What is *worldbuilding* for?

[pemerton]

So the absurd examples is really to have you answer this question: If it's not obvious by the fiction, and the rules don't give clarity, who decides yes or no?

And it's not so much about people doing absurd things like giving themselves a holy sword. It's about the players who aren't as fully invested in the story or the direction it's going and decides they are going to go someplace else. It's also about stories that aren't driven by these types of motivations. Maybe they're just serving their two weeks in the town militia on guard duty. Or the story model is more like a TV show where there are weekly things that are going on, life, if you will, and then there are the long-term motivations of the characters that are separate story arcs that are addressed as well, although not necessarily every week. Or even if there are strong motivations, the characters don't share the same motivations.

There are so many types of stories to tell, and that's what I still can't wrap my head around. Are these other types of stories possible in a Story Now game? If something is unclear in terms of success or failure, or a player authors something that other players don't like or agree with, then how is that addressed? If that's part of the job of the GM, then explain how that's really different than what we're talking about, other than perhaps the threshold where the GM steps in.

One implication here, in the reference to "players who aren't as fully invested", is that the job of the GM is a type of parenting or troupe leader: to keep everyone together.

But now think about all the situations in which people get together in groups of around half-a-dozen or so and do things together without needing a leader to coordinate them: going to lunch or dinner; going to the movies; meeting up for a picnic; etc.

The same social techniques that work in those contexts can work in RPGing - whether "OK, this session we'll do your thing; next session it's my PC's turn", or finding some higher synthesis in which everyone can get what they want out of the same activity. In my group the more dominant personalities also tend to be enthusiastic for quite a wide range of possibilities, and so the compromises and agreements seem easy to reach.

Because we're talking about RPGing, some of these issues will be occurring within the game - eg PC 1 wants to go to place A, while PC 2 wants to go to place B - and that means that sometimes the solution to player disagreement is a game mechanical one. In Burning Wheel, the two PCs might fight a duel of wits to see if one can persuade the other. In my Traveller game, a couple of times I've made the two sides in a protracted disagreement dice off, giving a bonus modifier to the side that has the PC with Leader skill, and a bonus to the side whose PC has the highest Social Standing. I once did a similar thing in my 4e game (using CHA as the relevant stat), when an argument about where to go next had been going on without resolution for more than a session, no resolution was in sight, and the game could not go on without a decision being made.

Other sorts of differences or disagreements might be of the "I attack them!" "No, don't do that, I want to talk to them!" variety. I don't see that player-driven RPGing has to be any more prone to this than GM-driven, unless the GM's driving is so strong that it regulates and screens huge chunks of action declaration. (I know this does happen at some tables, but I would regard that sort of play as rather degenerate RPGing.)

Sometimes this sort of conflict can be something that is resolved mechanically. For instance, in my Cortex+ game the swordthane knocked on the door of the giant steading, because - as per one of his milestones - the player wanted his PC to be able to ask the occupant for advice about the PC's quest. When a giant opened the door, the berserker PC immediately charged him in a screaming rage - because the player of that PC wanted to earn XP, as per one of his milestones, for having his first action in a scene be violent. The swordthane used his ability to take a blow in lieu of an intended target, and so - in the fiction - caught the haft of the axe of the berserker as it was halfway through it's swing; and then chided the berserker that these were friendly giants, not giants to be fought.

But sometimes it is primarily a social thing, which can be resolved through social means.

I'm not really sure what you mean by something is unclear in terms of success or failure. When a player declares an action for his/her PC, that establishes what success looks like. In most "story now" RPGs, narrating failure is the responsibility of the GM. The most boring version of failure is "nothing happens" or "nope, there's no secret door there"; but typically in these games the GM is expected to use "fail forward" techniques ie failure results in some affirmative thing occurring which itself demands some sort of response from the PCs (and thus the players). (Note that the "forward" in the phrase "fail forward" refers to the narrative trajectory, not the individual PC's trajectory. When interpreted in the latter sense "fail forward" becomes "succeed with a cost" which I think tends to be rather insipid except in pretty modest doses, and really is a hallmark of GM-driven railroads which can't accommodate genuine failures without derailing.)

As far as story types are concerned, there are obviously some RPGs that lend themselves well to episodic games. Dogs in the Vineyard is one, as its basic structure has the PCs moving from town to town to enforce the religious law. Each town is an episode which allows the players to explore and evince their PCs' responses to the various sorts of troubles and sins that the people of the imagined land get up to.

Cortex+ Heroic is another. Because player goal/theme in Cortex+ Heroic is expressed as Milestones, ie particular actions or events which earn a PC experience points, the external circumstances aren't that important. Eg if Captain America earns 10 XP either when he becomes leader of a new superhero team, or hands over leadership of his current team to a new leader, that can happen (and be built up to) in a variety of situations that follow on from one another.

4e also handles episodic play fairly straightforwardly. The default arc in 4e is very long: levels 1 to 30, with a level gained every 3 to 4 sessions, means something like 100+ sessions of play in a campaign. There's a lot of scope in there for sub-arcs and the like. Unlike DitV, the rules for encounter design in 4e don't guarantee that each moment in those 100+ sessions will be thematically engaging, but it's not that hard to achieve that in 4e, because the relevant themes are pretty clear and strong, and the default cosmology, mythic history and Monster Manual of 4e provides plenty of elements that speak to those themes.

