What is *worldbuilding* for?

AbdulAlhazred said:

I don't agree that this is true in practice. As a player you're going to engage with your character, it has SOME sort of backstory, some preferences, likes, dislikes, SOMETHING will be expressed in play, even if the GM has to elicit it. I mean, in D&D, EVERY character has a race, and a class, presumably a gender and a name as well (I guess maybe those aren't literally required, except in 1e you must have a gender defined in some cases for mechanical reasons). So, AT WORST, you've defined SOMETHING about your PC.

Once that happens the GM has what is needed in order to start framing some kind of conflict around what the character, at least implicitly, needs. A truly uninspired and passive player might require a skilled GM to use all their tricks to push things forward, but the point is that the choices which drive this are all PLAYER choices.

Beyond that, there is nothing in a sandbox which lets the players off the hook in this respect! If they simply want to sit in the tavern and drink until their gold is spent and then lie in a gutter and starve, nothing prevents that. It will NOT be a very interesting game for 99.9% of us. Its true, in Story Now, the character's desire to do this will be confronted and a conflict will develop. Maybe he'll be swept up by a press gang and find himself an unwilling soldier. Does he risk death by trying to desert? Or does he make do? Maybe he learns to like it! An endless series of conflicts can arise from this player 'choice of no choice'. We could let the character rot in the ditch, but what is the point?

OTOH if the players decide that their desire is to go exploring and have the world described to them, and then react to it or continue on to new destinations, or whatever, then why would a Story Now GM fail to deliver on that agenda? He might threaten the PCs ability to get to point X which they have set out for, but then again that isn't a given. There's no specific way that Story Now HAS to play out. I think this gets back to the whole pacing question we talked about back a few pages.

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I think you completely missed what I was saying, as this response isn't at all responsive to my point. You've actually said, in more words, what I was saying: the players in the player facing game who choose to sit and drink in the tavern as a goal will not have a choice in having that agenda challenged by the GM. The GM in player facing games, by using the design goal of going to the action, skips all the logistical and tactical choices players may engage in and places the agenda of the players in crisis, forcing them to deal with whatever events have placed the agenda into crisis. This isn't a bad thing, and I'm not criticizing it (I'm running a Blades in the Dark game tomorrow night, as a matter of fact, and will be doing this with wild abandon), but it is a true thing. As I've said before, I'm running Blades on an off night because I have two players uninterested in the play, and who will not be attending. They like the logistics/tactical play in my much more DM facing 5e game.

pemerton said:

The subject matter of the choices may well be different. But [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] was making an assertion about the quantity of choice.

Admittedly measuring quantity of choice is inexact, but if we think of it in terms of chances to make action declarations that matter to the direction of play - which probably correlates with something like situations that prompt the making of an action declaration whose consequence will shape future outcomes - then (as I said) the player in the player-driven game has as much choice as the player in the GM-driven game.

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Eh, the kinds of choices made are so different that I'm not sure this is even a question that can be answered, much less one that should be answered. It really doesn't matter. In both styles, the players have lots of opportunity to make choices that fit the style and the player choices. Which has more is pointless, and, beside, from your OP and your definition of agency in respect to adding to the fiction, this isn't even important.

The particular claim about logistical/tactical choices is also not true. It depend on system. Cortex+ Heroic has almost no choices of this sort. 4e has a modest amount of such choice, mostly around magic item creation/acquisition. But Burning Wheel makes these sorts of choices quite important.

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I've read a few of your BW play reports that featured combat. In one I recall more clearly, your character was accosted by orcs for failing a check to determine what happened at a sacked farmhouse, and the combat lacked a good deal of tactical depth as well. At no point did it appear you had options to limit danger occurring or make tactical choices about fictional position to mitigate danger that did appear. These are part and parcel of the DM-facing style, where players are incentivized to be risk-aware because that has positive benefits for dealing with risk. In player facing games, risk occurs no matter what on check failures or scene framing, and there's limited logistical (when to rest, stocking up on potions/scrolls, spell expenditure rates, etc) or tactical (posting guards while a player engages in a time consuming task, having weapons drawn, scouting locations, etc) choices to make. This is because, as a design feature, scene framing is already at a crisis point (go to the action) that requires immediate addressing of events AND failures are meant to increase stakes, so any precautions taken will have limited impacts. Story Now games offset this by using player resources to possibly mitigate consequences (like Blades' use of the resist mechanic), but this is reactionary and not proactive action declaration -- its a choice after the fact, not behavior the player can engage with prior to failure.

Again, this is intentional -- a specific design goal, even -- that's meant to engage a specific type of play. And that's peachy awesome and not a bad thing, but, as you've said a few times, analyzing where the trade-offs and impacts are is important and requires dispassionate viewing. There's a reason Story Now games are not the mainstream of play, and that's not because they're better systems. They're great systems (again, looking forward to Blades tomorrow, I spent the last few hours making my Roll20 game have everything at hand for character generation and rules references), and they deliver great fun, but they're not superior systems by definition -- they're only superior systems for players/GMs looking for and able to process that style of play. Given how much [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] and [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] continue to miss critical differences in the player-facing playstyle making some of their arguments waaaay off base, you've done similar things in describing their playstyle. Perhaps you should take a moment and let that sink in.

