he _doesn't_ follow the "standard narrativistic model" of always framing scenes that speak to these player concerns evinced by build and play of their 



Sadras said:


> If the Scavenging check was a success could you not provide the same 'unhappy' clue.



The short answer is "no". The middle-sized answer is "no, but". And here's the longer answer (I'll be referring mostly to the BW rulebook, but the basic principles apply across the "standard narrativistic model"):

BW Gold pp 24, 30
Burning Wheel is very much a game to be played and manipulated for fun (and profit, sort of). Dice rolls called for by the GM and players are the heart of play. These are tests. They determine the results of conflicts and help drive the story.

Tests involve the character’s abilities. . . .

Let’s start with the core of the Burning Wheel system. We call it “Intent and Task.” . . .

When declaring an action for a character, you say what you want and how you do it. That’s the intent and the task. . . .

Descriptions of the task are vital. Through them we know which mechanics to apply; acknowledging the intent allows us to properly interpret the results of the test. . . .

If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and completed the task.

This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test.​
So if the check succeeds, the consequence is that the PC finds the nickel-silver mace as desired. That's the "no". Now, onto the "but".

The GM's job is to frame scenes. Eero Tuovinen describes this very nicely:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications. . . .

[O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character (or wherever the premise comes from, depends on the game). The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
Here is the same thing, in Luke Crane's words:

Revised p 268; Gold p 551 (the text is the same in both editions)

In Burning Wheel, it is the GM's job to interpret all of the various intents of the players' actions and mesh them into a cohesive whole that fits within the context of the game. He's got to make sure that all the player wackiness abides by the rules. When it doesn't, he must guide the wayward players gently back into the fold. Often this requires negotiating an action or intent until both player and GM are satisfied that it fits both the concept and the mood of the game.

Also, the GM is in a unique position. He can see the big picture - what the players are doing, as well as what the opposition is up to and plans to do. His perspective grants the power to hold off one action, while another player moves forward so that the two pieces intersect dramatically at the table. More than any other player, the GM controls the flow and pacing of the game. He has the power to begin and end scenes, to present challenges and instigate conflicts. It's a heady responsibility, but utterly worthwhile.

Most important, the GM is response for introducing complications to the story and consequences to the players' choices. Burning Wheel is all about choices - from the minute you start creating a character, you are making hard choices. Once play begins, as players choose their path, it is the GM's job to meaningfully inject resonant ramifications into play. A character murders a guard. No big deal, right? Well, that's up to the GM to decide. Sure there's justice and revenge to consider - that's the obvious stuff - but there's also the bigger picture elements to consider: whole provinces have risen in revolt due to one errant murder.​
This is why, as [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I were discussing not too far upthread, the key to the GM's responsibility in this sort of game is _framing scenes_ and _narrating consequences_. Because if the GM misjudges - that is, if the situation that is presented to the players for them to engage via their PCs falls flat - then the game will stall.

Here is a discussion, from Luke Crane, which includes an example of just that happening (presented as a cautionary tale for GMs):

BW Gold p 34
Beliefs are meant to be challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. If your character has a Belief, "I guard the prince's life with my own," and the prince is slain before your eyes in the climax of the scenario, that’s your chance to play out a tortured and dramatic scene and really go ballistic.

Conversely, if the prince is killed right out of the gate, the character is drained of purpose. Note that the player stated he wanted to defend the prince in play, not avenge him. Killing the prince in the first session sucks the life out of the character. He really has no reason to participate any longer. But if the prince dies in the grand climax, c'est la vie. The protector must then roll with the punches and react to this new change. Even better, if the prince dies due to the actions or failures of his own guardian - now that’s good stuff.

Another example: We once had a character with the Belief: "I will one day restore my wife’s life." His wife had died, and he kept her body around, trying to figure out a way to bring her back. Well, mid-way through the game, the GM magically restored his wife to the land of the living. I’ve never seen a more crushed player. He didn't know what do! He had stated that the quest and the struggle was the goal, not the end result. "One day!" he said. But the GM insisted, and the whole scenario and character were ruined for the player.​
So, can I (as GM) present the "unhappy clue" not as a consequence for failure, but _as part of framing_? Or would that be like the prince being killed right out of the gate, or the wife being brought back to life via some GM deus ex machina?

My view is that it would be bad GMing. The PC - at that point - had, as a Belief, that he would free his brother from the balrog's possession. Implicit in that Belief was that the possession was unjust and an aberration. Negating that implicit assumption, _as an element of framing_ that was not _a consequence of failure_, would be to deny the player the chance to "fight for what he (and his PC) believe" - which is the whole premise of BW.

Getting these judgements right is very important in "story now"/"standard narrativistic model" GMing. Which has been my response to those saying that this style is vulnerable to illusionism: that they're making up pitfalls that really have no salience, rather than talking about what can actually go wrong in this sort of RPGing.



Sadras said:


> are you saying that if the Aura Reading was a success you as DM could not narrate the above?



If the result was a success, then even moreso I can't narrate that the arrow was made by the brother! The PC is looking to vindicate his brother - it's actually identical, in narrative structure, to [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the brother's hat hanging in the foyer of the brothel. If he succeeds, then his intent is realised: he identifies whoever it was who made these arrows (not his brother!) - and presumably the next step might be finding out why that person left arrows in a ruined tower.



Sadras said:


> And would the player call you out on an "unhappy result"?



It's not an issue of being "called out". It's about successfully GMing the game, or stuffing it up. A player may or may not go along with a game where the GM is making bad calls that prevent the player from having his/her PC "fight for what s/he believes", but that doesn't change the fact that the GM is making bad calls.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Well, in regard to the possibility of illusionism (in the fork in the road sense), that would depend on the GM's intentions. You'd have to actually attempt it, I think. Some GMs might never use the technique in any game system. That doesn't really prove it _can't_ be done. Just that it wasn't attempted.



What would it look like? I mean, I've described in reasonable detail how two sessions unfolded. Where would illusionism take place? What would it mean, in this context?

There is no fudging of rolls - they're being rolled in the open.

The framing is all there, in the open.

What form are you envisaging the illusionism taking?



Ilbranteloth said:


> In terms of the stories, I could step through the description step-by-step and it would work just fine in D&D.



As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a simple recount of some fiction nothing can be inferred about RPGing processes. However, there are some things in the BW session that D&D wouldn't handle smoothly: opposed checks to get to the horse before being surrounded by orcs; opposed checks to unknot the horse before the orcs close in; an Instinct to interpose myself to protect Aramina; determining the presence or absence of treasure left behind by homesteaders on the basis of an Investigation check. Maybe others I'm not thinking of.

There are things, too, in the Cortex Fantasy that D&D wouldn't handle all that smoothly - the players establishing, via asset creation, that the murals have information about the dungeon; the player then leveraging this to bluff the dark elven C/F/MU to take him to the treasure; expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport all the PCs to another level of the dungeon. Again, maybe others I'm not thinking of.



Ilbranteloth said:


> At a couple of points you mention that "mechanically you were thinking" such-and-such.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Do you find that the actions in the game are more driven by the rules, or supported by the rules? Or is that more because you're trying to explain what happened?



I don't understand what the contrast is you are drawing between "driven by the rules" and "supported by the rules".

I (as my character) wanted the elf captain come with me back to my ancestral estate. That required persuading him. So, as a player, I called for a Duel of Wits.

Page 552 of the BW Gold rulebook says that the players "have a number of duties", including to "use the mechanics". That's what I did.



Ilbranteloth said:


> For example: "I declared a couple of checks - an homestead-wise check..." Because in my campaign it would just be, "I want to examine the homesteads a little closer to see if I can determine why they were abandoned."



As per the post above this one, action declaration is Intent and Task. I explained that I (ie as my PC) wanted to look around the homestead to see what I could learn about the circumstances of its abandonment. But I also told the GM - as a player - that I wanted to resolve that as a Homestead-wise check. This is me angling for a test, which I got. Ultimately the GM is responsible for ensuring that - given the task - the right ability is being tested, but the player is allowed to express a view - which I did.

As p 24 of the book says (and as I quoted just upthread), "Dice rolls called for by the GM and players are the heart of play. These are tests."



Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't know how a failed scavenging check (to find something - or an investigation check) would result in an orc raiding party infiltrating the homestead before you or your companions noticed. This is the sort of disconnect that I think bothers a lot of people with the Story Now approach. Why not a Stealth check vs. Passive Perception (perhaps with disadvantage since you're focused on something else)?



Well the flip side would be - the repeated insertion of irrelevant stuff is what bothers me with the process-sim/exploration-of-situation-style approach.

The GM, in establishing the consequence of failure, is not suggesting that _failing to find something caused the orcs to infiltrate_. Anymore then, in the game where I'm GM, the PCs failure to find the mace retrospectively _caused_ the brother to be an evil enchanter of cursed arrows.

The failure isn't being narrated on a causal logic. It's being narrated on a "fail forward", narratively-and-thematically-driven logic. From BW Gold, pp 31-32:

When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . .

When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication. . . .

Try not to present flat negative results - "You don’t pick the lock." Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.​
My intent was to find the homesteaders' hidden treasures. That didn't come to pass. Instead, in the time I was doing this some orcs on the edge of the larger raiding party notice us and enter the homestead. And Aramina is separated from me because I had expressly declared that she didn't help me search.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I get that it's very similar - you were so focused on what you were doing that you failed to notice them. But if your character is one that has a high perception and a low investigation, it could be a sore point.



A good GM won't narrate a complication that doesn't make sense in the fiction. If my PC was (say) a scout with excellent Observation, then I imagine the GM would have narrated something different. If I didn't have a Belief that Aramina will need my protection, then I doubt the GM would have bothered with Aramina being surrounded by the orcs such that I had to choose whether or not to interpose myself.

Again, this is why the focus of this sort of play is not illusionism - which has no application - but GM judgement in framing and narrating consequences, where the GM who makes bad calls will make things fall flat.



Ilbranteloth said:


> So Aramina panicked (obviously not surprised) (not sure a check is needed here, just role-playing)



The GM called for Steel tests. Thurgon passed, Aramina failed, but then Thurgon's command lifted her hesitation. I don't know if the GM was thinking of Thurgon's Command skill when he made this call, but in any event it was a good call, as it provided a context for meaningful choice (again, protecting Aramina) and I - as a player - also made a point of making my horse (part of my gear) an element in the situation. That's an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is getting at when he talks about "playing the fiction".



Ilbranteloth said:


> Many players would object to the actions of another PC taking even this little bit of control of their character (or is she an NPC)? If it's a PC, it would be up to them to decide if they follow your command. If it is an NPC, then it would have been a Persuasion check if it was necessary (as I said, I use passive skills frequently, so this would probably initially be addressed with a passive check since you're probably not intending to use your action to do it).



Aramina is a companion to my PC. Something like a henchman in classic D&D. Even if she was a player, I think in the circumstances she would have to obey my command, as that was my intent in making the check, which succeeded. It wouldn't last any longer than her hesitation which was (in D&D terms) roughly 1 round.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't use initiative in my combat



Nor does BW. It uses simultaneous blind declaration and then simultaneous resolution. There is a TotM positioning mechanic - because the orcs had spears and I have a mace, they had a positioning advantage, but I was able to charge through their wall of spears (being much stronger than them) and knock one down, which was the beginning of the end for the orcs.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Not sure how many times you've tied a horse to a post, but I wouldn't expect you to need to make a check to untie it.



This is another instance of the GM framing things so as to drive towards conflict. Here is the rule on ties (BW Gold p 26):

If one character is an aggressor by intent and one is a defender, ties go to the defender. If both characters are aggressors, a tie means that neither side has gained an edge and they are deadlocked. Either the tie must be accepted as the result, a trait must be called on to break it or the contest must be continued in another arena. Do not reroll the test.​
The GM decided that the tie in this case meant deadlock, and so the contest had to be continued in another arena - how quickly can I unloose the horse as the orc's close? Personally, I think I would have adjudicated it differently rather than retest the orcs' speed - perhaps an orc is taking aim to throw a spear at me, and so it is Knots vs Perception with a win to me getting me on my horse and a win to the orc getting him a throw of the spear at me. But I'm not the GM in this game!



Ilbranteloth said:


> I use a lot of passive checks



There is no such thing as "passive checks" in BW. As a general rule, passive checks are not consistent with "say 'yes' or roll the dice".


----------



## Ovinomancer

I'm curious about this first homestead-wise check discussed.  You stated you made the check to learn more about why the homesteads were abandoned, succeeded, and the result was narration of backstorumy by the GM.  Can you add more detail about the intent/outcome or square this otherwise on how this wasn't learning what was in the GM's notes, ie secret backstory?


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> I have put these two quotes together because Lanefan's rhetorical question provides the answer to hawkeyefan's non-rhetorical one.
> 
> It's important, in my post that was quoted by [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], that I said "player", not "PC". That is, I am not talking just about the _PC_ setting out to prove that the claim of fatherhood is false - which presumably is possible in any game - but the _player_ setting out to make it the case _in the shared fiction_ that the claim is false.
> 
> In a "secret backstory" game, whether or not the NPC is the father is (presumably) known to the GM (if it's not, then there's no secret backstory!), and so the player's action declarations can't actually establish this bit of the fiction. All they can do is uncover it (which is what I have referred to upthread as "learning the contents of the GM's notes"). If the PC cast a Commune spell and asked "Who is my father?" or "Is the NPC my father?", the GM would provide the answer written in his/her notes.




But the GM is free to change things on the fly, no matter what style of game is being played. This is my point. 

This element of play, while absolutely present in your Story Now approach, need not be absent from a more GM driven game. This "Secret Backstory" approach that you discuss....there is no reason that anything in the GM's note must be written in stone. 

Yes, some GM's may decide that is how things should be handled. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] certainly seems to lean that way, and based on his comments, I can understand why; he feels that it helps create a more fully realized and "realistic" world. 

However, I could be GMing in the same manner as him...with tons of notes and backstory already determined....and still be free to allow for changes to those details based on how the game plays out. 

So this Mutability of Backstory is a technique that MAY be applied in any game. It just seems baked in to the game style you prefer....but that does not mean it must be absent from other types of games. Essentially, it's up to the GM of any given game to use it or not. 



pemerton said:


> *Mystery*: is the Dusk War upon us!
> 
> *Clue* - _introduced by GM as part of framing_: the tarrasque has risen from out of the earth and is wreaking havoc - this is one of the prophesied signs of the Dusk War.
> 
> *Further clue* - _introduced by GM as part of framing_ (partly unprompted, partly in the course of discussion between the PCs and a NPC, partly in response to knowledge checks which were, in effect, requests for more framing detail): the tarrasque is surrounded by maruts who in ancient days made an agreement with the Raven Queen to ensure that no one would interfere with the tarrasque carrying out its rampage at a herald of the Dusk War.
> 
> The PCs responded to this by having one of their number attack the tarrasque and single-handedly bloody it, while the other PCs explained to the maruts that they had made an error in their cosmological calculations: this could _not_ be the tarrasque heralding the Dusk War, because the ease with which it was being defeated meant that it could not be the harbinger of the end times. It must be some lesser precursor to that prophesied event. (Mechanically, this was both successful combat actions and success in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)
> 
> In a "secret backstory" game the PCs presumably could persuade the maruts, but whether or not the prophesied end of days was here or not would itself be something already known to the GM (if not, then there is no secret backstory).




I don't think most GMs have the actual ending to their campaign in mind, no matter how GM driven it may be. It could be a pure railroad, and yet still the ultimate result will come down to the success or failure of the players.

If knowing exactly how the game ends....not just the climax it builds to (the PCs hunt down Strahd in his castle), but how that climax is resolved (the PCs are defeated and slain by Strahd)....is a requirement of a "Secret Backstory" game, then I think there are very few such games. 



pemerton said:


> I am not talking about a world-threatening villain that the PCs might try and stop. I'm talking about a prophesied end-of-days - the Ragnarok or the Apocalypse.
> 
> The answer to the question _is the Dusk War upon us_ is, in the fiction, either _yes_ or _no_: it's either the end times, or it's not. But at the table, in the real world, the answer is not known. The players, like their PCs, want the answer to be _no_. There are NPCs - including the Raven Queen, it seems - who want the answer to be _yes_. Of course, the PCs don't have the causal power _in the fiction_ to establish the answer - it's a cosmological truth. But the players, at the table, have the causal power to shape the fiction. That is the difference from a "secret backstory" game, where the answer to the question is settled in the GM's notes. (Again, if there is no such answer then we're not talking about a "secret backstory" game.)




Yes, I understood what you meant. My "big bad" comment was just an example. As I just mentioned above, I think most games allow for the ultimate success or failure of the PCs to determine the outcome. 

So, in your example, I don't see the distinction you are making between the fiction and the table. Is the Dusk War upon us? It's either yes or no in the fiction. It's either yes or no at the table. The players have causal power to shape the fiction in your game (trying to make it so that the Dusk War is not dawning). Players going through the Curse of Strahd adventure also do (by achieving victory against the vampire). 

The degree of such causal power is likely greater in your game than in a group playing through a published adventure, but I don't think it's a case of one game allowing for such, and the other not allowing for it. 



pemerton said:


> Sorry, I hadn't realised that any of this had been taken to be in contention.
> 
> Yes, the GM has ideas. Otherwise the GM couldn't frame scenes or narrate consequences. But I don't know what you mean by "steering things in this manner".
> 
> Consider one of the examples I posted around six or so posts upthread, from one of the sessions I participated in over the weekend: my GM included elves in the situation, because he like elves. And no doubt he had some ideas about what might happen with the elves (just as a GM might have ideas about NPCs and their connections to PC parenthood).
> 
> So, with whatever ideas he had in mind, the GM narrated the presence of the elf captain. I initiated the social exchange; and it seemed fairly clear to me that the GM had not expected me (in character as my PC) to try to persuade the elven captain to bring himself and his company to my PC's ancestral estate. The interaction of stat blocks, scripting (ie blind action declarations, which is how BW handles complex conflict resolution) and the dice dictated that the elf captain rebuffed my PC's invitation; but while the attempt failed utterly, as I posted upthread it nevertheless (i) got me some good advancement checks, (ii) let me have fun speaking my arguments as the rules require, and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation. Following the interaction with the elf captain, I was the one who then chose that my PC and his companion would head off in a different direction from the elves without taking any lunch (which we had originally been planning to eat at the ruined homestead).
> 
> So anyway, as I've said, I don't know what you have in mind when you refer to the GM "steering things" in an episode of play like this. If you simply mean that the GM determines some elements of the fiction as part of framing - eg the elf, who didn't want to come back to my ancestral estate but rather to return to Celene with a fallen comrade - then as I said I didn't realise that was in contention. But if you mean something more, I'm missing what that is.




Well you had made comments about nothing being established by the GM having preconceived ideas for NPCs or story ideas. So I was showing how such ideas do in fact establish elements of the game, and therefore matter. As I said, it's kind of a subtle distinction, but one that I think could certainly have a large impact on the game. 

The example was about the NPC villain turning out to be the PC's father, a la Darth Vader. It would seem your expectation for a Story Now approach to have such a revelation be determined by the PCs actions and how they are shaped by the player. That having the NPC claim fatherhood only establishes the claim and nothing more....but I think it certainly establishes the possibility. The player now has to accept or deny the claim, and then play will likely form around such effort. 

Now, based on your description, this is likely fine....I would expect such a question of parentage was based on the player declaring that as a point of interest for his character. But my point is that the GM's idea only was what brought the game to that point. Right up until the point where the NPC makes the claim, the fiction was shaping up for exactly that. The GM was steering things in that way. He was pushing a specific idea, forcing a certain conflict. 

The resolution of that conflict (th truth of the PC's parentage) may still be up in the air, but it was the GM's idea that shaped things up to that point. The fact that at the last minute, he could have decided to NOT have the NPC claim to be the father does not mean that the game was not shaped to allow for that to be the case. So, as I said a bit subtle of a point perhaps, but the GM's notion even though subject to change, had an impact on the fiction.




pemerton said:


> Well, as I've said upthread I don't know enough about your game to form any opinion on it.
> 
> But I think the contrast between the sort of approach that  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is advocating for - in which the GM authors the backstory in advance, and the players' job includes finding that out in the course of play - and the sort of approach that I prefer, is a fairly clear one.




I don't think it's as clear as you make it out to be. I have described my style as using elements of both. I absolutely have "Secret Backstory" elements that the players are meant to be discovering at points throughout play; my campaign does have an overall theme and "central story", although there are many smaller stories that tie into that. I absolutely incorporate player ideas for their characters into the fiction, both ideas that they had at the start of the campaign, and ones they've come up with along the way. I have a rough outline in a very loose sense....a general idea of what will happen. This outline is always subject to change based on the actions of the PCs and how they handle different aspects of the story. The backstory is also subject to change based on how play takes shape....I mentioned earlier not being married to any idea so strongly that I would not be willing to change it. Very little, other than the most fundamental of story elements, is written in stone.  

I take a very sandbox approach to play....the players have goals in mind for their characters, and I have some story ideas....and I've made sure that many of these are in some sense of alignment. So my PCs' stories have ties to story ideas that I have. So at most points, the PCs are free to pursue their goals, and doing so will advance that story and also likely introduce new elements that they can pursue or not. Generally, I let the game go in the direction the players seem to want it to go. At times, this does mean that things become more linear....they set along a path of some sort, and then we play that through to its conclusion. I hesitate to describe these portions of the game as being "railroad" because during these linear times, the players are the ones deciding to take things in that way. They're driving straight despite there being intersections, rather than riding a train, to keep up with the analogy.

This is what I've meant by player and GM alignment....yes, the players are going in ways that the GM wants them to go, but they're also going in the way they want to go. There's no conflict....no force....no railroading. 

That's not to say that I don't use GM Force or illusionism at times. I'm sure I have, and I'm sure I will again....but I prefer not to subvert consequence of player choice in that way unless I feel there is a strong reason. 

When it comes to the 5E mechanics....I'm very loose in application of the mechanics. I allow the players to decide how they use Inspiration. Yes, they can use it to gain advantage on a die roll...but that's the most basic usage. I also allow them to use inspiration to allow things not covered by the rules, or to allow them to introduce a story element to the game.....I really let them call the shots for Inspiration and abdicate each instance on the fly. 

Almost all the elements that you've described as positives of the Story Now style games you are advocating are also present in my game. They may not be ever-present, they may not be enforced by mechanics,but they're there. I don't treat them as necessary to the game's success....I don't have a specific goal like "play to find out" or anything like that, other than the general and all important goal of having fun....so I'm free to use these techniques or not as desired. 

I suppose I look at it as no group of techniques is going to always deliver a fun game, or the most fun that a game can deliver, so I don't adhere to any set techniques. I use any and all of them as the situation and the story call for, and set them aside when I feel they won't help deliver a fun game.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> That may well be true! I'm not going to gainsay someone else's estimation of his/her abilities. I'm just wary of generalisation from one's own case across the whole of RPG-dom.




Exactly, in reverse. There seems to (at times - and not necessarily you) be the sense that some think all GMs should do certain things. My general point is that there is almost nothing that every GM should do. Even railroading is a useful technique if the players are looking for a specific general outcome of the campaign, such as playing known characters in a known story line (LotR, Star Wars, etc.).

A good DM is able to hide those rails even then. And really, I think that's ultimately the answer to railroading, illusionism, etc. If, for whatever reason, the DM feels they must use a technique that is altering the players agency of their characters (I think that's described as Force on the Forge), the goal is to do it in a manner the the players can't tell and don't know about it.

This is a bit different if the players come to the table and say "we don't accept illusionism as a technique" for example. Although in many cases I think that players that object to specific techniques "in theory" are really objecting to poor use of the techniques in reality.

I count myself in that group, because there are things, like "Eero's standard narrativistic model" that I initially objected to, and I find that in reality I agree 100% with it at times, and probably 80% of it the rest of the time (I'll get into that in a moment). I think my initial knee-jerk reaction is the use of the word "standard" which implies it's part of every game.



pemerton said:


> I think this may relate to  [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s comments about "GM steering".
> 
> In what way do you see (d) and (e) as instructing the GM to drive the story?
> 
> As I see it, (d) instructs the GM to "go where the action is" - it's another statement of the _framing_ role of the GM, whereby the GM has to frame scenes that speak to theme/premise and thereby provoke choices by the players for their PCs.
> 
> If we think about  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the PC's brother's hat in the brothel, that is the GM "keep[ing] play driven towards conflict". It's the _player_, not the GM, who chose to make the brother a significant element in play; and it is the player who will make the choices that determine the outcomes.
> 
> (e) is another instruction about framing, and the use of consequences from previous situations to inform new situations. Those consequences will be the result of player action declarations, which in turn were made in response to framings that spoke to the thematic concerns established by the players. So I'm not seeing how it is "GM driven". Are you able to articulate what you mean by "GM driven"?




So this is where I go from the 100% to the 80%. I guess you can say that I'm approaching the discussion in part as a DM of D&D, because ultimately that's what I really know. Despite having run games in the past for other systems, I can't really claim to have achieved a high enough skill level in them to call myself a Rolemaster/MERP GM, or Traveller, Paranoia, whatever.

Having said that, I do think I have enough knowledge of other systems to look at it from a more objective position, although not completely (or maybe 100% accurately) since I don't know all systems as well. 

So (d) and (e) might be 100% correct for a story now game (and from what I understand, they _are_ fairly standard). However, if when running/playing your game of choice that you wish to have a different play experience than a narrative/story now game, these are implying that the DM take greater control of the story than I normally like:

d) Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story". Just play The Town. Present the PC's with choices; "*provoke the players* to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!" *Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict*, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved. (DitV 137-139)

e) Reflect between Towns with the players. Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "*push them a little bit further in the next Town*."

These are giving specific direction to drive the story arc itself. That every game ("always") must follow this direction. But there are times, or some of us, that are interested in telling other kinds of stories. They aren't always about conflict. If the instructions are for creating a tense and intense, ever-escalating conflict driving to a shocking and dramatic final resolution, fine. These are great instructions. But if they are instructions for how to run every RPG game, then no.

I get that they are written for a specific game that promises a specific game style. It's an example of how rules that are well integrated into the goal (and possibly setting) of the game helps create a repeatable game experience. That's a successful game. But let's say I'm not interested in that game. What can I learn from it? Quite a bit, but for a smaller portion of my game, because a smaller portion of my game needs these types of rules.

Also, many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict. 



pemerton said:


> The Perception check _did_ determine if the PC noticed that something is there. Of course, a necessary condition of noticing that something is there is that it _be_ there.
> 
> So from the fact that the PC notices it - which is established by the Perception check - we can infer that it is there.
> 
> This is certainly not opposed to the design of Perception and other knowledge checks in this system.




Which I believe I mentioned - that depending on the game system it's allowable. I also gave an example (in regards to the scavenging check) that showed in D&D it would have been a slightly different set of checks to achieve the same fictional result.

I'll come at it from a slightly different perspective in regards to secret doors. For those who object to the idea that a successful search check can determine the actual existence of a secret door (So from the fact that the PC notices it - which is established by the Perception check - we can infer that it is there.) - This is only possible if the GM allows it. In other words, the GM has agreed that a secret door is possible in that particular location.

Before you respond, let me address that from a slightly different angle (I'm trying to see if my interpretation is accurate): In a story now campaign, if I (as a player) decided to search for secret doors on every single turn, would it be allowed, and if so, would I find a secret door every time I was successful in my search?



pemerton said:


> By "playing to find out" I mean something quite different from  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]. The slogan comes - I believe - from Apocalypse World/PtbA games. I contrast it with RPGing where "secret backstory" matters to resolution - because in the latter case the GM is not playing to find out: s/he already knows.
> 
> And I don't undertand why you disagree with my reference to the players finding out what is in the GM's notes. If (to quote you) _the only one who can provide those answers is the DM_, then that precisely seems to be the players finding out what is in the GM's notes.




OK, so that makes some more sense, and is also another great example of a poor use of terms for a game rule, when there isn't a standard definition to all gamers what "playing to find out means."

Ironically, I already answered your question in the prior post. Just because I might have had an idea, and even gone so far to write it down, doesn't mean it's right. I, as the DM, and "playing to find out" if it's true. Call it a theory, like in a mystery. Am I right? I'm not ready to declare who did it, where they did it, and with what. I could be wrong.

The game, the story, and the players will all determine that. So for me it's about as far from the players trying to find out what's in the DM's notes. They are tools, helpful to me, and it might be that when push comes to shove, the answer is the exact opposite of what I've written down.

There are undoubtedly lots of DMs that play the notes as the rule. Especially with a published adventure, what's written is what is. No, I use the notes as ideas, fodder for feeding my improvisation, etc. because I'm the sort of guy that thinks of the perfect joke 10 minutes after the opportunity. If I don't give my brain lots of concrete ideas ahead of time, it's often blank or providing the most predictable and boring options in time.

Do I use my notes as written? Sure, a lot of times they just fit. But most of them are just a sentence, maybe two. Or they are something along the lines of, "maybe this, or that, or that," and there is no concrete note to start with.

