Rules, Rulings, and the Paradox of Choice

pemerton said:

At the core of this core is a very simple rule: if the outcome of the action resolution mechanics is such that an NPC or monster's hit point pool is reduced to 0 (in all editions but 3E) or below 0 (in 3E), then the GM is precluded from declaring actions for that antagonist. And this is the rule that, ultimately, players rely on to have their PCs achieve things via combat: a game-mechnically determined guarantee of finality to the resolution of conflict.

When we turn to the other domains, there are two notable features: first, with the exception of the skill challenge mechanic in 4e, there has never been a mechanic that players can leverage to achieve finality in conflict resolution: in exploration, for example, the GM has always been free to narrate that the weather changes, or that the door swings shut; and in social conflict, the GM has always been free to narrate that the NPC/monster changes its mind.

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Is this different than the GM having reinforcements show up after the last of the first batch finally fell to zero in combat? Or, can monsters fake being dropped to zero (can PCs)? What if monsters have the same death and healing rules as the PCs and one feeds the other a healing potion? And does a door swinging shut or a weather change alter what the characters have discovered or how far they've made it in their travels?

The combination of these two features is that players who want to be confident about the fates of their avatars typically have little reason not to bypass or escalate exploratory and social situations into combat ones. Because combat is the "pillar" in which the mechanics impose clear limits on the GM's power to stipulate the content of the fiction, and clearly confer on them a corresponding power (mediated via their action declarations for their PCs, and subsequent action resolution).

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I find this really interesting, because I don't think I've ever experienced a group passing on exploration or social situations to get to combat and the security of die rolling in over 30 years of playing with dozens of players and at least a dozen DMs. (Of course they have wanted their games to have combat... just like they've wanted them to have the social and the exploration.) Maybe it didn't bother us that something akin to a proto-skill challenge existed in the head of the DM, and not on the paper in front of him. And even if the skill challenge is written down, it is only visible to the GM... and there is nothing preventing a GM in any game from changing things on the fly if they think it benefits the game (well, except for doing it badly and losing ones players).

So I don't agree that the GM always has authority to break the rules - because I don't agree that the GM always has overriding authority to stipulate what is happening in the fiction.

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I'll ponder this last one from an earlier post a bit more though. I'm trying to think about what rules we've thought our DMs were under (or acted like they were under if we didn't think about it). Is this the answer to my two sets of questions and musings above?

Cadence said:

there is nothing preventing a GM in any game from changing things on the fly if they think it benefits the game (well, except for doing it badly and losing ones players)

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That's true in the same sense that there is nothing preventing a player lying about his/her dice rolls except for doing it badly and getting spotted and told off for cheating.

But I'm assuming that the participants in the game are following the rules - which they can't do if there are no rules.

Cadence said:

Or, can monsters fake being dropped to zero (can PCs)? What if monsters have the same death and healing rules as the PCs and one feeds the other a healing potion?

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These are corner cases that I considered mentioning in my post but decided not to. In AD&D and 4e it's pretty clear that monsters and NPCs don't typically benefit from the "death's door" rules. I assume that 3E goes the other way.

But in any event, an NPC feeding its friend a healing potion requires (i) being equipped with the potion, and (ii) spending the requisite actions in the action economy (to move next to the friend, administer the draught, etc).

Cadence said:

Is this different than the GM having reinforcements show up after the last of the first batch finally fell to zero in combat?

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I think it is different, although lines can become a little blurry.

As a general rule, I think reinforcements turning up falls under the scene-framing rules, not the action resolution rules. Either the reinforcements were factored into the original encounter build (and so are part of the challenge the PCs had to confront), or they are a new scene framed to follow on from the earlier one.

There are admittedly complexities: for example, reinforcements might be a complication introduced as part of action resolution within a challenge (eg the PCs try to knock out the security guard and fail, the guard screams, reinforcements arrive). But I still think this falls within the category of scene-framing: the guard scene was a failure, for example, and now the new scene is dealing with the reinforcements; or the guard scene was still on foot, but the stakes have now changed because the PCs failed - instead of entering the guarded room, the stakes have changed to not being captured by the reinforcing guards.

But I think a GM who routinely introduces reinforcements without having regard to the game's scene-framing guidelines (be they the dungeon populating and wandering monster rules from classic D&D, or the XP budget approach of 4e) is disregarding the rules, and asserting an authority over the content of the fiction that the game itself doesn't give him/her.

