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A GMing telling the players about the gameworld is not like real life
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7581170" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>There is a point that may have come up earlier in this thread, or perhaps in another one - I remeber I was responding to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - that I want to come back to: the role of <em>GM sentimentality</em>.</p><p></p><p>In the campaign with the fox and the nobles and so on, the resolution of the campaign saw the PCs acting in defiance of Heaven. In addition to the edict-disobeying fox, there was a paladin whose patron was a dead god trapped in an eternal, timeless, but ultimately corrupting and hence fatal struggle with entities from the outer void. The paladin had cleansed echoes of the dead god of their voidal taint, violating certain karmic principles; and the PCs had befriended an exiled god who had, back in the day, been the best friend of the dead god and had helped him prepare for his eternal struggle.</p><p></p><p>The ultimate failure of the dead god's struggle - due to his corruption by the voidal forces he was opposing - occurred in the course of the campaign, meaning that the voidal beings were able to once again threaten the earth. The PCs - powerful mages and warriors by the end of the campaign (Rolemaster level 27 or so) - were able to drive them off. But to secure the earth on a long-term basis, they needed to re-establish a bulwark in the outer void itself.</p><p></p><p>At the time, I had read (not played) Paul Czege's RPG <a href="http://www.halfmeme.com/nicotinegirls.html" target="_blank">Nicotine Girls</a>, and so was framing this climax to the campaign very deliberately as an end-game which would establish the fate and subsequent denouement for each PC. So the players appreciated that there was no need to hold back!</p><p></p><p>In this context, the player of the paladin decided that the dead god had suffered enough, and that his PC would take the dead god's place in the eternal struggle. A noble sacrifice! He also intended to bring some of the PC's powerful cosmological enemies - evil, former Lords of Karma - with him, to trap them also in the void. A cunning plan!</p><p></p><p>But then, as the players were discussing how to operationalise all this, they realised that they had an item leant to them by the exiled god - the Soul Totem, a device for transmitting and even altering karmic burdens - which they could use to create a karmic duplicate of the paladin PC (the base for the duplicate would be a simulacrum of the paladin that the fox could create using his magic) who would then be able to take up the mantle of the dead god while the PC himself retired to found and administer a monastery on an island that had (i) been an important focus of events in the latter part of the campaign and (ii) happened to be the head of the stone body of the dead god, kneeling in the sea at the entrance to a harbour.</p><p></p><p>As GM, I acquiesced to this plan by "saying 'yes'", rather than forcing checks to see whether the plan involving the Soul Totem would succeed. (This was also easier mechanically, as the Soul Totem had not really been defined in RM mechanical terms.) This is mostly because I am a very sentimental GM and audience member, and when the players came up with a way to spare the PC from an eternity of horrible suffering in the void I was very happy to accept it. So GM fiat in response to player suggestion precluded the possibility of a tragic ending to this PC's story arc.</p><p></p><p>Another manifestation of GM sentimentality in that campaign finale was in relation to the PC whose player had built up the character's social and artistic skills to facilititate his wooing of an NPC sorcerer who'd been rescued froma demonic prison. When the player posited that the PC and sorcerer would found a dynasty who would be the earthly "key" that would keep the voidal threats locked away, and that the fact that they were a dynasty (hence ever-renewing) rather than one immortal person meant that they wouldn't succumb to corruption as the dead god had, I acquiesced in that again without requiring any checks.</p><p></p><p>One reason I find GMing Burning Wheel demanding is because it stomps on such GM sentimentality at just about every point. The GM is forced to be cruel to the PCs. I find that hard.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7581170, member: 42582"] There is a point that may have come up earlier in this thread, or perhaps in another one - I remeber I was responding to [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] - that I want to come back to: the role of [I]GM sentimentality[/I]. In the campaign with the fox and the nobles and so on, the resolution of the campaign saw the PCs acting in defiance of Heaven. In addition to the edict-disobeying fox, there was a paladin whose patron was a dead god trapped in an eternal, timeless, but ultimately corrupting and hence fatal struggle with entities from the outer void. The paladin had cleansed echoes of the dead god of their voidal taint, violating certain karmic principles; and the PCs had befriended an exiled god who had, back in the day, been the best friend of the dead god and had helped him prepare for his eternal struggle. The ultimate failure of the dead god's struggle - due to his corruption by the voidal forces he was opposing - occurred in the course of the campaign, meaning that the voidal beings were able to once again threaten the earth. The PCs - powerful mages and warriors by the end of the campaign (Rolemaster level 27 or so) - were able to drive them off. But to secure the earth on a long-term basis, they needed to re-establish a bulwark in the outer void itself. At the time, I had read (not played) Paul Czege's RPG [url=http://www.halfmeme.com/nicotinegirls.html]Nicotine Girls[/url], and so was framing this climax to the campaign very deliberately as an end-game which would establish the fate and subsequent denouement for each PC. So the players appreciated that there was no need to hold back! In this context, the player of the paladin decided that the dead god had suffered enough, and that his PC would take the dead god's place in the eternal struggle. A noble sacrifice! He also intended to bring some of the PC's powerful cosmological enemies - evil, former Lords of Karma - with him, to trap them also in the void. A cunning plan! But then, as the players were discussing how to operationalise all this, they realised that they had an item leant to them by the exiled god - the Soul Totem, a device for transmitting and even altering karmic burdens - which they could use to create a karmic duplicate of the paladin PC (the base for the duplicate would be a simulacrum of the paladin that the fox could create using his magic) who would then be able to take up the mantle of the dead god while the PC himself retired to found and administer a monastery on an island that had (i) been an important focus of events in the latter part of the campaign and (ii) happened to be the head of the stone body of the dead god, kneeling in the sea at the entrance to a harbour. As GM, I acquiesced to this plan by "saying 'yes'", rather than forcing checks to see whether the plan involving the Soul Totem would succeed. (This was also easier mechanically, as the Soul Totem had not really been defined in RM mechanical terms.) This is mostly because I am a very sentimental GM and audience member, and when the players came up with a way to spare the PC from an eternity of horrible suffering in the void I was very happy to accept it. So GM fiat in response to player suggestion precluded the possibility of a tragic ending to this PC's story arc. Another manifestation of GM sentimentality in that campaign finale was in relation to the PC whose player had built up the character's social and artistic skills to facilititate his wooing of an NPC sorcerer who'd been rescued froma demonic prison. When the player posited that the PC and sorcerer would found a dynasty who would be the earthly "key" that would keep the voidal threats locked away, and that the fact that they were a dynasty (hence ever-renewing) rather than one immortal person meant that they wouldn't succumb to corruption as the dead god had, I acquiesced in that again without requiring any checks. One reason I find GMing Burning Wheel demanding is because it stomps on such GM sentimentality at just about every point. The GM is forced to be cruel to the PCs. I find that hard. [/QUOTE]
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