Yeah. I can see how it would be difficult to do anything that involved the PCs not knowing things. Even a result like "The GM will tell you three things that are true and useful" seems as though it'd be likely to make it hard to keep secrets from the PCs. It seems as though this is probably the root of the differences in the types of stories that'd emerge from play.
Well, no, not entirely. My players in my Blades game are unaware of plenty of things. Doskvol is a mysterious place by nature, and the way the setting is presented leaves a lot of uncertainties, which are meant to be discovered and defined through play. There is still plenty to discover.
What's not mysterious is that The Crows are a Tier 2 gang, or that the Hive is a Tier 5 gang.
The geography is also generally known by the characters. Sure, they aren't aware of every nook and cranny, but they know their way about, and if they need to find something of a general sort, most of the time they'd simply know it.
To look at the specific example of gang Tier.....if my players run into members of the Crows on a score, they have a good sense of the kind of opposition they may face, based on comparative Tier. If they break into a warehouse to steal some crates of illicit goods, and they find those crates marked with the honeycomb symbol of the Hive, they have a good sense of what kind of fallout they're facing if they decide to steal them.
What's the advantage of leaving that unknown? "You see a mysterious symbol. You think it may belong to a group called The Hive. You don't know anything about them. What do you do?" Why not share this info? What does maintaining the mystery do?
I'm not saying there's never a reason to keep things mysterious, just that there's a time and place, and I think we have to examine when and where it makes sense to do so based on how it impacts play and the players. For example, the members of the Hive are unknown. They're very much a secretive organization, so finding out who they are is going to be challenging in and of itself. But knowing they're dangerous? Why hold that back?
I also read some really good advice about RPGs recently, and I sadly can't recall who to credit, but it was something like "A secret kept is never as interesting as a secret learned." I think that's fantastic advice. We GMs can very often get caught up in all the unknowns that we've hoarded, and I think that's something that needs to be challenged.
I think anything that adds to the GM's mental workload needs to accomplish a lot--there's enough on the GM's plate, I think. Heck, I think a TRPG that insists on the GM taking notes is probably adding to the workload (definitely would be adding to mine).
Sure, I agree 100%. I know a lot of people love charts to help determine things randomly.....weather, encounters, and so on. And I think that they absolutely can be useful. I tend to struggle with that kind of stuff simply because it's a lot of referencing and cross referencing, and that can be a pain at the table.
However, there are games where I think that method absolutely makes sense. I'm planning no running Mothership soon, and tables like that are pretty much a requirement.
But, what I'm suggesting is pretty simple by comparison.
This doesn't seem like a change to me. I don't know of any instances I've contradicted anything major that'd been established. Part of the challenge is fitting my ideas into/around/between what's already there. Now, I suppose in a more zero-myth game, I'd find it a little harder, because I feel as though I'm more comfortable if I have prep to fall back on, if I know the world well enough to extrapolate if I have to (both of which seem counter to the principles of the zero-myth game/s).
I'm not worried about contradictions so much as a little gray area that may exist. Like, something's been hinted at, the players respond accordingly, and then when it's actually revealed....surprise, it's slightly different than you thought!
I think this is very easy for GMs to do in systems that don't actively guard against it. Some GMs may not....your reaction implies this is not something you'd consider, but plenty would. And, perhaps a bit more uncertain.....would those GMs who would actively try to not do this somehow do it unintentionally?
I've never had any trouble surprising my players, in any system, so that's not a surprise. When there are factions at play in a place the PCs arrive to, I generally take a moment or three to decide which ones are waxing or waning or holding steady, but I don't bother ranking them or anything like that. I use those notes to see which ones might need the PCs help, maybe figure out who's beating up on whom. They show me potential interactions.
I get that. My question would be why not let the players know about potential interactions?
And don't get me wrong.....I'm not necessarily saying you have to just infodump all this on them. Let them explore a bit and find it out. Share it in bits as it makes sense to, so that their understanding expands with their actions. I'm not trying to imply that you don't do this....I'm sure there's at least some of that going on.
But generally speaking, what would be an advantage of keeping information from the players in that kind of faction-status-and-situation kind of scenario?
Staying consistent is important to me. I suppose I might come across as a bit of a control freak as a DM, but I really don't think I am. I honestly don't care where a given game-world fact is coming from. I just find it easier to remain consistent with stuff I've worked out and written up than with something a player hands me (literally or metaphorically).
Right, and I absolutely understand that. I don't think that anyone would advocate for the players to be able to adopt as much of the setting building through play as it seems many worry about in this and similar discussions.
Consistency with what's been established is a goal of pretty much every game I know. As someone who used to be a very prep-heavy DM, I've found that the more I let be established through play, the more consistent things tend to be.
I guess I've come to the conclusion that for me, the world feels more consistent when there's one good GM running it than when the players are running it, too. I agree the players need to be able to understand the world well enough to be able to make reasonably informed decisions, but I don't think player-facing mechanics are a panacea for this.
No, it's certainly not a panacea. It's one tool that can help support/maintain/promote the A word. It's not the only tool, and it's not suited for every job, but it's an example of one.