And in practice it makes for a game in which GM force is the preponderent consideration in deciding whether or not the PCs achieve their goals - for example, until the GM decides to stop sending reinforcements the PCs can never win. (Again, I want to stress that this thought is neutral as between "old school" and "new school". In "old school" the GM will have statted out the dungeon already, or be generating it on the fly by rolling on the random tables, and the players have as part of their action resolution repertoire "detect" spells to determine the parameters of an encounter, silence spells to reduce the likelihood of wandering monsters, etc. There are mechanical constraints, not just GM force.)

Cadence said:

And does a door swinging shut or a weather change alter what the characters have discovered or how far they've made it in their travels?

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No, but it changes a prior success into a failure; the PCs are no longer safe in the wilderness, or no longer have a clear escape path behind them, or whatever goal the players had been trying to achieve via their action resolution endeavours.

Cadence said:

I'm trying to think about what rules we've thought our DMs were under (or acted like they were under if we didn't think about it). Is this the answer to my two sets of questions and musings above?

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Maybe. Also, there can be resolution systems that don't involve dice rolls - but many of them are rather ad hoc "systems", of well-established patterns of give and take between game participants who know one another well (or at least have a shared understanding of what sort of give and take is expected, and what it can achieve).

But I personally don't find those sorts of ad hoc approaches robust enough. A concrete example would be the medusa in the Caves of Chaos. If the PCs negotiate with her, what are the success conditions for it being safe for them to let her go on her way? How can the players be confident, for example, that any oath they extract will be adhered to by her?

And, as a GM, if in the course of free roleplaying I have the medusa give an oath to the PCs, am I bound to have her keep it?

In combat resolution, I can bring in the healing potions, and the fake deaths (some 4e zombies have a rise-from-death ability, and trolls obviously are famous for it), but if I haven't done anything to change the default, then 0 hp means 0 hp.

But a system of interaction via free roleplaying is analogous to me, as GM, having to decide every time in combat whether what the players has asserted is a death blow really is one. (Which was part of [MENTION=2067]Kamikaze Midget[/MENTION]'s point in the OP, I believe.)

Also, just to be clear: I'm not saying free roleplaying is no good. In circumstances where there is no serious conflict (eg the PCs are trying to get info from a shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper has no reason to keep the info from them - for example, they're friendly people and good customers, or they're scary people whose presence in the shop is keeping the real customers away) then it's a fine method for resolving interaction and exploration.

But when the crunch is on it puts everything on the GM's shoulders in a way that, for the reasons I've given, I really don't like.

pemerton said:

That's true in the same sense that there is nothing preventing a player lying about his/her dice rolls except for doing it badly and getting spotted and told off for cheating.

But I'm assuming that the participants in the game are following the rules - which they can't do if there are no rules.

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In 1e and 2e the players and DMs are not bound by the rules in the same way. For the DM, fudging and altering things on the fly is RAW by the DMG:For the non-DM player, I've never seen anything that makes altering die rolls anything but cheating.

But I think a GM who routinely introduces reinforcements without having regard to the game's scene-framing guidelines (be they the dungeon populating and wandering monster rules from classic D&D, or the XP budget approach of 4e) is disregarding the rules, and asserting an authority over the content of the fiction that the game itself doesn't give him/her.

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I think the DM does explicitly have that authority (see quotes above), but I'm guessing we both agree on what would happen if the DM resorts to it too often -- a bunch of players who find little value in playing. What constitutes "too often" seems likely to depend on the particular group of players.

Maybe. Also, there can be resolution systems that don't involve dice rolls - but many of them are rather ad hoc "systems", of well-established patterns of give and take between game participants who know one another well (or at least have a shared understanding of what sort of give and take is expected, and what it can achieve).

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I completely understand that. Based on various threads here, I'm thinking of adding the 4e skill challenge framework to my Pathfinder repertoire. What's your favorite description for implementing it well? Are there any in the published books that are reasonable (I loathed the one in the DMG), or are the things on the various threads here better?

If the PCs negotiate with her, what are the success conditions for it being safe for them to let her go on her way? How can the players be confident, for example, that any oath they extract will be adhered to by her?

And, as a GM, if in the course of free roleplaying I have the medusa give an oath to the PCs, am I bound to have her keep it?