So yes, the DM is the only one that can provide the answers. But that doesn't mean the answers come from the notes.



pemerton said:


> The vessel example is a (small) instance of "playing to find out" and the contrast with the players learning what is in the GM's notes: I did not have pre-written notes, nor create some notes on the spot by rolling on a "random stuff in a wizard's chamber" table. It was _the resolution of the player's action declaration_ ("I look for a vessel to catch the spilling blood!") that determined that particular aspect of the fiction. That is an example of what I mean by "playing to find out". And that method can be generalised beyond _vessels in wizardly chambers_ to other things (eg Why did a balrog possess my brother? Is the Dusk War upon us? Why is my brother's hat hanging in the foyer of this brothel? What is the attitude of this elven captain to the human nobility? etc).




Yep. Exactly what I would have described is that the players always think of stuff I don't, and often (usually) have more interesting ideas than I do. It's part of improvisation - notes are one input, the character's actions are another, the players questions and comments another, what's in my head at the moment (I might have just watched a movie, read a book, noticed something on the news, etc.). There are many, many inputs, including from the characters. And as the DM I field those and decide what's appropriate, what's not, and if there is something that is not clear we'll roll a die. In your example with the vessel, the player made a good point, that there probably would be some sort of vessel there, so I would have just gone with it.

And I think that's part of the sense I get from the "standard narrativistic model" and what I've commented about - the model seems to limit the options of the DM. What you seem to be saying is that in those games that I _shouldn't_ be using notes (or things I've thought of before hand). For me, and my players, that would make for a boring game. I need those ideas as seeds. but I may use none of them in the course of a game. It just gets my brain working. 



pemerton said:


> That's the difference between what Ron Edwards calls "exploring setting and situation" and what he calls "narrativism"/"story now" and Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narrativistic model".
> 
> Two things.
> 
> (1) Non-4e D&D actually will give you some push-back if you try to run it "story now". One example I pointed to a few posts upthread is the fact that spells, including information-gathering spells, tend to grant players automatic successes. Hence they aren't able to be adjudicated by way of "say 'yes' or roll the dice". Which means they don't support the sort of setting-of-stakes and adjudication-of-outcomes that is important to "story now" play.




I tend to rewrite any rule that gives automatic success. Yes, I have baselines (passive skill scores) that mean you'll automatically succeed at something that's easy for you, barring the impact of circumstances. But divination spells (which rarely come up in my games), don't. Although bear in mind that it's rare for any characters (yes, even after 9-year-long runs) rarely get above 7th or 8th level. So I'm usually only dealing with 4th level and lower spells.

But, I don't usually have specific answers, unless it's something simple like when they are in a dungeon and I know what creatures/traps/treasures lie in two different directions. Those are times where the notes are more specific (although potentially still malleable). Otherwise I give it my best shot, and use, gasp!, railroading, fudging, or Illusionism techiques (although usually more in regard to the back-end) if needed.

The fudging one is a great example, though, because if the divination says that they will succeed at something, I can essentially give them advantage, or some other bonus (fudge) if needed. That doesn't mean that it's all they hoped for - the Powers usually think in terms of what you need, not what you want. And your definition of success doesn't always answer theirs... 

But I'm curious, in a world where such divination spells exist, how would you handle it in a story now/narrative model? 



pemerton said:


> (2) I feel that some your remarks - in this and earlier posts - are projecting some conception of "story now" that doesn't fit with the reality of these games.
> 
> Eg they are not generally "mission based". There is no reason why campaigns can't be lengthy - BW is designed for play over tens of sessions, although MHRP is designed for shorter sequences of play. And the "action" can be anything from gunfights to cooking. My BW PC has Cooking skill, and I'm expecting that to matter. And as I posted upthread, I'm expecting the next session to begin with me trying to persuade my wizard companion to mend the dent in my armour.
> 
> D&D doesn't really have the mechanics to make these rather prosaic matters a significant part of the game, but BW does.




I feel you are probably correct, in that I don't know the games well enough.

But when I was talking about "mission based" I was referring more to the framing aspect. In a James Bond movie, every scene is related to the mission or that specific story. The last three (and _On Her Majesty's Secret Service_) explored his private thoughts and life a bit more. But for the most part, it's all about the mission. Hard cuts (framing) between one scene and the next. Firefly and Star Trek are also similar, in that each story is contained by the framing inherent in the setting. The focus is very tight. The setting on the ship is well defined and well known, and stories within it usually focus on the interactions of the characters themselves. Occasionally others come on board, but more often than not the action and story takes place on a new planet with a new challenge or conflict. Star Wars mixes it up a bit with more ship-to-ship battles, for example (although they happen in Star Trek too). 

I don't think most Story Now games are mission based, but I think they take a lot of their narrativistic model from those types of movies and shows. Whereas something like LotR and even _Game of Thrones_, features a lot of in-between stuff, exploring the characters themselves within the world and the setting. Shows like them often explore the setting itself to a greater degree. Star Wars is another good example as being a bit of a hybrid - it expands the setting a lot (by virtue of so many stories that have been presented) but they tend to be very one dimensional. A desert planet, a forest planet, a city planet, a wookie planet, etc.)

Marvel movies tend to ignore setting to a large degree. Yes it's sort of current day Earth, but more exaggerated. But the stories care little about exploring the setting. 

When I consider lengthy, I'm thinking Ed Greenwood's (and my) ongoing Forgotten Realms campaigns, for example. Where the same setting has persisted for 30 years now, and all of the adventures and characters that have taken place in my campaign are part of the setting now. The difference you're describing in length between BW and MHRP sound closer to the difference between a D&D AP and (older style) adventure.

There isn't really a defined definition of "Campaign" although I admit I didn't look at the Forge first. But I see them as isolated adventures and stories tied together by setting and characters. I don't think BW is designed for that sort of approach, where the same characters complete a story over your tens of sessions, then continue another story while retaining the setting elements that have now been defined in the prior game. I could be wrong.

The "action" may be anything, but the rules (especially the specific subset in this discussion) are driving toward conflict. I don't think they are considering burning the garlic conflict.

I think D&D has had different attempts over the years to address such mundane aspects of life such as those to be codified in rules. In many cases I feel that they don't need to be fixed within the rules, but I agree they should be a focus of the game. But that's the way I like to play the game, it's those personal skills, traits, and such that make the person more of a character than a bunch of numbers on a sheet. In the last campaign, one character particularly liked his sleep. And it was a part of the game on a pretty regular basis. I didn't need a rule for that, it's just a question of role-playing the personality of the character. We encourage that sort of play, but it's not reinforced by a rule.

Just because somebody is a good cook, doesn't mean it's going to be part of the game. Like I probably won't introduce a scene where they have to prepare a meal for the king, although if the opportunity does arise for them to use it to serve NPCs, great. On the other hand, the rest of the party will rather quickly insist that amongst their supplies there are sufficient resources for the gourmet to ply their craft. Giving them time to visit the market to purchase spices, complaining about the poor food when they can't prepare it, etc. NPCs that do join them on the road will also remember their cooking skills, and it becomes part of the campaign naturally, without having to force it with rules. If the cook is the best fighter in the group, and they happen  to be separated for a while, it's probably more likely that they'll be greeted back with a comment about how they'll have something decent to eat now, rather than anything about their fighting ability. They can survive a battle without his sword, but have to suffer daily with bad food without him.

The 5e ideals/traits/bonds/flaws system addresses this kind of thinking to a small degree.

As far as convincing the wizard to mend the armor? Why do you need to persuade them? Part of our nightly routine includes minor repairs to armor (that can be made in the field), sharpening swords, etc. It's only natural that in a world where you are using weapons and armor of these types that they need to be cared for. If it's more than they can do themselves, and one of the spellcasters can do it, then it's a question of whether mending the armor or that the spellcasting is better used (or saved) elsewhere. It could even be that one of the other characters is a smith and capable of more substantial repairs, it wouldn't have to be a spellcaster. They might say no, for a variety of reasons, but I don't see the need for a skill check.

To me that's also part of good game design. You don't need to codify every action with a mechanical rule. Having said that, I like to support the in-world action with the rules. I adopted the 5e version of armor/weapon damage: -1 to hit or AC each time it's damaged, and it's destroyed at -5, although some are more or less. For example, orcish weapons and armor are typically destroyed at -4. I haven't picked the threshold yet, but once it's damaged beyond probably -2, then it's too damaged to be mended by in-field repairs (or the _mending_ cantrip). But it might be that only "-1" damage can be repaired by the _mending_ cantrip.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Ovinomancer said:


> I'm curious about this first homestead-wise check discussed.  You stated you made the check to learn more about why the homesteads were abandoned, succeeded, and the result was narration of backstorumy by the GM.  Can you add more detail about the intent/outcome or square this otherwise on how this wasn't learning what was in the GM's notes, ie secret backstory?




Agreed, from [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s description:

I declared a couple of initial checks: a Homestead-wise check (untrained) to learn more about the circumstances of abandonment of this particular ruined homestead, which succeeded, and hence (in this case) *extracted some more narration of backstory from the GM*; and then a Scavenging check, looking for the gold that the homesteaders would have left behind in their panic and which the orcs would have been too lazy to find.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-quot-railroading-quot/page165#ixzz4gbdK9FPS

Isn't that learning secret backstory, whether it's in notes or otherwise? How does that differ from the player's perspective when a DM has notes about the circumstances, vs. making it up on the spot?


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> In what way do you see (d) and (e) as instructing the GM to drive the story?
> 
> As I see it, (d) instructs the GM to "go where the action is" - it's another statement of the _framing_ role of the GM, whereby the GM has to frame scenes that speak to theme/premise and thereby provoke choices by the players for their PCs.
> 
> If we think about  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the PC's brother's hat in the brothel, that is the GM "keep[ing] play driven towards conflict". It's the _player_, not the GM, who chose to make the brother a significant element in play; and it is the player who will make the choices that determine the outcomes.
> 
> (e) is another instruction about framing, and the use of consequences from previous situations to inform new situations. Those consequences will be the result of player action declarations, which in turn were made in response to framings that spoke to the thematic concerns established by the players. So I'm not seeing how it is "GM driven". Are you able to articulate what you mean by "GM driven"?




This is exactly right and your Burning Wheel hypothetical analogue is a proper one (even thought our situation was a bit different due to (a) player action declaration and (b) some procedural elements).  

I was originally going to just break down the principles and general procedures initially, but it seems that some folks want to go a bit deeper into system on this, so I'm going to tag  [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] here.

So one of the primary components of Dogs in the Vineyard conflict resolution is establishing what is at stake.  This is an area where  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] may have some issues given what I've seen him communicate and essays I've seen him link in this thread.  Everyone at the table gets a say and once we've agreed on the appropriate dramatic stakes (this is often pretty quick), we're good to go.  

In this situation, the relevant player went a sort of soft version of Unforgiven (when William Money shoots the owner of the whorehouse/tavern) on the owner/operator.  Again, this is a border town and disputed territory so you've got a lot of folks who aren't members of The Faith and have pledged fealty to the big-money rancher who subsidized this establishment.  They're pretty belligerent about it because of it and the owner/operator is more than game for a fight.

The conflict eschews "just talking" (Acuity + Heart dice pool) and goes straight to "physical, but not fighting" (Body + Heart dice pool) with the Dog in question picking up the big registry of customer transactions (filled with unrecognizable, fake names) and throwing it through the foyer window.  When a man comes through a door and begins to protest, the Dog confirms he's the owner.  He then flings the hat at him violently and tells him to bring the man who owns it to the foyer right now.

Even though the owner/operator has a decent enough pool for this, he almost surely won't win (especially with the other two Dogs helping) and definitely won't if the players escalate it to fighting (they wouldn't escalate it to guns...or at least two of them wouldn't).  I'm (as the NPC in question) not going to escalate it even to fighting.

The players think the best dramatic stakes are "did the brother wear the hat into the brothel...or someone else?"  In this case, they Give (lose) and the brother comes out...the owner Gives and someone else has the brother's hat.

They win and the man is sufficiently intimidated.  He leads them to the door and, as the owner goes to knock, the door explodes open and boom...Follow-On Conflict which I frame, escalating the present situation but respecting their win.  No talking, no physical, no fighting...straight to gunfire in a narrow corridor.  Things go crazy pretty quickly as a few other members of a gang of cattle rustlers explode out of adjoining rooms.

So its not the brother.  But its an enemy of the Dogs' mortal adversary in this Town (the rancher who is the manifestation of the territorial dispute and the primary purveyor of Sin).


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> What would it look like? I mean, I've described in reasonable detail how two sessions unfolded. Where would illusionism take place? What would it mean, in this context?
> 
> There is no fudging of rolls - they're being rolled in the open.
> 
> The framing is all there, in the open.
> 
> What form are you envisaging the illusionism taking?




Well, my assertion was originally based off of what I believed illusionism to be, and by definition anytime a choice is given without at least two predetermined potential outcomes, it meets that definition that I outlined. I'm not sure if that's what others were referring to. But I think there's a general idea that since the DM is instructed to drive the story, they have a greater level of control of the direction of the story, be it by illusionism or railroading, than a more sandbox approach where the players are driving the story more. This could be based more of our perception and understanding based on statements and examples given by you and others.

But if the DM had prepared an encounter against orcs, had provided circumstances where you could encounter said orcs, and you went a different direction instead, then his placement of the orcs in this encounter could be illusionism. Likewise, if he loves elves, and decided that you were going to meet elves no matter what you did, it could be illusionism. 

The thing about illusionism, if done well by the DM, it won't be detected. It's usually the result of the GM having something in mind or prepared ahead of time, and placing it in the game regardless of where you go. If you had skipped searching the homesteads and met the orcs anyway, it might have been illusionism. Of course, it could have just been because the orcs were following you. So the only person that could answer the question as to whether any sort of illusionism occurred would be the DM.

Despite what the game is designed to do, anytime a DM has something prepared (paper or in their head) ahead of time can present a potential scenario for illusionism. For the type of illusionism I described (two options presented with only one potential outcome), it's easily avoided by the GM providing a second prepared potential outcome.

But I think that in my analysis of that type of illusionism, regardless of whether the DM prepared something ahead of time, or the DM didn't prepare anything before the choice was made, the end state is the same: An option was presented, an outcome occurred, but the second potential outcome remains unauthored. The quality of the outcome may differ, but the end state is the same. The road chosen is authored, the road not chosen is not.



pemerton said:


> As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a simple recount of some fiction nothing can be inferred about RPGing processes. However, there are some things in the BW session that D&D wouldn't handle smoothly: opposed checks to get to the horse before being surrounded by orcs; opposed checks to unknot the horse before the orcs close in; an Instinct to interpose myself to protect Aramina; determining the presence or absence of treasure left behind by homesteaders on the basis of an Investigation check. Maybe others I'm not thinking of.
> 
> There are things, too, in the Cortex Fantasy that D&D wouldn't handle all that smoothly - the players establishing, via asset creation, that the murals have information about the dungeon; the player then leveraging this to bluff the dark elven C/F/MU to take him to the treasure; expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport all the PCs to another level of the dungeon. Again, maybe others I'm not thinking of.




Are you saying that opposed checks wouldn't work smoothly, or that D&D doesn't have them? I'm not sure what you mean by an Instinct to interpose yourself, I think that in any D&D scenario it's a natural instinct of the players, much less the characters, to prevent the wizard from being attacked directly.

I don't see how the BW rules handles those things you've pointed out more smoothly, in my campaign the fiction would have flowed in the same way, just different rules to engage.

As for Cortex Fantasy, the players establishing, via asset creation? I don't quite understand. In D&D the players would ask what the murals show, and the DM would answer. This could be predetermined, could be made up on the fly. In most cases, murals on the wall of a dungeon would likely provide some information of some sort regarding the dungeon, or at least the inhabitants that created them.

Bluffing the dark elven NPC, not a problem. Again, I don't understand the mechanic of expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport them. Are you saying this can only happen if the DM has earned some sort of resource to do so. Or to put it a different way, the Crypt Thing, within the world, can't use it's primary ability otherwise?

See, in none of the descriptions you or others have given have really illustrated anything you can do in one of those games that I can't do in D&D. My goal for D&D is for the players to write their own story, with my providing input via the setting and the NPCs/monsters, etc. I have some ability to control where things go (what I tell them or neglect to tell them, direct actions against the characters by the NPCs, etc.). What I'm not interested in is "playing a game."

That is, I'm not looking for a ruleset that encourages action on the part of the players or the DM. I don't like systems that restrict the options of the DM by rule of the game, rather than what's going on in the world. If my Crypt Thing can't use their primary ability because the mystical DM in the sky hasn't earned (or already used) his action points, then that's probably not a game I want to play. Games like that are multi-layered - there's the story and action within the fiction, and then there's the game outside the game, how can I maneuver things so I can get another action point, or whatever.

Thinks like the flat answer below, "you fail to pick the lock." What's wrong with that? Why do I have to introduce another complication? Why not let the players/characters figure out what to do if Plan A failed? I'm not opposed, and actually prefer systems, that allow degrees of success/failure, so that all of those options are available - you just fail, to it takes more time, to catastrophic failure. But I also prefer the system to allow the DM to adjudicate the system and determine that there really isn't catastrophic failure to be had here.

As of yet, I can't think of any scenario that a story now game can produce that I can't do in D&D. On the other hand, by your own assertion, there seems to be lots of things that they can't do that D&D can. I'm not concerned about whether you want to do them, only that you _can_. You may not want to run or play a standard dungeon crawl scenario. But there are plenty of people that do want to. And from what you're saying, if that's what they want, then BW isn't the right system for them.

I'm not sure that's really true, but it's the sense I get. And really, if that's not true, then I think that it would be importantly to show that that's not the case to better promote the game.

Most of your objections seem to be about what you want or don't want within the fiction of the game. They are objections to the content of the game. The fiction. If that's the case, then don't include them.

My objections tend to be about _how_ events, actions and the fiction of the game occurs and is introduced. And usually my objections are about restrictions or prescribed approaches that require a certain approach. 

I expect that a human being will act in much the same manner as a human being in our world. Yes, the circumstances often change what we do. And that's part of what I enjoy exploring in an RPG - how would that character act in a difficult situation.

What I don't like are rules that limit those options, whether it's the scene, the actions, the DM's options, whatever. I want the rules to be as transparent as possible. One mentality that the rules sometimes give rise to in D&D is, "it's OK if he dies, we'll just resurrect him." That's an example of how the rules changed the fiction, or allowed a change in the fiction by player interpretation. A DM made a post complaining that when he attempted a classic scene: the villain held a knife to a villager's throat, that the players actually debated (and ultimately chose) to let the NPC "kill" the villager, they could prevail and then save the villager, even though he just had his throat cut. 

So a rule that tells the DM to increase the tension, and ramp up the conflict, and introduce complications are instructions that are telling me what to put into the fiction. In other words, they are limiting my options.

I'm also a big proponent for changing rules you don't like. Yes, you have to work at it sometimes (because changing one thing can often have impacts elsewhere). So if I was to run something like BW on a regular basis, I'd do the same thing. 



pemerton said:


> I don't understand what the contrast is you are drawing between "driven by the rules" and "supported by the rules".
> 
> I (as my character) wanted the elf captain come with me back to my ancestral estate. That required persuading him. So, as a player, I called for a Duel of Wits.
> 
> Page 552 of the BW Gold rulebook says that the players "have a number of duties", including to "use the mechanics". That's what I did.
> 
> As per the post above this one, action declaration is Intent and Task. I explained that I (ie as my PC) wanted to look around the homestead to see what I could learn about the circumstances of its abandonment. But I also told the GM - as a player - that I wanted to resolve that as a Homestead-wise check. This is me angling for a test, which I got. Ultimately the GM is responsible for ensuring that - given the task - the right ability is being tested, but the player is allowed to express a view - which I did.
> 
> As p 24 of the book says (and as I quoted just upthread), "Dice rolls called for by the GM and players are the heart of play. These are tests."






pemerton said:


> Well the flip side would be - the repeated insertion of irrelevant stuff is what bothers me with the process-sim/exploration-of-situation-style approach.




And I see dice rolls an an interruption of play. They pull you out of the game world, out of character, and interrupt the immersion within the game. They are a necessary evil, although they do add their own dimension to the game that can provide some benefit. But I wouldn't call them the heart of play for us. The story and the characters are the heart of play. We don't sit down at the table to roll dice, even though we roll quite a bit. If that was the heart of play, then we'd be playing a dice game.

But see, that's where I think you misunderstand what [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and I are trying to explain. We don't insert irrelevant stuff. We describe what's there. We can't decide for the players or the characters what is important, only they can. 

Rules that instruct the DM to "drive toward conflict," "go to the action," etc. are giving the DM the instruction to choose what's important to him, based on what he thinks is important to the players and the characters. My preferred approach (and I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s among others) is for the DM to focus on what's important to the setting and the NPCs, and let the players truly have _full_ control of what's important to them.



pemerton said:


> This example speaks to that a bit:
> 
> The GM, in establishing the consequence of failure, is not suggesting that _failing to find something caused the orcs to infiltrate_. Anymore then, in the game where I'm GM, the PCs failure to find the mace retrospectively _caused_ the brother to be an evil enchanter of cursed arrows.
> 
> The failure isn't being narrated on a causal logic. It's being narrated on a "fail forward", narratively-and-thematically-driven logic. From BW Gold, pp 31-32:
> 
> When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . .
> 
> When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication. . . .
> 
> Try not to present flat negative results - "You don’t pick the lock." Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.​
> My intent was to find the homesteaders' hidden treasures. That didn't come to pass. Instead, in the time I was doing this some orcs on the edge of the larger raiding party notice us and enter the homestead. And Aramina is separated from me because I had expressly declared that she didn't help me search.
> 
> A good GM won't narrate a complication that doesn't make sense in the fiction. If my PC was (say) a scout with excellent Observation, then I imagine the GM would have narrated something different. If I didn't have a Belief that Aramina will need my protection, then I doubt the GM would have bothered with Aramina being surrounded by the orcs such that I had to choose whether or not to interpose myself.
> 
> Again, this is why the focus of this sort of play is not illusionism - which has no application - but GM judgement in framing and narrating consequences, where the GM who makes bad calls will make things fall flat.
> 
> The GM called for Steel tests. Thurgon passed, Aramina failed, but then Thurgon's command lifted her hesitation. I don't know if the GM was thinking of Thurgon's Command skill when he made this call, but in any event it was a good call, as it provided a context for meaningful choice (again, protecting Aramina) and I - as a player - also made a point of making my horse (part of my gear) an element in the situation. That's an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is getting at when he talks about "playing the fiction".
> 
> Aramina is a companion to my PC. Something like a henchman in classic D&D. Even if she was a player, I think in the circumstances she would have to obey my command, as that was my intent in making the check, which succeeded. It wouldn't last any longer than her hesitation which was (in D&D terms) roughly 1 round.




My question was really whether your check could force a specific action/reaction from another PC. Something that is generally frowned upon in game design, and actively hated by many players. 

All this stuff about context for meaningful choice and making your horse (part of your gear) an element in the situation is to me, irrelevant. I don't need rules to tell me as a player to communicate to my fellow companions a plan I have, and if we have an opportunity to gain an advantage or an escape on our horses, then that's an obvious choice. 



pemerton said:


> Nor does BW. It uses simultaneous blind declaration and then simultaneous resolution. There is a TotM positioning mechanic - because the orcs had spears and I have a mace, they had a positioning advantage, but I was able to charge through their wall of spears (being much stronger than them) and knock one down, which was the beginning of the end for the orcs.




I commented on initiative because I'm running D&D. The fact that I don't use initiative is an important distinction to make because it changes my description of the action substantially from the D&D rules.

It's also a perfect example of how I don't like rules that drive the action, instead of supporting it. Initiative is supposed to (in theory) address the question of who resolves their action first (who hits first). But in the D&D combat system it does much more than that. You can move 30 feet (sometimes more), take your full action, and sometimes a bonus action, before anybody else gets to move. What's more, since usually everybody knows the initiative order, they can take advantage of this rule construct that doesn't exist in the game world itself. They can do so by planning their attacks around the initiative order and maximize their group attacks as well - all while the opponents are seemingly frozen in time. No matter how much somebody tries to explain that's not what happens - it is. 



pemerton said:


> This is another instance of the GM framing things so as to drive towards conflict. Here is the rule on ties (BW Gold p 26):
> 
> If one character is an aggressor by intent and one is a defender, ties go to the defender. If both characters are aggressors, a tie means that neither side has gained an edge and they are deadlocked. Either the tie must be accepted as the result, a trait must be called on to break it or the contest must be continued in another arena. Do not reroll the test.​
> The GM decided that the tie in this case meant deadlock, and so the contest had to be continued in another arena - how quickly can I unloose the horse as the orc's close? Personally, I think I would have adjudicated it differently rather than retest the orcs' speed - perhaps an orc is taking aim to throw a spear at me, and so it is Knots vs Perception with a win to me getting me on my horse and a win to the orc getting him a throw of the spear at me. But I'm not the GM in this game!




And this sounds an awful lot like the Contest rules for ability checks in D&D. It's a mechanical rule. It doesn't drive toward conflict - it's just resolving who resolves their action first. If you fail (or know that you are likely to fail) then you do something else. I don't see any reason to make it more than that.



pemerton said:


> There is no such thing as "passive checks" in BW. As a general rule, passive checks are not consistent with "say 'yes' or roll the dice".




Huh? A passive check is a "say yes" if the passive skill is high enough to beat the DC. Otherwise you have to roll the dice. How is this not consistent with "say yes or roll the dice?"

A passive skill also doesn't require an action. So in combat you can choose to use your action to give yourself a better chance at success (such as Stealth or Search) by making an active check instead of relying on your passive skill.


----------



## Manbearcat

Ilbranteloth said:


> So this is where I go from the 100% to the 80%. I guess you can say that I'm approaching the discussion in part as a DM of D&D, because ultimately that's what I really know. Despite having run games in the past for other systems, I can't really claim to have achieved a high enough skill level in them to call myself a Rolemaster/MERP GM, or Traveller, Paranoia, whatever.
> 
> Having said that, I do think I have enough knowledge of other systems to look at it from a more objective position, although not completely (or maybe 100% accurately) since I don't know all systems as well.
> 
> So (d) and (e) might be 100% correct for a story now game (and from what I understand, they _are_ fairly standard). However, if when running/playing your game of choice that you wish to have a different play experience than a narrative/story now game, these are implying that the DM take greater control of the story than I normally like:
> 
> d) Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story". Just play The Town. Present the PC's with choices; "*provoke the players* to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!" *Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict*, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved. (DitV 137-139)
> 
> e) Reflect between Towns with the players. Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "*push them a little bit further in the next Town*."
> 
> These are giving specific direction to drive the story arc itself. That every game ("always") must follow this direction. But there are times, or some of us, that are interested in telling other kinds of stories. They aren't always about conflict. If the instructions are for creating a tense and intense, ever-escalating conflict driving to a shocking and dramatic final resolution, fine. These are great instructions. But if they are instructions for how to run every RPG game, then no.
> 
> I get that they are written for a specific game that promises a specific game style. It's an example of how rules that are well integrated into the goal (and possibly setting) of the game helps create a repeatable game experience. That's a successful game. But let's say I'm not interested in that game. What can I learn from it? Quite a bit, but for a smaller portion of my game, because a smaller portion of my game needs these types of rules.
> 
> Also, many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict.




So  @_*pemerton*_ already analyzed this and I'm in agreement with what he wrote.  But I'll throw a few words of my own into the ring.

While I understand that "provoke the players into action" and "drive play toward conflict" can easily be perceived as "specific direction to drive the story arc", within context of everything else (the rest of the GMing principles, the general play procedures, the specific conflict resolution procedures, the game's Reward Cycle) it really isn't about *story specificity.*  Its about *addressing premise.*  The conceptual difference between the two may be nuanced, but it is absolutely central to proper Story Now GMing.

To play at all in these games is to accept either (a) the tight system premise that is inherent to the game itself (like My Life With Master) or (b) premise that is inherent to (and signaled by) the thematic choices of PC build (D&D 4e, Dungeon World, and the Cortex+ games) or (c) both (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark).

So all the GM is doing in Dogs is their job; (1) create obstacles (Towns) which provoke (hook into premise and demand a response) and (2) functionally and coherently frame conflicts around Dog's inherent premise (and each of the Dogs' inherent premise themselves), (3) escalating them when necessary and sensible (which is most of the time), and (4) respond to the evolving conditions/evolved continuity by framing follow-on conflicts that hook right back into premise until every PC is done for (physically, mentally, or emotionally) or the Town is cleansed.  (5) Take a breather as we reflect between towns, the players and the situation evolves, then go right back to (1).

Story specificity isn't a thing in Dogs or Story Now games.  Whatever happens...happens.  Just address premise and provoke with relevant content.  Then react to the players and appreciate the fireworks and fallout.

I know there is this sandbox mental framework impulse that tells a certain segment of longtime AD&D players that serial exploration of setting (with objective temporal and spatial relationships and granular accounting for both) and a broad/varied buffet of premise is fundamentally the only boundary conditions which can maximize player agency.  

