D&D General Fighting Law and Order

[Mort]

See I would approach that differently - it's not that there are orcs in the hill but there are reports of ... and then go on whatever notes or ideas I had. Perhaps there are no orcs because there's a new version of troll, or maybe undead have been rising up at every night of the full moon killing everything including orcs, whatever I had in my notes. I don't make players guess the right thing to ask for, if they may have knowledge of the hills then a successful roll means they actually do have knowledge of what monsters are in the hills orcs or anything else. If I had nothing in my notes and I was uncertain, I'd roll to resolve that uncertainty or perhaps I'll throw in some orcs because I hadn't thought about it, it doesn't contradict existing lore and I can think of a way to use them. At the point I answer the question, the player has no idea how I came to the answer. They just know they have a decent idea of the hills.

There's nothing wrong with there being orcs or some other creature in the hills and I think at this scale it works just fine with D&D if that's what you want. But in general I'll already have a basic idea of what's going on, there's no reason to add quantum orcs that may or may not exist based on a player's roll. This is true especially because I tend to drop hints here and there, foreshadowing what may exist in them thar hills. If the player decides that, I'm limited in what I can foreshadow or link in to other existing plans.

Sure, I was just pointing out different approaches.

Your approach is in the traditional camp. The PC can FIND OUT if there are orcs in the hills; Through skill rolls, divination, actual investigation - whatever. But the PLAYER has no actual say as to whether the orcs are there or not.

That's generally the way it's done in D&D - certainly 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

How would something that no one - neither player nor GM - has mentioned in play not be a "grey featureless blob of in potential"?

Because what happens in play isn't the totality of the game.

The biggest city on the map of my setting is called Waterdown. It's mentioned once or twice in the setting history. Both the maps and the setting history have been player-side viewable since the campaign started 15+ years ago.

But during the first 13-ish years that city was never even mentioned in play, let alone visited, as the run of play simply never took anyone near it. (more recently it's been mentioned and talked of on various occasions but still has yet to be visited by any played character)

So, more than a gray featureless blob even without ever entering play; because it's an element of the background setting.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Assuming what you are saying goes by the rules (I don't know), then "Blades" is NOT a "game with Wonderful Player Agency". A player can only do a tiny thing or two "with stress". So like maybe two a game? Then the WHOLE rest of the game is just a "Classic" where the GM has ALL the power and the GM "aggressively moves" the characters along THE GMs PLOT STORY, no matter what the players think or feel.

Except the GM has no function or power to enact a plot or story of their own. At the start of play the PCs have allies, rivals, and some turf. Every cycle there's an entanglement role to see what new problems arise, and the GM can spin that a bit or a player might provide an interpretation. Maybe some cops beat up one of the characters. Turns out the crew's cop ally tells them their rival gang set it up. So the PCs beat up one of their guys and he gives up the location of a stash. Maybe the GM suggested this, or maybe a PC demanded that info.

Now a score is on! The PCs gather info and the GM gives interesting answers. What those are depends on the sort of crew and which NPC gang it is, etc

Yes the GM gets to make up parts of the situation, he can also make up consequences for failure, etc. The players are a huge part of this process and the GM has no reason to want one story over another really. Obviously he will make sure the situation is challenging and run the bad guys in a fair way. However a lot of stuff like difficulty is pretty standard, like dungeon level in D&D.

This game has a rule on a page of a book, but it's not like RPGs "need" this rule. After all, it's JUST the player making a VAGUE SUGGESTION with ZERO power and NO Agency....just like a classic RPG. So sure a player can say "whatever" and then the DM, with absoulte power, makes whatever they want based on the players couple words.

NOPE

So the problem is that while both your examples are fine....they don't really fit. In the Classic Game, the GM has all the power...and the players just play their lone character. In the "other games" that keep getting mentioned....the player has full power or agency, equal or more then the GM. So in effect everyone is a GM is such a game.

Your tiny limited examples don't show that. Unless your saying doing one or two Extremely Limited Tiny Things in a game otherwise exactly like a classic All Powerful RPG, is "Enough".

it's a sharing of responsibility. Yes you can make up imaginary players and GMs who ruin the game, but people who do things like that are no good in any game. I find it much less common in narrative type games.

Yea, except I can't really "meet in the middle" as it's impossible for me. I'm more of "I run this type of game, if you don't like it, we won't game".

Well that's fine actually, who can judge you, right?

 

[Oofta]

Sure, I was just pointing out different approaches.

Your approach is in the traditional camp. The PC can FIND OUT if there are orcs in the hills; Through skill rolls, divination, actual investigation - whatever. But the PLAYER has no actual say as to whether the orcs are there or not.

That's generally the way it's done in D&D - certainly 5e.