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Only if the Medusa would have kept it... But I think her trustworthiness is something that the DM should have decided on in advance so the characters could use sense motive (or whatnot) reliably.

Also, just to be clear: I'm not saying free roleplaying is no good. In circumstances where there is no serious conflict ... But when the crunch is on it puts everything on the GM's shoulders in a way that, for the reasons I've given, I really don't like.

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I see where you're coming from. I just don't want it to in a straight-jacket when I've miss-planned something.

howandwhy99 said:

1. Constructive chaos is a contradiction in terms.

2. What D&DN designers have dubbed Exploration and Interaction had more rules thirty years ago than they've had in the last twenty. They were map-based game system rules, but even back then it was taboo to speak or think of NPCs as machines holding information like data and following programmed behavior, even though it was a game. Now it is de rigueur too openly reject these types of rules and designs. There is a universal lack of everywhere I've look. Part of it is due to the popularity of a singular philosophy seeking to reject any design or theory that would accept such designs back into the RPG world unless they were conceded to be nothing other than "authority" trading activities (i.e. bound by that philosophy).

3. In terms of rules design I think D&DN needs to be a few different core games that could then be constructed from the same playing pieces / rules modules. I don't see a means of playing the D&D games I prefer under the implicit design assumptions of the last couple decades. So far I've seen no movement away from these last two edition's design philosophies. Modularity in all things, even the "core rules", may be the only way forward here. Whether it happens or not, I'll be rewriting the most basic assumptions of the game for when I run it.

4. Who will first cast aside the idols of creativity and freedom?

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I'm sure I don't understand you. Could you please rephrase this?

Wiseblood said:

I'm sure I don't understand you. Could you please rephrase this?

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Try looking at the context. It's clear to me and my friends. Perhaps you could be a bit more specific about your confusion?

howandwhy99 said:

Try looking at the context. It's clear to me and my friends. Perhaps you could be a bit more specific about your confusion?

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Section 2. It seems, that you are asserting that the most recent editions of D&D cling so firmly to their design that innovation (or returning to older methods) is rejected. The last line of part two is the part that I am not understanding. What do you mean by " they were conceded to be nothing other than "authority" trading activities (i.e. bound by that philosophy)."?

Kamikaze Midget said:

<snip>

Combat And Everything Else
The example with combat above makes for an interesting distinction, because if someone proposed doing the same thing with, say, an encounter where the party thief was trying to sneak by some orcs, or an encounter where the party cleric was trying to persuade the king to act against the goblin menace, or a room where the party may or may not discover a secret door, it might not seem as bad to many D&D players. Take away my attack roll, and we have a problem. Take away my Diplomacy check…and maybe we like it even better?

Why this division occurs is a thorny problem of authority and gameplay style, but I think the following can be said with reasonable confidence: having unpredictability, trust, and limitations are more important to us in a fight than in any of the other two “pillars” of D&D (namely, exploration, and interaction). At least for most groups. It is likely that one reason for this is because failing at combat is one of the only things that, in D&D, can directly cause your “ultimate failure,” and that there’s more leeway involved in the other pillars. Being neutral is important when it might remove you from play entirely, but it’s less important when it’s just about avoiding a temporary set-back on your ultimate quest. Don’t convince the king, or fail to sneak past the orcs, or don’t notice the secret door, the game continues on. Get killed by the dragon, and you’re rolling up a new character.

We have seen, though, that rules aren’t just about fairness. They’re also about fun. Rolling dice is fun. Being able to roll an attack roll is more fun than saying “I try to hit the goblin with my sword” and waiting for a response. It removes the burden of decision from the DM, it keeps the game flowing, and it’s an enjoyable constraint.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to…but not required to…add that elsewhere?

<snip>

But what do you think? Where do you want rules, and where do you want rules to get the heck out of your way? Where is freedom welcome for you, and where would you like to be able to roll some dice and consult a table and not have to make so many decisions? Where do you need trust? Where do you need unpredictability and excitement? Let us know in the comments!

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I wanted to address this part specifically.

In my estimation, groups typically pay less heed to mechanical non-combat resolution because D&D's roots are ensconced in gamist trappings and accompanying expectations that are premised upon combat resolution and hand-wavey, over-the-top punitive exploration "challenges". However, the former was more overt, concrete and * relatively stable while the latter was much more opaque, amorphous, and punitive/swingy in the extreme. How did this condition the user-base?