For them, hard scene framing and "go to the action" (contrast with serial exploration of setting relationships) and focused premise (contrast with a broad/varied buffet of premise) is fundamentally a problem for player agency.  

But its just not for these type of games.  In fact, smuggling in those sandbox GMing principles (holistically...some Story Now games use certain components) is actually damaging to the player agency (and aesthetic experience) of Story Now games. This is because spending precious play time exploring/investigating premise-neutral setting relationships or spending table time on dramatically-inert situations (either because they are fundamentally so or because the GM has done a poor job of framing) are both negatively impactful to the sum-total amount of agency that players could be *expressing around addressing premise/theme in a given session* and, just as important, such inconsistent pacing negatively impacts the *very precious momentum/tempo* that is central to the play experience.  

For the players to play at all in a Story Now game and for the game to work at all is to embrace (and expect) that paradigm.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Lanefan said:


> Fair enough.  I used the phrase as it seems to be one that pemerton swears by, to make the point that where in his game everyone is playing to find out in my game everyone except the DM is playing to find out.  In either case *what* they're finding out may or may not be what anyone thought they might before the session started.
> 
> I'm not so much thinking of individual characters' secret backstory as secret backstory in the game as a whole.  The gate guard is in fact a spy for the Phonecians.  The next full moon will bring an unexpected outbreak of werewolves.  The party's mentor who supposedly supports the king is secretly trying to overthrow him and the party have been (unknowingly) aiding this.  Col. Mustard did it in the Tower with a +3 Mace.  All the little (or not so little) things that a DM knows and that PCs (and thus players) don't.
> 
> Maybe they'll never meet the gate guard.  They might just happen to be out of town when the werewolves hit.  But they're starting to wonder about their so-called mentor...
> 
> And for the game as a whole if it's on a larger scale. I made it all the way to the end before you lost me.   I don't get this one.  How can you author (as in, either generate or add to) the fiction without changing it, either from what is was to what it is or from nothing at all to what it is?
> 
> Lan-"secret backstory is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists"-efan




The last line:

Just as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] asserts that authoring the fiction doesn't alter the fiction.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-quot-railroading-quot/page165#ixzz4gcxkahj9

I was basically saying that you can't change something that isn't written yet. In other words, until it comes into play, it doesn't exist. It might be written in my notes, but since it might change it makes no difference, just like I made up on the fly, it's not a change in the fiction, since it hasn't existed in the game world yet.

And yes, I agree with every thing you said here, it's really "backstory and setting" as Eero pointed out.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

pemerton said:


> In a "secret backstory" game, whether or not the NPC is the father is (presumably) known to the GM (if it's not, then there's no secret backstory!), and so the player's action declarations can't actually establish this bit of the fiction. All they can do is uncover it (which is what I have referred to upthread as "learning the contents of the GM's notes"). If the PC cast a Commune spell and asked "Who is my father?" or "Is the NPC my father?", the GM would provide the answer written in his/her notes.
> 
> Upthread I've already posted examples of the PCs trying to solve mysteries, and how this works in a "story now" framework where there is no "secret backstory". Here's one such:
> 
> *Mystery*: why did the PC's brother become possessed by a balrog?
> 
> *Clue* - _narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Scavenging check_: the PC searches the ruined tower where he and his brother once lived and worked, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he left behind 14 years ago when fleeing attacking orcs; but instead, he finds cursed black arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom.
> 
> *Further clue* - _narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Aura Reading check_: the PC reads the magical aura of the arrows, hoping to learn who made them - it was his brother!​
> The clues point towards an answer to the mystery - the PC's brother was evil, and hence a fitting receptacle for balrog possession. They are narrated by the GM in accordance with the "challenging revelation" approach described by Eero Tuovinen.
> 
> The mechanics of the system are important here: every action declaration is resolved according to "say 'yes' or roll the dice". There is no automatic success comparable to classic D&D commune. So the aura reading is a check, which can result in failure, which enables me as GM to narrate another clue that points in the unhappy direction.
> 
> Here's another example:
> 
> *Mystery*: is the Dusk War upon us!
> 
> *Clue* - _introduced by GM as part of framing_: the tarrasque has risen from out of the earth and is wreaking havoc - this is one of the prophesied signs of the Dusk War.
> 
> *Further clue* - _introduced by GM as part of framing_ (partly unprompted, partly in the course of discussion between the PCs and a NPC, partly in response to knowledge checks which were, in effect, requests for more framing detail): the tarrasque is surrounded by maruts who in ancient days made an agreement with the Raven Queen to ensure that no one would interfere with the tarrasque carrying out its rampage at a herald of the Dusk War.
> 
> The PCs responded to this by having one of their number attack the tarrasque and single-handedly bloody it, while the other PCs explained to the maruts that they had made an error in their cosmological calculations: this could _not_ be the tarrasque heralding the Dusk War, because the ease with which it was being defeated meant that it could not be the harbinger of the end times. It must be some lesser precursor to that prophesied event. (Mechanically, this was both successful combat actions and success in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)​
> In a "secret backstory" game the PCs presumably could persuade the maruts, but whether or not the prophesied end of days was here or not would itself be something already known to the GM (if not, then there is no secret backstory).
> 
> I am not talking about a world-threatening villain that the PCs might try and stop. I'm talking about a prophesied end-of-days - the Ragnarok or the Apocalypse.
> 
> The answer to the question _is the Dusk War upon us_ is, in the fiction, either _yes_ or _no_: it's either the end times, or it's not. But at the table, in the real world, the answer is not known. The players, like their PCs, want the answer to be _no_. There are NPCs - including the Raven Queen, it seems - who want the answer to be _yes_. Of course, the PCs don't have the causal power _in the fiction_ to establish the answer - it's a cosmological truth. But the players, at the table, have the causal power to shape the fiction. That is the difference from a "secret backstory" game, where the answer to the question is settled in the GM's notes. (Again, if there is no such answer then we're not talking about a "secret backstory" game.)
> 
> First, a subsidiary point: the GM does not seek the player's agreement out of session. That would be making the mistake that Eero Tuovinen describes, of getting the player to author his/her own challenge. It is the GM's job to narrate the murder, whether as framing or as a consequence of a failed check. (As [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I were discussing not far upthread, which of these, if either, is appropriate narration is the sort of decision a "story now" GM has to make all the time; if the GM gets it wrong, then the situation will fall flat, or fail to provoke a choice on the part of the player.)




So part of the problem I'm having here is a terminology one, and the second is that despite what the folks at the Forge think, it's not an all or nothing thing.

First the terminology thing: The term in use in this discussion is "secret backstory." If we're basing that on the word secret, then what you're referring to is something the DM knows that the player doesn't. Fair enough.

But to me, particularly from the player's point of view, there is no fundamental difference between "secret backstory" and "unknown backstory." 

Whether the DM knew about the villain being your father before the moment he announced it or not makes no difference whatsoever to the player nor the story.

So when we're discussing "secret backstory" my definition is "unknown backstory."

The risk with a "secret backstory" where the DM knows something the player doesn't is the same as with any pre-authored material, whether it's setting, backstory, whatever - the DM might be inclined to steer the campaign toward that prepared material. Steer hard enough and it becomes a railroad.



pemerton said:


> Second, the main points.
> 
> (A) In a "story now"/"narrativistic" game the GM is _going where the action is_, in accordance with dramatic need. The sister _has some significance_. The sister's murder _has some significance_ (eg it opens up the town council to control by the PC's rivals). The PC has someone in mind as the suspect. In short, the scene will _provoke some choice_ on the part of the player. That choice will involve action declarations, which will be successful (in which case things unfold the way the PC hoped) or will fail (in which case things unfold unhappily for the PC).
> 
> Which leads to the other main point:
> 
> (B) It's simply not correct that "you-as-DM are still supplying the answers". Look at the examples I've given in this post; or other examples from upthread, like whether or not there is a vessel in the room where the unconscious mage has been decapitated. If the player's action declaration for his/her PC succeeds, then it is the player, not the GM, who is shaping the fiction. The player's successful Perception check established the presence of a vessel in the room. The players' successful defeat of the tarrasque made it plausible that it was not, in fact, the Dusk War harbinger but only some lesser incarnation.
> 
> Think about (A) and (B) in relation to the example [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted not far upthread, of the discovery of the brother's hat in the brothel. I don't know DitV's resolution system, but I can easily imagine how this might unfold in BW:
> 
> The PC picks up the hat from the hook in the foyer and strides into the main parlour of the brothel. He draws his pistol, holds up the hat, and calls out "The owner of this here hat had better come out here now, or I'll come and find him!"
> 
> At the table, the GM calls for a Command check, with (say) Conspicuous, Oratory and Intimidate folded in as augments.
> 
> If the check succeeds, some NPC stranger stumbles sheepishly out of one of the bedrooms, and the scene now evolves into a social encounter as the PC tries to find out how the NPC came by the brother's hat.
> 
> If the check fails, then the PC (and player) have not got what they want. So the GM narrates the brother coming out of a bedroom into the parlour, pulling up his britches as he comes. Now the situation has taken a very different turn . . .​
> Because of (A), there is no fumbling around by the players or the GM wondering where to go to look for clues. The situation is charged with dramatic need. The player can declare actions. The GM can supply engaging framing.
> 
> Because of (B), the GM as much as the players is _playing to find out_. The resolution of the mystery will not be determined by the GM. It's not the GM who supplies the answers. The answers are generated by the consequences of action declaration: if the player succeeds, the PC's intent is realised; if the player fails, the GM narrates some consequence adverse to the PC's intent.
> 
> Note that, even on failure, _the GM is not sole arbiter_. It is the player who established the intent of the action declaration, and hence who establishes the parameters (_adversity to_ or _negation of_ that intent) that govern the GM's narration of consequences of failure.
> 
> Would it make my job easier as a baker of cakes for my family to buy one at the shop? To me, that sounds like giving up on my job.
> 
> As I've repeatedly posted, _I don't want to play an RPG where the main goal of play is for the players to find out what I have written in my notes_. And if my players want to find out what I think would make for a good mystery, well, they can read my novels! But as far as RPGing is concerned, I want to play to find out. For me, that's what RPGing is.
> 
> Sorry, I hadn't realised that any of this had been taken to be in contention.
> 
> Yes, the GM has ideas. Otherwise the GM couldn't frame scenes or narrate consequences. But I don't know what you mean by "steering things in this manner".
> 
> Consider one of the examples I posted around six or so posts upthread, from one of the sessions I participated in over the weekend: my GM included elves in the situation, because he like elves. And no doubt he had some ideas about what might happen with the elves (just as a GM might have ideas about NPCs and their connections to PC parenthood).
> 
> So, with whatever ideas he had in mind, the GM narrated the presence of the elf captain. I initiated the social exchange; and it seemed fairly clear to me that the GM had not expected me (in character as my PC) to try to persuade the elven captain to bring himself and his company to my PC's ancestral estate. The interaction of stat blocks, scripting (ie blind action declarations, which is how BW handles complex conflict resolution) and the dice dictated that the elf captain rebuffed my PC's invitation; but while the attempt failed utterly, as I posted upthread it nevertheless (i) got me some good advancement checks, (ii) let me have fun speaking my arguments as the rules require, and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation. Following the interaction with the elf captain, I was the one who then chose that my PC and his companion would head off in a different direction from the elves without taking any lunch (which we had originally been planning to eat at the ruined homestead).
> 
> So anyway, as I've said, I don't know what you have in mind when you refer to the GM "steering things" in an episode of play like this. If you simply mean that the GM determines some elements of the fiction as part of framing - eg the elf, who didn't want to come back to my ancestral estate but rather to return to Celene with a fallen comrade - then as I said I didn't realise that was in contention. But if you mean something more, I'm missing what that is.
> 
> Well, as I've said upthread I don't know enough about your game to form any opinion on it.
> 
> But I think the contrast between the sort of approach that  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is advocating for - in which the GM authors the backstory in advance, and the players' job includes finding that out in the course of play - and the sort of approach that I prefer, is a fairly clear one.
> 
> For all I know, you run a game in which you frame scenes according to dramatic need, and establish the content of the fiction in the sort of fashion that I have described: the interaction of framing, action declarations and consequences. Ron Edwards discusses this in two essays:
> 
> Sh*t! I'm playing Narrativist
> In Simulationist play, morality cannot be imposed by the player or, except as the representative of the imagined world, by the GM. Theme is already part of the cosmos; it's not produced by metagame decisions. Morality, when it's involved, is "how it is" in the game-world, and even its shifts occur along defined, engine-driven parameters. The GM and players buy into this framework in order to play at all. . . .
> 
> Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary. . . .
> 
> The _Now _refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. To do that, they relate to "the story" very much as authors do for novels, as playwrights do for plays, and screenwriters do for film at the creative moment or moments. Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another. The Now also means "get to it," in which "it" refers to any Explorative element or combination of elements that increases the enjoyment of that issue I'm talking about.
> 
> There cannot be any "_the _story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). . . .
> 
> Jesse: I'm just still a little confused between Narrativism and Simulationism where the Situation has a lot of ethical/moral problems embedded in it and the GM uses no Force techniques to produce a specific outcome. I don't understand how Premise-expressing elements can be included and players not be considered addressing a Premise when they can't resolve the Situation without doing so.
> 
> Me: There is no such Simulationism. You're confused between Narrativism and Narrativism, looking for a difference when there isn't any.​
> It's very clear to me that Lanefan is running a game that, in Edwards' framework, would count as "simulationist" because "exploration of situation and setting". I think the same is true for [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], but probably with a greater focus on setting and character rather than situation. But you, [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], haven't said enough about how you run your game, or provided examples of play that would illustrate your techniques. So I can't tell.




I disagree, only because from what I can tell [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] runs a game similar to mine, which "includes ethical/moral problems embedded in it and doesn't use Force techniques to produce a specific outcome." I try to avoid what the Forge limits as force techniques as much as possible. We just don't use rules that direct a specific narrative approach. Although we do - skill checks still have success and failure and, at least for me, they also have degrees of success and failure. I don't have a system like AW that gives you 5 sentences to select to build your narration from, for example. I consider the circumstances, which does consider the current thrust of the story, but also looks at whether this particular action/resolution situation _would_ significantly intersect with the characters underlying motivations. 

For example, sometimes killing an orc is a moral dilemma, sometimes it's just killing an orc.

When my daughter snuck into an orc hold attempting to get some more information, they came to some holding cells with prisoners/slaves. The two orc guards had their back to her (and the other PC that was with her), and she has a flying dagger that she could use to attack with. There were other orcs nearby (they could hear them) and they couldn't risk being discovered. So the other PC suggested she try to kill them silently with the dagger to the back of the neck at the base of the skull. She agonized over the decision because the orc guards weren't an immediate threat. She was adamant about trying to free the prisoners, but they weren't sure how they were going to be able to do it (other than hoping that the prisoners would be able to help them escape once they were freed and they were making a run for it).

She didn't have an issue with killing orcs, just that they were unarmed and not an immediate threat. Somebody even suggested that they just draw attention to themselves, in which case they would be a threat, but she didn't think that was right either, because they would only be a threat because they _made_ them a threat. She didn't even mention that it might alert the other orcs at that point. It was all about the fact that at that moment in time, they didn't need to be killed.

The moral dilemma presented itself without any need for me to add anything else. I knew there were guards for the prisoners, because I did have a map of the hold, but I didn't expect them to be able to sneak to their present location where the guards would have their backs to them. I really didn't expect them to initially attempt to sneak into the hold for surveillance. They have their morals and know what the norm is in the world itself. 

One of the main things I like about the game (and have mentioned before) are these sort of character-building moments. But it's one of the things, there are many, many others. 

By your definition above, I must be running a narrative campaign. I'm OK with that, although really it's more of a hybrid approach, trying to build on the strengths of several styles.


----------



## Ilbranteloth

Manbearcat said:


> So  @_*pemerton*_ already analyzed this and I'm in agreement with what he wrote.  But I'll throw a few words of my own into the ring.
> 
> While I understand that "provoke the players into action" and "drive play toward conflict" can easily be perceived as "specific direction to drive the story arc", within context of everything else (the rest of the GMing principles, the general play procedures, the specific conflict resolution procedures, the game's Reward Cycle) it really isn't about *story specificity.*  Its about *addressing premise.*  The conceptual difference between the two may be nuanced, but it is absolutely central to proper Story Now GMing.
> 
> To play at all in these games is to accept either (a) the tight system premise that is inherent to the game itself (like My Life With Master) or (b) premise that is inherent to (and signaled by) the thematic choices of PC build (D&D 4e, Dungeon World, and the Cortex+ games) or (c) both (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark).
> 
> So all the GM is doing in Dogs is their job; (1) create obstacles (Towns) which provoke (hook into premise and demand a response) and (2) functionally and coherently frame conflicts around Dog's inherent premise (and each of the Dogs' inherent premise themselves), (3) escalating them when necessary and sensible (which is most of the time), and (4) respond to the evolving conditions/evolved continuity by framing follow-on conflicts that hook right back into premise until every PC is done for (physically, mentally, or emotionally) or the Town is cleansed.  (5) Take a breather as we reflect between towns, the players and the situation evolves, then go right back to (1).
> 
> Story specificity isn't a thing in Dogs or Story Now games.  Whatever happens...happens.  Just address premise and provoke with relevant content.  Then react to the players and appreciate the fireworks and fallout.
> 
> I know there is this sandbox mental framework impulse that tells a certain segment of longtime AD&D players that serial exploration of setting (with objective temporal and spatial relationships and granular accounting for both) and a broad/varied buffet of premise is fundamentally the only boundary conditions which can maximize player agency.
> 
> For them, hard scene framing and "go to the action" (contrast with serial exploration of setting relationships) and focused premise (contrast with a broad/varied buffet of premise) is fundamentally a problem for player agency.
> 
> But its just not for these type of games.  In fact, smuggling in those sandbox GMing principles (holistically...some Story Now games use certain components) is actually damaging to the player agency (and aesthetic experience) of Story Now games. This is because spending precious play time exploring/investigating premise-neutral setting relationships or spending table time on dramatically-inert situations (either because they are fundamentally so or because the GM has done a poor job of framing) are both negatively impactful to the sum-total amount of agency that players could be *expressing around addressing premise/theme in a given session* and, just as important, such inconsistent pacing negatively impacts the *very precious momentum/tempo* that is central to the play experience.
> 
> For the players to play at all in a Story Now game and for the game to work at all is to embrace (and expect) that paradigm.




That makes sense, although looking through something like AW there are specific responses to choose from. I get that they are sort of vague and are intended to provide a direction for your response. But I still find them limiting. And as I've mentioned before, part of the problem I have with many of these games is the terminology they use. 

But when I'm talking about 100%/80% it's primarily because there are times in the game when I'm not concerned with addressing the premise per se.

When I say that, it's largely because there are lots of premises going on at a given point at time, and I don't see it as my responsibility as DM to direct them towards one or the other most of the time. Sometimes there are time-sensitive things, so that obviously puts some pressure on them.

So let me ask this - My campaign typically has at least a dozen plots going on at once. Usually there are one or two specific to each character - goals they have, others are either group or setting specific, they know of a potential attempt to overthrow the local Lord, or something like that. Others might be a map they acquired that shows the location of a long lost tomb. 

So when they are following a particular storyline, my goal is to support that, and based on what I see in Story Now games, a lot of those techniques are in use, although perhaps not as coherently. Between those points, though, it's really up to the PCs to determine what's next. And the PCs may decide to change course in the middle of one story line.

Do Story Now, or perhaps your Story Now games have or support that sort of game? 

Personally, I'm not a big fan of the sandbox approach either. At least not as championed by those who swear by a "pure" sandbox. That the DM shouldn't interfere at all in anything that's going on. I tend to use the term living sandbox, although I don't know if that means anything to anybody else. But the point is that the DM has a broad responsibility for the things that are happening in the world as a whole. Whether it's the weather, or impending orc raids, plots and schemes by the many villains and villainous organizations, and local and regional political issues, etc. That doesn't require the DM to detail and catalog all of that sort of things beforehand, although I personally think it makes it easier.

For me I see benefits in both methods (which seem to be the two extremes).


----------



## Lanefan

Ilbranteloth said:


> I disagree, only because from what I can tell [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] runs a game similar to mine, which "includes ethical/moral problems embedded in it and doesn't use Force techniques to produce a specific outcome."



Thanks for that, but you make it sound much more highfalutin' and serious than it really is. 

And more often than not their answer to moral/ethical problems pretty much boils down to 

Character X: "screw it, let's just kill 'em all and let the gods sort 'em out" immediately followed by Player of Character X: "Pass me a beer, will ya?  I'm empty."

Also, I use all kinds of techniques; sometimes by choice, sometimes not.  Not everything works every time, as one might expect, but enough things work enough of the time to keep it fun and engage the players enough that they come back next week for more.



> I try to avoid what the Forge limits as force techniques as much as possible.



In all honesty, I just try to avoid the Forge as much as possible and leave it at that.  IME whenever Forge stuff starts rearing its head in any discussion things quickly and inevitably spiral into arguing about how the Forge defines terms and uses words  vs. how everyone else defines and uses them, burying whatever the original discussion might have had going for it.



> The moral dilemma presented itself without any need for me to add anything else. I knew there were guards for the prisoners, because I did have a map of the hold, but I didn't expect them to be able to sneak to their present location where the guards would have their backs to them. I really didn't expect them to initially attempt to sneak into the hold for surveillance. They have their morals and know what the norm is in the world itself.
> 
> One of the main things I like about the game (and have mentioned before) are these sort of character-building moments.



Really the best part about this character development is how it arose organically out of the run of play.  The DM (you, I gather) presented a pre-built situation and scenario and turned the players loose on it; the players in character then threw a curveball at you by being too good at what they did (sneak into the keep), and in the process nicely set the moral dilemma up for themselves.  Grand stuff! 



> By your definition above, I must be running a narrative campaign. I'm OK with that, although really it's more of a hybrid approach, trying to build on the strengths of several styles.



Here obviously you became reactive rather than proactive while they crept into the keep...they acted, and you reacted.  And now they've hung themselves on a moral dilemma and while they dither they might unintentionally hand you a chance to become proactive - the guards turning around would be a start. 

Lan-"the hybrid approach, equally fuelled by imagination and beer"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't understand the mechanic of expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport them. Are you saying this can only happen if the DM has earned some sort of resource to do so. Or to put it a different way, the Crypt Thing, within the world, can't use it's primary ability otherwise?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If my Crypt Thing can't use their primary ability because the mystical DM in the sky hasn't earned (or already used) his action points, then that's probably not a game I want to play.



As presented in the Fiend Folio, a crypt thing teleports PCs by using a magical ability. Whether or not a PC is teleported depends on the player's saving throw roll.

In MHRP, trying to teleport a character is inflicting a complication - which is a general mechanic. If a complication is serious enough, the character is out for the rest of the scene. In the encounter I described, the crpyt thing inflicted a d8 (or d10? I can't remember now) Stuck Halfway Through a Portal complication on one of the PCs. But then, before there was a chance to step up that complication or inflict any others, the Doom Pool reached 2d12. And I spent the dice to end the scene, narrating this as the crypt thing having dismissed all the PCs from its presence, teleported to a room on a lower dungeon level.

D&D doesn't have any mechanic of that sort, where the GM can expend a resource to establish and narrate the end of a scene.



Ilbranteloth said:


> As for Cortex Fantasy, the players establishing, via asset creation? I don't quite understand. In D&D the players would ask what the murals show, and the DM would answer. This could be predetermined, could be made up on the fly. In most cases, murals on the wall of a dungeon would likely provide some information of some sort regarding the dungeon, or at least the inhabitants that created them.



For the pillared hall, I established three Scene Distinctions (which is a standard part of scene framing in MHRP): Pillars, Flickering Braziers, and Murals on the Walls that Might be Maps.

While two of the players had their PCs fighting the living statue, the third player declared as his action that he studied the murals to see if they would show him the way through the dungeon (thereby eliminating the d12 Lost in the Dungeon complication). He succeeded - among other things, this established as true-in-the-fiction that the murals had information about the dungeon; it also meant that he was no longer lost, and (mechanically) he was rid of the complication. On his next turn he continued to study them, this time to establish, as an asset, Path to Treasure. That asset was then used by him in his dice pools to persuade the dark elven C/F/MU to take him to the dark elf treasure vaults.

Part of the context for all this was that the Doom Pool was very low, and these sorts of actions (Recovery and Support actions) are generally opposed by the Doom Pool, so it was a propitious time to eliminate complications and establish assets. (Which is also part of my answer to [MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] upthread - is power-gaming possible in MHRP? Yes it is, and what I've just described is an example.)


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> Just because I might have had an idea, and even gone so far to write it down, doesn't mean it's right. I, as the DM, and "playing to find out" if it's true. Call it a theory, like in a mystery. Am I right? I'm not ready to declare who did it, where they did it, and with what. I could be wrong.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So yes, the DM is the only one that can provide the answers. But that doesn't mean the answers come from the notes.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I don't usually have specific answers, unless it's something simple like when they are in a dungeon and I know what creatures/traps/treasures lie in two different directions. Those are times where the notes are more specific (although potentially still malleable). Otherwise I give it my best shot





hawkeyefan said:


> the GM is free to change things on the fly, no matter what style of game is being played. This is my point.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> there is no reason that anything in the GM's note must be written in stone.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So this Mutability of Backstory is a technique that MAY be applied in any game.



Referring back to the OP:



pemerton said:


> [size=+1]How do GM "judgement calls" relate (if at all) to railroading?[/size]​
> <snip>
> 
> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative. (This is broader than some people use it, I know. If the players get to choose for their PCs, but what they choose won't change the downstream storyline, I am counting that as a railroad.)



My interest is in who shapes "outcomes", and thereby gets to establish the stuff of the shared fiction.

"Mutability of Backstory" is not an end in itself. A GM who leaves everything unresolved in his/her mind until the moment of crunch, and then makes up stuff that s/he thinks will be "good for the story", or "fun", or consistent with what s/he believes the trajectory of things to be, is shaping outcomes.

If the GM is doing the same thing to narrate consequences when checks fail, or to frame in such a way as to put pressure on the dramatic needs established by the players, that's (for me) a completely different thing.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Rules that instruct the DM to "drive toward conflict," "go to the action," etc. are giving the DM the instruction to choose what's important to him, based on what he thinks is important to the players and the characters.



I don't agree with this. Let's think about a different context: I want to buy someone a gift, and want to buy something that that person will enjoy. It would be artificial at best to describe that as me buying something that is important to _me_, based on what I think is important to the recipient of the gift. It is me buying something that that person will like. And there are all sorts of ways of learning what someone likes: implicit cues (eg the shelf full of military history books) and overt ones ("I really like reading about military history!").

Likewise in "story now" RPGing: the players are sending all sorts of signals, overlty and implicitly, that tell the GM what is important. The GM isn't _guessing_. Think again of [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the brother's hat. This is not something that is important to the GM. This is something that the player, through a particular PC build choice, has signalled as important.



hawkeyefan said:


> The example was about the NPC villain turning out to be the PC's father, a la Darth Vader. It would seem your expectation for a Story Now approach to have such a revelation be determined by the PCs actions and how they are shaped by the player. That having the NPC claim fatherhood only establishes the claim and nothing more....but I think it certainly establishes the possibility. The player now has to accept or deny the claim, and then play will likely form around such effort.
> 
> Now, based on your description, this is likely fine....I would expect such a question of parentage was based on the player declaring that as a point of interest for his character. But my point is that the GM's idea only was what brought the game to that point. Right up until the point where the NPC makes the claim, the fiction was shaping up for exactly that. The GM was steering things in that way. He was pushing a specific idea, forcing a certain conflict.



I'm still missing something.

The player has, in his/her build and play of the PC, put the issue of family/parentage etc into play. (As in my BW game, the player of the mage PC, by writing in a balrog-possessed brother, has put family stuff into play.) So at some stage the GM is going to challenge that - "going where the action is", pushing the players (via their PCs) to fight for what they believe, etc.

The GM might introduce a NPC with the thought that that NPC is propitious for making a claim about parentage. But I'm missing the bit about "steering". The GM is doing that because the player put the whole matter into play. It is the player driving and the GM responding, isn't it?



Ovinomancer said:


> I'm curious about this first homestead-wise check discussed.  You stated you made the check to learn more about why the homesteads were abandoned, succeeded, and the result was narration of backstorumy by the GM.  Can you add more detail about the intent/outcome or square this otherwise on how this wasn't learning what was in the GM's notes, ie secret backstory?





Ilbranteloth said:


> Isn't that learning secret backstory, whether it's in notes or otherwise? How does that differ from the player's perspective when a DM has notes about the circumstances, vs. making it up on the spot?



The issue of "making things up on the spot" is orthogonal. Gygax's DMG includes a system for random determination; and surely every GM of a dungeon crawl has on some occasion had to make up some detail that wasn't written down in advance ("What colour is the ceiling?" "What is the height of the table?" etc).