Burning Wheel, on the other hand, is less well suited to episodic play, because PC relationship and affiliations and so on are a big part of the game, and players are expected to give their PCs Beliefs which connect to these various "external" elements of the gameworld. I'm not saying it couldn't be done, but I don't think it is what BW is best for.

And I say that I obviously need you to show me where that's wrong. Because he specifically recommends that the players don't have any authority to author the fiction outside of advocacy of their characters, other than possibly (part of) the backstory. After that point, what happens in the world around the PCs is in the hands of the GM.

"The problem we have here, specifically, is that when you apply narration sharing to backstory authority, you require the player to both establish and resolve a conflict, which runs counter to the Czege principle.

Here is where you are wrong: declaring an action is not exercising backstory authority.

A player who declares "I search for a secret door" is not exercising backstory authority. If that check succeeds, and thus - in the fiction - a secret door is found, that is not an exercise of backstory authority. It's an exercise of the authority to declare an action for one's PC. The backstory was established by the GM in framing the scene.

The games that Eero Tuovinen actually mentions as exemplifying the "standard narrativistic model" are (from memory) Sorcerer, DitV, Primetime Adventures and HeroWars/Quest (the lattermost at least in some moods). I would add Burning Wheel, Fate and Cortex+ Heroic (the latter two, again, in some but not all moods). Have you ever played any of these games, or read the rulebooks for them?

The correct heuristic is to throw out the claim of fatherhood if it seems like a challenging revelation for the character

It's not a coincidence that the phrase used is "the claim of fatherhood." This is not the same as the truth of that claim.

How the claim is established as true or false will depend upon the particular resolution mechanics of the system, and how the player engages them - if at all - in response to that claim. For instance, in Burning Wheel the PC could go on a quest to refute the claim - say, collecting evidence as to the location of the putative father relative to the character's mother in the period 9 months or so before the character was born - and if these actions succeeded then they would be binding on the GM as much as the player.

it works, but only as long as you do not require the player to take part in determining the backstory and moments of choice.

That pretty much sounds exactly like what we're talking about. The player makes decision and takes actions, and the GM adjudicates (and authors) the world.

The backstory and the "moment of choice" is just that - the framing of the scene. It's not all this other, unrevealed stuff that already answers the question and tells us whether the character's agenda and feelings are right or wrong. As Ron Edwards - whom Eero expressly references - says, in "story now" RGGing There cannot be any "the story".

Is the villain the hero's father, or not? That is not to be authored in advance secretly by the GM. Assuming that it's something that anyone cares about (ie it would be a "challenging revelation"), then it's one of the things that we play to find out.

 

[pemerton]

Which seems an odd statement coming from you, who is always such a champion of player agency. Curious.

I'm also a big fan of actually following the rules of a game I'm playing!

In D&D I can't just decide to track my divine luck and hence decree that I must make the next saving throw. There are rules that require dice to be rolled, which permits the result that the gods have abandoned my PC once again.

So likewise in Cortex+ Heroic you can't just track your ammunition and hence decree that you must have enough left for your next shot. The rules of the game permit the GM to trigger your limit, and thereby shut down your Bow power.

if I've been tracking my ammunition and think I have 12 shots left yet on a miss the DM arbitrarily says I'm out of ammo, the conversation that came next would not be pleasant.

But the GM can introduce whatever narration s/he likes that fits the established fiction: you miscounted when you filled your quiver (plausible enough for a mediaeval type person); on your last shot you in fact pulled two arrows out when you only wanted one, and you thought the spare one dropped back inside the quiver but in fact it landed on the ground and you didn't notice that and so didn't pick it back up; etc, etc.

The strap breaking on the quiver, or the bowstring snapping, are both essentially fumbles - which tells me that any time I miss a DM can just narrate a fumble if the mood strikes her?

At any time the GM can trigger a limit, by offering the player a plot point and - if they decline - then spending a die from the Doom Pool. A player can also trigger his/her limit at any time, earning a plot point.

This is part of the apparatus the GM enjoys, in this particular system, to manage pacing and introduce complications.

OK, so those systems force more detail - cool. Within reason, forcing more detail is almost always fine with me. I just don't want to see less detail to the point where important things like ammunition and wealth are getting handwaved.

Can't you see how arbitrary this is? You standard for the acceptable amount of detail is nothing more than how D&D does it!

I mean, consider the following example. OGL Conan distinguishes dodging, which requires moving position, from parrying, which doesn't. RQ doesn't make the same distinction in that respect - dodging and parrying are both just % chances to avoid a blow. Now, suppose a RQ player says "Within reason, more detail is almost always fine with me. So I'd be happy with a system that distinguishes dodging from parrying as far as changing position is concerned. I just don't want to see less detail to the point where important things, like the difference between dodging or parrying a blow, and having armour absorb or deflect it, are getting handwaved."

What can you say to that criticism of D&D? All you have to offer is that you happen to like the way that D&D does it - but that's hardly a powerful rebuttal!

For my part, when I play D&D I dutifully track my ammunition, because that's what the rules require, but I don't regard it as anything essential for a RPG. When I play other systems that treat ammunition in other ways, I follow the rules of those games.

(And not tracking ammunition is not "handwaving" it. I've described an actual alternative mechanic - from Cortex+ Heroic - and an imaginary alternative mechanic that I made up, in recent posts, including this one.)