Turtling; Extremely cautious, strategic play whereby PC's modus operandi was predicated upon reduction of most (all?) risk by circumvention of the resolution mechanics > This evolved into strategic power play development which escalated a rock/paper/scissors strategic arms race pitting the PCs versus the DM > This brought about swingy conflict resolution that was almost exclusively anti-climactic or a TPK with a smattering of WAHOO moments sprinkled in (most often not a well deployed tactical resource...but rather a lucky critical when the fight is looking dim) > This arms race and unpredictable swinginess bred the malignant "DM force (fudging)" after too many climaxes fell flat, or too many random encounters (meant as walkthroughs or to constrain resource recharge) went haywire and killed a PC or two, or too many steam engines went off their respective rails.

* relatively stable when compared to exploration...ultimately, combat swinginess was aplenty depending on game content and DM belligerence or player foolishness.

So you had 10 - 15 years of Step on Up culture running the show that expected (i) little to no thematic/archetype-driven PC build choice, (ii) overt, concrete, but relatively light, combat resolution (iii) hand-wavey (amechanical if I can coin the term) exploration gameplay manifesting as free-form investigation, attempting to pick the correct wire (red or blue) and diffuse the ticking timebomb, (iv) hardcore strategic play (and corresponding develop power plays as SOP) to circumvent the swingy mechanical resolution of conflict before a potential grizzly end was in the hands of the dice, (v) cut-throat, aggressive (borderline belligerent) DMing.

Following that, AD&D2e hits and we're no longer wargamers. We're now trying to recreate the stories from Dragonlance. 2e gives us no tools for it but is explicit in that it expects these stories to emerge from our play. But how? Nowhere in the rulset is there support for that style of play equal to those expectations. Thus the birth of DM force/fudging/railroading (or, if not the birth...the massive proliferation of it to a pulp phenomenon).

On through 3e and 4e. These systems underwent some large rules changes and a further evolution of expectation. All of a sudden robust PC build resources (and archetype rendering) become an expectation. Tactical depth becomes an expectation. Encounter budgeting tightens and becomes an expectation. Non-combat resolution becomes further and further hard-coded and becomes an expectation. Metagaming gets support on both sides of the screen. Player's ability to step outside of their PCs (author and director stance) becomes supported and (for some) becomes an expectation (for others it becomes anathema to their playstyle expectations). More metagame tools for DMs to predictably play to theme (and accordingly reward their PCs) and reliably set the stage for climax become an expectation. Etc, etc.

All the while, Indy games were emerging and folks were playing them and finding things they were missing from D&D. Some of these missing things were robust mechanical support for exploration and investigation or incentivized narrativist play for co-authoring of exploration.

So from that evolution above we have all of these camps at tension regarding the level of mechanical exploration support that is right for D&D and genre and playstyle expectations for exploration within D&D. Some folks want no support. They want a synergized/organic, logic and inference cat & mouse game with the DM. Others look at that relationship with a wary eye on all of those grounds (synergized + organic vs illusion + DM force, logic + inference vs opaque + arbitrary + inanity, trust vs belligerent + passive aggression). Others want to encumbrance rules, ration counts, condition tracks, Oregon/Appalachian Trail attrition. Others want to skip it and move directly to the next scene. Some want Teleport and Divination bounded, hard-coded or at least siloed. Others want those spells to maintain their legacy and are fine with the narrowing affect they have on the game...that's D&D to them.

The thing is, it is extremely easy to create hard-coded mechanical resolution for Exploration play in D&D. There are systems out there that support it well. D&D can easily go that route. Its all in the designers putting the man hours together to map those mechanics to their core engine (and the cahoneys to stare down those to whom it is "not D&D"). I've had so many extremely rewarding Exploration Skill Challenges in 4e that I'm entirely convinced that a good system in 5e (that satisfies those that aren't keen on Skill Challenges) is well within its grasp.