The contrast that I am drawing betweeen RPGing in accordance with the "standard narrativistic model" and by way of "GM's secret backstory" - which is a contrast that came into discussion in this thread solely because I drew it! - is about the basis on which the GM establishes fiction, and the role it plays in the resolution of action declaration.

When I tell my GM that I (as in, my PC) am looking around the homestead, and call for a Homestead-wise check, if I succeed that GM has to tell me more stuff that fits my intent (which is to learn what happened to the homesteaders, etc). If I fail, then the GM has to narrate something that defeats or is contrary to my intent.

I don't know what the GM would have narrated had my check failed, but I know what I would have done in his place: either I would have narrated evidence that these homesteaders were heathens, thereby defeating my assumption that the whole premise of the situation is that they are innocent victims of orcish raiders, and putting my Faithfulness and Fanatical Devotion under pressure; or I would have narrated evidence that _members of my own order, the Knights of the Iron Tower, had been involved in perpretration of the raids_ - which would have rather brutally put pressure directly on my being Sworn to the Order as well as my Fanatical Devotion.

The GM's narration is not to be guided by what is in notes (be they literal or notional, or randomly generated by rolling on a "raided homestead" table). The GM's narration is to be guided by the dictates of intent and task: success means my intent is realised; failure means that it is not.

And in making the check I'm not learning "secret backstory". I'm not exploring the setting (to use Ron Edwards's phrase). I'm generating narration from the GM, with the content of that narration being modulated to success or failure in the sort of manner I've just described.



Ilbranteloth said:


> In a story now campaign, if I (as a player) decided to search for secret doors on every single turn, would it be allowed, and if so, would I find a secret door every time I was successful in my search?



I'm not sure what you mean by "would it be allowed"? As in, is there a rule agaist repeated action declarations?

Action resolution in BW is governed by Let it Ride (Gold, p 32):

One of the most important aspects of ability tests in game play in Burning Wheel is the Let It Ride rule: A player shall test once against an obstacle and shall not roll again until conditions legitimately and drastically change. Neither GM nor player can call for a retest unless those conditions change. Successes from the initial roll count for all applicable situations in play. . . .

If a player failed a test or generated no successes, the result stands. If he was hot and got seven successes, those stand for the duration.​
But the ultimate reason for being cautious in action declaration in BW is that the consequences of failure are undesirable. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] upthread was concerned about players "Scavenging up" diamonds for their PCs, but didn't seem to be thinking through the implications of failing those checks.

Cortex/MHRP doesn't have a rule like Let it Ride, and it also takes a different approach to failure (the GM has to spend a resource for failure to redound upon the acting character), but all action declaration is governed by the established fictional positioning. So if a PC has searched around for secret doors and failed, it is probably not going to make sense to try again in the same spot.

The bottom-line consideration in Cortex/MHRP is that a single dice pool can only include one Asset, so there is no particular benefit to be gained from spending multiple turns, as play cycles through the action order, generating Secret Door assets.



hawkeyefan said:


> I don't think most GMs have the actual ending to their campaign in mind, no matter how GM driven it may be.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If knowing exactly how the game ends....not just the climax it builds to (the PCs hunt down Strahd in his castle), but how that climax is resolved (the PCs are defeated and slain by Strahd)....is a requirement of a "Secret Backstory" game, then I think there are very few such games.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think most games allow for the ultimate success or failure of the PCs to determine the outcome.
> 
> So, in your example, I don't see the distinction you are making between the fiction and the table. Is the Dusk War upon us? It's either yes or no in the fiction. It's either yes or no at the table. The players have causal power to shape the fiction in your game (trying to make it so that the Dusk War is not dawning). Players going through the Curse of Strahd adventure also do (by achieving victory against the vampire).



I feel that this has missed the point.

I am not disputing that, in the CoS AP, the PCs can win or lose vs Strahd based on player action declarations.

But that is not establishing _a truth about the backstory_. And learning whether or not the PCs win is not solving a mystery. "Can we beat this guy?" is not a mystery. Contrast, "Do we know where the Sunsword is that we need to beat this guy?" - that is a mystery.

The point that I am making is that, contra [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s contention, it is possible to have mysteries be central to the unfolding "story" of a game without the GM needing to know the answer in advance. Thus, in this particular example, the mystery - _Is this the time of the Dusk War_ - is being investigated by the PCs. But the answer is not going to be given by the GM, as [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] asserted it must be.



Ilbranteloth said:


> from the player's point of view, there is no fundamental difference between "secret backstory" and "unknown backstory."
> 
> Whether the DM knew about the villain being your father before the moment he announced it or not makes no difference whatsoever to the player nor the story.



This is true only if you make _very strong assumptions_ about what matters to the player from his/her point of view.

If you assume that the player cares about nothing other than to learn _the content of the fiction_, then what you say is true. But if the player also cares _what the content of the fiction is_ - as in, wishes it to be one thing rather than another - then the difference is radical. (This is the _proactivity about an emotional thematic issue_ that Edwards refers to. He is not talking about a PC being proactive. He is talking about a _player_ being proactive.)

If the fiction is unknown but up to be authored, then the player can make action declarations that contribute to establishing it. If the fiction is already settled by the GM behind the scenes, then all the player can do is learn what it is. These are radically different things.


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> A passive check is a "say yes" if the passive skill is high enough to beat the DC. Otherwise you have to roll the dice. How is this not consistent with "say yes or roll the dice?"
> 
> A passive skill also doesn't require an action.



"Say 'yes' or roll the dice" is something that I would regard as a basic principle for my approach to GMing.

Here is Vincent Baker's articulation of it, quoted in the BW Gold rulebook, p 72 (the fundamental rules for BW can be downloaded free):

Every moment of play, roll dice or say "yes."

If nothing is at stake, say "yes" [to the player’s request], whatever they’re doing. Just go along with them. If they ask for information, give it to them. If they have their characters go somewhere, they’re there. If they want it, it’s theirs.

Sooner or later - sooner, because [your game’s] pregnant with crisis - they'll have their characters do something that someone else won't like. Bang! Something's at stake. Start the conflict and roll the dice.

Roll dice, or say "yes."​
Luke Crane then goes on:

Vincent's advice is perfect for Burning Wheel. Unless there is something at stake in the story you have created, don’t bother with the dice. Keep moving, keep describing, keep roleplaying. But as soon as a character wants something that he doesn’t have, needs to know something he doesn't know, covets something that someone else has, roll the dice.

Flip that around and it reveals a fundamental rule in Burning Wheel game play: When there is conflict, roll the dice. There is no social agreement for the resolution of conflict in this game. Roll the dice and let the obstacle system guide the outcome. Success or failure doesn't really matter. So long as the intent of the task is clearly stated, the story is going somewhere.​
Passive checks are not consistent with this at all: they aren't a device for "saying 'yes'" when nothing is at stake, and they circumvent rolling the dice when something is at stake. They're a form of automatic success against certain obstacles.



Ilbranteloth said:


> in a world where such divination spells exist, how would you handle it in a story now/narrative model?



BW has divination magic - eg the shaman character mentioned in the OP can summon spirits to provide him with information about their environment; my PC can, in theory at least, attempt to receive Guidance (when lost, ask to know the right path, either literally or metaphorically) or Inspiration (receiving a revelation or knowledge - though the rulebook notes that this can be dangerous, as the divinity may reveal that which the priest did not intend to learn). But these are not automatic successes. They require checks (Sprit Binding or Faith checks) and hence can fail, resulting in a failure of intent (eg the spirits or the gods are angered by the incessant supplications of mortals).

Thus they are amenable to "say 'yes' or roll the dice", "fail forward", and other standard techniques of "story now" action resolution.



Ilbranteloth said:


> Thinks like the flat answer below, "you fail to pick the lock." What's wrong with that? Why do I have to introduce another complication? Why not let the players/characters figure out what to do if Plan A failed?





Ilbranteloth said:


> These are giving specific direction to drive the story arc itself. That every game ("always") must follow this direction. But there are times, or some of us, that are interested in telling other kinds of stories. They aren't always about conflict. If the instructions are for creating a tense and intense, ever-escalating conflict driving to a shocking and dramatic final resolution, fine. These are great instructions. But if they are instructions for how to run every RPG game, then no.



Well, as literally presented they are instructions for running DitV. They can be generalised (with appropriate adjustments, eg not all RPGs involve "towns") to other games intended to be run on the "standard narrativistic model". They obviously have no relevance to someone wanting to run a Moldvay Basic-style game, a Classic Traveller game or a WotC/Paizo AP.

On the issue of _conflict_. There's a fairly widespread view that a story results from some sort of dramatic need on the part of the protagonist meeting some sort of obstacle or complication, with the story itself consisting in the resolution of that conflict (which may involve overcoming it, or falling to it, or the dramatic need itself transforming in the process of confrontation). When I say this view is widespread, I'm not just talking about RPGing. Eg this is what my primary school-aged daughter is taught in her English classes.

The GM advice in games like DitV, BW and other "standard narrativistic model" games is intended to facilitate the creation, in play, of stories in this sense. And the advice itself is written in a certain context. This includes a widespread view in the community of RPGers (eg [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] expressed it upthread) that the only way to reliably achieve story in that sense is by way of railroading. It also includes a fairly widespread view, articulated by [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] (I think) upthread, that the players should have to "work" to find the action or to find opportunities to realise their PCs' goals. (A very common instance of that view in D&D play: that being able to enchant an item first requires undertaking a quest to find the ingredients.)

"Story now"/"standard narrativistic" RPGing was developed and (over the 10 years or so from the mid-to-late-90s through the mid-to-late 2000s) formalised as a deliberate response to, and rebuttal of, those two views. The emphasis place on "framing", for instance, and the attention paid to how this might work in a RPG, is about ensuring that the GM brings the stakes to the players, instead of making it a signifcant part of play to hunt for the stakes. And via techniques such as "say 'yes' or roll the dice", emphasis is instead placed on _the resolution of the complication itself_ - the dramatic moment (whether that be trying to persuade a stranger to accompany you to your home, or trying to light a fire despite the fierce wind, or fightin an orc, or looking around for a vessel in which to catch the precious blood).

The "story now" designers also have their own views about why "mainstream" RPGing has certain recurrent problems. Chief among these reasons, as the "story now" designers see it, is that certain techniques that have their origins in refereed wargames (eg the hex crawl, resource management, aspects of the situation known only to the referee, which s/he will reveal at the appropriate moment in play), which were adapated into early RPGing of the Gygaxian/Moldvay Basic style, have been retained by many RPGs - in a sort of cargo-cult fashion - although they are not very useful for those RPGs given what those RPGs seem to be aiming at. Eg why does a game trying to replicate the tone of LotR need facing rules, or rules for getting lost while charting a wilderness? Rather, it needs rules that will produce dramatic moments ("Amid the din of battle, you suddenly see a troll approaching!"; "Lost in the rocky hills, you notice that Gollum is following you - are you prepared to take him on as a guide?")

Or consider the DW ammunition rules: there is no general amunition tracking, but certain resolution results require the player to choose whether or not they expend enough ammunition to take their best shot means consuming ammunition. So instead of wargame-type rules that simulate consumption of ammunitionm, recovery of ammunition, etc we get rules that force players to make choices - do I take my best shot but use ammunition, do I conserve ammunition by taking the first shot I can even though it's not very good (-1d6 damage), or do I take a better position to get a good shot despite the risks involved? (see the Volley move on DW rulebook p 60).

If you like wargame-style RPGing, hexcrawling, simulating ammunition loss and recovery, etc then presumably DW is not the game for you. But it - and other PtBA games, and "standard narrativistic model" games, etc - are counterexamples to the claims (i) that you can't reliably get stor out of RPGing other than by way of railroading, and (ii) that the only way to get a rich, verisimilitudinous shared world is via GM world-building.

 [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] makes similar points in this post:



Manbearcat said:


> spending precious play time exploring/investigating premise-neutral setting relationships or spending table time on dramatically-inert situations (either because they are fundamentally so or because the GM has done a poor job of framing) are both negatively impactful to the sum-total amount of agency that players could be *expressing around addressing premise/theme in a given session* and, just as important, such inconsistent pacing negatively impacts the *very precious momentum/tempo* that is central to the play experience.





Ilbranteloth said:


> The "action" may be anything, but the rules (especially the specific subset in this discussion) are driving toward conflict. I don't think they are considering burning the garlic conflict.



That's because, in and of itself, _burning the garlic_ isn't conflict. What's at stake?

But trying to cook a meal that will provide sustenance and succor to one's comrades - that's a conflict, and absolutely it's one sort of thing these games have in mind. In the Adventure Burner the example of cooking is used (from memory) at least twice, once to illustrate the signficance of "linked tests" (ie a form of augment - eg a cooking success for the evening meal boosts the next day's endurance checks), and once to illustrate award of artha for being the workhorse of the session.

And in (I think) the Revised Character Burner, one example of an Instinct is "Always have the ingredients for noodle soup on my person".



Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't think most Story Now games are mission based, but I think they take a lot of their narrativistic model from those types of movies and shows. Whereas something like LotR and even Game of Thrones, features a lot of in-between stuff, exploring the characters themselves within the world and the setting.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> As far as convincing the wizard to mend the armor? Why do you need to persuade them?



The reason I need to persuade her is because she is angry at me for the way we left the homestead. So she is not, per se, going to mend the armour.

I sent my GM an email about this yesterday evening - he is going to have to script for the wizard (because obviously I can't do two simultaneous blind declarations) but I will want to set out her motivations and what she wants.

The bigger issue here is that I've decided to bring two characters into play, using the rules for having a companion, and the two characters have different motivations and different outlooks: as I posted upthread, one is a Disciplined, Fanatically Devoted, Faithful Knight of a Holy Military Order whos Beliefs include that Aramina will need protection; the other is a wizard with a Fiery Temper whose Beliefs include that she doesn't need Thurgon's pity. But they also interconnect in various ways: Thurgon has an Instinct to always keep the campfire alight while camping, and Aramina has a spell (Sparkshower) that needs a lit fire as a component; Thurgon has armour that will need repair, and Aramina has mending skill; etc. Thurgon trying to persuade Aramina to mend her armour will allow some of the elements of the characters, their contrasts and connections, to emerge and develop.

I think it's likely that Thurgon will be able to persuade her: he has a higher Will and is trained in Command, whereas she has no social skills. But it is also likely that he will have to compromise as part of the outcome, and so there is the potential for interesting developments in that respect also.

This is an example of how Burning Wheel handles what you call the "in-between stuff".



Ilbranteloth said:


> I think D&D has had different attempts over the years to address such mundane aspects of life such as those to be codified in rules. In many cases I feel that they don't need to be fixed within the rules, but I agree they should be a focus of the game.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Just because somebody is a good cook, doesn't mean it's going to be part of the game. Like I probably won't introduce a scene where they have to prepare a meal for the king, although if the opportunity does arise for them to use it to serve NPCs, great. On the other hand, the rest of the party will rather quickly insist that amongst their supplies there are sufficient resources for the gourmet to ply their craft. Giving them time to visit the market to purchase spices, complaining about the poor food when they can't prepare it, etc. NPCs that do join them on the road will also remember their cooking skills, and it becomes part of the campaign naturally, without having to force it with rules. If the cook is the best fighter in the group, and they happen to be separated for a while, it's probably more likely that they'll be greeted back with a comment about how they'll have something decent to eat now, rather than anything about their fighting ability. They can survive a battle without his sword, but have to suffer daily with bad food without him.



Re the first two sentences of this quote: why is it not going to be part of the game? I mean, in my case, I built a PC with cooking skill, so I intend to make it part of the game. What would stop that happening? That is, if someone in your game built a PC who is a good cook, what would stop them making that part of the game?

As to the rest of the quote: that is all about _colour_, but it has no teeth. I mean, the players have their PCs talk about the cooking, and so on, but it doesn't actually matter to the resolution of anything. Whereas (i) I don't really want to roleplay shopping for ingredients (I get enough of that in real life), and (ii) I want my PC's cooking to be more than just colour. I want it to matter to outcomes. Which is what I am planning to make it do!



Ilbranteloth said:


> many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict.



A DitV player gets to choose whether or not to de-escalate the conflict. There is no rule against capitulation!

Of course, capitulation might be seen to have its own costs (eg it might be shameful). This is related to what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] was talking about upthread with reference to "conceptual violence", "walled off gardens" and related notions. A key premise of "story now"-type games it that _the players' conception of his/her PC is not sacrosanct_. For instance, if the player thinks his/her PC is virtuous, the GM is not breaking any rule by framing the PC into a situation which makes it hard for that character to retain his/her virtue. In fact, if the GM _didn't_ do such a thing then the GM would not be doing his/her job properly!

There is an approach to RPGing which - at least judging from these boards - seems to be fairly common. On this approach, the main function of the PC sheet is to establish character concept (so it doesn't matter, eg, if the Grappler feat is mechanically rather weak - the point of having that feat on my PC sheet is to show that my PC likes to wrestle, and is good at it). And the main job of the GM is to provide regular opportunities for each player to show off his/her character concept. On this approach to RPGing the relevance of the "story now" technique of the GM pushing the players hard into conflict is ZERO. This sort of RPGing isn't about conflict, or "story" in the dramatic sense, at all. It's about character concepts and spotlight balance. It's what Edwards calls "exploration of character" with a dash of "exploration of situation" and perhaps some "exploration of setting". (Such an approach to RPGing is not only quite different from "story now", it's also quite different from the approach to RPGing presented in Moldvay Basic or in Gygax's AD&D books.)

Someone who thinks of RPGing mostly in these terms may not enjoy DitV, or PtbA, or BW, or other games that take a different approach to the effect that play might have on a character.



Ilbranteloth said:


> My question was really whether your check could force a specific action/reaction from another PC. Something that is generally frowned upon in game design, and actively hated by many players.



I don't agree that it's "generally frowned upon". For instance, nothing in any version of D&D except perhaps 4e prevents one PC using a Charm or Fear spell to force a specific action or reaction from another PC.

And I've already posted an example, some way upthread, of this being part of the game mentioned in the OP: after the discovery of the arrows, the wizard-assassin persuaded the mage PC to abandon his goal of saving his brother from possession. [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] has also discussed this, expressing his dislike of resolution systems that insulate PCs from this sort of thing. Apart from anything else, it's a burden on verisimilitude that everyone has an emotional and an instinctual nature except the PCs.



Ilbranteloth said:


> the [standard narrativistic] model seems to limit the options of the DM.



Yes. That's the point of any set of rules or guideline - in so far as they set out to tell someone what to do, and how to do it, they impose limits. Thus, the advice in Moldvay Basic limits the GM - eg it rules out the GM declaring, when the PCs enter the first room, "You all die from a sudden gout of fire!" or "You see a pile of 10,000 gp lying on the floor - now you're all rich!"

Now perhaps you think it's obvious that "only a bad GM" would declare that everyone dies from a gout of fire, and so that's not a "real" limit. But it's equally obvious, in "narrativistic" RPGing, that "only a bad GM" would want to frame scenes or narrate consequences that don't speak to the dramatic/thematic focus of play (as established by PC build and actual play), and so that's not a "real" limit either.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I don't think BW is designed for that sort of approach, where the same characters complete a story over your tens of sessions, then continue another story while retaining the setting elements that have now been defined in the prior game. I could be wrong.



Well, with respect, you are wrong. In the Adventure Burner (since re-packaged as the Codex) Luke Crane discusses at least two examples of starting a new campaign that picks up on the situation that had been left over from an earlier campaign.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I'm not sure what you mean by an Instinct to interpose yourself



It's a mechanical element of a BW PC. From the Gold rulebook, pp 56, 63:

What an Instinct does is set a condition and a reaction to that condition for the character. And this reaction/behavior of the character is sacrosanct: So long as the conditions are met, the action is done. The player doesn’t even have to announce it. It either happens behind the scenes or instantly, without hesitation. . . .

Fate points are earned for playing Instincts when such play gets the character in trouble or creates a difficult or awkward situation.

A character with the Instinct “Draw my sword at the first sign of trouble” is at court pleading his case. Suddenly, in walks his nemesis! The player doesn’t have to draw his sword. He can resist the Instinct because it’s going to cause trouble. But if he plays it out, he gets a fate point.​


Ilbranteloth said:


> Are you saying that opposed checks wouldn't work smoothly, or that D&D doesn't have them?



I'm saying that D&D doesn't handle the situation described - can my PC get to the horse and untie it before the orcs surround Aramina? - very smoothly. For instance, it uses fixed movement rates which therefore establish definite time requirements to move from A to B, but doesn't establish definite time requirements to untie a horse. And suppose you do it as opposed DEX checks (and is sprinting DEX or STR?), what is the adjustment to the DEX check if (say) the orcs have move 20 or move 40 rather than move 30?

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying that it is not going to handle it very smoothly.



Ilbranteloth said:


> I also gave an example (in regards to the scavenging check) that showed in D&D it would have been a slightly different set of checks to achieve the same fictional result.



As I've posted multiple times upthread, the fact that a given fictional result is, or can be, achieved, tells us almost nothing about the roleplaying experience.

Another way the same fictional result might be achieved is if I sat down and the GM related a story to me about the adventures of Thurgon and Aramina - but that doesn't mean that there is any meaningful resemblance between the experience I had on the weekend and the epxerience of being told a story by the GM.



Ilbranteloth said:


> in none of the descriptions you or others have given have really illustrated anything you can do in one of those games that I can't do in D&D.



Yet you yourself have pointed out that the processes of resolution in D&D would be very different! No contested Speed checks for positioning; no Command check to get Aramina to run to the horse; the social mechanics are completely different; no Instinct mechanics; spells are automatic successes; there's no easy way to make cookery skill matter to play; etc, etc.

Those are all actual differences. (Whether or not they matter to you, or anyone else, is obviously a further question.)


----------



## Manbearcat

pemerton said:


> Originally Posted by Ilbranteloth  View Post
> many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A DitV player gets to choose whether or not to de-escalate the conflict. There is no rule against capitulation!
Click to expand...



Just want to address this right quick before I head out (rather than full read-through I've been forced to skim due to time-crunch).

Not only is there no rule against capitulation, but Dogs conflict resolution mechanics are specifically about letting the players decide if they want to escalate (eg from "just talking" to "physical, but not fighting" or worse) or capitulate (Give in Dogs parlance).  And, of course, its dice mechanics and procedures handle the resolution and fallout (to the participants and the fictional positioning) of what is happening right now when escalation or capitulation aren't in play.

So player decisions are all centered around (a) how they want to approach a situation and (b) how much are they willing to do/put up to see the thing done (escalation or capitulation).


----------



## pemerton

Ilbranteloth said:


> my assertion was originally based off of what I believed illusionism to be, and by definition anytime a choice is given without at least two predetermined potential outcomes, it meets that definition that I outlined. I'm not sure if that's what others were referring to.



Well generally when I refer to "illusionism" I'm referring to the phenomenon described at the Forge using that terminology.

I don't really understand your definition at all. By your definition, anytime a GM frames a scene so as to engage the PCs, but hasn't decided in advance at least two ways the scene will resolve, it's illusionism. Which means, for instance, that all "story now" RPGing is illusionistic, because no "story now" play involves determining outcomes in advance - the GM frames and then the players declare actions for their PCs, and until those actions are declared it doesn't make any sense to even speculate about outcomes.

Indeed, the whole language of "giving a choice" assumes a degree of GM control over the game that is not consistent with the "standard narrativistic model". When RPGing in that fashion, the GM frames a scene that is thematically laden, given the manifest concerns of the PCs (and thus their players). But what the choice is made in response, and what that choice puts at stake, is up to the player. The GM doesn't "give a choice".

Manbearcat's example of the brother's hat is a good one - framing that scene doesn't "give the player a choice"; it invites the player to declare some action for his PC, driven by the presence of the hat in the brothel foyer. This is made clear by Manbearcat's subsequent description of what happened, and the broader resolution system within which it took place.



Manbearcat said:


> In this situation, the relevant player went a sort of soft version of Unforgiven (when William Money shoots the owner of the whorehouse/tavern) on the owner/operator.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The conflict eschews "just talking" (Acuity + Heart dice pool) and goes straight to "physical, but not fighting" (Body + Heart dice pool) with the Dog in question picking up the big registry of customer transactions (filled with unrecognizable, fake names) and throwing it through the foyer window.  When a man comes through a door and begins to protest, the Dog confirms he's the owner.  He then flings the hat at him violently and tells him to bring the man who owns it to the foyer right now.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The players think the best dramatic stakes are "did the brother wear the hat into the brothel...or someone else?"  In this case, they Give (lose) and the brother comes out...the owner Gives and someone else has the brother's hat.
> 
> They win and the man is sufficiently intimidated.  He leads them to the door and, as the owner goes to knock, the door explodes open and boom...Follow-On Conflict which I frame, escalating the present situation but respecting their win.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So its not the brother.  But its an enemy of the Dogs' mortal adversary in this Town (the rancher who is the manifestation of the territorial dispute and the primary purveyor of Sin).





Manbearcat said:


> Not only is there no rule against capitulation, but Dogs conflict resolution mechanics are specifically about letting the players decide if they want to escalate (eg from "just talking" to "physical, but not fighting" or worse) or capitulate (Give in Dogs parlance).  And, of course, its dice mechanics and procedures handle the resolution and fallout (to the participants and the fictional positioning) of what is happening right now when escalation or capitulation aren't in play.
> 
> So player decisions are all centered around (a) how they want to approach a situation and (b) how much are they willing to do/put up to see the thing done (escalation or capitulation).



The GM presents the situation (= frames the scene0; the GM doesn't "give a choice". The players choose how to engage the situation, and what they want to put at stake in light of what the GM has put into play in framing the scene. They do this by declaring actions for their PCs.

It is the resolution of those action declarations - which obviously aren't known by the GM in advance - which then leads to outcomes. Which, a fortiori, can't be know by the GM in advance, let alone preauthored.


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> Referring back to the OP:
> 
> My interest is in who shapes "outcomes", and thereby gets to establish the stuff of the shared fiction.
> 
> "Mutability of Backstory" is not an end in itself. A GM who leaves everything unresolved in his/her mind until the moment of crunch, and then makes up stuff that s/he thinks will be "good for the story", or "fun", or consistent with what s/he believes the trajectory of things to be, is shaping outcomes.
> 
> If the GM is doing the same thing to narrate consequences when checks fail, or to frame in such a way as to put pressure on the dramatic needs established by the players, that's (for me) a completely different thing.




My point is that the GM who has only had a notion that the NPC may be the PC's father has shaped the outcome to fit a specific possibility. This is prior to the "moment of crunch" as you call it....the GM has shaped the fiction so that the NPC could be the PC's father. Even if at the moment of crunch, the GM decides not to follow through....that doesn't change the fact that he has been shaping things to fit that outcome, realized or not. 

As I said, this may be minor in many cases, but I'm sure it could also be significant, depending on the circumstances of play and the fiction that's been established. 




pemerton said:


> I'm still missing something.
> 
> The player has, in his/her build and play of the PC, put the issue of family/parentage etc into play. (As in my BW game, the player of the mage PC, by writing in a balrog-possessed brother, has put family stuff into play.) So at some stage the GM is going to challenge that - "going where the action is", pushing the players (via their PCs) to fight for what they believe, etc.
> 
> The GM might introduce a NPC with the thought that that NPC is propitious for making a claim about parentage. But I'm missing the bit about "steering". The GM is doing that because the player put the whole matter into play. It is the player driving and the GM responding, isn't it?




Sure. But is the GM shaping the outcome to fit a specific preconceived narrative? The player introduced the interest in who the PC's father might be. Then the GM came up with an NPC and then determined shaped things so that it was possible for that NPC to be the father. 

I feel like what you've described here actually fits your definition of railroad from the OP. Yes, there is some player input....but that doesn't change the fact that the GM is shaping things in regard to the specific NPC and putting that NPC forth as the father. Or at the very least, putting forth that this NPC is possibly the father. 

Does the player having some input remove that requirement that you've proscribed to railroading, in your opinion? Is it not railroading if the GM is steering things toward a preconceived narrative with which the player has had some input? 




pemerton said:


> I feel that this has missed the point.
> 
> I am not disputing that, in the CoS AP, the PCs can win or lose vs Strahd based on player action declarations.
> 
> But that is not establishing _a truth about the backstory_. And learning whether or not the PCs win is not solving a mystery. "Can we beat this guy?" is not a mystery. Contrast, "Do we know where the Sunsword is that we need to beat this guy?" - that is a mystery.
> 
> The point that I am making is that, contra [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s contention, it is possible to have mysteries be central to the unfolding "story" of a game without the GM needing to know the answer in advance. Thus, in this particular example, the mystery - _Is this the time of the Dusk War_ - is being investigated by the PCs. But the answer is not going to be given by the GM, as [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] asserted it must be.




I think perhaps you've snipped a bit too much of my post in your quote....it's lost a lot of context as a result. I wasn't questioning the ability of your playstyle to allow for mysteries. I was instead addressing your statement that players in a Story Now game have causal power to affect the outcome, and that players in a Secret Backstory game have no such power. 

Which is incorrect. 