 

[pemerton]

It seems controversial to me because I really don't believe that creators need to create every part in order to be "doing fiction properly". If a group chooses to set their play in the universe of Frank Herbert's Dune, then there will be parts that they relinquish agency over. They do that in order to be inspired. Their fiction-making efforts, or more accurately the fiction arising as a side-effect of their play, is just as genuine and complete. I feel like this is an important point of divergence between us. If I play in Dickensian London, I relinquish agency about some things in that setting, while retaining agency about everything I care about (my character's motives, choices, acts etc). How is it that drawing on ideas like knights and orders is not surrendering agency, while drawing on say warforged would be? Is it that it is only agency if it comes out of the player's own knowledge and creativity, no matter what would be gained by furbishing them with other sources of inspiration?

I'm not sure what you mean by "doing fiction properly".

I'm also not sure how you are using "agency". Authorship involves the use of language. Language is an inherited resource. It limits, as well as empowers. In the context of writing stories, or fictions, language (and the cultural associations it carries) offers tropes, motifs, genre, etc. Writing is going to draw on those to some extent - in fairly subtle ways for serious authors of literature, but probably more crudely in most RPGing contexts. But it seems largely unhelpful to say that any exercise of authorial agency is in fact to limit one's agency (because dependent upon this inheritance of linguistic and narrative resources). It seems more helpful to say that the exercise of agency draws upon certain resources.

As the fiction unfolds, it will generate its own further constraints. To me, it also seems more helpful to see the development of a coherent and unified fiction as an exercise of agency - with later constraints being the manifestation of earlier exercises of agency - than to suggest that to write is to further and further limit one's agency.

Turning, then, to Dickensian London: this establishes some elements of trope and genre - evil landlords, cynical (or hopelessly utopic) industrialists, orphans, legacies, trustees, fog, unexpected personages with curious names, etc. As far as action declaration is concerned, these establish what HeroQuest revised calls "Credibility tests" - an action declaration "I jump across the Thames" is not acceptable, but an action declaration "I find a ferryman to carry me across the Thames under the cover of darkness" is. The Burning Wheel rulebook makes the same point when it says that a player can't hope to have his/her PC find beam weaponry in the duke's toilet. 4e draws upon the "tiers of play" to establish this sort of credibility constraint, as well as the itemised capabilities of feats and powers at various levels/tiers (sometimes these itemised capabilities can come into tension with the narrative description of the tiers of play, or a particular paragon path or epic destiny: that's a weakness in 4e, though how big a weakness it is I'll leave someone else - eg [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] - to judge).

Insofar as the players have chosen to play in Dickensian London, these credibility limits are better seen as an exercise of agency rather than a burden upon it. In particular social circumstances that might change - eg if a GM starts wielding credibility tests as a club to block action declarations that players regard as quite reasonable - but at that point the game would seem to be spiralling into collapse in any event.

However, suppose that the GM treats "Dickensian London" as an invitation to delve into archives, old maps and plans, newspaper records etc. And so when the player declares "I find a ferryman to carry me across the Thames under the cover of darkness" the GM replies "No, that's not possible. As per [archival source XYZ], on that evening such-and-such a vessel was floundering and all the London ferrymen were involved in the rescue and salvage effort." That would be an example of the GM relying not on genre credibility, but rather on unrevealed elements of setting established via detailed worldbuilding, to block a player action declaration. The player, now, to make successful action declarations, first has to establish all these unrevealed elements that might otherwise defeat his/her action declarations because treated by the GM as part of the fictional positioning, although the player doesn't know what they are.

That is the approach to worldbuilding by GMs that imposes significant limits on player authority over the content of the shared fiction (eg in this case, a ferryman available to carry the PC across the Thames under cover of darkness). My own opinion, based on a mixture of experience, reading and conjecture that build on those, is that it is relatively common in RPGing. (Also notice that this is not how Dickens himself writes. He is happy to make up fictional ferrymen, business emporiums, etc, as needed for his narrative purposes.)

Whether "Frank Herbet's Dune" is a way of establishing genre, or of establishing unrevealed elements of fictional positioning, would depend on what the play group was intending to do. I could easily imagine using Middle Earth as a way to establish genre and trope; but that's not how ICE treated it in their MERP products - they went for the establish unrevealed elements of fictional positioning approach.

Premise - For player A to enjoy agency, player B must cede them agency over some aspects of the fiction, and vice versa. Sometimes ideas will come to both at the same time, but other times one will have a thing they want to express, explore, do or introduce, and the other will have to allow them to express, explore, do or introduce that thing. If B does not, for instance if B was always editing over A's contributions, then A can't really be said to have had agency.

Example - Bob and Alice have come to be (in their fiction) in a market. I won't worry about how they got there, but Alice narrates that she will buy a rosy ripe apple from the local orchards, free from the taint of disease or infestation, paying with one of the small copper bits common in these parts. I don't think Bob can at this point just get rid of those things, without eroding or destroying Alice's agency. Bob's agency over the fiction from there then, is to add to, transmute or expand on, but not deny or destroy, Alice's contributions.

That suggests to me that the question is one of who is doing how much of what, rather than whether or not there will be pre-existing contributions that some participants will concede a lack of agency over. Concretely, there will be such contributions, and for the authors of those contributions to enjoy agency, others must give up some agency, at least in respect of those parts.

I don't accept your premise.

Firstly, I don't think that agency is, in general, zero-sum in the way you seem to suggest. And second, I don't think agency in the specific case of authorship or establishing shared fiction need be zero-sum either. Bob letting Alice establish what is in the market isn't an exercise by Bob of agency in respect of that particular element of the shared fiction, but there are other elements that Bob can establish.