Lanefan said:

pemerton said:

Without finality of resolution, what does it mean to work towards the goal of becoming king

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Just that, I guess - to work toward the goal.

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My point here is the same as in relation to risk-mitigation in a city encounter: if there is no finality of resolution, and if management and consequences of unrevealed elements of backstory is entirely in the GM's hands (as in your example upthread of the PC mage who charmed the NPC and thereby made and enemy of the duke), then how does the player reliably work towards his/her PC becoming king?

The player can declare actions, but even if they succeed, whether they support this goal or not is extremely subject to GM decisions around the unrevealed backstory.

Lanefan said:

Here and now the story is about defeating the orcs, and whatever's gone into getting to that point.

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My point is that that is not a story - it's just an event.

Lanefan said:

pemerton said:

Story now means story - in the sense of conflict > rising action > climax > resolution - as an ever-present element of play. But without pre-authorship of said story.

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In and of itself (ignoring any plot or setting or background or external considerations) this pretty much is the essence of every RPG out there; with the only exception being that sometimes the players/PCs frame themselves into conflict without the DM having to provide anything.

<snip>

You're looking for the needs-framing-action-climax-resolution cycle almost on a per-encounter scale, it seems; where I look for it on a larger scale - perhaps per-adventure - and don't worry about forcing it into each individual encounter.

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Your second paragraph refutes your first! Story is not an ever-present element of play if your story unfolds only over hours and hours of actual play time.

Lanefan said:

Instead of curtailing player agency to create story (which is what Dragolance, White Wolf, 2nd ed AD&D, fudging advice in other rulebooks, and indeed more RPGing text than I can count, recommend), this method of play relies on player agency to create story.

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Which is a euphamistic (sp?) way of saying the workload of creating and maintaining the story is removed from the DM and dumped in the players' laps.[/quote]It's not a euphemism - it's describing exactly what happens - to restate what I posted,


If players do not provide characters with dramatic needs; or don't want to engage in action resolution; then "story now" play won't work. [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] has posted more about this, and what some of the limit cases might look like, upthread.

Lanefan said:

There doesn't need to be a conflict to kick the story off, just a curiosity and desire to investigate.

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An account of someone walking down the street and counting the number of daffodils isn't a story in the traditional sense.

And in the context of a RPG, it is also not a significant manifestation of player agency. "GM, how many daffodils do I see?" is not a significant expression of player agency.

Lanefan said:

pemerton said:

In your example, of the player waiting to be told by the GM where the action is - eg the local Baron is corrupt - story is not going to be reliably produced. What if the players aren't interested in the Baron? Or even suppose that they are - what is the conflict that drives the story, or even kicks it off?

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If the players aren't interested in the Baron and ignore that whole element, I'd say that's player agency at work!

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It's fairly modest agency - it doesn't actually establish any shared fiction, it just vetoes one of the GM's offerings.

And it is not story. A group of protagonists learning of a corrupt baron but ignoring it is not a story. Which was my point - GM-driven RPGing does not reliably produce story unless (as per Dragonlance, 2nd ed AD&D, White Wolf, etc) the GM uses a heavy does of force and backstory manipulation.

Lanefan said:

The player is free to choose what to do within any given framed scene, but has no choice what to do between framed scenes. In your feather example the player didn't get to choose how to begin the investigation, or where to start looking for information, or who else to engage for help (there's not been much mention of what the rest of the party was doing during all this).

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This still makes no sense.

At every moment of play, the GM is establishing the situation the PCs find themselves in. The fact that they speak to dramatic need ("You're in a bazaar. A peddler claims to have an angel feather for sale.") rather than not ("As you walk from the great hall to the reliquary, you pass through an intersection") doesn't reduce the scope for player choice.

Also, as far as asking for help is concerned,

Maxperson said:

pemerton said:

Without finality of resolution, what does it mean to work towards the goal of becoming king (just to pick up one of your examples)?

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The same way it worked in your example. You described the feather as being a starting point. The PC had to identify the feather as something that could be useful, get it enchanted, do a third thing, etc. With the goal of becoming king, there will also be steps that need to be successfully completed along that patch in order to become king. Probably more than just three, but theoretically it could be three or less depending on circumstances and background.

<snip>

There's very, very little chance that any hidden backstory will stop the player's goal, so at worst it will just represent an increase or added challenge, and at best make it easier to accomplish.

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But I am talking about a system that has finality of resolution: success means that the intent of the action declaration is realised.

I am also talking about a system in which stakes are express or implicit in the framing and the context of resolution: there are not unrevealed backstory elements that mean that an action resolution success might nevertheless mean that the PC actually goes backwards in achieving his/her goal (compare [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s example upthread of the mage who charmed the NPC trying to preserve civic order, only to unknowingly make an enemy of the duke).