You made a point about the GM having already determined the outcome of the game in a Secret Backstory type game. I refute that as a requirement of such a game. The players are still striving to have a causal effect on the outcome of the game. In this case, they're trying to defeat Strahd and determine the fate of those in Barovia. In your game, the PCs are working to deny that the Dusk War is upon them. In one game, if the PCs succeed, Strahd is defeated, and if they fail, Strahd wins. In your game, if the PCs succeed, then the Dusk War is not dawning, and if they fail, then it is. 

Causal power is had by both groups of players. It's more a question of degree. Your game allows for more instances of such throughout the game, whereas the Curse of Strahd adventure has probably a handful of meaningful decisions like that for the players to make, and the significance of many of them is likely less. 

But again...this is where I think you have mistaken *a game having mechanics that support a play style you like* to equal *a game that lacks such mechanics specifically not allowing for elements of that playstyle*. 

To use an example, Call of Cthulhu famously has rules that govern the horrific events of the game and the impact these events have on the sanity of the PCs. By Contrast, Mutants and Masterminds does not have such mechanics. Does this mean that M&M cannot be used to play a more horror-based game? Does this mean that the GM of M&M cannot either use his judgment to impose a horrific atmosphere on the game, or that he cannot come up with some mechanics that do support that theme?


----------



## Ovinomancer

pemerton said:


> The issue of "making things up on the spot" is orthogonal. Gygax's DMG includes a system for random determination; and surely every GM of a dungeon crawl has on some occasion had to make up some detail that wasn't written down in advance ("What colour is the ceiling?" "What is the height of the table?" etc).
> 
> The contrast that I am drawing betweeen RPGing in accordance with the "standard narrativistic model" and by way of "GM's secret backstory" - which is a contrast that came into discussion in this thread solely because I drew it! - is about the basis on which the GM establishes fiction, and the role it plays in the resolution of action declaration.
> 
> When I tell my GM that I (as in, my PC) am looking around the homestead, and call for a Homestead-wise check, if I succeed that GM has to tell me more stuff that fits my intent (which is to learn what happened to the homesteaders, etc). If I fail, then the GM has to narrate something that defeats or is contrary to my intent.
> 
> I don't know what the GM would have narrated had my check failed, but I know what I would have done in his place: either I would have narrated evidence that these homesteaders were heathens, thereby defeating my assumption that the whole premise of the situation is that they are innocent victims of orcish raiders, and putting my Faithfulness and Fanatical Devotion under pressure; or I would have narrated evidence that _members of my own order, the Knights of the Iron Tower, had been involved in perpretration of the raids_ - which would have rather brutally put pressure directly on my being Sworn to the Order as well as my Fanatical Devotion.
> 
> The GM's narration is not to be guided by what is in notes (be they literal or notional, or randomly generated by rolling on a "raided homestead" table). The GM's narration is to be guided by the dictates of intent and task: success means my intent is realised; failure means that it is not.
> 
> And in making the check I'm not learning "secret backstory". I'm not exploring the setting (to use Ron Edwards's phrase). I'm generating narration from the GM, with the content of that narration being modulated to success or failure in the sort of manner I've just described.



You shifted from discussing the play example you presented to discussing how you would do things if you were running, which wasn't the point of the question -- ie, I did not ask for an explanation of how you would run things.  That's not what happened, so it's relevance to the situation is moot.  In fact, when you failed the scavenging check, the GM did not choose to present a complication in the vein you provided, he instead provided orcs.  It stands to reason that if you failed the homestead-wise check, the result would also have been orcs.

Which goes straight back to my statements about Illusionism in Story Now games.  The DM, in the capacity of narrating failure, can introduce the thematic elements and resolutions he wants to -- in this case, orcs.  In your description, he further pushed this by framing the elf scene as the elves trying to get you to hunt orcs.  Strangely, even though you failed your check, you still seem to have gotten your intent -- to ignore the orcs and return to your home.  The elf accompanying you was collateral damage you were willing to sacrifice to forge a different path.  The DM could have easily narrated your failure as the elf informing you that such a request was impossible -- this band of orcs burnt your home to the ground and scattered your order just last week.  That both frustrates your intent and frames the result in terms of your beliefs while still also being about the story the GM wants to tell.  That you managed, through experience, to evade this by declaring a check and then getting the result you wanted anyway is beside the point.  A determined and skilled GM can manipulate even Story Now games to be about what he wants while, at the same time, hiding this from the players.  Is it harder to do?  Yes, the mechanics are adverse to such things.  Impossible?  Not even remotely.

But, to get back to the scenario, I'm still not convinced there's an actual difference between requesting the DM to give you more backstory and exploring the setting.  Perhaps this was just a poor framing, but you didn't put forward any stakes when you declared your roll other than the desire for the GM to tell you more information.  I was under the impression that you should have declared an intent for the roll more along the lines of 'I make a check to confirm that the homesteaders were chased from their homes by some evil against my faith' rather than 'I make a check to find out what happened here.'  The results on failure for the first (or even success) are radically different, and more in-line with your post facto 'I wouldas' than what you presented (which is why I asked for clarification, as I had though you left something exactly like that out, turns out you didn't).  The just asking has backstory as a success and... no backstory as a failure?  I mean, if you find something that indicates the homesteaders were heathens, that's still backstory telling you what happened.  Without the marker of what you think the story is, it's hard to frustrate that intent effectively without an equally blank 'you can't tell.'  Again, the lack of actual stakes in that roll strike me as very odd.

In a later post, you mention that the other PC isn't a PC, but a companion of yours under your control.  But you built this companion to explicitly support your main character, with only a few points of contrast -- mainly that she has some different motivations that may come in conflict with your PC motivations.  I bring this up to ask why, when you state that you will have to make a check against your companion because she is angry with you for leaving the homesteads unresolved, this didn't come up when you declared the intent to leave the homestead area?  Should not the companion have forced a check at that point, to prevent the leaving?  I thought that you were supposed to call for checks when something happens that someone else doesn't like, but it seems that this contest was left for when you want your armor fixed and she's angry with you rather than at the point you made her angry with you.

And, again, discussing personal play accounts isn't my preference, as, inevitably, questions or criticism (especially the sharp kind) is taken personally rather than furthering the discussion, but you continue to insist.


----------



## pemerton

Ovinomancer said:


> Which goes straight back to my statements about Illusionism in Story Now games. The DM, in the capacity of narrating failure, can introduce the thematic elements and resolutions he wants to -- in this case, orcs.



I still don't understand what you think the illusion is here. The GM introduced orcs into the situation. That is framing. The orcs are already upon the homestead before the characters notice them. That's complication for the failed check. In the actual moment of narration, the complication and the framing were rolled together - that's an example of an application of the DW principle "never speak the name of your move", which is not part of the BW rules but is something that Luke Crane discusses (not under that label) in the Adventure Burner/Codex.

But what are you conjecturing was hidden or covert?



Ovinomancer said:


> In your description, he further pushed this by framing the elf scene as the elves trying to get you to hunt orcs. Strangely, even though you failed your check, you still seem to have gotten your intent -- to ignore the orcs and return to your home.



I don't understand.

(1) The elf didn't try to persuade me to hunt orcs. The elf gave me some information about an orc wielding a shield. Had the elf tried to persuade me to go and recover the shield, that might have been quite interesting, and I probably would have lost. But that wasn't what happened. And, in the fiction, I don't think the elf cares whether or not I recover the shield. As the Duel of Wits established, the elves of Celene don't care about the fate of the arms of the Iron Tower.

(2) I attempted to persuade the elf to return with me to my ancestral estate, in an attempt to shore up my family's standing and give my brother (the ruling count) some backbone. I failed. The elf didn't come with me. Indeed, my failure was so total that I didn't even get a compromise (which might have been eg the elf sending his second to accompany me, or the elf promising to send an envoy in due course).

(3) I'm not returning home. The session ended with me travelling NW along the Ulek side of frontier. My home is to the south.



Ovinomancer said:


> The elf accompanying you was collateral damage you were willing to sacrifice to forge a different path.



I don't understand what you mean by this. What "collateral damage" are you talking about? And what "different path"?

I wanted to persuade a noble elf to come with me to my home, in pursuit of my Belief that "Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more!" As per the rulebook's instructions to players to use the mechanics, I called for a Duel of Wits. (If you want to read the Duel of Wits rules, they're downloadable for free here.) My body of argument was 7 (6 Will plus 1 success on a Will check for untrained Persuasion); the elf's was 11 (7 Will plus 4 successes on a Persuasion of 6). My scripting in the first exchange was Avoid the Topic/Rebut/Point, and in the second was Avoid the Topic/Feint/Rebut. The GM, for the NPC, scripted (from memory) Point/Point/Rebut and then Rebut/Dismiss/I don't think we made it to the third volley of the second exchange, so I don't know what the elf had scripted for it.

In any event, I failed the Duel of Wits. In the first volley my avoid defended against the point, but in the second volley my rebuttal was less than total and I didn't get a success on my "attack" pool. In the third volley the elf rebutted my point (rolling 3 trained dice against my 6 untrained dice). In the first volley of the second exchang my Avoid did little against the "attack" pool of the elf's rebuttal (from memory, only 1 success on 6 Will dice) and then the elf's dismissal - by way of the Ugly Truth that the concerns and lives of mortals matter little, even naught, relative to the lives and concerns of elvenkind (my GM is a big fan of Ugly Truth, always using it as a player) - brought the matter to a close.

Because of my failure, the elf is not coming with me. And the elf got his intent: he is returning to Celene with his dead comrade, paying no heed to my mortal concerns. My failure to put any dint in his body of argument means that no compromise was required from him.



Ovinomancer said:


> The DM could have easily narrated your failure as the elf informing you that such a request was impossible -- this band of orcs burnt your home to the ground and scattered your order just last week. That both frustrates your intent and frames the result in terms of your beliefs while still also being about the story the GM wants to tell.



It would also be bad GMing.

Upthread I posted this bit of the BW Gold rulebook (p 34). In fact, I think I've posted it twice now:

Beliefs are meant to be challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. If your character has a Belief, "I guard the prince's life with my own," and the prince is slain before your eyes in the climax of the scenario, that’s your chance to play out a tortured and dramatic scene and really go ballistic.

Conversely, if the prince is killed right out of the gate, the character is drained of purpose. Note that the player stated he wanted to defend the prince in play, not avenge him. Killing the prince in the first session sucks the life out of the character. He really has no reason to participate any longer. But if the prince dies in the grand climax, c'est la vie. The protector must then roll with the punches and react to this new change. Even better, if the prince dies due to the actions or failures of his own guardian - now that’s good stuff.

Another example: We once had a character with the Belief: "I will one day restore my wife’s life." His wife had died, and he kept her body around, trying to figure out a way to bring her back. Well, mid-way through the game, the GM magically restored his wife to the land of the living. I’ve never seen a more crushed player. He didn't know what do! He had stated that the quest and the struggle was the goal, not the end result. "One day!" he said. But the GM insisted, and the whole scenario and character were ruined for the player.​
Given that I have a Belief that harm and infamy will before my ancestral home (Auxol) no more, establishing in the first session that my home has been destroyed would be terrible GMing.



Ovinomancer said:


> A determined and skilled GM can manipulate even Story Now games to be about what he wants while, at the same time, hiding this from the players.



How would the bad GMing that you describe be hidden from me as a player? The GM telling me that my home is destroyed, and hence - in effect - that half my PC's raison d'etre is over (as well as the Belief I have spent PC build resources on a relationship with my mother and an affiliation with my family) would not be hidden. It would be extremely overt.



Ovinomancer said:


> you didn't put forward any stakes when you declared your roll other than the desire for the GM to tell you more information. I was under the impression that you should have declared an intent for the roll more along the lines of 'I make a check to confirm that the homesteaders were chased from their homes by some evil against my faith' rather than 'I make a check to find out what happened here.'



The GM framed the characters into this ruined homestead. I don't know what he had in mind, but I _think_ he was anticipating a cooking check to make lunch. (As part of the set-up he described the rations we were carrying with us, which - in PC build terms - were a GM gift to the PCs, as I did not pay for them out of PC build resources.)

I declared that I was looking around, and called for the Homestead-wise check. I don't remember my exact motivation, but I think at least in part it was what I thought my PC would do! I don't recall the exact words that were spoken, either. The stakes weren't stated overtly - they were implicit. As I said upthread, there was an unstated but quite evident assumed premise to the whole scene, that the homestead had been raided by orcs - given that we'd just spent half-an-hour or so discussing the set up in the Pomarj, looking at the map and discussing towns, fortifications, the location of my ancestral estate, etc, and what parts of the frontier had fallen to orc raids (including the town on the river that is the campaign's version of the ruins of Osgiliath).

If the GM had been uncertain about the stakes, he could and should have called for clarification as to intent. He didn't, and so I take it that he thought it was clear enough.



Ovinomancer said:


> The just asking has backstory as a success and... no backstory as a failure? I mean, if you find something that indicates the homesteaders were heathens, that's still backstory telling you what happened. Without the marker of what you think the story is, it's hard to frustrate that intent effectively without an equally blank 'you can't tell.' Again, the lack of actual stakes in that roll strike me as very odd.





Ovinomancer said:


> when you failed the scavenging check, the GM did not choose to present a complication in the vein you provided, he instead provided orcs. It stands to reason that if you failed the homestead-wise check, the result would also have been orcs.



I don't really follow this. I mean, I've told you what happened. I've told you what stakes were implicit. I've told you how I would have narrated failure were I the GM. You have conjectured what you think the failure narration would have been - that is, that instead of the additional framing I'm looking for in declaring the check (and would get on a success), orcs attack.

Given that I have given my view as what would count as a failure which frustrates my intent (learning unwelcome truths) and given that you have given your view as to what the failure might have been that frustrated my intent (before I can learn anything useful, orcs attack), I don't understand why you say that "it's hard to frustrate that intent effectively without an equally blank 'you can't tell.'"



Ovinomancer said:


> why, when you state that you will have to make a check against your companion because she is angry with you for leaving the homesteads unresolved, this didn't come up when you declared the intent to leave the homestead area? Should not the companion have forced a check at that point, to prevent the leaving? I thought that you were supposed to call for checks when something happens that someone else doesn't like, but it seems that this contest was left for when you want your armor fixed and she's angry with you rather than at the point you made her angry with you.



The answer to this is fairly easy - she's a character under my control! I'm allowed to play her as grumbling and angry but doing what she's told to when it comes to leaving the place where she was just attacked by orcs and where there might still be a few orcish stragglers hanging about. As [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I said in the context of DitV, capitulation is always an option.

I could have played it up to try and get her a Persona point for embodiment, but I didn't - partly because it didn't seem a big enough deal, partly because the session was coming to an end and so we were wrapping things up.

Once we get to some place to rest for the night, I am planning for a Duel of Wits. I think I know what Aramina wants in return for mending the armour. In the Adventure Burner/Codex, Luke Crane discusses the tactic of asking for more than what you really want with a DoW, so that when you compromise you can give up the bits that were the "more" while getting to keep all that you really wanted. This is legitimate, but he goes on to warn players to be careful, in case they end up getting more than they bargained for! In thinking about how Aramina is going to shape her request from Thurgon, I'm already feeling the force of that warning.


----------



## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> the GM has shaped the fiction so that the NPC could be the PC's father.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the GM is shaping things in regard to the specific NPC and putting that NPC forth as the father.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Is it not railroading if the GM is steering things toward a preconceived narrative with which the player has had some input?



But the GM didn't preconceive the theamtic focus upon family/parenthood - the player is the one who initiated that.

And the GM isn't even deciding who is the father - play will do that.

All the GM is doing is putting into play claim that this NPC is the PC's father.

I don't see how this is supposed to be the GM shaping the fiction to a pre-conceived outcome. We don't even know what the outcome is yet, so how do we know it's going to match any pre-conception?

I want to approach this through a concrete example, that I've talked about a fair bit upthread, to see if I can understand what you are getting at.

In the OP game, I introduced the renegade elf NPC obliquely at first - the PCs arrive at the foot of the Abor-Alz, where they are expecting to find a pool to drink from following their crossing of the Bright Desert, but the pool has been fouled. Investigation reveals that the fouling was by an elf. In metagame terms, this is all narration of consequences for failure - intitially I describe the fouled waterhole, and as the players describe their PCs looking around I tell them that the signs all indicate an elf. (Mechanically, this is "saying 'yes'", and thereby introducing more narration around the consequence which also establishes framing for the unfolding situation.)

When, later on, the check to find the mace fails, the player (in character, I think, but also predicting my GMing) says something like "I bet that elf has it!"

Is this an instance of what you mean by "the GM shaping the fiction"? That by introducing the elven NPC, I shape the fiction so that, downstream, the elf can be a nemesis in further ways?



hawkeyefan said:


> I was instead addressing your statement that players in a Story Now game have causal power to affect the outcome, and that players in a Secret Backstory game have no such power.



I didn't make any such claim. In any D&D game the players have the causal power to determine whether or not their PCs win a fight! (Unless the GM is completely ignoring action declarations and the action resolution mechanics - which in most circumstances is going to be a pretty pathological case.)

I was talking about the causal power to make things true or false in the backstory - ie causal power of the _players_ that does not correlate with causal power of the _PCs_ (ie the PC did not cause any vessel to be present or absent from the room; the PCs cannot cause it to be or not be the prophesied time of the Dusk War; the PC didn't cause the elf to have taken the mace, nor cause his brother to have made black arrows; etc). And I was contrasting this with learning what is in the GM's notes (be those literal notes, or GM determinations of the fiction reached ex tempore by way of random tables, extrapolation or some other means).



hawkeyefan said:


> I think you have mistaken *a game having mechanics that support a play style you like to equal a game that lacks such mechanics specifically not allowing for elements of that playstyle.*



I don't think so. Upthread I've posted in a bit of detail about developing my approach to RPGing c 30 years ago, running AD&D. And then GMing RM for nearly 20 years. 

I've explained what features of those systems are conducive (eg it's not a coincidence that the AD&D was OA - which establishes strong thematic backgrounds for PCs, and gives them strong connections to the setting, very different from what eg [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has described upthread as typical of PCs on his game - and then an all thief game - the same things that make thieves hard to fit into classic dungeon play create strong hooks for a more "story now" approach).

I also mentioned some of the obstacles that those systems present. Just to mention one again, the way they handle resouce tracking and consumption (which in RM also extends to the healing rules) is an issue, because it drags attention away from dranatic situations and instead foregrounds record-keeping and minutiae.

An interesting feature of BW is that, like RM, it has a brutal injury system with long recovery times, but it manages to integrate this into the "story now" framework - mostly through the advancement system, which (i) makes time a resource (via training rules, not unblike those in RQ) but also (ii) creates incentives to act at less than full strength (eg if injured), and hence establishes inherent stakes and allows for meaningful GM framing to establish further stakes in the trade-off between recovery and acting _now_.

"Story now"/"narratavistic" RPGing is not about mechanics. It's first-and-foremost about how content is introduced into the fiction, and how action declaration is adjudicated. But particular mechanics can help or hinder.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I still don't understand what you think the illusion is here. The GM introduced orcs into the situation. That is framing. The orcs are already upon the homestead before the characters notice them. That's complication for the failed check.



But what you as player don't and can't know is whether those orcs were going to show up anyway, be it through this particular failed check or through some other means.



> I wanted to persuade a noble elf to come with me to my home, in pursuit of my Belief that "Harm and infamy will befall Auxol no more!" As per the rulebook's instructions to players to use the mechanics, I called for a Duel of Wits. (If you want to read the Duel of Wits rules, they're downloadable for free here.) My body of argument was 7 (6 Will plus 1 success on a Will check for untrained Persuasion); the elf's was 11 (7 Will plus 4 successes on a Persuasion of 6). My scripting in the first exchange was Avoid the Topic/Rebut/Point, and in the second was Avoid the Topic/Feint/Rebut. The GM, for the NPC, scripted (from memory) Point/Point/Rebut and then Rebut/Dismiss/I don't think we made it to the third volley of the second exchange, so I don't know what the elf had scripted for it.
> 
> In any event, I failed the Duel of Wits. In the first volley my avoid defended against the point, but in the second volley my rebuttal was less than total and I didn't get a success on my "attack" pool. In the third volley the elf rebutted my point (rolling 3 trained dice against my 6 untrained dice). In the first volley of the second exchang my Avoid did little against the "attack" pool of the elf's rebuttal (from memory, only 1 success on 6 Will dice) and then the elf's dismissal - by way of the Ugly Truth that the concerns and lives of mortals matter little, even naught, relative to the lives and concerns of elvenkind (my GM is a big fan of Ugly Truth, always using it as a player) - brought the matter to a close.
> 
> Because of my failure, the elf is not coming with me. And the elf got his intent: he is returning to Celene with his dead comrade, paying no heed to my mortal concerns. My failure to put any dint in his body of argument means that no compromise was required from him.



And this exact same scenario could have been played out in any RPG system you like - including all editions of D&D - through straight role-play without the nuisance of mechanics.

You play your character as you did, trying your best to persuade the Elf to accompany you.  Nothing would change there.  However the DM, putting himself in the shoes of this Elf noble and thinking about what else said Elf noble might have on his plate at the time including a return to Celene preferably sooner than later, concludes that the Elf leader hasn't got time for you and simply role-plays that he declines your request.  How polite that refusal is might be influenced by your approach and politeness, the Elf's inherent personality as decided (probably then and there unless this Elf has been met before) by the DM, and a bunch of other things even down to the weather conditions (people are generally in better moods in fair weather and fouler moods in poor or excessively hot or cold weather).

Benefits here:
- the role-played conversation probably takes somewhat less time than the dice-rolling you were doing
- as opposed to the hard-closure you faced, a role-played persuasion attempt leaves the door open for other options e.g. you offer to accompany him to Celene if in return he will on arrival there either send some retainers to accompany you to your home or come himself if you can wait a few days for him to deal with his deceased friend
- it stays in character / immersion, rather than breaking out to go to mechanics.



> It would also be bad GMing.
> 
> Beliefs are meant to be challenged, betrayed and broken. Such emotional drama makes for a good game. If your character has a Belief, "I guard the prince's life with my own," and the prince is slain before your eyes in the climax of the scenario, that’s your chance to play out a tortured and dramatic scene and really go ballistic.
> 
> Conversely, if the prince is killed right out of the gate, the character is drained of purpose. Note that the player stated he wanted to defend the prince in play, not avenge him. Killing the prince in the first session sucks the life out of the character. He really has no reason to participate any longer. But if the prince dies in the grand climax, c'est la vie. The protector must then roll with the punches and react to this new change. Even better, if the prince dies due to the actions or failures of his own guardian - now that’s good stuff.
> 
> Another example: We once had a character with the Belief: "I will one day restore my wife’s life." His wife had died, and he kept her body around, trying to figure out a way to bring her back. Well, mid-way through the game, the GM magically restored his wife to the land of the living. I’ve never seen a more crushed player. He didn't know what do! He had stated that the quest and the struggle was the goal, not the end result. "One day!" he said. But the GM insisted, and the whole scenario and character were ruined for the player.​
> Given that I have a Belief that harm and infamy will before my ancestral home (Auxol) no more, establishing in the first session that my home has been destroyed would be terrible GMing.



With this I largely agree, regardless of game system.

There's a flip side, however, also true in any system: though as DM you probably want the goal to remain as a goal (rather than an achievement) as long as possible in order to keep the campaign going, you also want to at least make it seem as though the goal is now and then getting closer; that progress is being made.  Nothing's worse than having a clear goal in mind and watching it get further away as you go along. 



> The GM framed the characters into this ruined homestead. I don't know what he had in mind, but I _think_ he was anticipating a cooking check to make lunch.



This counts as going to the action?

Oh the excitement! 



> The answer to this is fairly easy - she's a character under my control! I'm allowed to play her as grumbling and angry but doing what she's told to when it comes to leaving the place where she was just attacked by orcs and where there might still be a few orcish stragglers hanging about.



So in effect they're both your characters.

The example would be far more interesting were Aramina someone else's PC.

Lan-"seven mentions in here in two days - reporting for duty!"-efan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I still don't understand what you think the illusion is here. The GM introduced orcs into the situation. That is framing. The orcs are already upon the homestead before the characters notice them. That's complication for the failed check.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But what you as player don't and can't know is whether those orcs were going to show up anyway, be it through this particular failed check or through some other means.
Click to expand...


I know 100% that I am going to be fighting orcs! I've built a holy warrior PC and the game is set in the Principality of Ulek on the border with the Pomarj.

From The Forge:

Illusionism: A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features.​
What force was exerted over player-character decisions? None.

What authority was exercised over resolution-outcomes? None.

The GM _did_ do something in the interests of story creation, namely, he framed an encounter with orcs. And because the preceding check had failed, he established the distance of the orcs in a disadvantageous fashion (ie near upon us). That is something that I, as a player, recognised.

What is the _illusion_ supposed to be?



Lanefan said:


> this exact same scenario could have been played out in any RPG system you like - including all editions of D&D - through straight role-play without the nuisance of mechanics.
> 
> You play your character as you did, trying your best to persuade the Elf to accompany you.  Nothing would change there.  However the DM, putting himself in the shoes of this Elf noble and thinking about what else said Elf noble might have on his plate at the time including a return to Celene preferably sooner than later, concludes that the Elf leader hasn't got time for you and simply role-plays that he declines your request.  How polite that refusal is might be influenced by your approach and politeness, the Elf's inherent personality as decided (probably then and there unless this Elf has been met before) by the DM, and a bunch of other things even down to the weather conditions (people are generally in better moods in fair weather and fouler moods in poor or excessively hot or cold weather).
> 
> Benefits here:
> - the role-played conversation probably takes somewhat less time than the dice-rolling you were doing
> - as opposed to the hard-closure you faced, a role-played persuasion attempt leaves the door open for other options e.g. you offer to accompany him to Celene if in return he will on arrival there either send some retainers to accompany you to your home or come himself if you can wait a few days for him to deal with his deceased friend
> - it stays in character / immersion, rather than breaking out to go to mechanics.



As I've posted multiple times, from the relation of events that occurred in the fiction nothing can be inferred about the RPGing techniques whereby that fiction was established.

And of course the variety of resolution systems is endless. We could resolve interpersonal combat by having me describe the approach I use against the orcs, and the GM then thinks through the fighting skill and fortitude of the orcs and decides who beats whom. That would also have many of the benefits you mention (time-saving and "immersion" at least).

But just as dice-based resolution systems for combat have a venerable place in the hobby, so do dice-based resolution systems for social encounters (eg reaction rolls; loyalty checks; even morale checks can be viewed in this light).

The time spent on the interaction was not a detriment, to me at least. As I posted, it established stuff about my character and the situation. It established stuff about the elves of Celene, too. I certainly didn't feel any difficulty inhabiting my character.



Lanefan said:


> as DM you probably want the goal to remain as a goal (rather than an achievement) as long as possible in order to keep the campaign going, you also want to at least make it seem as though the goal is now and then getting closer; that progress is being made.



That's not up to the GM. That's up to me! - to take steps that bring the goal closer. If I close off the Belief, or my character changes so it's no longer relevant, I'll write a new one:

BW Gold pp 54-5:
A player may change his character’s Beliefs as he sees fit. Characters are meant to grow and change through play. Changing Beliefs is a vital part of that growth. However, the GM has final say over when a Belief may be changed. If he feels the player is changing a Belief to wriggle out of a difficult situation and not as part of character growth, then he may delay the change until a time that he sees as appropriate.​


Lanefan said:


> pemerton said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The GM framed the characters into this ruined homestead. I don't know what he had in mind, but I think he was anticipating a cooking check to make lunch.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> This counts as going to the action?
> 
> Oh the excitement!
Click to expand...


My PC has Cooking skill; I didn't have to choose it. Aramina has travelling gear, and I made sure to note that it includes a skillet.

I'm expecting cooking to come up at some stage. If it's good enough for JRRT, it's good enough for me!



Lanefan said:


> The example would be far more interesting were Aramina someone else's PC.



Example of what?


----------



## hawkeyefan

pemerton said:


> But the GM didn't preconceive the theamtic focus upon family/parenthood - the player is the one who initiated that.
> 
> And the GM isn't even deciding who is the father - play will do that.
> 
> All the GM is doing is putting into play claim that this NPC is the PC's father.
> 
> I don't see how this is supposed to be the GM shaping the fiction to a pre-conceived outcome. We don't even know what the outcome is yet, so how do we know it's going to match any pre-conception?
> 
> I want to approach this through a concrete example, that I've talked about a fair bit upthread, to see if I can understand what you are getting at.
> 
> In the OP game, I introduced the renegade elf NPC obliquely at first - the PCs arrive at the foot of the Abor-Alz, where they are expecting to find a pool to drink from following their crossing of the Bright Desert, but the pool has been fouled. Investigation reveals that the fouling was by an elf. In metagame terms, this is all narration of consequences for failure - intitially I describe the fouled waterhole, and as the players describe their PCs looking around I tell them that the signs all indicate an elf. (Mechanically, this is "saying 'yes'", and thereby introducing more narration around the consequence which also establishes framing for the unfolding situation.)
> 
> When, later on, the check to find the mace fails, the player (in character, I think, but also predicting my GMing) says something like "I bet that elf has it!"
> 
> Is this an instance of what you mean by "the GM shaping the fiction"? That by introducing the elven NPC, I shape the fiction so that, downstream, the elf can be a nemesis in further ways?