Now if we are talking about a modest market scene, and there were dozens of participants, I agree that the situation could become (at least for practical purposes) fully established and resolved without everyone getting a chance to have a turn. But I think the typical RPGing group is closer to half-a-dozen or so people. So I think the number of situations that will be exhausted by Alice's contribution before Bob gets to have a turn is fairly small.

Of course if Alice goes first, and Bob is obliged to respect Alice's contribution, then Alice's exercise of agency imposes some constraints on Bob's. That's part and parcel of collective authorship of a shared fiction. I have co-authored many (non-fictional) works, and ways of handling this have tended to emerge organically (and the number of authors has never been larger than three). In a game, there tend to be rules for managing these issues of who gets to go first.

Another Premise - After a time participants in a shared fiction come to naturally rely on elements that become canonical. Elements becoming canonical is a way that world-building happens. It's not all or nothing, and it can proceed organically. Tolkien worried about genealogies because they mattered to what he was focused on creating. Maybe Bob cares about such things, and Alice doesn't give a fig, but is happy to draw inspiration from Bob's contribution.

Another Example - Taking for this example a story-focused, freeform game that I created and played with others decades ago called Masters of Luck and Death (MOLAD), participants frequently made their own notes. My memory was good so I also kept track of a lot of things for the group. Additionally, I had the original creative idea, which other participants liked so much that they wanted to enter that world and create fictions within it themselves.

That suggests to me that creating fiction isn't and all or nothing thing, and it isn't impugned by being set within or using elements that come from somewhere else.

Yes. As I wrote above, this is going to be the case with any work of authorship (I'm putting dada-esque or Andy Warhol-esque approaches to one side; I think as a feature of RPGing practice these are an extreme minority, and I'm sure those who are doing it have already worked out their techniques to their satisfaction). Any work of authorship generates its own constraints of coherence, unity etc.

Those are best seen as expressions of the agency of those who (by way of their authorship) brought them into being.

Contemplating these sorts of ideas, it seems to me very clear what world-building can do for contemporary RPG. Whether that is principally the work of one of the participants or is the work of all, is a side-issue. It doesn't take away from its value.

A group can move away from GM authority, but for me that is moot. (At least in respect of one of your core concerns.)

I don't think you are using the term "worldbuilding" in the way it is used in the OP. You seem to be identifying the value of setting in RPGing.

To the extent that you are saying (and I'm not sure whether or not you are) that it doesn't matter whether setting is established prior to play, or in the course of play, I don't agree. Experiencing the development of a setting that you help author is exercising and enjoying your agency. Experiencing someone else's relating to you a setting that has already been written is experiencing the exercise of someone else's agency. (The fact that you are happy to do this doesn't make it your agency, any more than the fact that Bob is happy for Alice to author the market as offering apples for sale means that Bob is the author of that element of the fiction.)

There is a separate line of argument that needs to be unpacked, which is that of resolution. What is different about acquiescing to Luke Crane's stipulated obstacle levels, from acquiescing to some other person's nominated obstacle level?

There is no difference, except that Luke Crane has playtested his obstacle levels and so (one trusts) is somewhat confident that they will produce tenable pacing outcomes. The Adventure Burner has a discussion of the role of obstacles in establishing setting.

But obstacles contribute to genre, and related elements of feel; but it is the actual action declarations, and their resolution, that establish the concrete elements of the shared fiction.

My own view is that, by default, Story Now works better with pacing-generated obstacles - as in 4e, Cortex+ Heroic or HeroQuest revised - than with "objective" obstacles, as in BW. But BW has a number of bells and whistles that ameliorate what could otherwise be the railroading effect of "objective" obstacles.

 

[Maxperson]

There's no contradiction. [MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION] says that the agenda is fairly obvious at the point where those things happen, and the thing he mentioned in relation to Pippin was choosing between fealty to Denethor and love of Faramir. What he says we don't know is Pippin's dramatic need at the start of the story. That choice happens very close to its end.

Well, hey. If that's your definition of an agenda for Story Now, then our styles are even closer than I thought. My players also decide to do things and at the point they decide them, the agenda is also fairly obvious. When traveling through the underdark and they come across an altar, if they decide to investigate it, it's now an agenda of theirs. Nice!

And here is the real contradiction: because your playstyle can't easily "do it all". You can't have character growth without character dramatic needs, because it's in the nature of such growth to relate in some fashion to those needs.

There's no contradiction. In my style hard character choices happen all the time, which results in character growth. It's kind of silly to ask for play examples, though. Do you really need play examples of combats in my game in order to believe that combats happen?

As AbdulAlhzared said, it's obvious to any reader of LotR that JRRT didn't just write down some random stuff. AbdulAlhzared's point, in referring to the two hobbits as "the least developed characters, besides Legolas", is that even these least developed characters have significant dramatic arcs established for them by the author. (He is right to say that Legolas really doesn't. Nor does Butterburr.)

The Strawman is strong with you. I didn't say it was random. I said that things play out with character development in my game as well, so writing a story where such things happen is not proof of Story Now. You have to assume Story Now agendas in order to call Tolkien Story Now, but you have to make no such assumptions to apply my style to it. Either that or my style now has Story Now agendas in it.