"Added challenge', in the context of GM manipulation of backstory together with an absence of finality in resolution, can be opaque to the player, may emerge or manifest itself at any time, and is not amenable to risk mitigation (as per some recent posts not far upthread).

Maxperson said:

pemerton said:

The notion of "player choice of goal" doesn't do any work, as far as agency is concerned, until you tell me something about how this choice actually matters to the content of the shared fiction. It is very easy for a non-dungeon sandboxing game to become the making of moves to trigger the GM to say stuff. Changing the way backstory is established and managed makes a big difference in this respect.

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I still don't see it. The player told you he wanted to find an item before he left the city that would allow him to free his brother from the Balrog. That triggered you to say stuff, and the stuff you said was about the bazaar and an angel feather. Then he said that he would check it with his arcana skill. That triggered you to say stuff based on the roll, and the stuff you said was about it being cursed.

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So there are two approaches to framing, if the player has as a goal for his/her PC "I will find an item to help confront my balrog-possessed brother before leaving town":


The content in (1) itself reflects player agency - it is the GM directly engaging the player's statement of dramatic need. The content in (2) does not.

Suppose, following (1), the player declares some action in relation to the feather: I offer 3 drachmas for it or I read its aura to learn what useful magical traits it has. The upshot of these are not just the GM telling stuff to the player. It is the player establishing salient content of the shared fiction. If the offer to buy succeeds, the PC now owns the feather. If the attempt to read the aura succeeds, the PC learns of a useful trait the feather has. Conversely, if the check fails then an adverse consequence ensues - in this case, the feather is Resistant to Fire but also cursed.

Suppose, following (2), the player says "I look for a bazaar". If the GM simply says "yes", then the only difference that I see from what I described is that we spend 5 minutes of play getting to the action. It's certainly not the case that the player had to "work" for it in any other sense of "work".

If the GM says "No, there are no open markets in this town" then we already have hitherto unrevealed backstory being used by the GM to drive the direction of play. The player now has to start making other moves that will get the GM to tell him/her the stuff necesaary to get to where the action is. (Eg "OK, so I look for a curio shop instead" or "OK, I look for a wizard's tower" or whatever.)

And if the GM calls for a check (say, Streetwise), then what happens if it fails? Now the focus of play is not on what the player has flagged (ie finding a useful item) but on something the GM has decided to make a big deal of (ie finding a place where items might be sold). Again, the player now has to start declaring different moves that (whether via the GM saying "yes", or due to successful checks) that eventually result in the Gm describing the PC as being in a place where a potentially useful item is on sale. It's all that stuff that I describe as making moves whose purpose is to get the GM to say more stuff about the gameworld.

Maxperson said:

How I respond to the player's statement will vary depending on the circumstances, prior game play, etc. Usually there will be a roll involved. Sometimes it will just automatically succeed, such as if the player had previously spoken to a sage that had the specialty in question. Sometimes, very rarely, it will automatically fail, such as if the player wants to find a wizard guild in a city that hates arcane spellcasters. Sometimes there will be success with a consequence, or failure with a consequence. Outright failure is okay, since there are many avenues to success. A failure isn't a failure at the goal, but just at that step in the process.

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I wrote the preceding paragraphs before reading this. It seems pretty consistent with what I wrote, so I'm leaving what I wrote unchanged and don't see the need to add anything more.

Maxperson said:

Why is it okay for your players to trigger you to say stuff, but you speak like it's something to be avoided when discussing other playstyles?

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All RPGing involves conversation. In this post just above, and in many earlier posts, I have tried to make it fairly clear what I am talking about.

Investigation and exploration, in the sense that (eg) [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] talks about them, mean the players making moves that have no result but the GM relating more stuff about the gameworld (either read from notes, or made up on the spot but having the same status as if it were read from notes). Paradigms of this sort of RPGing are CoC modules and "story"-style D&D modules like Dead Gods.

The player trying to find a marketplace or a wizard or a curio shop that might sell items is, in a GH-driven game, almost certainly going to be this sort of RPGing.

What I am contrasting it with is action declaration whose success or failure doesn't simply change what the players know about the shared fiction, but actually changes the content of the shared fiction in some salient fashion - eg I search the study for the map, if it succeeds, yields the result that the PC has found the map; or I read the aura of the feather to identify any useful traits, if it succeeds, yields the result that the feather has useful traits; etc.

Maxperson said:

One of the things that pre-authoring adds that your style doesn't have, is the ability for both the DM and the players to draw from that large pool of pre-authored content. I have been running primarily the Forgotten Realms since 1e. If the players are in Baldur's Gate, they know many of the pre-authored elements and can draw from those. The player might tell me, "I go find some Flaming Fists to take this lost girl back to her parents." He has drawn on the depth of the world as an aid to what he wants to do. That's not something that's really available in your game. Your game lacks that depth

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Well, in the first session of my BW game - the one with the angel feather - the PCs interacted with a sorcerous cabal, its local leader Jabal, and a peddler who had purchased various items from a dishevelled man whom they later saw in Jabal's tower.

As [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] said, this sort of stuff doesn't depend upon pre-authorship.