To some extent, yes. You've created the circumstances that allow that elf to be a suspect. The example is hard to comment on because I don't know all the details and you do....but it seems along the lines of what I am talking about. 

But let's use a different example. Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The player in your game has come up with a character....a farmboy who may have an important destiny, and who does not know the details of his parentage. 

You as the GM create an NPC villain that serves as a foil to the PCs. You also entertain the idea that perhaps this NPC is somehow involved with PC Luke's parentage. Maybe he killed Luke's father? Or....maybe he even IS Luke's father. 

As the GM, you are certainly able to steer the game in ways to try and get this to happen. You have the idea, even if you are willing to change the idea, and it is there, influencing how you introduce content. Even if that influence is as simple as not introducing content that would make it impossible for Darth Vader to be Luke's father. 

Now, I am not saying this is in any way a bad thing. And indeed, the play may be what ultimately decides if it is true....but I think to disavow GM authorship and guidance in this story is going too far. Darth Vader only exists because of the GM, and he is only in a position to possibly be the father of Luke because of the GM. 

If the GM did not want that to be a possibility, he could steer things that way. His input on the situation seems pretty significant. 



pemerton said:


> I didn't make any such claim. In any D&D game the players have the causal power to determine whether or not their PCs win a fight! (Unless the GM is completely ignoring action declarations and the action resolution mechanics - which in most circumstances is going to be a pretty pathological case.)
> 
> I was talking about the causal power to make things true or false in the backstory - ie causal power of the _players_ that does not correlate with causal power of the _PCs_ (ie the PC did not cause any vessel to be present or absent from the room; the PCs cannot cause it to be or not be the prophesied time of the Dusk War; the PC didn't cause the elf to have taken the mace, nor cause his brother to have made black arrows; etc). And I was contrasting this with learning what is in the GM's notes (be those literal notes, or GM determinations of the fiction reached ex tempore by way of random tables, extrapolation or some other means).




So if a 5E game revolves around the Dusk War....the players must have no causal impact on whether the Dusk War is dawning? The outcome is up to the players and what they do with their characters and the decisions they make. 

I do not see the distinction here because you are assuming that the Secret Backstory game must have a set ending. Which seems more like a Secret Future....but either way, your claim is incorrect. 

Let's say that I take the concept of the Dusk War and I boil it down to a very railroad type of game. There are 8 prophesied events that constitute the Dusk War, with the first being the Tarrasque, and the eighth being the end of the world. Each of these events must happen. I take the barebones PCs created by my players, and we go through the 8 scenarios that I have preauthored. If the players are able to have their characters stop any of the 8 events, they have determined the Dusk War is not actually happening. 

Is this not the players having causal power on the secret backstory? Does the game described sound like Story Now/Narrativistic gaming? 




pemerton said:


> I don't think so. Upthread I've posted in a bit of detail about developing my approach to RPGing c 30 years ago, running AD&D. And then GMing RM for nearly 20 years.
> 
> I've explained what features of those systems are conducive (eg it's not a coincidence that the AD&D was OA - which establishes strong thematic backgrounds for PCs, and gives them strong connections to the setting, very different from what eg [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] has described upthread as typical of PCs on his game - and then an all thief game - the same things that make thieves hard to fit into classic dungeon play create strong hooks for a more "story now" approach).
> 
> I also mentioned some of the obstacles that those systems present. Just to mention one again, the way they handle resouce tracking and consumption (which in RM also extends to the healing rules) is an issue, because it drags attention away from dranatic situations and instead foregrounds record-keeping and minutiae.
> 
> An interesting feature of BW is that, like RM, it has a brutal injury system with long recovery times, but it manages to integrate this into the "story now" framework - mostly through the advancement system, which (i) makes time a resource (via training rules, not unblike those in RQ) but also (ii) creates incentives to act at less than full strength (eg if injured), and hence establishes inherent stakes and allows for meaningful GM framing to establish further stakes in the trade-off between recovery and acting _now_.
> 
> "Story now"/"narratavistic" RPGing is not about mechanics. It's first-and-foremost about how content is introduced into the fiction, and how action declaration is adjudicated. But particular mechanics can help or hinder.




Okay. So then how does Story Now/Narrativistic GMing adjudicate action declaration separate from mechanics? And how is that adjudication not possible in other systems, especially if mechanics can only help or hinder, and are not intrinsically tied to it?


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> I know 100% that I am going to be fighting orcs! I've built a holy warrior PC and the game is set in the Principality of Ulek on the border with the Pomarj.



An area which, I must assume from what you say here, is crawling with orcs.



> Illusionism: A family of Techniques in which a GM, usually in the interests of story creation, exerts Force over player-character decisions, in which he or she has authority over resolution-outcomes, and in which the players do not necessarily recognize these features.​
> What force was exerted over player-character decisions? None.
> 
> What authority was exercised over resolution-outcomes? None.
> 
> The GM _did_ do something in the interests of story creation, namely, he framed an encounter with orcs.



Which is right there exercising authority over resolution outcomes, or so it appears.

Your check failed and produced a complication.  As a resolution the DM could just as easily have complicated things on your failure by having part of the homestead collapse on you or close to you; or have your search kick up an ember and set the place on fire; or have a militia patrol pass by and accuse you of looting or trespassing; or...   But instead you got orcs, closer than you'd have liked, because that's what the DM chose.

And there's nothing at all wrong with this - it could happen in any game, any system - but please recognize it for what it is: the DM driving the story.



> And because the preceding check had failed, he established the distance of the orcs in a disadvantageous fashion (ie near upon us). That is something that I, as a player, recognised.
> 
> What is the _illusion_ supposed to be?



That you've no idea as a player whether those orcs were going to show up anyway; whether the DM had it in his notes (or in his mind) that there's a band of orcs right near that homestead which will attack you no matter what you do; or whether they're a spur-of-the-moment creation.  And again, this is all good - just recognize it for the illusion that it may or may not be.

Now you might know your particular DM well enough to assume he'd not do anything illusory...which is fine for you but says nothing on a broader scale, so from this distance I can only generalize.



> As I've posted multiple times, from the relation of events that occurred in the fiction nothing can be inferred about the RPGing techniques whereby that fiction was established.



Your post went into great mechanical detail about exactly how the fiction was mechanically established, rendering the role-playing rather moot.

Had your play report simply amounted to "Encountered Elf noble on road - asked him for aid and assistance with clearing out my homestead - noble too busy and en route Celene so declined request", that would tell me nothing at all about how the encounter actually went or was played out / resolved.



> And of course the variety of resolution systems is endless. We could resolve interpersonal combat by having me describe the approach I use against the orcs, and the GM then thinks through the fighting skill and fortitude of the orcs and decides who beats whom. That would also have many of the benefits you mention (time-saving and "immersion" at least).
> 
> But just as dice-based resolution systems for combat have a venerable place in the hobby, so do dice-based resolution systems for social encounters (eg reaction rolls; loyalty checks; even morale checks can be viewed in this light).



Yeah, I've always seen combat resolution and social resolution as two completely different animals; mostly because while we as players/DMs can't swing swords or chop each other up we can talk, and think, and role-play.  Even though I run a 1e-based game I'm not sure if I've rolled 5 reaction rolls or loyalty checks in total over the last year or more.  I rarely use them, and when I do it's almost always because I as DM just can't make up my mind on the spot how character X or monster Y would react to something.

Morale checks I see as an extension of combat resolution.



> That's not up to the GM. That's up to me! - to take steps that bring the goal closer. If I close off the Belief, or my character changes so it's no longer relevant, I'll write a new one:
> 
> BW Gold pp 54-5:
> A player may change his character’s Beliefs as he sees fit. Characters are meant to grow and change through play. Changing Beliefs is a vital part of that growth. However, the GM has final say over when a Belief may be changed. If he feels the player is changing a Belief to wriggle out of a difficult situation and not as part of character growth, then he may delay the change until a time that he sees as appropriate.​



That's not what I mean.

In any game system, if your character has a belief* or goal* of, say, "I will avenge my fallen family and reclaim my homestead"** then as the campaign goes along you're reasonably going to want to see yourself making some progress on this, right?  Investigating what happened, learning who the killers or raiders were, tracking them down, taking them out, then forcing out whatever's living in your old homestead...that sort of thing.  But if the campaign leads you in different directions (let's say another character's goal is deemed more important and immediate - or even just more interesting - by the party) and you end up doing most of your adventuring in a different country, that goal *that you still have* is getting further away.  The trail's gone cold, the people who might have had answers for you are harder to find and-or dead, etc.

* - maybe or maybe not reflected in any game mechanics, depending on system.
** - in a 3e game I played a character with this goal, and watched it get further and further away over several adventures until my character eventually left the party and went it alone.

And before you say something like "it's up to the DM to involve everyone's goals and beliefs in the game", think about this: the DM might not have much choice.

Let's say I'm playing a character in a party of three.  My goal/belief is something long-term and can wait ("I am destined to become king of Althasia"); the goals/beliefs of the other two are somewhat more immediate (how about "I will reclaim my ancestral homestead before my newborn son turns three" for character one [PC-1] and "to succeed where my dying sister failed by sailing across the Axenos to speak with the Oracle at Kampai" for character two [PC-2]). (for sake of simplicity and discussion these are pretty basic goals/beliefs)

Character background and DM or player generated info tells us that PC-1's homestead is a little to the east of where we are; the Axenos that PC-2 wants to cross is a small-ish sea to the west, and in my background I've said my goal involves the neighbouring realm to the north which the DM then names Althasia.

Now, let's say we're just meeting for the first time - neophyte adventurers with big ideas and small abilities - and we spend an evening in a tavern or around a campfire talking and musing about our life goals; and we all learn each others' goals/beliefs as noted above.  We more or less agree to help each other out.  I tell them my goal can wait - it's destiny, it's gonna happen no matter what (at least that's what I believe!) - but it soon becomes obvious we can't really pursue the other two goals simultaneously as they'll eventually require - literally - going in different directions.

Logic would say we see to the homestead first as it's closer, then go visit the Oracle.  But what if my character - who in effect has the deciding vote - on hearing about this Oracle realizes perhaps I ought to go see her as well and the sooner the better, and thus we end up deciding to cross the Axenos first?  PC-1's goal hasn't changed...but that homestead and any hope of achieving that goal is about to get a lot further away both in time and distance.

And note that since we met at the tavern/campfire the DM has had no input whatsoever.  This is all player-in-character stuff; with the DM standing by waiting for us to decide where we're going while wondering how on earth she can involve PC-1's goals/beliefs in any of what's about to happen.



> Example of what?



If Aramina's your hench, and thus in effect your character, interactions between you two come down to you as player talking to yourself.  The interaction examples would be far better served were Aramina someone else's PC that you had to persuade/interact with, as that presents a completely different dynamic.

Lan-"three characters to the wind"-efan


----------



## Manbearcat

Ilbranteloth said:


> When I say that, it's largely because there are lots of premises going on at a given point at time, and *I don't see it as my responsibility as DM to direct them* towards one or the other most of the time. Sometimes there are time-sensitive things, so that obviously puts some pressure on them.




Just to be clear, Story Now games don't see the GM's role to direct players toward <stuff/thing>.  "Drive play toward conflict" and "go/cut to the action" aren't about seizing the initiative of the trajectory of play/the fiction away from the players.  Its about ensuring that table time isn't spent on premise/theme-neutral material and that momentum isn't lost due obsessive waffling/detail-haggling.  Here is a relevant passage in John Harper's Blades in the Dark that  [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] may have relayed earlier:



> *Cut to the Action* - BitD 190
> 
> When they say, “We should break into Inspector Klave’s house,” that’s your cue. Say “That sounds like a Stealth plan, yeah? What’s your point of entry?” Then, when they give you the detail, you say, “All right, so you’re on the rooftop of the fabric store across the alley from their house. It’s quiet and dark in there. You throw your ropes and grapnels across. Let’s make the engagement roll.” Bam, just like that, you’re on a score. That might seem way too fast and breezy if you’re used to other roleplaying games. You don’t always have to go that fast! But it’s good to keep this method in mind and generally aim toward it. Anything prosecuted via conversation will take longer than you think it will—if you hold this “cut to the action” idea in the forefront of your mind, you can trim off some time that might just be fruitless planning or unnecessary hesitation.
> 
> Same goes for any kind of “scene change” that happens in play. Like, when a player decides to go Consort with their friend, you can cut to the action in progress. “You’re at the usual place, under the Bell Street bridge. It’s windy and raining; water pouring out of the gutters. Flint struggles to keep her pipe lit. ‘Devil take this weather,’ she says. ‘What do you want?’” Rather than starting back at the lair and playing out “Where do you go? Where would Flint be? How can you arrange a meeting?” you just cut to the action of the meeting in progress and the game moves along fine, keeping momentum high.




Notice his caveat "this may seem way too fast and breezy if you're used to other roleplaying games."  He's talking to several of the players in this thread (and on ENWorld generally).  He's talking to players that got angry at 4e's version of "drive play toward conflict/go to the action" which was "skip the gate guards and get to the fun."  They should have said "action" instead of "fun."  That is what they meant (obviously, given the context), but they didn't say it that way and a firestorm ensued.

If you're in a downtime moment and the players are transitioning from action to action, (1) player(s) make their move, (2) resolve things mechanically (and/or spend currency and/or prepare loadout) as the system infrastructure demands...BOOM, (3) GM follows the players lead and cuts right to the action requested in 1, describes the situation and telepgraphs any consequential trouble/danger/conflict that the PC would be aware of, and we're back to (1). We don't have to serially play out things moment to moment, range increment to range increment, detail to detail (as JH talks about at the end of the second paragraph above).  



Ilbranteloth said:


> So let me ask this - My campaign typically has at least a dozen plots going on at once. Usually there are one or two specific to each character - goals they have, others are either group or setting specific, they know of a potential attempt to overthrow the local Lord, or something like that. Others might be a map they acquired that shows the location of a long lost tomb.
> 
> So when they are following a particular storyline, my goal is to support that, and based on what I see in Story Now games, a lot of those techniques are in use, although perhaps not as coherently. Between those points, though, it's really up to the PCs to determine what's next. And the PCs may decide to change course in the middle of one story line.
> 
> Do Story Now, or perhaps your Story Now games have or support that sort of game?




I mean it depends on what you mean by "plots."  If "plots" mean premise/theme-neutral stuff in order to "create a living, breathing world" which puts on full exhibition "lack of PC-centrism in order to convey realism", then no...I don't think that Story Now games support that.  Now you can still have a sandbox where all the moving parts are premise/theme-relevant (Blades in the Dark connotes such play as does Dungeon World, Apocalypse World, and Torchbearer).  But its a different sandbox then most AD&D players (and now 5e players) would consider as orthodox; everything is premise/theme-relevant and the "off-screen" isn't hidden to the players.

On that note, I don't fully agree with Ron Edward's ideas about the inability of multiple agendas to exist concurrently in a coherent fashion.  However, when you break it down to micro-components, sometimes it becomes inescapably true.  Such is the case here.  The premise-neutral components that are part and parcel of "the right to dream" Simulationism (a lot of orthodox AD&D sandbox play) fundamentally do not (and cannot) cohere with the premise-relevant requirements of "story now" Narrativism.

In the same way, the technique of fudging (one technique of Illusionism) is completely anathema to "step on up" Gamism where the entire point of GMing is to referee with absolute objectivity and integrity (after you've skillfully rendered an exciting dungeon with interesting decision-points) so the players can test their skill against the collection of obstacles before them.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:
			
		

> Drive play toward conflict" and "go/cut to the action" aren't about seizing the initiative of the trajectory of play/the fiction away from the players. Its about ensuring that table time isn't spent on premise/theme-neutral material and that momentum isn't lost due obsessive waffling/detail-haggling. Here is a relevant passage in John Harper's Blades in the Dark that @Campbell may have relayed earlier:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Cut to the Action - BitD 190 said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> When they say, “We should break into Inspector Klave’s house,” that’s your cue. Say “That sounds like a Stealth plan, yeah? What’s your point of entry?” Then, when they give you the detail, you say, “All right, so you’re on the rooftop of the fabric store across the alley from their house. It’s quiet and dark in there. You throw your ropes and grapnels across. Let’s make the engagement roll.” Bam, just like that, you’re on a score. That might seem way too fast and breezy if you’re used to other roleplaying games. You don’t always have to go that fast! But it’s good to keep this method in mind and generally aim toward it. Anything prosecuted via conversation will take longer than you think it will—if you hold this “cut to the action” idea in the forefront of your mind, you can trim off some time that might just be fruitless planning or unnecessary hesitation.
> 
> Same goes for any kind of “scene change” that happens in play. Like, when a player decides to go Consort with their friend, you can cut to the action in progress. “You’re at the usual place, under the Bell Street bridge. It’s windy and raining; water pouring out of the gutters. Flint struggles to keep her pipe lit. ‘Devil take this weather,’ she says. ‘What do you want?’” Rather than starting back at the lair and playing out “Where do you go? Where would Flint be? How can you arrange a meeting?” you just cut to the action of the meeting in progress and the game moves along fine, keeping momentum high.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Notice his caveat "this may seem way too fast and breezy if you're used to other roleplaying games." He's talking to several of the players in this thread (and on ENWorld generally). He's talking to players that got angry at 4e's version of "drive play toward conflict/go to the action" which was "skip the gate guards and get to the fun." They should have said "action" instead of "fun." That is what they meant (obviously, given the context), but they didn't say it that way and a firestorm ensued.
Click to expand...


I would certainly hope so, because it's terrible advice.

Awful!

The only ways I can ever see this advice making any sense at all is a) in cases where a DM and-or the players have the collective attention span of a chicken, or b) if a DM is tired of running a campaign and just wants to get it over with.

Otherwise, all it's saying is speed-speed-speed and skip-everything-you-can where many of us are looking to slow the game down, spin the campaign out, and immerse ourselves in the details and what you call "premise/theme neutral material" which is in fact what comprises the game world we've set out to explore.

Spending all session planning how to open one door is overkill.  I've seen this.  It's painful.  

But planning out how to break into Inspector Klave's house - running surveillance and tracking movements for a day or two, casing and as far as possible mapping the place, maybe bribing a local patrol or two to take a different route once or twice tonight - stripping all those details out and jumping straight to "you're on the rooftop across the street" doesn't add to the fun; it subtracts from the fun and greatly reduces the opportunities for immersion.

Never mind that in the example given (as written) the DM jumps straight to asking their point of entry without even allowing the characters time to discuss among themselves whether they all agree that breaking in to the Inspector's house is even a good idea!

Lan-"John Harper - another name whose writings I can henceforth ignore"-efan


----------



## Manbearcat

Lanefan said:


> I would certainly hope so, because it's terrible advice.
> 
> Awful!
> 
> The only ways I can ever see this advice making any sense at all is a) in cases where a DM and-or the players have the collective attention span of a chicken, or b) if a DM is tired of running a campaign and just wants to get it over with.
> 
> Otherwise, all it's saying is speed-speed-speed and skip-everything-you-can where many of us are looking to slow the game down, spin the campaign out, and immerse ourselves in the details and what you call "premise/theme neutral material" which is in fact what comprises the game world we've set out to explore.
> 
> Spending all session planning how to open one door is overkill.  I've seen this.  It's painful.
> 
> But planning out how to break into Inspector Klave's house - running surveillance and tracking movements for a day or two, casing and as far as possible mapping the place, maybe bribing a local patrol or two to take a different route once or twice tonight - stripping all those details out and jumping straight to "you're on the rooftop across the street" doesn't add to the fun; it subtracts from the fun and greatly reduces the opportunities for immersion.
> 
> Never mind that in the example given (as written) the DM jumps straight to asking their point of entry without even allowing the characters time to discuss among themselves whether they all agree that breaking in to the Inspector's house is even a good idea!
> 
> Lan-"John Harper - another name whose writings I can henceforth ignore"-efan




There are three main phases of play in Blades in the Dark:

1)  *Gather Information* - This is where the Crew gathers intelligence/discovers stuff about various locales and Faction going-ons in order to explore opportunities for Scores.  This is more granular, slow-paced (but still fraught with decision-points that will lead to danger and action due to the game's engine and GMing principles) of the type you're used to.

2)  *The Score* - Once the Crew decides what their Score is going to be, they choose a Plan (collectively, but effectively there is a "Caller" for this like B/X), and then they give the GM a specific Detail related to the Plan (for instance, if they're going to smuggle cargo or people via transport through a dangerous area, the GM would ask for the route and means of smuggling).  The players choose their Item Loadout for the Score, after which they make the Engagement Roll.  All of this stuff informs the GM's "cutting to the action" (this is the phase I quoted above) or framing of the scene.  

3)  *Downtime *- This is a bit of a break from the constant threat of danger of (1) and (2).  However, the Entanglement phase can bring immediate action.  Here you have 4 parts, resolved in order:



> BitD 145
> 
> 1. Payoff. The crew receives their rewards from a successfully completed score.
> 
> 2. Heat. The crew accumulates suspicion and attention from the law and the powers-that-be in the city as a result of their last score.
> 
> 3. Entanglements. The crew faces trouble from the rival factions, the law, and the haunted city itself.
> 
> 4. Downtime Activities. The PCs indulge their vices to remove stress, work on long-term projects, recover from injuries, etc.




Just a note, if this model looks familiar, it is because it is pretty much the same model that B/X uses for its 3 phases of play.  B/X isn't some "out there" indie game.    

Torchbearer, being a B/X and Burning Wheel mash-up, follows the same model though is much closer to BitD due to the granularity, play agenda, and deep systemization of things in both TB and BitD.


----------



## Lanefan

Manbearcat said:


> There are three main phases of play in Blades in the Dark:
> 
> 1)  *Gather Information* - This is where the Crew gathers intelligence/discovers stuff about various locales and Faction going-ons in order to explore opportunities for Scores.  This is more granular, slow-paced (but still fraught with decision-points that will lead to danger and action due to the game's engine and GMing principles) of the type you're used to.
> 
> 2)  *The Score* - Once the Crew decides what their Score is going to be, they choose a Plan (collectively, but effectively there is a "Caller" for this like B/X), and then they give the GM a specific Detail related to the Plan (for instance, if they're going to smuggle cargo or people via transport through a dangerous area, the GM would ask for the route and means of smuggling).  The players choose their Item Loadout for the Score, after which they make the Engagement Roll.  All of this stuff informs the GM's "cutting to the action" (this is the phase I quoted above) or framing of the scene.



OK, that makes more sense than the Harper example you quoted, and seems somewhat more reasonable.

As written in his example, it reads as if the party's general musing of "We should break into Inspector Krave's house" is taken by the DM to be an immediate action declaration, and he dives right in without further ado.  His example also completely ignores or skips over the Gather Information phase, which seems odd advice to give a DM.



> 3)  *Downtime *- This is a bit of a break from the constant threat of danger of (1) and (2).  However, the Entanglement phase can bring immediate action.



Good to see the system has Downtime built in (even if there's possible complications).  Some games could take a lesson. 



> Just a note, if this model looks familiar, it is because it is pretty much the same model that B/X uses for its 3 phases of play.  B/X isn't some "out there" indie game.



No, but then I've never thought of any version of D&D as being all that formally structured in its macro play phases* (no matter what the designers might have had in mind!), I instead see it - and play it - without much reference to that sort of structure at all.  Now for all I know I might be following the paradigm to a T, but if so it's certainly not intentional as I don't give this sort of thing a second's thought while either running or playing a game.

* - as opposed to what I'll call micro play phases which would include things like combat and magic rules and resolutions, social interactions, travel, etc. - all the nuts-and-bolts stuff.

All that said, though, Harper's ideas as expressed in the example you quoted - though they might work well for his own specific BitD system - still very much put me off when applied to something like D&D.  I've seen a DM running (3.5e? PF? - can't remember) do pretty much exactly what Harper wants here, and skip everything except the action scenes.  Didn't take long before he "lost the room" and had no players left; and we now look at that game as a prime example of what not to do as a DM. 

Lan-"BitD - one game to rule them all and in the darkness steal their stuff?"-efan


----------



## pemerton

> Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The player in your game has come up with a character....a farmboy who may have an important destiny, and who does not know the details of his parentage.
> 
> You as the GM create an NPC villain that serves as a foil to the PCs. You also entertain the idea that perhaps this NPC is somehow involved with PC Luke's parentage. Maybe he killed Luke's father? Or....maybe he even IS Luke's father.
> 
> As the GM, you are certainly able to steer the game in ways to try and get this to happen.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I think to disavow GM authorship and guidance in this story is going too far.



I'm not disavowing GM authorship - I've repeatedly provided examples of GM authorship from actual play (a renegade elf; a holy man who is the father of the PC's balrog-possessed brother; a mage's tower; a wedding between said mage and the Gynarch of Hardby; the tarrasque emerging from beneath the earth to rampage; maruts who have a contract with the Raven Queen; etc).

But there is a way you are presenting and discussing the matter that I am not following. I feel there is an assumption you're making that I'm missing; or there's something I'm saying that you're not taking as literally as I intend it. I think I may have worked out what it is, and I am going to quote something by Paul Czege that (if I'm right) is directly on point:

[A]lthough roleplaying games typically feature scene transition, by "scene framing" we're talking about a subset of scene transition that features a different kind of intentionality. My personal inclination is to call the traditional method "scene extrapolation," because the details of the Point A of scenes initiated using the method are typically arrived at primarily by considering the physics of the game world, what has happened prior to the scene, and the unrevealed actions and aspirations of characters that only the GM knows about.

"Scene framing" is a very different mental process for me. Tim asked if scene transitions were delicate. They aren't. Delicacy is a trait I'd attach to "scene extrapolation," the idea being to make scene initiation seem an outgrowth of prior events, objective, unintentional, non-threatening, but not to the way I've come to frame scenes in games I've run recently. . . . I'm having trouble capturing in dispassionate words what it's like, so I'm going to have to dispense with dispassionate words. By god, when I'm framing scenes, and I'm in the zone, I'm turning a freakin' firehose of adversity and situation on the character. It is not an objective outgrowth of prior events. It's intentional as all get out. We've had a group character session, during which it was my job to find out what the player finds interesting about the character. And I know what I find interesting. I frame the character into the middle of conflicts I think will push and pull in ways that are interesting to me and to the player. I keep NPC personalities somewhat unfixed in my mind, allowing me to retroactively justify their behaviors in support of this. And like Scott's "Point A to Point B" model says, the outcome of the scene is not preconceived.​
When you talk of GM "steering" or "guidance" it seems to me that you are assuming some sort of GM subtlety or even subterfuge (hence the connection to "illusionism"): the GM innocuously drops in an elf here, or a foil NPC there, seemingly nothing more than a bit of scenery, and then - BAM! - the GM springs his/her big reveal.

But, as per the quote from Czege, that's not really how "story now" RPGing works. Suppose that, just as you describe, the player has written into his/her PC backstory that there is some mystery around family and parentage, and some sort of destiny associated with that. Well, then, the player _knows_ that the GM is going to be addressing that stuff in play - the stuff that the player has flagged as interesting. The player knows that the GM will be framing scenes that "go where the action is". So if there is a recurrring NPC - Darth Vader - who, as play unfolds, is revealed to be an intriguing combination of past (one of the last of the Jedi) and future (right hand man of the emperor), then the player is not going to be indifferent to that NPC. The GM has flagged that the NPC is something s/he finds interesting; and by the moment of the big reveal (should it come), the NPC will have already come to life in a series of prior situations which themselves - in virtue of framing and/or resolution - have established the significance of this NPC (eg the PC is training to be a Jedi; the NPC is revealed to be a fallen Jedi). The GM is not trying to keep this stuff hidden; the GM is doing his/her best to bring this stuff out, because that's what makes the game move.

(Think also of  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the brother's hat: it's not like a CoC adventure, where if Perception checks aren't successful the clue is missed; rather, Manbearcat makes it clear in framing that the PC recognises his brother's hat, so as to provoke the moment of thematically significant choice.)

So when the challenging revelation takes place - "Luke, I am your father!" - it doesn't come from nowhere. Even if the player doesn't see it coming until it comes, it is not a rabbit from a hat at that point. (Which is also relevant to the discussion upthread with  [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] about foreshadowing.) It is grounded in the prior events and outcomes of play, which themselves are not the unilateral products of GM authorship.

It's also important to recognise the difference between retropsective and prospective perspectives on this stuff. When the big reveal comes then, in retrospect, it will be a natural dramatic outcome of what went before. But at all those prior moments, there was any number of other ways things could have gone. When Aragorn/Strider turns out to be a good guy, that's a big reveal that fits with the prior stuff in the book; but, had he turned out to be a threat instead and the salvation came in some other form - well, that would make the story something different from what it is, but could equally wel be a "natural fit" with what preceded it.