If you can't appreciate fairly obvious dramatic arcs in a fairly straightforward fantasy story, that does help explain why you're not interested in "story now" RPGing. Suffice it to say that most people don't regard it as "rationalising" to notice that Pippin and Merry have character-defining moments in the third volume of LotR. And the point of "story now" RPGing - as Eero Tuovinen tells us in the context of the "standard narrativistic model" - is to allow the player of a character to "let the other players know in certain terms what the character thinks and wants", which will be facilitated by the GM framing scenes that are "interesting situation(s) in relation to the premise of the setting or the character." These will include "complications" (eg the man to whom you swore fealty, because his sone died saving you from orcs is now threatening to burn alive his other son, whom you love) and thereby "provoke thematic moments (defined in narrativistic theory as moments of in-character action that carry weight as commentary on the game’s premise)" (eg you choose love over fealty, and so disobey a direct order from your commander).

If you can't understand how those same kinds of choices appear in our style of gaming, then it does help explain why you get our style wrong so frequently.

Taking this idea to role-playing, the deluded notion is that Simulationist play will yield Story Now play without any specific attention on anyone's part to do so. The primary issue is to maintain the facade that "No one guides the planchette!" The participants must be devoted to the notion that stories don't need authors; they emerge from some ineffable confluence of Exploration per se. . . .

Taking that idea to my style of play is a False Equivalence. The players do indeed very clearly guide their players through those hard choices and the growth of their characters. And I've said from the beginning that in my style of play the story is authored by both the players and the DM through gameplay. It's not some random or seemingly random result.

You assert that you can achieve significant dramatic arcs by way of GM-driven RPGing that nevertheless relentlessly prioritises exploration of the setting by treating "the gameworld" as something "neutral" that constrains action resolution and creates its own demands (eg the table can't just go to where the action is). For the reasons that Edwards gives, I don't think this can be done. You yourself said that to achieve the Moria sequence in play you would have to edit out all the stuff that isn't relevant to the story.

Of course you can. When the story starts moving in a character changing way, it doesn't suddenly stop. The PC is going to continue making choices along those lines and I am going to be narrating in response and setting things up along those lines. Authoring some things in advance along those lines doesn't mystically stop the arc from happening.

Now you are saying that you can't even recognise the obvious story trajectory of the two non-ringbearing hobbits in LotR.

No no. That's YOU saying that about me. I never even implied that I couldn't see the arc of the hobbits. I only said that it didn't have to be an agenda picked out in advance and that it could in fact happen through my style of game play, which it can. That you are too blind to see how it can happen doesn't change that fact.

 

[Maxperson]

OK, you COULD do it with your playstyle, I already stated that I am not excluding that possibility, how does that change any of my points? I disagree that there are no goals or perhaps they should be labeled 'themes' in this specific context of LotR. I expostulated a deep theme, the nature of evil, that it takes the form of dominance, etc. This is a deep theme which the players can explore with their characters in a setting. Tolkien DOES explore it with his characters, albeit in a novel and not an RPG. I'm not 'rationalizing' any goals. In fact I dispute that Frodo's goal is to destroy the ring! He certainly takes on a quest to do so, and I think its reasonable to assume that for SOME part of the story he works towards it steadily. I don't think it is really the core of what he is about though. In fact, you could see the final chapter of his journey to Mt Doom as a rejection. In fact I think that part of the problem he has there is he's NOT really resolved to destroy the ring. In the end it overthrows his mind. Only Gollum's intervention, fate, spares the world from a new Age of Darkness.

Or, to go back to examples of Story Now that you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] have given, he failed a roll at the end. He was very committed the entire way through, and that commitment is what carried through in a lot of places. And even if he changed his mind at the end and gave up that goal, are players not allowed to change their character goals in Story Now? Are character development and game play not allowed to have an impact on the player's goals for his PC?

We're not inventing hypothetical agendas because we're not determining some agenda after the fact and trying to view an existing story through that lens. When we RPG we are creating a story, using an agenda or a theme. Thus you have no substance for objection here.

We aren't talking about your RPG, though. We're discussing Tolkien's story and then trying to see which style of play best fits. Since my style of play also has the kinds of story arcs described in Tolkien, created through the kinds of tough character choices that the members of the Fellowship make, you can't just declare those arcs as proof of Story Now. I mean fine, if you really want to declare those arcs and decisions as proof positive of player agendas, then my style has those same agendas, which means that it's still not proof of Story Now happening.

Yes, it amplified their powers, making it possible for them to DOMINATE OTHERS. Remember the words of Galadriel. "Instead of a Dark Lord, you would have a queen, not dark but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Tempestuous as the sea, and stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me and despair!"

The very spell of making of the One Ring is a spell of domination "One Ring to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them!" All of the lesser ring bearers, even mighty Isildur, descendant of higher beings though he is, falls immediately under its influence.

This is a mighty theme! A wonderful theme! Filled with all kinds of potential. Here is the whole reason for Boromir, with his "don't you see! The Ring is a gift..." and finally "It should be mine! It WILL be mine!" I don't know that such a lofty theme can be utilized successfully in an RPG, it would take a very specific sort of players to execute that kind of play, but that doesn't make thematic play invalid. It just means that GM's and players need to consider their aims carefully in order to have fun. I don't see how that is different from the idea that a GM such as yourself needs to construct interesting adventures.

I agree. It's not really different from how my style can play out. And I also agree that the ring was created for that purpose and has that affect on others, which is also easy to accomplish in my style of play. How does the above show that Tolkien is engaging in Story Now and not my style of play when engaging in that theme?

 

[Maxperson]

Here is where you are wrong: declaring an action is not exercising backstory authority.

A player who declares "I search for a secret door" is not exercising backstory authority. If that check succeeds, and thus - in the fiction - a secret door is found, that is not an exercise of backstory authority. It's an exercise of the authority to declare an action for one's PC. The backstory was established by the GM in framing the scene.