Or is depth a reference not to the actual possibility of story elements, but rather something about their emotional resonance with the participants?

Maxperson said:

The important thing is that I am not dictating the process or how the process is to work. I'm not going to the player and saying "Your brother is possessed by a Balrog. If you want him to be free, you have to do A, B, C, D and E."

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You haven't really said anything about how you would adjudicate the attempt to free the brother. How do you establish if a shop (or market, or wizard, or whatever) has a useful item? How do you determine what counts as a useful item?

What sort of check would be involved?

Maxperson said:

pemerton said:

What difference that is important to you are you saying that I'm disregarding?

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That my playstyle is nothing like a choose your own adventure book, or a railroad, or the other negative lights you have tried to shine on it.

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It's clear to me that, to you, the difference between the GM reading from notes and the GM making stuff up and giving it the same status as if it was on his/her notes is important.

A long way (as in, many many hundreds of posts) upthread I explained why I don't see the difference as that significant. It's because, as long as the GM treats this made-up stuff as if it were in his/her notes, player action declarations really have the status of suggestions for what the shared fiction might contain. There is no robust resolution with finality.

Whereas you seem to regard it as very important that (unlike what you would call a railroad) the GM is taking suggestions.

Ovinomancer said:

I've read a few of your BW play reports that featured combat. In one I recall more clearly, your character was accosted by orcs for failing a check to determine what happened at a sacked farmhouse, and the combat lacked a good deal of tactical depth as well. At no point did it appear you had options to limit danger occurring or make tactical choices about fictional position to mitigate danger that did appear.

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That particular melee was resolved using the Fight! subsystem.

Fight! is resolved in exchanges consisting of three volleys each. At the start of each exchange you have to blind script 3 volleys. The number of actions in each volley is a function of the Reflex score. The options that are available on each action are fairly standard for a fantasy RPG: strike, block (= parry in some systems), avoid (= dodge in a system like RQ), feint, counterstrike, tackle, push, lock (= grapple in some systems), etc.

At the top of each exchange you also have to declare a positioning manoeuvre (close, maintain or withdraw).

There are rules for changing the script of unresolved volleys following the resolution of a volley, but it requires forfeiture of actions.

All resolution is simultaneous, volley by volley (for positioning) and then action by action. (My PC, wearing armour, has only 3 actions. One thing I have to have regard to in scripting is that a 4 reflex opponent will have one volley with a second option following the first, against which I will have no corresponding action.)

I don't remember all the details of my scripting in that particular combat, but I do know that I used my positioning to protect my companion (an unarmoured mage); and then later on used positioning to try and reach my horse before the orcs did.

Plus there were the standard scripting choices of when to attack, etc.

Ovinomancer said:

In player facing games, risk occurs no matter what on check failures or scene framing

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In my Cortex+ Heroic game, one of the PCs (an orcale) has an ability that allows for the spending of resources (plot points) to reduce the size of a doom pool die. The player of that PC uses that ability to modulate risk (in particular, to try and stop the doom pool building up to contain 2d12, which the GM can spend to bring the scene to a peremptory close.

In BW, players can modulate risk in all sorts of ways - I've described some just above. In the first session of the campaign, the player of the mage initially thought about reaching out to the Gynarch of Hardby, but then decided to reach out to a lesser personage - Jabal - because the consequences of any blowback should things go wrong were likely to be less. That is player management of the stakes.

Because BW is a grity game, where equipment lists matter and gear can easily get lost or broken as a consequence of failure, where healing takes a long time ingame, and where periodic maintenance checks are necessary, logistics can also become important in a way that is not the case in Cortex+ Heroic or (my approach to) 4e.

In the original version of HeroWars, extended contest resolution involves a literal stake-setting system in which participants stake more or fewer action points on an exchange - with zero action points remaining meaning los of the contest. HeroQuest revised maintains a less mathematically and mechanically intricate version of this system.

Dogs in the Vineyard allows the player, at every point of resolution, to choose to yield (so as to avoid the risk of fallout) or to escalate (so as to try and get more and better dice, at the risk of more extreme fallout).

Etc.

Ovinomancer said:

there's limited logistical (when to rest, stocking up on potions/scrolls, spell expenditure rates, etc) or tactical (posting guards while a player engages in a time consuming task, having weapons drawn, scouting locations, etc) choices to make. This is because, as a design feature, scene framing is already at a crisis point

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Again, this sounds like you're not that familiar with a cross-section of systems.

Having weapons drawn absolutely matters in BW. (In Fight! it's two actions to draw a sword.) In my Marvel Heroic game, in one session War Machine began the session in his civvies (so as to earn a bonus plot point) and then later on had to make a successful check against the Doom Pool in order to have his armour fly to him so he could suit up.

In my Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy game, when the PCs came to a giants' steading the scout PC scouted it (initially establishing an Overview of the Steading Interior Asset by climbing up the pallisade, and then establishing a Giant Ox asset by spotting said ox in the giants' barn). This is tactical choice at the table, as it consumes actions (which might otherwise be spent on, say, fighting or talking) and - in this context - it fed into an approach based on social resolution (by trying to sell the giants' ox back to them, relying on their dimwittedness) rather than fighting.