The GM is trying (and not overtly) to introduce elements that open up these possibilities for dramatic moments; but that in itself is not "steering" in any stronger sense. And the fact that the players get to make action declarations for their PCs (say, Insight checks against Aragorn), and the fact that these checks succeed or fail based on something other than the GM's whim, precludes any sort of stronger steering unless the GM is just obviously going to disregard the rules and procedures of the game (eg narrate failures over the top of successes; disregard failures; etc).

I want to reiterate the above points by going back to the actual play example of the renegade elf. When I introduce that NPC into the game, I have in mind that I might do some stuff with him. That's the point of brining in a notable NPC. After the episode at the waterhole on the edge of the Abor-Alz, I remember that when the PCs arrived at the ruined tower the well had been filled with rubble. I can't remember whether this was a failure narration or just framing, but (in the fiction) it was clear to the PCs that the elf had done this, and (at the table) this was me doing something more with my elf. When the player then looks for his mace, and it is missing, it's natural that the elf - who, as the prior narration established, had been spending at least some time at the tower moving rubble - should have it.

These are all moments of authorship. But they're not "steerings" in any sense that adds to them being moments of authorship. I didn't know the PC would look for the mace  - in fact, when I introduced the elf I don't think the mace was even established as an element of the fiction, because I remember at some point changing the stat block I'd prepared for the elf to give him mace skill rather than spear (?) skill, so that he could use the mace he'd stolen. So there was no "steering" towards the outcome of the elf having stolen the mace from the ruined tower.

Subsequently, when a player wrote a Belief for a shaman-type character about dreams of a dark force rising, I introduced the dark naga and established the elf as its servant. This is a deliberate building on an already-established NPC. But again I don't see it as a steering - there's no outcome towards which this is headed in any moment of play except (from the GM's point of view) "Here's this thing I think is interesting in light of the stuff that you've said you think is interesting. What do you make of it?"

To force an outcome is going to require the GM to interfere with a player's action declaration for his/her PC, and/or to narrate consequences and subsequent framing in disregard of whether players succeed or fail. This is going to be visible to the players.



> if a 5E game revolves around the Dusk War....the players must have no causal impact on whether the Dusk War is dawning? The outcome is up to the players and what they do with their characters and the decisions they make.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> you are assuming that the Secret Backstory game must have a set ending. Which seems more like a Secret Future....but either way, your claim is incorrect.



If the game is about a prophesied event, and whether or not the prophesied time has come, _and_ the GM has not established whether or not it is true, as a matter of the fiction, that the time has or has not come, then it's not a "secret backstory" game! It's like a game with no map, where events are located in space as part of the process of play.

Whether or not the game with no map or no timeline is a GM-driven or player-driven one would depend on the principles and methods according to which events are located in space/time as part of the process of play.

From the fact that a game is a 5e game nothing can be inferred in a definitive fashion about any of the above, although conjectures might be formed based on what sorts of things the rulebooks say about the role of the GM and of the players, and what sorts of approaches to play the rules support or might sometimes get in the way of.



> how does Story Now/Narrativistic GMing adjudicate action declaration separate from mechanics? And how is that adjudication not possible in other systems



I'm a bit confused - are you asserting that "story now" RPGing depends upon a certain mechanical system, or not?

In any event, I have not asserted that. I've denied it. And I've talked about GMing in a "story now" fashion using a variety of systems (AD&D, RM, 4e, Cortex/MHRP, BW).

Eero Tuovinen gives a pithy account of the approach (under the label "the standard narrativistic model"):

1. One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . .  by introducing complications.

2. The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. They play their characters according to the advocacy role: the important part is that they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants.

3. The actual procedure of play is very simple: once the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory in whatever manner a given game ascribes, the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.

4. The player’s task in these games is simple advocacy, which is not difficult once you have a firm character. (Chargen is a key consideration in these games, compare them to see how different approaches work.) The GM might have more difficulty, as he needs to be able to reference the backstory, determine complications to introduce into the game, and figure out consequences. Much of the rules systems in these games address these challenges, and in addition the GM might have methodical tools outside the rules, such as pre-prepared relationship maps (helps with backstory), bangs (helps with provoking thematic choice) and pure experience (helps with determining consequences).​
From this account one can also see where particular systems may cause issues: a lot of traditional RPG PC generation (with D&D as one example) does not produce characters with clear dramatic needs (as I've noted, OA is something of an exception in this respect); and a lot of RPGing advice to GMs assumes that the GM will frame scenes (or "prepare the adventure) independently of whatever dramatid needs the players might signal via build and play of their PCs.

One can also see how action resolution mechanics can get in the way: if the mechanics prescribe very detailed consequences that aren't connected to the dramatic motivation or thematic significance of the action declaration, that can be a problem for the GM in terms of estblishing consequences (especially for failure) that drive the game rather than cause it to bog down in the sorts of non-thematically-significant stuff  [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] has mentioned not far upthread. I can report from experience that RM can suffer from this.


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> When you talk of GM "steering" or "guidance" it seems to me that you are assuming some sort of GM subtlety or even subterfuge (hence the connection to "illusionism"): the GM innocuously drops in an elf here, or a foil NPC there, seemingly nothing more than a bit of scenery, and then - BAM! - the GM springs his/her big reveal.
> 
> But, as per the quote from Czege, that's not really how "story now" RPGing works.



In theory, perhaps; but as we all know theory and practice are not always the same.

In theory Gygax wanted AD&D to more or less work in one particular way, as seen in the 1e DMG page 96-99 example of play.  Didn't take long for all kinds of DMs to make it work - and more often than not work well - in lots of ways that he didn't intend and with lots of rules he never imagined and without lots of rules he put a great deal of work into.

Who says the same can't happen to the "story now" theory?

Lanefan


----------



## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> In theory, perhaps; but as we all know theory and practice are not always the same.
> 
> In theory Gygax wanted AD&D to more or less work in one particular way, as seen in the 1e DMG page 96-99 example of play.  Didn't take long for all kinds of DMs to make it work - and more often than not work well - in lots of ways that he didn't intend and with lots of rules he never imagined and without lots of rules he put a great deal of work into.
> 
> Who says the same can't happen to the "story now" theory?



Without more context of what you have in mind, I'm having trouble following.

I mean, if the GM is not showing his/her hand then _I as a player can tell, here and now, that the game is not "story now"_. You can't keep it secret that there is not _story_ NOW! The absence of that is something the players will notice!


----------



## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Without more context of what you have in mind, I'm having trouble following.
> 
> I mean, if the GM is not showing his/her hand then _I as a player can tell, here and now, that the game is not "story now"_. You can't keep it secret that there is not _story_ NOW! The absence of that is something the players will notice!



Sorry, but no matter how often or how forcefully you repeat this I flat out don't believe you.

A DM who wants to do so can in any system subtly - but quite easily - steer you to where she wants you to go, assuming she knows her stuff.  She can tell her story, interwoven with yours, if she wants to.  And if she's good at it you won't even notice because your story (the one you'd be playing out anyway based on your beliefs etc.) is happily going right along with it.

All it takes in the system you describe is careful choice and some forethought in scene framing and (is the term scene resolution?).

My example some posts above (which I don't know if you saw) speaks to this.  Your character and Aramina are at the homestead, you fail a check and thus cause complications, which the DM decides are (i.e. frames as) orcs too close for comfort.  Any number of things could have been used as the complication, but the DM chose orcs.  Your posts indicate orcs make sense for the surroundings, no problem there, carry on.

But what if the DM was trying to insert a story about a hobgoblin-orc conflict in the area that up till now you knew nothing about (and for all that maybe she didn't either and made this up on the spur of the moment).  Your complication becomes hobgoblins instead of orcs where you might have been expecting orcs, leading you perhaps to wonder what's up...or not.  Subsequent complications as they arise keep returning to this theme, and eventually in your travels you might find some recent battlegrounds and so forth.

Or, what if the DM had decided there's no orcs left in the region as they've all gone off to invade Althasia (or wherever).  Your current complication instead becomes that you accidentally stirred up some embers while searching and maybe set the homstead on fire, and subsequent complications as they arise continue to be anything but orcs even though the area in theory has a reputation for crawling with 'em.  In your travels you might find abandoned orc villages.

What I'm getting at is that if she wants to, a DM can steer the ship somewhat just by what she frames as scenes or uses for complications even while keeping your beliefs etc. front and centre.

Lan-"never mind that ancient bit of true wisdom: there are no rules in RPGs, only guidelines"-efan


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## pemerton

[MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION], you're missing the point: if there is no _story now_, I can tell. Because nothing is happening.

And, conversely, if stuff is happening - if the GM has "gone where the action is" - then subtlety has been abandoned.

If the GM makes it about hobgoblins, or orcs, or whatever, I can tell. If this doesn't speak to my thematic concerns, I can tell. And if it does, then the GM is doing his/her job and there's no illusion.

Here's a comparison: you can't "subtlely" show me how you play the trumpet - you either play it, or you don't. Likewise in this case - the GM is either framing scenes that matter to my character, or is not. If s/he is, there's no illusion. The _mattering_ is evident.

Another way to put it: if the GM thinks orcs would be fun, all s/he needs to do is introduce orcs into the situation. There's nothing to be gained by pretending s/he's not.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> And, conversely, if stuff is happening - if the GM has "gone where the action is" - then subtlety has been abandoned.
> 
> If the GM makes it about hobgoblins, or orcs, or whatever, I can tell. If this doesn't speak to my thematic concerns, I can tell. And if it does, then the GM is doing his/her job and there's no illusion.



Or so you think...



> Here's a comparison: you can't "subtlely" show me how you play the trumpet - you either play it, or you don't. Likewise in this case - the GM is either framing scenes that matter to my character, or is not. If s/he is, there's no illusion. The _mattering_ is evident.



To follow up on that analogy: you might despise the sound of trumpets and shudder every time you hear one to the point where you'd refuse to listen to anything that you knew had trumpets in it, but I could still slip a few into the orchestra (and have them be played) such that you'd never notice their presence in the recorded music even though they are subtly driving the melody.

Same is true here.  Each individual scene is framed such that it matters to your character...it's not till you look in hindsight at the overall pattern those scenes have built that you realize there's a bigger DM-generated story afoot.



> Another way to put it: if the GM thinks orcs would be fun, all s/he needs to do is introduce orcs into the situation. There's nothing to be gained by pretending s/he's not.



On a one-time basis this is obviously true.  See my previous post for longer-term examples re hobgoblins, orcs etc. so I don't have to type it all again.

Lan-"sound the trumpets!"-efan


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> ... if there is no _story now_, I can tell. Because nothing is happening.



If nothing's happening, isn't it your duty as a player to make something happen?


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> If nothing's happening, isn't it your duty as a player to make something happen?



But you are positing a GM who is "illusionistically" disregarding or overriding those action declarations.


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## hawkeyefan

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

Sorry to take so long to get back on this. Rather than address specific points, I think a more general reply may be best. 

I understand your point, and the methods you're describing. I think it is a solid approach in many ways. I prefer to have a plan in place that I can change on the fly if need be rather than determining everything at the so-called "crunch point" that you describe, but that's more a personal preference. 

However, I think that the methods you are describing, divorced from mechanics that support them, can be applied in a general way to just about any RPG. Would you agree with that? You said that Story Now is not dependent on mechanics, so is that what you meat? That Story Now elements can be used in any game? 

If not, then it seems that they are dependent upon the system in question, which to me means that they are tied to the mechanics of that system. 

I say this because I actually believe that I do a lot of what you are calling out as the Story Now approach's strengths in my game....but I'm playing 5E, and I have pre-authored much of the world. 

Now, as for the GM steering things....let's go back to the Vader/Luke example. The player has indicated a mystery in his character's lineage and that he wants to examine that as part of play. The GM has come up with a Galactic Empire threat that he feels would be a cool story to examine, along with a major NPC villain tied to this Empire. The players haven't shown strong interest in the Empire storyline....they seem more interested in smuggling aboard the Millenium Falcon than in a battle between good and evil. So the Empire will be a foil, but only in that it will be the existing power structure that may cause complications for smugglers rather than an opponent of heroes in a rebellion. 

So the PCs are more interested in avoiding the Empire rather than opposing them. I would think this an important distinction that would very much determine the thrust of the campaign, and the two would be very different. 

Now, in your game you very well may not do this....but would you say that if the GM decided to put forth his NPC as a strong contender to be the PC's father, then that may hook the players into being a bit more interested in the Empire, and then as a result, the campaign might shift from avoiding the Empire to opposing the Empire? Would you say this is a bad thing, no matter what? Would you say the players would recognize this "force" without fail? Or would you consider this a marriage of the player's desire and the GM's desire?


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> Each individual scene is framed such that it matters to your character...it's not till you look in hindsight at the overall pattern those scenes have built that you realize there's a bigger DM-generated story afoot.



If the "bigger GM-generated story" is all about the stuff that I chose to matter for my PC and that has been unfolding resulting from my action declarations - then that's just the "standard narrativistic model" - the GM has been framing scenes by "going where the action is", and the result is the continuous unfolding of those events.

If the "bigger GM-generated story" is something the GM planned in advance, then how has this been done while _each individual scene is framed such that it mattered to my character_. How did the GM know what would matter to my character as the campaign unfolded, and what choices I would make?



hawkeyefan said:


> let's go back to the Vader/Luke example. The player has indicated a mystery in his character's lineage and that he wants to examine that as part of play. The GM has come up with a Galactic Empire threat that he feels would be a cool story to examine, along with a major NPC villain tied to this Empire. The players haven't shown strong interest in the Empire storyline....they seem more interested in smuggling aboard the Millenium Falcon than in a battle between good and evil. So the Empire will be a foil, but only in that it will be the existing power structure that may cause complications for smugglers rather than an opponent of heroes in a rebellion.
> 
> So the PCs are more interested in avoiding the Empire rather than opposing them. I would think this an important distinction that would very much determine the thrust of the campaign, and the two would be very different.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> would you say that if the GM decided to put forth his NPC as a strong contender to be the PC's father, then that may hook the players into being a bit more interested in the Empire, and then as a result, the campaign might shift from avoiding the Empire to opposing the Empire? Would you say this is a bad thing, no matter what? Would you say the players would recognize this "force" without fail? Or would you consider this a marriage of the player's desire and the GM's desire?



From my point of view, the scenario you describe at the end could play out in so many different ways, and all those different ways involve nuance.

Just to give an illustration of what I mean: at a certain point in the OP game I introduced the dark naga, because (i) one player had established, as a Belief for his shaman/spirit-binding PC, something about visions of a dark force rising in the land, and (ii) another player had brought a snake-handling shaman into play, and (iii) earlier in the campaign the PCs had had a rewarding encounter with a friendly naga guarding a desert oasis.

This is a little bit like your example, in that I'm dropping something in which is my conception of what might be interesting in the context of the campaign and the players' signalled preferences. But it's hard to know, until one tries it, whether or not it will get uptake or just be a small blip which ends up going nowhere (eg the snake-handler isn't that interested in magical spirit snakes; the player who wrote the belief about a dark force had something quite different in mind). As it happens the naga did generate uptake, and so has been solidified as an element in the campaign (although its deeper in-fiction ramifications and historical and mystical significance are still all unknowns).

If the uptake had been weaker, and I kept going with it, I think the players could easily tell that I was pushing something I was keen on. (Maybe my GM will do that with his mumakils!) Is that good or bad? It depends so much on what form the pushing takes, whether or not the integrity of action declaration and resolution is respected, etc. Eg if the players have their PCs _kill_ the dark naga, that's a pretty clear thing, and ignoring or subverting that would be bad GMing - but also pretty evident. But if the players put up with the GM's soft spot for nagas or mumakils or evil imperial overlords, that just looks to me like give-and-take at the table. But also not involving any covert applications of force.

In the scenario you describe, the crunch point might be when the GM wants to centre the evil overlord via the parenthood claim, while the player experiences that as the GM trying to make his/her enthusiasm - which the players have been going along with in a reasonable way - into the front and centre of the campaign as that player is engaged with it. It seems to me that that could be a good way to wreck a game! - in the same sort of neighbourhood (though slightly different details) as Luke Crane's examples of killing off the person the PC is sworn to protect in the first session, or bringing the wife back to life without the player getting to experience that as the final conclusion of the character's quest.

Which goes back to what I posted upthread - I think these sorts of misjudgements, about what will or won't work in terms of framing and consequences, are the real "pressure points" for "story now" GMing. Not illusionism, because the player can tell what the GM is doing by watching the GM do it ("There's that Darth Vader/mumakil/dark naga _again_!"), but making the wrong call about "where the action is".


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## pemerton

Ron Edwards once made this post about authority over the content of the fiction, and scene-framing - and it seems relevant to this thread:

*Content authority* - over what we're calling back-story, e.g. whether Sam is a KGB mole, or which NPC is boinking whom

*Plot authority* - over crux-points in the knowledge base at the table - now is the time for a revelation! - typically, revealing content, although notice it can apply to player-characters' material as well as GM material - and look out, because within this authority lies the remarkable pitfall of wanting (for instances) revelations and reactions to apply precisely to players as they do to characters

*Situational authority* - over who's there, what's going on - scene framing would be the most relevant and obvious technique-example, or phrases like "That's when I show up!" from a player

*Narrational authority* - how it happens, what happens - I'm suggesting here that this is best understood as a feature of resolution (including the entirety of IIEE), and not to mistake it for describing what the castle looks like, for instance; I also suggest it's far more shared in application than most role-players realize . . .

There is no overlap between those four types of authority. They are four distinct phenomena. 

Do they have causal relationships among one another? Of course. The easiest version is top-down reductionist: because content is consulted, a plot authority decision is made, and then a situational authority decision/presentation must be made, and finally narrational authority must be exercised. I assume that for you, this is the most easy and familiar construction, and you're used to conducting them (or at least constructing them, idealistically speaking) as a single causal sequence in this order, with one person in charge - it's a "thing," perhaps _the _thing you call GMing. . . .

*The real point, not the side-point, is that any one of these authorities can be shared across the individuals playing without violating the other authorities.* . . .

in the Jasmine game . . . I had a bunch of NPCs. Whatever happened, I'd play them, which is to say, I'd decide what they did and said. You should see that I simply gave up the reins of "how the story will go" (plot authority) entirely. . . .

in the Jasmine game, I scene-framed . . . That's my _job_ as GM in playing The Pool. By the rules, players can narrate outcomes to conflict rolls, but they can't start new scenes. But I totally gave up authority over the "top" level, plot authority. I let that become an emergent property of the other two levels: again, me with full authority over situation (scene framing), and the players and I sharing authority over narrational authority, which provided me with cues, in the sense of no-nonsense instructions, regarding later scene framing. 

And similarly, like situational authority, content authority was left entirely to my seat at the table. There was no _way_ for a player's narration to clash with the back-story. All of the player narrations concerned _plot_ authority, like the guy's mask coming off in my hypothetical example above, or in the case of the Jasmine game, the one suitor becoming a popular rather than sinister guy through his actions. . . .

That's a Trollbabe technique that is specifically permitted by the rules [eg "in an interrogation scene, a player might be able to say, 'I want to roll to find out what his connection to the mafia is,' and if he is successful, then the victim of the interrogation is involved in the mafia, period"], which is to say, the GM is bound by the rules of the game to add elements into the back-story, continually, based on the conflicts that the players bring into it. If the players don't _want_ to do any such thing, they frame no such conflicts in this manner, and if they do, well, the GM's job is to cope. . . .

But note - that is a _technique_ of a specific game, and not even a required one within it. It does not exist in The Pool's rules, and in fact, is defined out of them given the rules that are there. . . .

You gave him [a player whom the GM found disruptive] narrational authority ("describe how you're involved") and he took situational authority ("am I or am I not involved"). That's all there is to that story, right there. . . .



			
				poster to whom Edwards is replying said:
			
		

> when I'm looking forward to some scene or some revelation or plot twist, everything becomes boring until we get there, so I am not really interacting with the players--I'm just trying to shut everything down so we can get to the next bit. The players feel lost, everyone gets bored and/or frustrated.
> 
> In games where the players have the power to contribute as authors, they can do this as well. Although in games with distributed authority no one can fully railroad the game, anyone can still withdraw from play by hoping to see their vision come out on top of anyone else's.


Well, let's look at this again. Actually, I think it has nothing at all to do with distributed authority, but rather with the group members' shared trust that situational authority is going to get exerted for maximal enjoyment among everyone. If, for example, we are playing a game in which I, alone, have full situational authority, and if everyone is confident that I will use that authority to get to stuff they want (for example, taking suggestions), then all is well. Or if we are playing a game in which we do "next person to the left frames each scene," and if that confidence is just as shared, around the table, that each of us will get to the stuff that others want (again, suggestions are accepted), then all is well.

It's not the distributed or not-distributed aspect of situational authority you're concerned with, it's your trust at the table, as a group, that your situations in the S[hared] I[maginary] S[pace] are worth anyone's time. Bluntly, you guys ought to work on that.​
In the "standard narrativistic model", the GM has full situational authority. But authority over content is distributed - eg the players, in building their PCs, establish elements of backstory (eg the existence of groups they belong to, allies and rivals, etc). And the GM is obliged to make this player-authored stuff part of the game, ie part of the framed scenes.

Narrational authority belongs to the player in declaring his/her PC's action, but shifts to the GM in the event of failures, while remaining at least in part with the player in the event of success (eg at a minimum the PC has got something of what s/he was hoping for); and these exercises of narrational authority establish new material ("consequences") that, again the GM is expected to incorporate (via situational authority) into new situations.

If the GM is usurping narrational authority around action declaration or consequences of success; or is disregarding the obligations that govern his/her use of situational authority, including the duty to have regard to player exercises of content authority and narrational authority; that will be evident. (Hence, as I've said, no illusionism.)

If the GM doesn't do any of the stuff in the previous paragraph, but nevertheless includes stuff that wouldn't have been there but for the GM wanting it to be there (eg Darth Vader, a dark naga, a renegade elf, [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s war of orcs vs hobgoblins) then we might have a great game!

But if the GM is not exercising his/her narrational and situational authority well - no one is interested in the consequences, the scenes fall flat, etc - then the game is not delivering "story now". Whether or not people keep going along with it (which is a purely social matter, nothing to do with RPGing as such) it's going to be a failure from the "story now" point of view. And that failure won't be secret either - "falling flat" with an audience (the players) isn't something that can happen without the players noticing.


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## pemerton

hawkeyefan said:


> Sorry to take so long to get back on this.



No worries.



hawkeyefan said:


> I think that the methods you are describing, divorced from mechanics that support them, can be applied in a general way to just about any RPG. Would you agree with that? You said that Story Now is not dependent on mechanics, so is that what you meat? That Story Now elements can be used in any game?



In the abstract, yes, but I think some games will push back in various ways.

First, I think you are taking a RPG to be defined by its action resolution mechanics and its PC build mechanics. But most RPGs also include GMing advice. Consider AD&D's GMing advice (whether Gygax's original advice or the rather different 2nd ed advice), for instance: running AD&D in a "story now" fashion will require ignoring the bulk of that advice.

Second, not all RPGs have devices for signalling by way of PC build. Again in relation to AD&D, I've stressed this as a contrast between OA (PC gen that yields thematically-laden PCs pretty tightly bound into an evocative setting) and trad AD&D (PC gen that tends to yield PCs with few or no hooks - thieves being the obvious exception for the main classes, and perhaps some of the more boutique classes like paladins and monks - but an all-thief party is far more likely than an all-paladin or all-monk party!). The same contrast can be drawn between RM (detailed PC building that is player-driven, allowing signals to be sent) vs RQ (much more Traveller-style simulationist random rolling in PC build, so that the build of the PC doesn't necessarily tell us much about what the player wants out of the game).

In my 4e game, I required each player, in building his/her PC at 1st level, to include in the PC's backstory (i) a reason to be ready to fight goblins, and (ii) a loyalty. These kickstarted the game and have generally remained important (whether in original or developed/mutated forms) throughout the campaign. That is something I added to 4e.

Third, action resolution mechanics can cause issues. RM, for instance, doesn't remotely support "fail forward" - which means that consequences of failure can lead to scenes bogging down unresolved, which is the nemesis of "story now" play. In my experience, the practical solution is that players gravitate towards spell users, who have the capabilities (via their magic) to overcome these moments of bogging down. RM's healing rules are also a big issue. As I posted upthread, I think 5e's "bounded accuracy" might be a source of problems, making success rather random relative to the commitments expressed via PC build and play (because anyone can succeed _and_ anyone can fail).

Fourth, some systems give players very powerful scene-reframing abilities (divination, teleportation, starships in Traveller, mind-control spells or diplomancy, etc) which mean that instead of the GM's scenes provoking choices which speak to the themes of the campaign, the players are incentivised to squib on the scenes by reframing them. Which, in fiction, makes sense - why _wouldn't_ a rational person just cast _charm monster_ on the giant king? or use _commune_ to solve the mystery? - but at the table deflates the drama.

Of D&D editions, my feeling is that 3E is probably the least hospitable to "story now" RPGing because of issues (2), (3) and (4): very generic PC building, and with the potentially interesting stuff like prestige classes (i) watered down thematically from what they might be, and (ii) strongly gated behind GM discretions; action resolution that is almost the antithesis of "fail forward" and very strongly favours expedient choices, often bleeds over the boundaries of "scenes", and is often rather intricate to boot but without that intricacy correlating very strongly to in-fiction elements of the situation; and, combining with the previous stuff, many powerful player-side scene-reframing abilities.


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Fourth, some systems give players very powerful scene-reframing abilities (divination, teleportation, starships in Traveller, mind-control spells or diplomancy, etc) which mean that instead of the GM's scenes provoking choices which speak to the themes of the campaign, the players are incentivised to squib on the scenes by reframing them. Which, in fiction, makes sense - why _wouldn't_ a rational person just cast _charm monster_ on the giant king? or use _commune_ to solve the mystery? - but at the table deflates the drama.



Interesting to read this from you, as up till now you've been advocating for player agency all the way and yet the things in the game that most bend toward player agency - these spells and abilities that give them the option of reframing or skipping or twisting or ignoring scenes - you here seem to be saying are bad.

The trick for the DM, of course, is that in a system that has these things available to the characters she has to frame her scenes (and design her plots, if she's driving) with them somewhat in mind.  Further, she has to have answers ready for when the divination hammer gets wielded...or the scrying hammer, for all that.

Teleportation or other forms of quick long-range travel are often a godsend to me as DM, in that characters can get from point A to far-away point B without spending a few months travelling (and, of course, getting into every bit of trouble they possibly can along the way) if they so desire, and are willing to accept the risk.

As for "PC build" (that very term annoys me, for some reason), while detailed backgrounds etc. can be fun they're not 100% essential.  One could (and I probably would, were I ever to play in a game like this) bring in a somewhat generic character*, see what the story is and where it's going, then in-character latch on to some elements within it and make those my thematic concerns while at the same time letting my backstory in effect write itself.  In other words, I'm willing to fit myself into the game world rather than expecting it to fit itself to me.

* - generic as regards background, stat rolls, etc. but not as regards personality or "character" - it'll have loads of that! 

One other way that hasn't been really mentioned yet in which I'm guessing your type of system varies from what I'm used to is character mortality, or lack thereof.  One reason I never want to bother with long backgrounds etc. for my characters is that I'm fully aware they have less than a half-chance of surviving their first adventure (at least the way I play 'em, poor things), thus making all that work a waste of time and effort.  As both player and DM I see adventuring as an extremely dangerous business where casualties - while unfortunate - are an accepted and expected fact of life.  

From the gamist side, I thus also expect character generation to be fast and reasonably simple as I'll probably be going through the process more than once. 

I'll happily do up some sort of formal background once a character's been around for a few adventures, though by then I've usually role-played my way into some sort of assumed or informal background info anyway.

I'll hazard a guess that in your system character death is rare to non-existent.  

Lan-"let's go adventuring, and make sure there's less of us when we get back"-efan


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> up till now you've been advocating for player agency all the way



No. I haven't used the phrase "player agency" at all. I've talked about "player-drvein" RPGing and I've explained pretty clearly (I hope) and at pretty great length what I mean by that, with reference to actual play examples, the text from Burning Wheel, and Eero Tuovinen's account of the "standard narrativistic model".

Here is that latter one again:

One of the players is a gamemaster whose job it is to keep track of the backstory, frame scenes according to dramatic needs (that is, go where the action is) and provoke thematic moments . . . by introducing complications.

The rest of the players each have their own characters to play. . . . they naturally allow the character’s interests to come through based on what they imagine of the character’s nature and background. Then they let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants.

[O]nce the players have established concrete characters, situations and backstory . . . the GM starts framing scenes for the player characters. Each scene is an interesting situation in relation to the premise of the setting or the character . . . The GM describes a situation that provokes choices on the part of the character. The player is ready for this, as he knows his character and the character’s needs, so he makes choices on the part of the character. This in turn leads to consequences as determined by the game’s rules. Story is an outcome of the process as choices lead to consequences which lead to further choices, until all outstanding issues have been resolved and the story naturally reaches an end.​
The player is responsible for building a PC with dramatic needs that hook the GM; the GM is responsible for "going where the action is", that is, framing scenes that force dramatic, thematically significant choices.