A character declaring he is searching for a secret door is exercising the authority to declare an action for one's PC. A player creating a secret door via a roll is establishing backstory, as that secret door is now a part of the history of the scene. It now has existed PRIOR to the search for it and is backstory.

 

[Lanefan]

One implication here, in the reference to "players who aren't as fully invested", is that the job of the GM is a type of parenting or troupe leader: to keep everyone together.

But now think about all the situations in which people get together in groups of around half-a-dozen or so and do things together without needing a leader to coordinate them: going to lunch or dinner; going to the movies; meeting up for a picnic; etc.

Even then there's always someone who instigates the idea, and on getting agreement from the others that same person is also often the one who suggests a time and place, makes the reservation (if needed), and becomes for that event the default go-to person if someone wants to add a friend or if someone can't make it.

In an RPG situation that co-ordinating person is just about always the DM, which makes sense.

Because we're talking about RPGing, some of these issues will be occurring within the game - eg PC 1 wants to go to place A, while PC 2 wants to go to place B - and that means that sometimes the solution to player disagreement is a game mechanical one. In Burning Wheel, the two PCs might fight a duel of wits to see if one can persuade the other. In my Traveller game, a couple of times I've made the two sides in a protracted disagreement dice off, giving a bonus modifier to the side that has the PC with Leader skill, and a bonus to the side whose PC has the highest Social Standing. I once did a similar thing in my 4e game (using CHA as the relevant stat), when an argument about where to go next had been going on without resolution for more than a session, no resolution was in sight, and the game could not go on without a decision being made.

Me, I just let them debate and argue; and if it means they can't come to any agreement and end up splitting the party then so be it, as that's clearly what those characters would do in that situation.

I've at various times seen these sort of disagreements be settled by an in-party vote* or by random method (roll-off at the table, in-character flipping a coin) or by someone just saying "Screw it - I'm going that way" and hoping everyone (or anyone!) else follows.

* - and can remember one hilarious instance where they couldn't even agree on the dispute resolution method and so ended up voting on whether to settle the matter by vote...upon which there arose a further disagreement about the party-membership status of a new character, eventually resulting in a vote on whether this person could vote on whether to vote - by this point we were all rolling on the floor laughing at the sheer absurdity of it!

Other sorts of differences or disagreements might be of the "I attack them!" "No, don't do that, I want to talk to them!" variety. I don't see that player-driven RPGing has to be any more prone to this than GM-driven, unless the GM's driving is so strong that it regulates and screens huge chunks of action declaration. (I know this does happen at some tables, but I would regard that sort of play as rather degenerate RPGing.)

There's some tables where these sort of disagreements are in fact banned - on the declaration of "I attack them!" everyone else's response has to start with something like "Yes and...", in support of the first declaration. It's someone in these forums who does this but I can't remember who, though I know we argued about it sometime within the last year or so.

Here is where you are wrong: declaring an action is not exercising backstory authority.

Correct.

It's an attempt to exercise story authority in general, success or failure of which will be determined by the die roll thus generated. The declaration usually goes something like "I do x in an attempt to achieve y", where 'y' is a change or addition to either the backstory (e.g. in "I search for a secret door" x is a search and y adds a secret door) or the ongoing story (in "I search the crowd looking for my long-lost sister" x is a search and y is finding my sister).

A player who declares "I search for a secret door" is not exercising backstory authority. If that check succeeds, and thus - in the fiction - a secret door is found, that is not an exercise of backstory authority.

To me on a success it is, as it's directly adding something to the backstory (in this case, the scene as framed) that wasn't put there by the GM.

The backstory was established by the GM in framing the scene.

But the GM didn't know there was a secret door there until the player/PC found it, so how could she have already framed it into the scene even in her mind?

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

I'm also a big fan of actually following the rules of a game I'm playing!

As am I, if those rules make sense. If they don't...if I'm the DM I beat them into submossion until they do, and if I'm a player I'll try to get the DM to see how they don't make sense and then leave it up to her to change them.

In D&D I can't just decide to track my divine luck and hence decree that I must make the next saving throw. There are rules that require dice to be rolled, which permits the result that the gods have abandoned my PC once again.

Which makes sense, as (except in the most unusual of cases) the average PC would have no in-game way of knowing how her divine luck was running at any given time.

So likewise in Cortex+ Heroic you can't just track your ammunition and hence decree that you must have enough left for your next shot. The rules of the game permit the GM to trigger your limit, and thereby shut down your Bow power.

Which - and here I'm going to sound like you! - doesn't make sense from a player-agency perspective, never mind that of realism.

But the GM can introduce whatever narration s/he likes that fits the established fiction: you miscounted when you filled your quiver (plausible enough for a mediaeval type person); on your last shot you in fact pulled two arrows out when you only wanted one, and you thought the spare one dropped back inside the quiver but in fact it landed on the ground and you didn't notice that and so didn't pick it back up; etc, etc.

That could explain an error of one or two but not 12, which is over half a quiver's worth - any PC with intelligence higher than that of a shoe will notice that many bolts missing while gearing up for the morning's travels... "Gee, this quiver seems light...hey! Who stole my bolts?!"

At any time the GM can trigger a limit, by offering the player a plot point and - if they decline - then spending a die from the Doom Pool. A player can also trigger his/her limit at any time, earning a plot point.

This is part of the apparatus the GM enjoys, in this particular system, to manage pacing and introduce complications.