The significance of these tactical choices is different - in the Cortex+ game (which is a viking game) the player is taking us in the more comedic direction of contests where Thor is trying to drink the ocean or wrestle Jormungandur, rather than the drama of the Ragnarok. And in BW, if you can't make your maintenance check then the game is probably not going to just end with your PC starving in the gutter - the GM might frame that scene ("You've no money, no food, your landlord has kicked you out, you're sitting in the gutter wondering what to do . . .") but then would follow up with something like ('" . . and then a coach pulls up, and Jabal's head pokes out - 'Jobe, I see that you've fallen on hard times'").

But they're there, in different forms dealing with different subject matter in different games, and they matter to how events unfold in the fiction.

pemerton said:

My point here is the same as in relation to risk-mitigation in a city encounter: if there is no finality of resolution, and if management and consequences of unrevealed elements of backstory is entirely in the GM's hands (as in your example upthread of the PC mage who charmed the NPC and thereby made and enemy of the duke), then how does the player reliably work towards his/her PC becoming king?

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I've dreamed up several examples in this thread but I don't think the mage-NPC-duke is one of mine.

Finality of resolution doesn't happen in this case until the PC either becomes king or fails beyond hope of redemption. All other intermediate resolutions are just that - stepping stones.

Which brings up a question: in your system can a PC ultimately outright fail at its intended goal, and if so, what happens? Example: if my goal is to be king, and we get to some climactic point that determines whether I get the throne or not, and I somehow blow it either by bad dice luck or follish actions - what then?

My point is that that is not a story - it's just an event.

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It can be an event within a larger story, or a small story (or self-contained chapter) unto itself.

Your second paragraph refutes your first! Story is not an ever-present element of play if your story unfolds only over hours and hours of actual play time.

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Sure it is. It just takes longer to unfold.

Similar to watching a TV series like the original Star Trek where each episode's story was wound up within that episode, vs. watching a series like the new Battlestar Galactica where the story - though always lurking in either the background or the foreground - takes four complete seasons to fully unfold.

It's fairly modest agency - it doesn't actually establish any shared fiction, it just vetoes one of the GM's offerings.

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And in so doing moves toward establishing what fiction is going to be shared: we're not going to be sharing any fiction about taking down the Baron, as that fiction isn't of interest.

At every moment of play, the GM is establishing the situation the PCs find themselves in. The fact that they speak to dramatic need ("You're in a bazaar. A peddler claims to have an angel feather for sale.") rather than not ("As you walk from the great hall to the reliquary, you pass through an intersection") doesn't reduce the scope for player choice.

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As you may have gathered, I rather disagree with this statement.

<play example>

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Was Halika an NPC or someone else's PC?

So there are two approaches to framing, if the player has as a goal for his/her PC "I will find an item to help confront my balrog-possessed brother before leaving town":

(1) The GM tells the player "You're in a bazaar, with a peddler offering an angel feather for sale. What do you do?"

(2) The GM tells the player "You're in the town. What do you do?

The content in (1) itself reflects player agency - it is the GM directly engaging the player's statement of dramatic need. The content in (2) does not.

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The content in (1) reflects less player agency than the content in (2) does. In and of themselves they are equal statements - in each case the player is looking for an item for a specific reason but has (I must assume) no idea what that item may be or even if it can be found in this town, and in eac case the DM is trying to jumpstart that process. Both speak to the agency exercised by the player in setting that goal, to find an item to help his brother out. But (1) railroads the player straight to the (or a) possible solution, while (2) gives the player the agency of choice in how to approach the search for the item.

(1) certainly saves a lot of time if you-as-DM already know the feather is the key...but in theory you don't already know that, and in fact the feather turned out to be a false lead.

As a player, I know my answer to (1) would be "How did I get here, who is with me, why am I here, and what else is around me?" where for (2) it would be some version of "I look for information via rumours, sages, and bardic tales; and ask my erstwhile companions to please do likewise on my behalf".

And if the GM calls for a check (say, Streetwise), then what happens if it fails? Now the focus of play is not on what the player has flagged (ie finding a useful item) but on something the GM has decided to make a big deal of (ie finding a place where items might be sold). Again, the player now has to start declaring different moves that (whether via the GM saying "yes", or due to successful checks) that eventually result in the Gm describing the PC as being in a place where a potentially useful item is on sale. It's all that stuff that I describe as making moves whose purpose is to get the GM to say more stuff about the gameworld.

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If the DM hasn't told me what I need to know (which in this case is perfectly reasonable as there's no good reason yet for my PC to know it) then I have to get that information somehow. It's called exploration, in this case exploration of the game world; and it's a fundamental element of most fantasy RPGs.

Lanefan

pemerton said:

That particular melee was resolved using the Fight! subsystem.