What would go an enormously long way toward furthering the mission is an Exploration Challenge Resolution Mechanic that:

- sets and makes clear the stakes, puts the PCs on a track (in the middle) and has hard-coded conditions to move up and down that track for ultimate success or failure
- incentivizes and empowers unoptimized but properly thematic play (with bennies or fate points)
- hard-codes roll results toward gradation in task resolution outcome rather than binary "pass/fail"
- teaches/cultivates DM's genre logic and emboldens them toward properly preparing (pre-game) and improvising (during game) exploration-challenge-relevant outcomes

I really think that technique (the last bit) in this area is sorely needed. Its just an enormous blind-spot for a lot of the playerbase given the game's history. They approach exploration challenges in a Step on Up perspective and it just turns into an exercise in optimizing and dice rolling. Proper incentives for asymmetrical approaches and dynamic, exploration story-changing mechanics will help undo the reflexive propensity for that approach as well.

Cadence said:

In 1e and 2e the players and DMs are not bound by the rules in the same way. For the DM, fudging and altering things on the fly is RAW by the DMG:

1e: You do have the right to overrule the dice at any time if there is a particular course of events you wold like to have occur.

<snip>

You can rule that the player, instead of dying is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any other reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done. It is very demoralizing to the players to lose a cared-for player character when they have played well.

<snip>

Rather than spoil such an otherwise enjoyable time, omit the wandering monsters indicated by the die.

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2e: Good judgement and story considerations are more important than slavish devotion to procedure.

Fixing things in play... have the monsters miss on attacks when they actually hit;... have more monsters of the same or more powerful type appear on the scene...

The DM can start with nothing more than an idea of what he wants an NPC to be like and then ad lib the personality and description during the course of play... However the DM who does this has to be careful to be consistent.
​

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There are different things going on here, and I have different views about them.

Flexibility in adjudicating the consequences of physical defeat is part of the core rules of 4e, and doesn't seem to me to be fudging at all. A key part of the GM's role, at least in my preferred approach to RPGing, is to adjudicate consequences within the parameters of the mechanics and the prior fiction, but those consequences should also be sensitive to what is going to come next.

Here's an example from my own 4e game of how I handled a "TPK".

Developing NPCs on the fly I also see as a central element of GM adjudication - it's part of the introduction of complications into the unfolding situation. I'm a big fan of this comment by Paul Czege on the technique:


On the other hand, I have problems with the advice on wandering monsters and on fudging attack and damage rolls. What is the point of wandering monster mechanics if the GM doesn't apply them? What is the point of combat resolution mechanics if the GM doesn't apply them?

My own view (and here I think I echo [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] above) is that if the game's mechanics won't deliver the desired play experience, then the game's mechanics are flawed.

Cadence said:

I just don't want it to in a straight-jacket when I've miss-planned something.

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This is why I think a good RPG needs robust encounter-building/scene framing guidelines, that reliably produce the expected result; and needs to support "fail forward"-style resolution, as in my "TPK" example.

I hope it's reasonably clear why, in light of that view, I see such a big difference between the various examples of authorised "fudging" that you give from the AD&D DMGs. Some are sensible advice on adjudication. But others are just invitations to use GM force to override bad resolution rules.

Cadence said:

I think the DM does explicitly have that authority (see quotes above), but I'm guessing we both agree on what would happen if the DM resorts to it too often -- a bunch of players who find little value in playing. What constitutes "too often" seems likely to depend on the particular group of players.

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I'm sure that's true. There seem to be plenty of people who loved the 2nd ed AD&D style, for example, but I'm not one of them!

Cadence said:

Based on various threads here, I'm thinking of adding the 4e skill challenge framework to my Pathfinder repertoire. What's your favorite description for implementing it well? Are there any in the published books that are reasonable (I loathed the one in the DMG), or are the things on the various threads here better?

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At the risk of being immodest, I'll point to you to a thread of mine that has some discussions and links to examples.

And just to compound the immodesty, here's a link to another therad of mine where the relationship between scene framing, resolution, "genre logic" etc got debated from a variety of perspectives.

pemerton said:

A key part of the GM's role, at least in my preferred approach to RPGing, is to adjudicate consequences within the parameters of the mechanics and the prior fiction, but those consequences should also be sensitive to what is going to come next.

<snip>

On the other hand, I have problems with the advice on wandering monsters and on fudging attack and damage rolls. What is the point of wandering monster mechanics if the GM doesn't apply them? What is the point of combat resolution mechanics if the GM doesn't apply them?

My own view (and here I think I echo @Manbearcat above) is that if the game's mechanics won't deliver the desired play experience, then the game's mechanics are flawed.

This is why I think a good RPG needs robust encounter-building/scene framing guidelines, that reliably produce the expected result; and needs to support "fail forward"-style resolution, as in my "TPK" example.