And these plot points can be used later as in the iron spikes example. OK.

I can see how it works as a game system (gamist*) but find myself deal-breakingly disappointed in the realism (simulationist*) side of it.

* - words used in their common meaning as opposed to anything the Forge uses them for.

Can't you see how arbitrary this is? You standard for the acceptable amount of detail is nothing more than how D&D does it!

I mean, consider the following example. OGL Conan distinguishes dodging, which requires moving position, from parrying, which doesn't. RQ doesn't make the same distinction in that respect - dodging and parrying are both just % chances to avoid a blow. Now, suppose a RQ player says "Within reason, more detail is almost always fine with me. So I'd be happy with a system that distinguishes dodging from parrying as far as changing position is concerned. I just don't want to see less detail to the point where important things, like the difference between dodging or parrying a blow, and having armour absorb or deflect it, are getting handwaved."

What can you say to that criticism of D&D? All you have to offer is that you happen to like the way that D&D does it - but that's hardly a powerful rebuttal!

Perhaps.

My preference for detail doesn't entirely match that of early D&D - I never used weapon speed or weapon-vs.-armour type, I long ago kinda gave up on worrying about encumbrance except in egregious cases and-or at very low levels to set the tone; but I'm fussier about time-distance issues, long-term injuries and near-death situations. Ideally I'd like a much higher level of detail but at some point comes the need to sacrifice detail in order to give a playable game at the table, and for me the pre-3e D&D level is on the whole a reasonable compromise most of the time.

It's interesting that you bring up AC and armour as your example, as that's one area likely to undergo major surgery - as in, a complete stem-to-stern rebuild - the next time (if ever!) I change campaigns or worlds: in some ways what we have is too fussy for what I'd like, in others - partly including your examples above - it's not fussy enough; and in either case it gets unwieldy at higher levels.

(And not tracking ammunition is not "handwaving" it. I've described an actual alternative mechanic - from Cortex+ Heroic - and an imaginary alternative mechanic that I made up, in recent posts, including this one.)

Both the Cortex+ Heroic version and your version are to me different ways of saying "handwave it", and - more tellingly - both take it out of the player's control.

Lan-"fortunately I've probably still got a few years while my current campaign plays out before I have to think too much about major rules surgery"-efan

 

[clearstream]

It seems more helpful to say that the exercise of agency draws upon certain resources.

For me this seems to say we can end the thread here. All world-building is, is a resource. It can be done by none, one or several authors. How successful it is for any group depends on that group. Most of the roleplaying gaming that I experience and observe (including via Twitch or YouTube) is of the kind that it will be of value. Games like Burning went on to release three world-builds in the form of the setting books, one being inspired by Dune.

As the fiction unfolds, it will generate its own further constraints. To me, it also seems more helpful to see the development of a coherent and unified fiction as an exercise of agency - with later constraints being the manifestation of earlier exercises of agency - than to suggest that to write is to further and further limit one's agency.

Yes, exactly! The original and/or evolving world-build is a manifestation of earlier exercises of agency. It is essential in some form or other. Possibly I misunderstand, but your main "question" (and I feel it is perhaps less a question and more a manifesto) is about who does it, how, and at what scale. Those are all good questions and I would share any feeling you might have that various approaches have pluses and minuses. There can be good in the world-build being handled by a sole arbiter: that goes in one direction. And there can be good in the world-build being handled by all, as they go along. The kinds of problems to solve in implementation have commonalities and differences.

Insofar as the players have chosen to play in Dickensian London, these credibility limits are better seen as an exercise of agency rather than a burden upon it. In particular social circumstances that might change - eg if a GM starts wielding credibility tests as a club to block action declarations that players regard as quite reasonable - but at that point the game would seem to be spiralling into collapse in any event.

I'm not sure what you mean by "block action declarations" as you just gave examples of action declarations that should be blocked. If you mean that no one should do so egregiously, then I would agree with you. Generally, we don't want nonsensical declarations, or declarations that falsify what has gone before. The most potent declarations are those that address and move forward the current state of play.

If players want to feel entitled to declare anything, even things that make no sense or dismantle what everyone else is enjoying, I'm not for that. And if we've agreed on a system to work within, in order to create interest and challenge for ourselves, then I think their declarations are going to be most enjoyable if they work with that.

I don't accept your premise.

You go on to accept my premise, so I think we must have a miscommunication/misunderstanding here.

Firstly, I don't think that agency is, in general, zero-sum in the way you seem to suggest. And second, I don't think agency in the specific case of authorship or establishing shared fiction need be zero-sum either. Bob letting Alice establish what is in the market isn't an exercise by Bob of agency in respect of that particular element of the shared fiction, but there are other elements that Bob can establish.

Please note that I suggest the opposite to zero-sum. In order to not be zero-sum, gains must be made above the line. The "cost" of those gains is to let them stand. For me, zero-sum would be where for Bob's agency to stand, he must dismantle Alice's. I believe neither is arguing for that.

I don't think you are using the term "worldbuilding" in the way it is used in the OP. You seem to be identifying the value of setting in RPGing.

It seems possible that the OP has in mind "egregious world-building shoved down people's throats, to stop them having fun" so sure, I'm redefining it.

If the question is whether egregious, fun-killing, creativity dampening world-building has any value in contemporary RPG? Well, no. But then, it never did.

Edit - as a footnote

There is no difference, except that Luke Crane has playtested his obstacle levels and so (one trusts) is somewhat confident that they will produce tenable pacing outcomes. The Adventure Burner has a discussion of the role of obstacles in establishing setting.