Fight! is resolved in exchanges consisting of three volleys each. At the start of each exchange you have to blind script 3 volleys. The number of actions in each volley is a function of the Reflex score. The options that are available on each action are fairly standard for a fantasy RPG: strike, block (= parry in some systems), avoid (= dodge in a system like RQ), feint, counterstrike, tackle, push, lock (= grapple in some systems), etc.

At the top of each exchange you also have to declare a positioning manoeuvre (close, maintain or withdraw).

There are rules for changing the script of unresolved volleys following the resolution of a volley, but it requires forfeiture of actions.

All resolution is simultaneous, volley by volley (for positioning) and then action by action. (My PC, wearing armour, has only 3 actions. One thing I have to have regard to in scripting is that a 4 reflex opponent will have one volley with a second option following the first, against which I will have no corresponding action.)

I don't remember all the details of my scripting in that particular combat, but I do know that I used my positioning to protect my companion (an unarmoured mage); and then later on used positioning to try and reach my horse before the orcs did.

Plus there were the standard scripting choices of when to attack, etc.

In my Cortex+ Heroic game, one of the PCs (an orcale) has an ability that allows for the spending of resources (plot points) to reduce the size of a doom pool die. The player of that PC uses that ability to modulate risk (in particular, to try and stop the doom pool building up to contain 2d12, which the GM can spend to bring the scene to a peremptory close.

In BW, players can modulate risk in all sorts of ways - I've described some just above. In the first session of the campaign, the player of the mage initially thought about reaching out to the Gynarch of Hardby, but then decided to reach out to a lesser personage - Jabal - because the consequences of any blowback should things go wrong were likely to be less. That is player management of the stakes.

Because BW is a grity game, where equipment lists matter and gear can easily get lost or broken as a consequence of failure, where healing takes a long time ingame, and where periodic maintenance checks are necessary, logistics can also become important in a way that is not the case in Cortex+ Heroic or (my approach to) 4e.

In the original version of HeroWars, extended contest resolution involves a literal stake-setting system in which participants stake more or fewer action points on an exchange - with zero action points remaining meaning los of the contest. HeroQuest revised maintains a less mathematically and mechanically intricate version of this system.

Dogs in the Vineyard allows the player, at every point of resolution, to choose to yield (so as to avoid the risk of fallout) or to escalate (so as to try and get more and better dice, at the risk of more extreme fallout).

Etc.

Again, this sounds like you're not that familiar with a cross-section of systems.

Having weapons drawn absolutely matters in BW. (In Fight! it's two actions to draw a sword.) In my Marvel Heroic game, in one session War Machine began the session in his civvies (so as to earn a bonus plot point) and then later on had to make a successful check against the Doom Pool in order to have his armour fly to him so he could suit up.

In my Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy game, when the PCs came to a giants' steading the scout PC scouted it (initially establishing an Overview of the Steading Interior Asset by climbing up the pallisade, and then establishing a Giant Ox asset by spotting said ox in the giants' barn). This is tactical choice at the table, as it consumes actions (which might otherwise be spent on, say, fighting or talking) and - in this context - it fed into an approach based on social resolution (by trying to sell the giants' ox back to them, relying on their dimwittedness) rather than fighting.

The significance of these tactical choices is different - in the Cortex+ game (which is a viking game) the player is taking us in the more comedic direction of contests where Thor is trying to drink the ocean or wrestle Jormungandur, rather than the drama of the Ragnarok. And in BW, if you can't make your maintenance check then the game is probably not going to just end with your PC starving in the gutter - the GM might frame that scene ("You've no money, no food, your landlord has kicked you out, you're sitting in the gutter wondering what to do . . .") but then would follow up with something like ('" . . and then a coach pulls up, and Jabal's head pokes out - 'Jobe, I see that you've fallen on hard times'").

But they're there, in different forms dealing with different subject matter in different games, and they matter to how events unfold in the fiction.

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It's amusing that you cut out the bits of my post where I specifically point out those mechanics that are after the fact resource expenditures to reduce consequences and then present these exact things as if it refutes my argument. I'm specifically taking about action declaration to reduce or mitigate risk which is why I called out the post-hoc mechanics.

And, yes, I'm aware BW uses a more complicated combat mechanic, and one that is especially brutal and difficult to use. This isn't common in player-facing games, though, so it's not really a good example of the nature of the genre, just of itself. That said, the combat mechanics of BW are really designed to make fighting a bad choice -- both from the player perspective by being so overly complicated compared to the rest of the system, and from the character perspective in that even a simple combat has a reasonable chance of leaving you dead. As such, it's brutality is more of a push to keep the game away from combat rather than a wealth of tactical choices available to the player.

Ovinomancer said:

I think you completely missed what I was saying, as this response isn't at all responsive to my point. You've actually said, in more words, what I was saying: the players in the player facing game who choose to sit and drink in the tavern as a goal will not have a choice in having that agenda challenged by the GM.

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OK, do you hear yourself? You're complaining about a 'weakness' in a style of play based on the hypothesis that the players DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAY AN FRPG AT ALL! There's no need for any kind of an RPG in order to sit around the kitchen table tipping a few! This is meaningless in any realistic discussion of actual RPGs in the real world, which is exactly what my comment was about (FYI it started "I don't agree that this is true in practice" lol). Its another 'spherical cow', only its even MORE divorced from the real world than my endless maze was (which could actually exist as a game, though a very limited one). Nobody EVER does what you're proposing, ever.