I hope it's reasonably clear why, in light of that view, I see such a big difference between the various examples of authorised "fudging" that you give from the AD&D DMGs. Some are sensible advice on adjudication. But others are just invitations to use GM force to override bad resolution rules.

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I hope you don't mind but I'm going to break your post out and rebuild a bit as these go hand-in-hand with my commentary.

Absolutely agree with this. "Key" is almost an understatement here. For myself and my efforts in GMing, I would change it out for "the primary". Given that this is "the primary" GM's role, I find that consistently having to play referee (key word here is consistently) and * "fight the mechanics" is not just needlessly burdensome and tedious...it is outright adversarial to the mood, tone, rhythm, and pace of my games and takes away from mine and my players' creative focus. This is why, more than anything else, 5e's missions statement of "Rulings not Rules" gives me pause. I don't want a system that outright endorses opacity, transience, selective muteness (as if it were a virtue) in order to provoke arbitration.

* in-filling where they are silent, playing arbiter where they are opaque or transient, modulating where they are extreme, seasoning where they are bland

pemerton said:

Developing NPCs on the fly I also see as a central element of GM adjudication - it's part of the introduction of complications into the unfolding situation. I'm a big fan of this comment by Paul Czege on the technique:

There are two points to a scene - Point A, where the PCs start the scene, and Point B, where they end up. Most games let the players control some aspect of Point A, and then railroad the PCs to point B. Good narrativism will reverse that by letting the GM create a compelling Point A, and let the players dictate what Point B is (ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning).​

I think it very effectively exposes, as Ron points out above, that although 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.

. . .

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.

. . .

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.​

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I'm going to take the opportunity to subtly disagree (I think...if I'm reading it correctly...may be missing some context) with some of the above. I believe what I'm reading is that mental and physical preparation is antagonistic toward letting the players dictate Point B "(ie, there is no Point B prior to the scene beginning)."

I think there is an excluded middle here (and I also wonder that if the excluded middle actually exists in their own minds and they aren't acknowledging it). It is almost inevitable, and truly natural, for human minds to be curious and to extrapolate ends from beginnings (Point A to Point B above). As such, it seems to me that a GM will oftentimes (even if merely ruminating upon...not anchoring the game to) consider, and attempt to infer, what will intuitively arise from the genesis of the scene on through the players' driving will to the scene's conclusion. This pre-realization, GM "scene extrapolation" (to borrow the phrase above) does not then guarantee an inevitable confirmation bias whereby all routes taken by the players' driving will lead to one conclusion. It is certainly a means to make this possible, but it doesn't guarantee it. Further, I would say that, just as in combat encounter building, a few "model runs" in the mind of the GM prior to playing out the non-combat encounter (scene) can be helpful to his ability to functionally improvise and react to the players' driving will, thus creating the possibility of even more conclusions (and a higher degree of thematic coherency) than if he did not extrapolate.

Improvisation is mandatory. However, it is not exclusive to physical and mental preparation. Further, my guess is that most that think that they are engaging in absolute improv, and thus are guaranteeing freedom from machination-driven confirmation bias, might be fooling themselves. The human mind is extraordinary. It can subconsciously behold, process and extrapolate an unfathomable number of things at a blinding pace...all unbeknownst to the conscious surveyor lying behind the eyes.

Point B being considered by the GM prior to the game (or at a blinding pace only moments before it is realized) does not mean that PCs must be merely puppets exploring a scene rather than driving it. You can have:

- Point A to Point B physically and mentally modeled
- A scene manifesting as a real and true, objective outgrowth of prior events which
- matches the preconception if (i) the pre-conceptions are highly skilled, (ii) the players' behavior is intuitive and stable, and (iii) the shared genre expectations and scenes leading up to it are coherent or
- does not match the preconception because any of i, ii, or iii are off or because (iv) extremely swingy narrative variables are present which makes (i) all but impossible

I've ad-hocced (totally off the cuff) extreme "fire-hoses of adversity" yet still have been able to predict where they PCs would go with it and I've run scenes with relatively benign narrative dynamism where two industrious PCs have injected their own, thus taking the game completely off the beaten path into uncharted territory (for the better).

pemerton said:

I'm sure that's true. There seem to be plenty of people who loved the 2nd ed AD&D style, for example, but I'm not one of them!