A good DM will produce tenable pacing outcomes. Again, it seems here a possible strawman has been put up - the DM who has no idea of what will be a good obstacle level - and knocked down. I don't see any special reason to trust Luke Crane other than to say that it suits a given group's style of play. I don't think such groups can speak for all groups, though.

 

[pemerton]

For me this seems to say we can end the thread here. All world-building is, is a resource.

<snip>

I'm not sure what you mean by "block action declarations" as you just gave examples of action declarations that should be blocked.

<snip>

If the question is whether egregious, fun-killing, creativity dampening world-building has any value in contemporary RPG? Well, no. But then, it never did.

To me, your analysis doesn't seem to distinguish between shared storytelling and RPGing. (Or, at least, it seems not to be sensitive to some significant differences between them.)

I am not terribly experienced in cooperative storytelling games, but fairly recently I played a session of "A Penny for My Thoughts", and I posted about that in this thread.

Unlike RPGing, in this game there are no action declarations. Thus there is no fictional positioning, and no action resolution. There is just free narration, undertaken within the game's framework for allocating authority from moment to moment within the game. The sequence of narration is established by a mixture of mechanics and choices that (at various points) one particular player gets to make about who goes next. Much of what is said by prior players creates both constraint and resource as far as further contributions are concerned, although - at certain points in the game - one player has the authority to choose between alternatives put forward by two other players.

In contrast to this game, RPGing does involve action declarations. In RPGs that follow traditional/mainstream conventions, those action declarations are made by players in the context of situations that have been established/framed by a GM. There is, thus, already an assymetry of roles as far as introducing fictional content is concerned.

Furthermore, when action declarations in a RPG are resolved, fictional positioning is a factor. And again, in most mainsream RPGs, the GM has a special responsibility to keep track of, and articulate, and ultimately (if there are disagreements) to adjudicate the fictional positioning.

This is where the OP sees the significance of worldbuilding. In classic D&D play (ie dungeon exploration) it is absolutely crucial that fictional positioning includes elements which (i) the GM has established in advance of the action declaration (typically by drawing and keying up a dungeon in advance of play), and (ii) the GM does not reveal to the players until they delcare actions for their PCs which oblige the GM to narrate it to them.

Examples of this which have been discussed at length in this thread include searching for a secret door, and searching for a map. In classic D&D, it is crucial to the way the game works that the success or failure of such attempts depends (perhaps not solely) upon whether the place that is being searched is the place the GM has recorded as the place where the map is, or a place where a secret door exists. This unrevealed fictional positioning becomes a key element in action resolution.

The GM is therefore entitled, and indeed obliged, to declare an action a failure ("No, you don't find a secret door/the map you are looking for") although there is no violation of genre credibility, no invoking of out-of-line tropes (beam weaponry in the duke's toilet), and the fictional positioning that underpins the failure of the action is not something to which the player has access except by inference from the fact that the action failed.

The OP contends that this approach to worldbuiling, and its use as an element of fictional positioning used to resolve action declarations by way of "hidden" or "secret" GM-preauthored backstory/fictional elements, makes sense in classic play because a big part of the point of classic play is to learn this stuff. It's a puzzle-solving, maze-solving exercise, where the principal reward for learning the stuff that begins as unrevealed is gp which translate into XP.

The OP also contends that most contemporary RPGing is not this sort of puzzle/maze-solving play; that it's more focused on "stories" about interesting characters doing narratively interesting stuff. (A further but to some extent secondary contention is that, once you start playing in non-dungeonesque "living, breathing worlds", the puzzle/maze-solving approach to play becomes rather impractical, as there are too many parameters potentially unknown to the players to prevent them drawing the sorts of inferences that classic play depends upon.)

The OP then asks, in this contemporary style of RPGing, what is the point of worldbuilding of the classic sort? - ie of the GM establishing fictional elements that serve as unrevealed fictional positionioning which therefore (i) constrain success in action declaration, and (ii) produce a dynamic of play where a significant amount of the play experience is declaring actions which will oblige the GM to reveal some of this hitherto-unrevealed stuff (many RPGers describe this using in-fiction rather than at-the-table language like "exploration", "gathering information", "scouting", etc).

This is not a question (rhetorical or otherwise) about "fun-killing" worldbuilding, because it seems pretty clear that a lot of RPGers find this fun. It's not a question which can be answered independent of who does the worldbuilding, because the allocation of roles in relation to framing, action declaration and adjudication is fundamental to the phenomenon being asked about.

It's also a question about something different from genre constrains, or even fictional positioning constraints, in general. These don't rely upon being unrevealed to the players. When the player asks "Do I find any beam weapons in the duke's toilet?", the GM doesn't have to consult (or pretend to consult) notes and answer "No" in a sphinx-like manner: s/he can reply, "Of course not - we're playing D&D, not Star Frontiers!" When the player whose PC is on a flying ship declares "I attack the NPC on the ground beneath me", and the GM asks "Do you have any missile weapons on you?", and then a check of the PC sheet reveals the answer to be "no", the GM can reply "Well, you can't attack the NPC with a sword while you're up in the air, can you?" without having to rely on anything unrevealed. This is straightforward fictional positioning, which is common knowledge among everyone at the table.

It's a particular style of worldbuilding, based on "hidden" backstory that serves as unrevealed fictional positioning, and which was crucial to the play of classic D&D, that the OP is asking about.