More realistically, perhaps sometimes in our group we'd get together with the intent to play and there wouldn't be much energy in it and we'd dither and fiddle and not really focus on doing much. I don't see why a Story Now game is any different, and it isn't IME. Now and then you just sit around the table shooting the and maybe the PCs work on some project or other, invent a new spell, write a song, etc. That exists in my game, and it even has mechanical support! Its called an 'interlude', no dice are ever touched during this mode of play. It handles transitions and scenes you want to play out but that don't really contain any outright conflict.

But the idea that entire games run this way all the time, to the point where a system that introduces action to the game is actually unwanted and subverts play? I find that to be ludicrous TBH. Objecting on that basis is going too far.

The GM in player facing games, by using the design goal of going to the action, skips all the logistical and tactical choices players may engage in and places the agenda of the players in crisis, forcing them to deal with whatever events have placed the agenda into crisis.

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OK, slow down a little bit here. Just because Story Now 'goes to the action' doesn't mean it is endless cliff-hangers with nothing else in between. It means that the narrative moves to what engages the primary concerns of the PCs (and thus by extension the players, or sometimes directly of the players). Yes, there will be action, adventure, and conflict, and there will be crises, that's what creates/results from dramatic movement. However to think that every single time the GM frames the next scene that it is some sort of flaming catastrophe that the characters are instantly thrust into the middle of is badly misrepresenting the concept.

Think of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s last example, of the bazaar and the feather and whatnot. Is there a 'crisis' going on in the bazaar? No, its relevant to the agenda of the character in question, and there's 'action' in the sense of an investigatory and preparatory scene. Nobody is in bodily danger, there's no combat, nothing of the sort. If the characters want to simply wander around the bazaar then I'm sure they can. Probably something will come up that engages their needs pretty soon. It might focus on a different character, or introduce some other new element. It might lead to an action sequence of some sort, etc.

Yes, there will be a good bit of action in a game of this kind, however action is defined in the genre in play. I tend to think of most games as being sort of modeled on something like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', there's 'talky bits' where story is established and character relationships are developed, and there are action sequences where 'stuff happens', and there are, now and then, travel montages and similar things. They are all interspersed to produce a narrative with pace and drama which follows a story arc that engages the characters dramatically. The exact contents of this arc are largely up to the players in terms of what they choose to be interested in, and then made concrete and given direction by the framing of the GM.

This isn't a bad thing, and I'm not criticizing it (I'm running a Blades in the Dark game tomorrow night, as a matter of fact, and will be doing this with wild abandon), but it is a true thing. As I've said before, I'm running Blades on an off night because I have two players uninterested in the play, and who will not be attending. They like the logistics/tactical play in my much more DM facing 5e game.

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Its not a 'true thing', it may well be a TYPE of game which is Story Now, and Blades in the Dark may well exemplify it, I don't know. It isn't a universal. Story Now can be as measured and contain as many kinds of material and establish whatever pace it is that the GM and players feel comfortable with. If the players want to blather around drinking in taverns much of the time, then I'm sure you can do that with any system, it doesn't even take rules! I would suggest that these scenes be played out in a more summary fashion than a combat, where you go by the minute or even second, but its not required that the game be rushed along just because it centers on the PCs.

AbdulAlhazred said:

These things go together. In Story Now there is only NOW, the non-existence of elaborate backstory and canonical setting means that there won't BE a situation where the player's need is met with "no, the world just isn't like that, its impossible" for no other reason than the GM authored it that way (or FR book XYZ says so, etc.). This comes right back to the central question of the thread, what exactly is this pre-authored content DOING? We KNOW its supplying these kinds of limitations on play, as you've stated this is the case (albeit you say 'very rarely' which is important in practical terms but not so much in a theoretical sense).

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As I said, those instances are very, rare. It's very unlikely for the party to be in an area like that, and very unlikely to be unaware of those anti-arcane sentiments, so the players won't be looking for a wizard in the first place. I'm a firm believe on not basing what I do on possible outliers occurring.

As for what pre-authored content is doing, it's giving the world far more depth than any player facing game can achieve. That depth gives the world a different feel than one where the world pretty much doesn't exist outside of the PCs and what is authored in the moment. That content also gives both the players and the DM more to draw upon when roleplaying. Without such content, you are limited by both your ability to improvise. With the content, you have your ability to improvise, plus pre-authored content to draw upon.

I'm sure that there is increased depth in other areas of player facing games. Exploration of character being one of them.

I don't think the 'Flaming Fists' example is really all that compelling either. I mean, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] could invoke something like that in one of his games too, it just wouldn't be a pre-established thing.

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And that is a loss of world depth.

It might even BE pre-established in the sense of being a fixture of a particular genre or something. Its true, someone may 'come up with a name on the fly', and this is one of the various proposed uses of world building. I guess we could move forward into an analysis of exactly 'how much is too much' etc. That might be interesting.