Player-side scene-reframing abilities (eg teleportation; diplomancy, and a similar sort of approach to adjudicating perceptions/searching; certain types of divination) are an obstacle to achieving this sort of play, because instead of engaging the situation they let the players squib.



Lanefan said:


> The trick for the DM, of course, is that in a system that has these things available to the characters she has to frame her scenes (and design her plots, if she's driving) with them somewhat in mind.  Further, she has to have answers ready for when the divination hammer gets wielded...or the scrying hammer, for all that.



I'm not saying that games with those sorts of abilities are unplayable. But they're going to tend to drift away from "story now" play, into something more like exploratory RPGing.



Lanefan said:


> while detailed backgrounds etc. can be fun they're not 100% essential.  One could (and I probably would, were I ever to play in a game like this) bring in a somewhat generic character*, see what the story is and where it's going, then in-character latch on to some elements within it and make those my thematic concerns while at the same time letting my backstory in effect write itself.  In other words, I'm willing to fit myself into the game world rather than expecting it to fit itself to me.



If by "game like this" you mean a "story now" game, then you can't start with a character who has no motivations or dramatic needs. There has to be something to hook the GM.

(Detailed background is not very important. Character motivation and connection into the gameworld - relatonships, affiliations/loyalties, etc - are what matter, as these drive the character, and thus give the GM something to latch on to.)



Lanefan said:


> As both player and DM I see adventuring as an extremely dangerous business where casualties - while unfortunate - are an accepted and expected fact of life.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I'll hazard a guess that in your system character death is rare to non-existent.



The systems I am GMing at the moment - 4e, BW, Cortex/MHRP - don't tend to produce a high degree of PC death. (Although others have different experiences of 4e.)


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## innerdude

The real issue is this: the only things that AREN'T a GM judgment call are A) PC action declarations that are B) tied to a specific mechanical resolution / effect spelled out in RAW. 

Everything else in an RPG is, by its very nature, a GM judgment call. Or if not an outright GM judgment call, are at the very least facts or truths about the game world that are negotiated and agreed upon by the group as a whole, with the GM having final say. Even the most story-telling of storytelling games must have SOMEONE who is the final arbiter about what is true or not about the fiction. In RPGs we recognize that role as belonging to the GM. The games we recognize as RPGs largely cease to function without that being case. 

GMs make and execute judgment calls by the dozens during every minute of play. How far apart were the two combatants at the start of the combat? GM's call. Which enemies on a shared initiative order move first? GM's call. Which spells and abilities will Monster X use this round? GM's call. Can that stretch of forest be traversed in less than five hours, or must it take longer? GM's call. How would Missus NPC Y respond to the PC's last statement? GM's call. 

Let's say a GM has to make between 5 and 15 discrete judgment calls per minute played in a session. In a typical 4-hour session, that GM is making anywhere from 1,200 to 3,600 judgment calls every single session. And yes, any one of those thousands of judgment calls could be used to "railroad" at any time. 

The only thing that differentiates one judgment call from another is the intent---to what intent is a judgment call made? Is it to carry out the most "realistic," plausible result, based on the GM's understanding of the world? To create a cool event in the story? To give more freedom to the players to create their own cool event in the story? To frame a new element of the fiction to which future PC action declarations can be applied? 

Or is it to ensure a particular outcome is reached, regardless of declared action intent and results of the roll? This is the most obvious, egregious example of "railroading," but can "railroading" become an aspect within any of the other intents? Of course. 

And sometimes that's okay. Sometimes it's okay to throw in something the GM thinks is cool, or fun, just because it appeals to the GM. Must the GM's desires be so completely subsumed to those of his players that this isn't an option? I would hope not. Can a GM re-imagine on the fly some element of backstory that suddenly brings to life something happening in the present for the PCs? Of course. 

But intent matters. It matters a lot. 

In a sense, I find the notion of "secret backstory" to be unhelpful. Of course there's some secret backstory ---- not everything about the world is known by the characters, and that's as it should be. None of us knows everything about our own world's "secret backstory" either. RPGs are unique in the regard that "secret backstory" is totally mutable based on the GM's ideas and suppositions. As it's been used in this thread, secret backstory would be more accurately defined as "world domain knowledge implemented specifically with the intent to force PCs and players to adhere to certain actions so as to ensure a specified result." And yes, it's definitely a form of railroading. 

Yet to me, creating elements of the world that define and drive the current action, give it color and texture, and present opportunities for the players to engage in conflict are not "secret backstory." Yet the term "secret backstory" seems to conflate this with its more manipulative adjunct.

Railroading is the product of GM judgment calls made for a specific intent. It is a trend, or pattern of GM judgment calls that manipulatively subvert player and PC intent in play, and do so in a way that fails to serve the group's stated and unstated social contract. If your group's social contract specifically forbids a GM from using judgment calls to subvert player and PC intent, regardless of whether it would be "cool" or "make for a good story," then that's between your GM and his/her group.


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## pemerton

innerdude said:


> I find the notion of "secret backstory" to be unhelpful. Of course there's some secret backstory ---- not everything about the world is known by the characters, and that's as it should be. None of us knows everything about our own world's "secret backstory" either. RPGs are unique in the regard that "secret backstory" is totally mutable based on the GM's ideas and suppositions. As it's been used in this thread, secret backstory would be more accurately defined as "world domain knowledge implemented specifically with the intent to force PCs and players to adhere to certain actions so as to ensure a specified result." And yes, it's definitely a form of railroading.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Yet the term "secret backstory" seems to conflate this with its more manipulative adjunct.



I can't speak to how anyone else is using the notion of "secret backstory", but I'm the one who introduced the phrase into the thread, and I've made it clear what I mean by it: the GM resolving player action declarations for their PCs by reference to fictional positioning that the players aren't aware of. (Eg you look for a secret door and fail, because the GM's notes already spell out all the architecture of the building.)

There are some approaches to RPGing - eg classic dungeoncrawling - where the use of secret backstory in this fashion is essential. And the point of play, from the player side of things, includes as a significant component _learning what is in the GM's notes_ - mapping the dungeon, learning the rumours, identifying where the treasures are, etc.

"Secret backstory", in this sense, is inherently not mutable. (It may be authored on-the-fly - via random tables, or exercises of judgement - but it's not mutable.) It's non-mutability is essential to it being something that the players can learn.

Luke Crane has made the following criticism of Cook/Marsh Expert as opposed to Moldvay Basic D&D:

[T]he beautiful economy of Moldvay's basic rules are rapidly undermined by the poorly implemented ideas of the Expert set. . . .

This game . . . is built to explore dungeons. As soon it moves away from puzzle-solving and exploration, the experience starts to fray. There are precious few levers for the players to pull once their out of their element. . . .

[T]he involution rapidly begins as they try to make D&D do more and more. Expert sense strains credibility. Companion, Master and Immortal are a series of poorly implemented ideas. . . .

[W]hile the original designers may have wanted an inclusive and expansive design, their best rules focused on underground exploration and stealing treasure. Moldvay brushes away the caked up sand like an archeologist and shows the true beauty of the artifact. Or, more accurately, Moldvay does a fine job editing the rules down to their core game and evoking the brilliance of the original design.

The Basic D&D line is a product line. As you know, each successive product attempted to reintegrate into the game the features you note present in the earliest editions. My assertion is that none of those rules were as well-designed or well-supported as those for the core activity of dungeon crawling. . . .

I understand that the designers may have thought their game could do anything. I understand they may have wanted to bend it to a variety of circumstances, but in truth their design had narrow application. It does most things poorly, and a few things exceedingly well​
In the context of "secret backstory" - once the imagined world of play becomes a _world_ rather than a (contrived) dungeon, the capacity for the players to learn the backstory, and to exploit via meaningful choices, reduces rapidly; while at the same time the need for the GM to make it up on the fly increases, and ability of the GM to remember it all and factor it into resolution reduces. So instead of the puzzle-game of Moldvay Basic the game turns into "setting/story tourism", where the players - via action declarations for their PCs - get to learn what the GM's unfolding vision of the fictional world is.



innerdude said:


> creating elements of the world that define and drive the current action, give it color and texture, and present opportunities for the players to engage in conflict are not "secret backstory."



Well if they're defining and driving the current action, they don't seem secret, and hence are not secret backstory.

If they are chosen by the GM by reference to his/her concerns and vision for things, then I would call it a GM-driven game. If they are chosen by the GM by reference to the players' evinced concerns and visions for things (in the ways, upthread, I've quoted Eero Tuovinen and Luke Crane explaining), then I would call it player-driven.



innerdude said:


> the only things that AREN'T a GM judgment call are A) PC action declarations that are B) tied to a specific mechanical resolution / effect spelled out in RAW.



I'm not sure what you mean by (B).

A 3E D&D GM can, at least in principle, respond to the declaration "I cast a spell" with "As you try and cast, a great wind whips up - make a casting check." That's a judgement call; so, presumably, is its absence.

A GM running a scene-framed-style game doesn't have quite the same freedom of declaration for the fiction: introducing new elements of the fiction _subsequent to framing and declaration but prior to resolution_ is contrary to the spirit of those games. _If the check to cast fails_, then the GM can narrate the failure as resulting from a wind gust if s/he wants. (A corollary - a scene-framed, "say 'yes' or roll the dice" game needs all action declarations to require checks, so that there is the in-principle possibility of failure.)



innerdude said:


> Even the most story-telling of storytelling games must have SOMEONE who is the final arbiter about what is true or not about the fiction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Sometimes it's okay to throw in something the GM thinks is cool, or fun, just because it appeals to the GM.



These comments seem to be presented as disagreements, but who is the disagreement with?

As to the first: that arbiter can be GM (gets to establish the framing), player (gets to establish elements of PC backstory), or one-or-the other as the dice dictate (on a success thinks play out as the player intended for his/her PC; on failure the GM gets to narrate the consequences). For some genre-level stuff (is it permissible to look for secret doors in trees on the grounds that faeries might make them, or is that too silly for our game?) group consensus is a further means.

As to the second, GMs introduce elements into the fiction all the time because they think it will be fun: I've talked upthread about my predilection for demons and undead (known to my players), and about my BW GM's fondness for elves (which manifested in our first session). In an of itself that has nothing to do with railroading. To requote from the OP:



pemerton said:


> By _railroading_ I mean the GM shaping outcomes to fit a pre-conceived narrative.



That my PC meets an elf isn't an outcome. It's a starting point, a moment of framing. The outcome is that the elf declines my request that he and his soldiers accompany me to my ancestral estate. And (on this occasion of play) that outcome didn't result from the GM shaping things - it was the result of an application (at my request) of the social resolution mechanics to the situation.


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## innerdude

For the record, @_*pemerton*_, I lean much more on the side that player-driven play is more satisfactory than GM-story, "scene tourism" play. 

My real point was that in thinking about the base premise, or conflict presented in the OP, the core of the issue is that "All railroading is a GM judgment call," but "Not all judgment calls are railroading." 

My other point was that GMs have to make literally _thousands_ of micro-judgment calls in every session of play---to say nothing of the other thousands of judgment calls made during game prep. This is part of the great challenge of being a competent, successful GM. You are forced to inhabit a creative space that requires constant mental input and decision-making, and asks you to do so while creating semantic/logical/conceptual connections between hundreds of "idea threads." 

The reason I think you've been getting pushback from some responders, @_*pemerton*_, is that they are not seeing the division, or separation, from what you call "scene framing" and the other kinds of judgment calls a GM is forced to make. And truthfully, even though I'm a proponent of avoiding "secret backstory" and "scene tourism" (having been subjected to it by our GM for over a year now in my current Savage Worlds game), I can easily see how many would simply throw up their hands and say, "Well pretty much EVERYTHING is a GM judgment call, so where the heck do you draw the line? If a GM wants something to happen, or wants to steer the action in the fiction, he or she pretty much can at any time, through any number of small, minute judgment calls."

Your real point in all of this is (I think) to show that player-driven play is an antidote, or obvious antithesis to railroading, because when players are allowed to put their PCs' concerns/drives front and center to the action, the GM becomes much more limited in their ability to negate or subvert that intent. 

You're advocating for a change mindset for the GM, primarily. A GM should no longer assume that their "secret backstory" and expectation that players will engage with it (scene tourism) is enough. Instead, they should be considering how their game addresses the expectations/desires being expressed by the players, and "framing" the action to address those concerns. 

And it's no surprise to me that there are some (like @_*Lanefan*_) who simply disagree, because in their experience, player exploration of a GM's world/creation has provided a (more than) sufficient experience. Trying to frame PC needs/desires forcefully into the action has not been something they've expected their GM to do---nor would they necessarily want them to.

One other side note: Though I'm in wholly in favor of player-driven, scene-framed play, we really should stop presenting the notion that the final "say" in determining what is true in the fiction is in the player's hands, or even determined by fortune/mechanics. That's simply a false notion. In all circumstances, ever, if a GM says, "No, that's not so," then it's not so. HARD STOP.

Now, in my case I would prefer the GM to be exceptionally open and accommodating, be willing to nigh bend over backwards to ensure the players' desires could be met. But at the end of the day, the GM is the one in control. If the GM says "Sorry, that doesn't work, come up with something else," throws out the rules, ignores dice rolls, or changes the "hidden backstory" . . . it's their prerogative. 

Admittedly, I think you and I (and likely most players) would probably HATE playing in a game where a GM acted that way, and we would be very up front and transparent about what our expectations for play actually were. 

But for RPGs to work at all, when there is a disagreement, there has to be a single, final arbiter, because otherwise it leads to instances where something is both true and untrue in the fiction---the version in the player's head, and the version in the GM's head. And this WILL lead to total breakdown in play, because now the player is making action intents/declaration based on information that is categorically incorrect, and the GM will have no basis with which to judge outcomes, because the premise of the declared intent does not match the situation as conceived by the GM.

Side Note B, i.e., "Things That Aren't GM Judgment Calls": I was more thinking in terms of any individual, discrete action/fortune check that has a prescribed effect in the rules. A "Spot" check in 3e states that once a GM makes a judgment call for a DC, any PC who meets or exceeds the DC is able to "spot" whatever needed "spotting"; a player whose attack roll meets or exceeds the armor class of an enemy is then specifically allowed to make a following damage roll to reduce the enemy's hit points; a player whose initiative roll is higher than an enemy's is specifically proscribed to act before the enemy, etc. etc.


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## Lanefan

innerdude said:


> The reason I think you've been getting pushback from some responders, @_*pemerton*_, is that they are not seeing the division, or separation, from what you call "scene framing" and the other kinds of judgment calls a GM is forced to make. And truthfully, even though I'm a proponent of avoiding "secret backstory" and "scene tourism" (having been subjected to it by our GM for over a year now in my current Savage Worlds game), I can easily see how many would simply throw up their hands and say, "Well pretty much EVERYTHING is a GM judgment call, so where the heck do you draw the line? If a GM wants something to happen, or wants to steer the action in the fiction, he or she pretty much can at any time, through any number of small, minute judgment calls."



This is pretty much what I've been trying to say for some time, only you put it into better words. 



> Your real point in all of this is (I think) to show that player-driven play is an antidote, or obvious antithesis to railroading, because when players are allowed to put their PCs' concerns/drives front and center to the action, the GM becomes much more limited in their ability to negate or subvert that intent.
> 
> You're advocating for a change mindset for the GM, primarily. A GM should no longer assume that their "secret backstory" and expectation that players will engage with it (scene tourism) is enough. Instead, they should be considering how their game addresses the expectations/desires being expressed by the players, and "framing" the action to address those concerns.
> 
> And it's no surprise to me that there are some (like @_*Lanefan*_) who simply disagree, because in their experience, player exploration of a GM's world/creation has provided a (more than) sufficient experience. Trying to frame PC needs/desires forcefully into the action has not been something they've expected their GM to do---nor would they necessarily want them to.



More or less, yes.

I don't see - and don't want to see - my character and-or the party as a whole as any sort of special snowflake within either the game world or the table world.  I neither expect nor want the DM to alter her world to suit any one character or party; I instead want the game world to just be what it is, and to be presented the same whether I'm playing a kill-'em-all brawler (no clear goals or morals) or a virtuous knight (always looking for a noble cause to champion) or a fussy wizard with sibling rivalry issues (internally-focused, lots of angst and drama).  Why is this important?  Because in the same campaign it's entirely possible I'll play all three of these (or other equally-diverse characters) at some point, and I certainly don't expect the DM to change up how the campaign or its world is presented or "framed" every time I switch characters.

I also assume (usually correctly) that our party are not the only adventurers out there; and that there's always a bigger fish.  Again, we're not special.  An analogy: there's 32 teams in the NFL and even though I might only care about (and know much about) one of them I can't deny the existence of the other 31; while my team might be special to me it's just one of many from an outside perspective.  The party's the same.



> But for RPGs to work at all, when there is a disagreement, there has to be a single, final arbiter, because otherwise it leads to instances where something is both true and untrue in the fiction---the version in the player's head, and the version in the GM's head. And this WILL lead to total breakdown in play, because now the player is making action intents/declaration based on information that is categorically incorrect, and the GM will have no basis with which to judge outcomes, because the premise of the declared intent does not match the situation as conceived by the GM.



This is something else I was trying to get at, a few months and a lot of pages ago.   You can't do this stuff by committee and keep it internally consistent over the long run, if only because committees are made up of individuals each of whom has a voice and in theory has ideas on what should happen next - or what should have happened last.

Lan-"and the first person who even thinks about putting story disagreements to a vote gets slapped with a wet fish"-efan


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## pemerton

innerdude said:


> "All railroading is a GM judgment call," but "Not all judgment calls are railroading."



Yes. I said this in the OP, in the context of describing a GM judgement call that was not railroading.



innerdude said:


> we really should stop presenting the notion that the final "say" in determining what is true in the fiction is in the player's hands, or even determined by fortune/mechanics. That's simply a false notion. In all circumstances, ever, if a GM says, "No, that's not so," then it's not so. HARD STOP.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> "Things That Aren't GM Judgment Calls": I was more thinking in terms of any individual, discrete action/fortune check that has a prescribed effect in the rules. A "Spot" check in 3e states that once a GM makes a judgment call for a DC, any PC who meets or exceeds the DC is able to "spot" whatever needed "spotting"; a player whose attack roll meets or exceeds the armor class of an enemy is then specifically allowed to make a following damage roll to reduce the enemy's hit points; a player whose initiative roll is higher than an enemy's is specifically proscribed to act before the enemy, etc. etc.



I don't see how both these claims can be true. If the GM has the power to override anything, than she can choose to ignore the outcomes of attack rolls, initiative rolls, etc. And thus choosing not to do so is itself a judgement call.

But in fact I don't agree that the GM has the power to override anything. Upthread I've already quoted the rules text from BW which states that (i) dice rolls are sacrosanct, and (ii) if a check succeeds then the player's intent is realised (BW Gold p 300:

If the successes equal or exceed the obstacle, the character has succeeded in his goal - he achieved his intent and completed the task.

This is important enough to say again: Characters who are successful complete actions in the manner described by the player. A successful roll is sacrosanct in Burning Wheel and neither GM nor other players can change the fact that the act was successful. The GM may only embellish or reinforce a successful ability test.​
If a GM wants to ignore that rule, that's like a player ignoring some rule of the game (eg in PC building). The question at that point becomes a social one - will the rest of the group tolerate or even embrace the rulebreaking - but there is no sanction or succour to be found in the game itself.



innerdude said:


> GMs have to make literally _thousands_ of micro-judgment calls in every session of play---to say nothing of the other thousands of judgment calls made during game prep. This is part of the great challenge of being a competent, successful GM. You are forced to inhabit a creative space that requires constant mental input and decision-making, and asks you to do so while creating semantic/logical/conceptual connections between hundreds of "idea threads."
> 
> The reason I think you've been getting pushback from some responders, @_*pemerton*_, is that they are not seeing the division, or separation, from what you call "scene framing" and the other kinds of judgment calls a GM is forced to make. And truthfully, even though I'm a proponent of avoiding "secret backstory" and "scene tourism" (having been subjected to it by our GM for over a year now in my current Savage Worlds game), I can easily see how many would simply throw up their hands and say, "Well pretty much EVERYTHING is a GM judgment call, so where the heck do you draw the line? If a GM wants something to happen, or wants to steer the action in the fiction, he or she pretty much can at any time, through any number of small, minute judgment calls."



Yes, I know that people are saying that. But they're not providing actual examples. It's conjecture, or perhaps extrapolation from experience where the GM was routinely adjudicating resolution by appeal to secret backstory.

I'll go back to the example of the orc encounter. Nothing in my characters' Beliefs or Instincts invokes orcs as an element of play. Thurgon's Belifes are about his god, his order, his family and his companion. His Instincts are about praying, protecting his companion, and maintaining the campfire. Aramina's Beliefs are about her wealth/status, her companion, and fire. Her Instincts are about her cloak, strangers, and spell casting.

So when my GM frames us into an encounter with orcs - as a consequence of a failed check to search a ruined homestead - it is evident that the enthusiasm for orcs is his. There is no illusion, nor any "steering" via "small, minute judgement calls". Likewise when the elves turn up.

Conversely, when the orcs threaten Aramina, that _is_ the GM engaging my evinced concerns for Thurgon - both a Belief and an Instinct. And when, as a player - following Luke Crane's description of my "sacred and most holy role" - I took the opportunity to inject my evinced concerns into the elf situation by trying to persuade the elf to accompany me to my family estate, the GM accepted my Duel of Wits and we resolved it. (I lost.)

The elements that are in the fiction because of the GM's interests are evident. The elements that are in the fiction because of my evinced interests as a player are evident. The resolution is in accordance with the system's mechanics. It simply makes no sense to posit the GM "secretly steering". It's like supposing that someone asking you to join him/her for coffee is trying to "secretly steer you" into a cafe! I mean, yes, they're putting that suggestion out there, but there's nothing covert about it!



innerdude said:


> Your real point in all of this is (I think) to show that player-driven play is an antidote, or obvious antithesis to railroading, because when players are allowed to put their PCs' concerns/drives front and center to the action, the GM becomes much more limited in their ability to negate or subvert that intent.
> 
> You're advocating for a change mindset for the GM, primarily. A GM should no longer assume that their "secret backstory" and expectation that players will engage with it (scene tourism) is enough. Instead, they should be considering how their game addresses the expectations/desires being expressed by the players, and "framing" the action to address those concerns.
> 
> And it's no surprise to me that there are some (like @_*Lanefan*_) who simply disagree, because in their experience, player exploration of a GM's world/creation has provided a (more than) sufficient experience. Trying to frame PC needs/desires forcefully into the action has not been something they've expected their GM to do---nor would they necessarily want them to.



I wouldn't say I'm _advocating_, in the sense that I don't think anyone who enjoys "settting/story tourism" RPGing has any reason to change.

But I am asserting that that's not the only option out there. I'm asserting that player-driven RPGing, of the sort I (and Luke Crane, and Eero Tuovinen, and Ron Edwards, and Paul Czege, and others) describe, is a real thing that really happens, with its own logic, associated techniques, etc.


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## pemerton

Lanefan said:


> You can't do this stuff by committee and keep it internally consistent over the long run



Most modern writing projects are done by committee. Is there any evidence that they're especially prone to inconsistencies over time?


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## Lanefan

pemerton said:


> Most modern writing projects are done by committee. Is there any evidence that they're especially prone to inconsistencies over time?



Writing projects, as in - ?

Books (fiction) - usually one author, sometimes two, rarely more - usually consistent
Books (reference) - often a bunch of people but heavily checked and rechecked for consistency (which we don't get time to do in a game session)
TV shows - often different writers for different episodes, and sometimes it's obvious (much more noticeable when binge-watching one episode after another) by the glaring inconsistencies
Movies - someone writes it, then it often gets rewritten in whole or in part, and often the more it's rewritten the worse it is for inconsistencies (usually manifesting as plot holes)
D&D Manuals - multiple authors these days, errors in consistency still slip through despite the editors' best attempts. 

And - nearly all writing projects are subjected to more or less intensive editing and proofreading before they hit the public eye.  During a game session this doesn't happen if for no other reason than the time it would take; so the committee has to go by best educated guess as to what is consistent.  A DM with a locked-in backstory and well-built world, on the other hand, pretty much knows what's consistent and what isn't even as it happens, whether it comes from herself or from a player.

Lan-"this post may or may not be internally consistent with a 12-horse Evinrude outboard motor"-efan


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## pemerton

I thought I would post about the session I played today, because it seems relevant to some of what has been discussed in this thread.

Thurgon and Aramina travelled north-west along the Ulek side of the Jewel River. The GM wanted to cut through a few days, bugt I insisted on playing out the first evening - Thurgon and Aramina debated what their destination should be (Aramina - being learned in Great Masters-wise, believes that the abandoned tower of Evard the Black lay somewhere in the forest on the north side of the river, and wants to check it out). Thurgon persuaded her that they could not do such a thing unless (i) she fixed his breastplate, and (ii) they found some information in the abandoned fortresses of his order which would indicate that the tower was, at least, superficially safe to seek out (eg not an orc fortress a la Angmar/Dol Guldur).

We then narrated through a few day's travel until we came to a ruined fortress of Thurgon's order. We boldly entered (Thurgon demonstrating his devotion to the Lord of Battle). The chapel showed signs of fire damage - a failed Fire-wise test, by Aramina aided by Thurgon, suggested that the fire came from a being able to melt granite (so a great dragon, or balrog, or archmage, or similar source of magical fire) - not the news one wants to get, and if/when we encounter this being Thurgon - conscious that it could melt his armour with ease - will also have a penalty to his Steel (= morale) check (a further consequence of the failed check).

Had the check succeeded, I don't know what more benign fact we might have discovered.

In the chapel we also noticed a trapdoor under the altar, which had been moved slightly. Thurgon looked around and attempted - via a History check - to recollect what he could of this fortress, but the check failed, and as he was looking about and wondering a bit of damaged masonry fell on him. The armour check failed, and he took a hard blow that broke ribs and inflicted a penalty that will probably last a couple of months unless he can find a good healer.

Despite the cracked ribs he was able to move the altar and lift up the trapdoor. He and Aramina went down, to find that beneath the chapel was a crypt, where a knight of the order - now reduced to a skeleton, but kept "alive" by his oath - had gone mad, and was insisting that Thurgon must stay with him to protect the dead from desecration. The GM was trying to goad me into attacking this mad skeleton, but Thurgon could not turn on one of his order, even one twisted in this fashion, and so we entered a Duel of Wits - the knight seeking Thurgon's compliance, Thurgon seeking information from the knight about what had happened in the chapel. Unfortunately for Thurgon the skeleton won the duel, with only a minor compromise required (to share knowledge with Thurgon after a year and a day) - and Thurgon's own last ditch effort to win the duel by calling for a Minor Miracle failed, leaving Thurgon swooing as visions of all the dead knights in the crypt impressed themselves upon his mind.

Aramina attempted to telekineses the skeleton's axe from him to her - and if she'd got it would probably then have started a fight with it! - but the attempt failed, and the skeletal knight shut her in the crypt with Thurgon. She roused Thurgon from his swoon, and the two then looked about the crypt as the skeletal knight returned to his seat. We found some books - a standard missal-type book, and a diary kept by the skeleton. From the latter we learned that he was on one side of some sort of schism in Thurgon's order, and that he had been stuck in the crypt with no food or water - hence his skeletal form!

The GM was goading for combat again - ie escalating the social conflict into martial conflict - but Thurgon was still not prepared to do this. So instead he first performed a ritual to honour the dead and lay them to rest (using the missal to help him) and then said a prayer of Purification to drive out the insanity from the skeleton. This was a hard roll, but succeeded - and the skeleton's insanity was driven out, his flesh regrew, and then he died (only a Major Miracle can return the dead to life). But Thurgon was released from the obligation to stay in the crypt.

Aramina made notes of the information about the schism in the order, and then we lay down the body of the dead knight with his diary as a head-rest, took the missal with us and left the crypt - realising when we came out that the altar had, at some earlier time, been moved over the trapdoor to stop this poor knight coming out; and moving it back into that position to ensure that no one, now, would go down and disturb the dead knights.

This session shows how mysteries can be introduced into the game - mysteries about what caused the fire, and the details of the schism in the order - without answers being necessary at this stage. (I'm sure the GM has ideas, but that's to be expected.) I don't know what would have happened if we'd been trapped in the crypt with the knight - the successful prayer could easily have failed! - but again I'm sure the GM had something in mind. But it didn't come into play, because the relevant action declarations ended up being successful.

I'm finding that quite small things, of little consequence for the universe (actual or in-game) as a whole, can take on a high degree of importance for me as a player when they matter to my PC, and I know that my own choices are what is bringing them to the fore and shaping them (eg repairing the armour; laying the dead to rest; not fighting the mad skeleton knight of my order). I'm not going to say that it's Vermeer: the RPG, but the stakes don't have to be cosmologically high in order to be personally high - provided that they really are at stake.


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