I was trying to explain that at the level of this example - are there orcs in the hills - I see no issue with the player establishing that if it works for the group. I think it's perfectly compatible with D&D in a way that more immediate player generated fiction may not.

I would also still prefer that A) the player is not aware that they influenced world building because B) the DM may have already dropped hints about or planned for something else. Throw in just a side note about knowledge checks that the check will simply reveal all information about the hills that they may know, whether it's related to orcs or not.

 

[Lanefan]

I mean, plenty of D&D groups have the PCs rotate their PCs from dungeon to dungeon, with each dungeon designed and adjudicated by a different person.

Other than organized AL play, porting a character from one campaign to another has become quite rare if not almost nonexistent these days.

In the 0e-1e era it was more common, and referenced as a viable - even desirable - way to play in the 1e DMG.

 

[Lanefan]

By "PCs" do you mean players? Otherwise what you ask makes no sense to me.

This is where you lose some people, I think: your insistence that the PCs aren't doing things, when in fact it is the PCs doing those things in the fiction while the players at the table are not.

The players aren't* walking into a tower. They're declaring that their PCs walk in, and then in the fiction the PCs do the actual walking. Thus, saying "The PCs enter the tower" is perfectly valid phrasing to describe what's happening at that moment.

* - unless, that is, you've got one hell of a live-action gaming setup with real towers etc. for players to interact with.

 

[Mort]

I was trying to explain that at the level of this example - are there orcs in the hills - I see no issue with the player establishing that if it works for the group. I think it's perfectly compatible with D&D in a way that more immediate player generated fiction may not.

I would also still prefer that A) the player is not aware that they influenced world building because B) the DM may have already dropped hints about or planned for something else. Throw in just a side note about knowledge checks that the check will simply reveal all information about the hills that they may know, whether it's related to orcs or not.

I'm right there with you. If the fiction has not yet been established, it is malleable.

But that's not a universal opinion! There was a thread a while back where some posters argued once the DM writes it down (say he writes down there are kobolds but no orcs in the hills) then that's what it is. And changing it later, even if the PCs have yet to encounter those hills is NOT acceptable. Seems rather extreme to me, but people were arguing it.

 

[Mort]

This is where you lose some people, I think: your insistence that the PCs aren't doing things, when in fact it is the PCs doing those things in the fiction while the players at the table are not.

The players aren't* walking into a tower. They're declaring that their PCs walk in, and then in the fiction the PCs do the actual walking. Thus, saying "The PCs enter the tower" is perfectly valid phrasing to describe what's happening at that moment.

* - unless, that is, you've got one hell of a live-action gaming setup with real towers etc. for players to interact with.

Not @pemerton but I think the point is:

The PLAYERS have a say in establishing the fiction (whether there are spellbooks in the tower the PCs are walking into) the PCs do not. That is the divide.

 

[Lanefan]

Another related idea, that comes through in @Lanefan's posts, to an extent in @CreamCloud0's, and maybe also in yours and @Xamnam's, is this:

If the GM imagines to themself, without sharing it with the player, that the reason for such-and-such event that has been described at the table is such-and-such other event that no one is imagining except the GM, then that is part of the "scope" of the setting.

For instance: if the GM describes to the players that they see some beggars by the city gates, and the GM thinks to themself but doesn't say to the players, "The reason for those beggars is that they've been driven off their farmland by the evil overlord", then part of the setting includes that the evil overlord has driven people of their farmland, turning them into beggars.

Yes.

I think of the GM's private imaginings as possible tools, and prep, for saying things that become part of the shared fiction. But it seems to me tautological that, being private, they are not shared, and hence are not elements of play per se.

They are elements of play in that - to follow on your example - they provide the underlying explanation for things like why those beggars are there; and should the players/PCs ask about them the GM has that underlying explanation already in mind and can be consistent with it.

Comes under "planning ahead" to me.

Also, knowing these underpinnings exist helps get everyone away from the notion that the setting is like a movie studio, where if you turn away from the actors you just see a bunch of cameras and chairs and wires and people out of costume rather than a seamless continuation of the set.

 

[Old Fezziwig]

This is where you lose some people, I think: your insistence that the PCs aren't doing things, when in fact it is the PCs doing those things in the fiction while the players at the table are not.

The players aren't* walking into a tower. They're declaring that their PCs walk in, and then in the fiction the PCs do the actual walking. Thus, saying "The PCs enter the tower" is perfectly valid phrasing to describe what's happening at that moment.

* - unless, that is, you've got one hell of a live-action gaming setup with real towers etc. for players to interact with.

I think @pemerton is referring to the end of the paragraph, where @Faolyn says, "Or do you leave it up to PCs to describe?" This would have to be players, or the characters are having a real interesting in game conversation.