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I think it would be.

AbdulAlhazred said:

OK, do you hear yourself? You're complaining about a 'weakness' in a style of play based on the hypothesis that the players DON'T ACTUALLY WANT TO PLAY AN FRPG AT ALL! There's no need for any kind of an RPG in order to sit around the kitchen table tipping a few! This is meaningless in any realistic discussion of actual RPGs in the real world, which is exactly what my comment was about (FYI it started "I don't agree that this is true in practice" lol). Its another 'spherical cow', only its even MORE divorced from the real world than my endless maze was (which could actually exist as a game, though a very limited one). Nobody EVER does what you're proposing, ever.

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This is highly disingenuous of you, as I didn't create the example and I was responding to your use of it exactly how you used it. It's difficult enough having this discussion, as you're now reacting as many did to [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s original points in a very defensive manner to analysis of your preferred playstyle. This seizing on my using the example YOU used to try and paint me as being unreasonable isn't appreciated.

More realistically, perhaps sometimes in our group we'd get together with the intent to play and there wouldn't be much energy in it and we'd dither and fiddle and not really focus on doing much. I don't see why a Story Now game is any different, and it isn't IME. Now and then you just sit around the table shooting the and maybe the PCs work on some project or other, invent a new spell, write a song, etc. That exists in my game, and it even has mechanical support! Its called an 'interlude', no dice are ever touched during this mode of play. It handles transitions and scenes you want to play out but that don't really contain any outright conflict.

But the idea that entire games run this way all the time, to the point where a system that introduces action to the game is actually unwanted and subverts play? I find that to be ludicrous TBH. Objecting on that basis is going too far.

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Sigh. Nothing in my analysis says you can't do this. I'm pointing out that the primary focus of play is to cut to crisis. I think it's disingenuous to try to intimate otherwise.

OK, slow down a little bit here. Just because Story Now 'goes to the action' doesn't mean it is endless cliff-hangers with nothing else in between. It means that the narrative moves to what engages the primary concerns of the PCs (and thus by extension the players, or sometimes directly of the players). Yes, there will be action, adventure, and conflict, and there will be crises, that's what creates/results from dramatic movement. However to think that every single time the GM frames the next scene that it is some sort of flaming catastrophe that the characters are instantly thrust into the middle of is badly misrepresenting the concept.

Think of [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s last example, of the bazaar and the feather and whatnot. Is there a 'crisis' going on in the bazaar? No, its relevant to the agenda of the character in question, and there's 'action' in the sense of an investigatory and preparatory scene. Nobody is in bodily danger, there's no combat, nothing of the sort. If the characters want to simply wander around the bazaar then I'm sure they can. Probably something will come up that engages their needs pretty soon. It might focus on a different character, or introduce some other new element. It might lead to an action sequence of some sort, etc.

Yes, there will be a good bit of action in a game of this kind, however action is defined in the genre in play. I tend to think of most games as being sort of modeled on something like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark', there's 'talky bits' where story is established and character relationships are developed, and there are action sequences where 'stuff happens', and there are, now and then, travel montages and similar things. They are all interspersed to produce a narrative with pace and drama which follows a story arc that engages the characters dramatically. The exact contents of this arc are largely up to the players in terms of what they choose to be interested in, and then made concrete and given direction by the framing of the GM.

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"Crisis" is the point at which the player's agenda is challenged. The framed situation is supposed to challenge the player's agenda in a way that will reveal something about it. The feather in [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s example directly challenges the players belief: is this feather what I need. A success moves toward that goal, a failure causes the feather to be cursed -- which the player now needs to deal with before returning to his agenda. This is a crisis point -- either you succeed or you're dealt a serious setback (or failure) to your agenda. Take a look at the dictionary definition of crisis -- it doesn't mean "catastrophe" it merely means a point at which the future hinges. That seems an excellent description of the kind of things a GM is supposed to frame the player agenda into.

Both you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] have misunderstood the use of crisis and assumed some form of catastrophic situation. The feather was a crisis -- the resolution of the player action created a decisive change in the fiction. That's what a crisis is. I know it's a shock for someone to use the actual definitions of words in this thread, but that's me, I'm a rebel.

Its not a 'true thing', it may well be a TYPE of game which is Story Now, and Blades in the Dark may well exemplify it, I don't know. It isn't a universal. Story Now can be as measured and contain as many kinds of material and establish whatever pace it is that the GM and players feel comfortable with. If the players want to blather around drinking in taverns much of the time, then I'm sure you can do that with any system, it doesn't even take rules! I would suggest that these scenes be played out in a more summary fashion than a combat, where you go by the minute or even second, but its not required that the game be rushed along just because it centers on the PCs.

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Then the description of Story Now is a lie. Considering it's not, this is really just an example of you not grasping what I mean by crisis. And what I mean is the dictionary definition of the word. The job of the GM in a Story Now game is to go to the action and put the player's agendas into crisis. This leads to the snowball of play where consecutive crises create a memorable game.