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I loved 2e. However, my love for it has nothing to do with the ruleset. It is entirely nostalgia for that period of my life and that much of my GMing teeth were cut and my skill honed during that era. We had an extraordinary amount of fun despite of the ruleset. Not because of it. And after considerable retrospective, never will I conflate the two. I would never play it again as my tastes have narrowed and focused considerably (I know what support I want from a ruleset...I know what an imposition that lack of support is and I know how liberating it is to have that support). But I do look upon it fondly, nonetheless.

The OP ends with some large-scale questions, and I'm not sure I'm going to write enough - or clearly enough - to explain my views. Anyway, here goes.

Fundamentally I want rules to do two things - to create tense, dramatic situations (crises) and to provide a resolution system which while resolving one moment of crisis creates a new one.

In traditional RPGs - D&D and RQ and Traveller and CoC and their offspring - 'character creation' does not require the creation of 'character'. It creates resources and numbers representing competency.

So the GM has to create some threat and is then reliant on player buy-in in order for the characters to care enough to engage with it. That caring is, in my experience, often pretty artificial. When that problem is solved the GM creates a new problem and relies on player buy-in to care enough about it to do something about it. And so on.

We've all experienced these stilted and awkward moments. Like you're playing Call of Cthulhu and sit around saying 'Why do a dilettante, an archaeologist, a pilot and a professor care about this submarine that's just disappeared off the coast of Innsmouth?'

Right there the game is foundering. It has no direction. It requires a sort of wheedling pressure from the GM and a numb acceptance from the players to get the game started because the players have 'characters' but no character. And without character you can't produce drama.

What if we reverse this process? What if instead of creating a guy with Driving and Carousing, a player creates a guy whose uncle is a naval officer disappeared while on some top secret expedition, another creates a character who has evidence of a lost city off the coast of Innsmouth but has just had his funding cut because the university think he's crazy. And so on. The GM looks at what the players have created and thinks to himself 'If I put a missing submarine off the coast of Innsmouth we've got an interesting situation.'

Then the game starts automatically because the players have created all the context in which the situation becomes interesting for them.

What that all leads into is that the cornerstone of situation and drama is character. I want games and rules which create characters, not lists of competency numbers and resources (be it hit points or spells or equipment) with character as an optional extra. I want real people with real problems and real goals straight out of character creation.

Importantly, I want those problems and goals to have weight. I've played too many games where, say, a player says he's a kleptomaniac and steals stuff when there's no real risk or impact to doing so but bottles it when it might actually matter. Where a character is deathly afraid of spiders right up to the point where he isn't. Bad roleplaying? Maybe. But to me, that's not the point. A system that allows such play is structurally weak. Characterisation, imo, should have mechanical consequences.

The second thing I want is a resolution system that provides drama, tension and the opportunity for the unknown to happen irrespective of what method a player chooses to solve their immediate problem.

In combat you know your abilities and you pretty much know the stakes. Many games treat social situations and exploration as 'freeform'. What that means to me is that as a player the rules of the game and the stakes are now invisible. When you can't see what's at stake you're just fumbling in the dark. Some players like that.

But I don't actually enjoy the deus ex machina power it gives me as a GM. If constraints breed creativity I think this is just as true of GMing as playing.

I was running a game yesterday and there was a scene where a character stumbled into a backroom in a bar and found the local mafia beating up someone she knew. She wanted the prisoner dead, the prisoner wanted to use her as leverage with the mafia, the mafia wanted the prisoner's boss.

We set-up a mini-game on a board showing allegiances, trust and outcomes. Then she, the gangster and the prisoner used oratory, intimidation, charm and other skills to move their pieces and to re-describe the board in order to angle for what they wanted over five rounds of 'social combat'. This scene was as tense as any fight scene would have been and had the full attention of the rest of the group. It worked because all of us could see the stakes and the impact of what was being said as PC and NPCs negotiated.

In that situation the numbers mattered, the rolls mattered and what everyone said mattered. All those ingredients worked together to produce a plausible outcome in which no-one quite got what they wanted, with a new situation for both the character and NPCs - each with new problems and agendas.

I hope this is illustrates the other thing I want - rules which use the goals and beliefs of the PCs and NPCs so that a scene where you try to talk your brother's killer down from a ledge is just as tense and involved as fighting him to the death.