This thread is a sequel to these two: Approaches to prep in RPGing - GMs, players, and what play is about and Space and time in RPG setting and situation.
The example scenario is one I was remembering a couple of days ago, although it was one that I actually GMed around 30 years ago. The system was Rolemaster. The PCs were high level wizards (one was a F/MU) - mechanically RM spell-users are a bit different from D&D ones (in particular, every spell casting requires a roll, with a risk of spell failure) but their in fiction capabilities are comparable.
For reasons that are now a bit hazy, the PCs wanted to explore Tovag Baragu, the mysterious standing stones in the Baklun desert in the World of Greyhawk. The PCs teleported there, and then used magic to create a great pit that they were using to search for something-or-other that might be there. And then Paynim nomads arrived on the scene. The PCs hid themselves by creating a cover over the pit, which stopped the Baklun riders from finding them.
In principle, this should have been a dramatic scene (and I find it fairly easy to imagine a cinematic rendition that made it so): the riders wheeling to and fro on their horses, looking for the intruders into their sacred and magical place; the PCs beneath their hastily-conjured shelter, hoping to find the whatever-it-was and teleport out before they're discovered.
But in practice it fizzled, because RM has no principled way of resolving this sort of scene. (It can do some scene- or near-scene-resolution, especially for social situations, but not for this sort of thing.) Nearly everything turns on the GM's decision about how thorough the nomads will be in their search; whether one of those present knows and casts a Detect Magic-type spell while in the right area; whether they notice the different feel of the conjured floor beneath the hooves of their horses, compared to the natural terrain; etc. But resolving by way of GM decision-making is almost the opposite of dramatic!
Since then, I've become familiar with the appropriate techniques for resolving this sort of thing: although the technical details are different, I could imagine this as 4e D&D skill challenge (where the PCs accrue successes by succeeding at actions that gather their information, maintain their hiding place, or befuddle the riders above them), or as a MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic Action Scene (where the players end the scene having eliminated both the Pursued by Paynims and We Need to Find It scene distinctions), or in In A Wicked Age (contests of Covertly and For Myself vs Manoeuvring by the nomads), or as linked tests supporting a vs test in Burning Wheel. A less scene-based but still exciting approach would be Acting Under Fire in Apoclaypse World. (In that case replace the nomads with a rival bikie gang, and imagine the standing stones as an pre-Apocalypse installation.)
This example is a practical illustration of two things:
The example scenario is one I was remembering a couple of days ago, although it was one that I actually GMed around 30 years ago. The system was Rolemaster. The PCs were high level wizards (one was a F/MU) - mechanically RM spell-users are a bit different from D&D ones (in particular, every spell casting requires a roll, with a risk of spell failure) but their in fiction capabilities are comparable.
For reasons that are now a bit hazy, the PCs wanted to explore Tovag Baragu, the mysterious standing stones in the Baklun desert in the World of Greyhawk. The PCs teleported there, and then used magic to create a great pit that they were using to search for something-or-other that might be there. And then Paynim nomads arrived on the scene. The PCs hid themselves by creating a cover over the pit, which stopped the Baklun riders from finding them.
In principle, this should have been a dramatic scene (and I find it fairly easy to imagine a cinematic rendition that made it so): the riders wheeling to and fro on their horses, looking for the intruders into their sacred and magical place; the PCs beneath their hastily-conjured shelter, hoping to find the whatever-it-was and teleport out before they're discovered.
But in practice it fizzled, because RM has no principled way of resolving this sort of scene. (It can do some scene- or near-scene-resolution, especially for social situations, but not for this sort of thing.) Nearly everything turns on the GM's decision about how thorough the nomads will be in their search; whether one of those present knows and casts a Detect Magic-type spell while in the right area; whether they notice the different feel of the conjured floor beneath the hooves of their horses, compared to the natural terrain; etc. But resolving by way of GM decision-making is almost the opposite of dramatic!
Since then, I've become familiar with the appropriate techniques for resolving this sort of thing: although the technical details are different, I could imagine this as 4e D&D skill challenge (where the PCs accrue successes by succeeding at actions that gather their information, maintain their hiding place, or befuddle the riders above them), or as a MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic Action Scene (where the players end the scene having eliminated both the Pursued by Paynims and We Need to Find It scene distinctions), or in In A Wicked Age (contests of Covertly and For Myself vs Manoeuvring by the nomads), or as linked tests supporting a vs test in Burning Wheel. A less scene-based but still exciting approach would be Acting Under Fire in Apoclaypse World. (In that case replace the nomads with a rival bikie gang, and imagine the standing stones as an pre-Apocalypse installation.)
This example is a practical illustration of two things:
*There are many sorts of situation, such as the one I've described, which in principle can make for fun and exciting RPGing, but which will not be best established via a technique of PCs-going-to-place-X activates situation Y as per the GM's prep;
*Space-and-time focused resolution frameworks, which were invented for dealing with dungeon exploration where the environment is largely static and the PCs are the principle instigators of action, are not well-suited to other sorts of fictions.
*Space-and-time focused resolution frameworks, which were invented for dealing with dungeon exploration where the environment is largely static and the PCs are the principle instigators of action, are not well-suited to other sorts of fictions.
