How Visible To players Should The Rules Be?

[overgeeked]

Not just having them, but also learning how the party's actions in one session produced an effect later on in another part of the adventure. A couple sessions ago, my party rescued some hostages from a cult that was planning to sacrifice them to resurrect an evil deity. When my party decided to go out and find the cult again, we discovered from some cult members on how our act to free the hostages threw their plans and their organization into disarray. The party's reaction upon hearing that was "We did that to them?"

Exactly. Or the problem they ignored got worse, or the people they helped turned around and did something bad, etc.

 

[overgeeked]

I need a translation for fronts and clocks for an Insight check. What exactly do those terms mean?

Fronts are the steps in a villain’s plan that they will move through unless the PCs stop them. They are a kind of clock.

Clocks are any kind of timer or countdown. In three days X will happen. In four weeks Y will happen. In six momths Z will happen. If the PCs push this NPC three times they will stop helping the PCs. If the PCs push them five times, the NPC will start actively opposing the PCs.

 

[Pedantic]

Fronts are the steps in a villain’s plan that they will move through unless the PCs stop them. They are a kind of clock.

Clocks are any kind of timer or countdown. In three days X will happen. In four weeks Y will happen. In six momths Z will happen. If the PCs push this NPC three times they will stop helping the PCs. If the PCs push them five times, the NPC will start actively opposing the PCs.

There's much to be said for stuff happening over time and timelines of events unfolding. The problem is when you start to replace time tracking with other causal mechanics. A problem that happens in 3 days is very different from a problem that happens in 3 checks. That, and a generic system will produce different results than as bespoke subsystem.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It is only a Chekhov's Gun if the PCs follow up and make that thing the focus of the game. In other words: the analogy doesn't hold up in the sandbox situation. It is a specifically literary device. Why are we arguing about it in relation to play?

You could very well get its equivalent in some relatively rigid plot-driven games, but those are usually perceived as excessively railroadish.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's true, but that doesn't make anything a Chekhov's gun.

Also, fronts and clocks are narrative game terms, and I'm allergic to those

Eh, clocks are absolutely something that can have strong benefit for a sandbox; in the end, its just a way of regularizing the fact that things will continue to go on if the PCs don't interact with it, some of them leading to things they will wish they'd done something about or can't entirely avoid interacting with.

 

[overgeeked]

There's much to be said for stuff happening over time and timelines of events unfolding. The problem is when you start to replace time tracking with other causal mechanics. A problem that happens in 3 days is very different from a problem that happens in 3 checks.

Sure. But sometimes that’s exactly what you need. This pillar is crumbling and it will collapse if hit three times, otherwise it will collapse in 300 years. The negotiations are a success or failure after three checks, or the other party loses patience and leaves after three hours.

That, and a generic system will produce different results than as bespoke subsystem.

Sure. But there are three important questions behind that: 1) are the results different enough to really matter, and; 2) what is gained or lost using a generic system vs bespoke subsystems, and; 3) how much word/page count and brain space are you willing to sacrifice for those bespoke subsystems.

To me, the difference almost never actually matters. For example, towards the end of my time running 5E I stopped using hit points for monsters and used hits. A simple clock mechanic that took a paragraph to detail, but replaced dozens of pages of bespoke rules. For a time I tracked HP also, to see how close my clock system was to the official rules. About 80% of the time my clock system was spot on. Though, on a few occasions there was variance in both directions, about +/-20%, well within the range of rolled HP. So, while clocks did not exactly reproduce the bespoke subsystem, they did replicate it well enough. And it was dramatically easier to use and keep tract of.

This also had the benefit of giving me a system for knowing how difficult the monster would be as a non-combat challenge. It told me how many checks the PCs would need to overcome the monster. I gave the players a peak behind the curtain and they immediately started trying other things than just attacking. Want to bribe the monster to leave, that many checks or the equivalent. Want to persuade the monster to fight beside you, that many checks or the equivalent. Switching to clocks improved my game and opened up all kinds of non-combat possibilities.

I’m a fan of lighter systems and frameworks. So I prefer saving dozens or hundreds of pages on bespoke subsystems when a single generic one will do just as well.

Using clocks, I replaced the damage subsystem, the social subsystem, and added in negotiations, bribes, and anything else that could be covered by clocks. And all in a paragraph or so. I’d say that’s a huge win for clocks.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There's much to be said for stuff happening over time and timelines of events unfolding. The problem is when you start to replace time tracking with other causal mechanics. A problem that happens in 3 days is very different from a problem that happens in 3 checks. That, and a generic system will produce different results than as bespoke subsystem.

While I can see the objection to a degree, the advantage to a check based clock is that its often not clear exactly how long before something is complete, and basing it on PC rolls can seem as good a way as any other random roll. If you're really hardcore sim that doesn't work, but even most people who are mixed-bags likely do things like that with some regularity.

 

[Lanefan]

Counter to that there is the principle of Chekhov's gun, that states that every element in a story must be necessary, and irrelevant elements should be removed. For example, if a writer features a gun in a story, there must be a reason for it, such as it being fired some time later in the plot.

A principle that I soundly reject.

A gun in a story, much like the hole in the wall in my hypothetical dingy room, can be there as no more than an intentional distraction or red herring. And in a gumshoe-style game, one would think red herrings would be a near-constant element.

While mundane ordinary stuff should get mentioned (because in a play or film you still have set dressing, still if a gun hangs over the mantle it is there for a reason), if you call out something like the room smells of cigarette smoke, but there are no ashtrays or cigarettes in the room, you had better have the players meet a cigarette smoking man later in the story.

Why? Why can't the cigarette smoke just be a red herring or a never-to-be-solved sub-mystery?

Of course RPGs have an advantage over plays, books and movies with regards to Chekhov's gun. In that if the players attach undue importance to a mundane bit of set dressing in your description, you can change the plot to give it relevance that it might not originally have had in your plot.

I can; or I can let them chase the red herring until and unless they realize they've gone up the wrong path. This happens all the time in my D&D games - players (in or out of character) will get fixated on something irrelevant and make a big deal out of it; and while occasionally I'll up the importance of that element, most times I just neutrally react to what they do and leave them to eventually figure out they've got it wrong.

 

[Lanefan]

We've already established that the PCs are looking for someone, and that's why they are here:
So let's make the scene about that.

I'll make the scene about the scene, including some possible distractions; and leave it to the players/PCs to determine what gets focused on and what doesn't.

 

[overgeeked]

A principle that I soundly reject.

A gun in a story, much like the hole in the wall in my hypothetical dingy room, can be there as no more than an intentional distraction or red herring. And in a gumshoe-style game, one would think red herrings would be a near-constant element.

Yes, but not for the reason most people think. The players are their own red herrings, as you point out later. You don't need to add any.

I can; or I can let them chase the red herring until and unless they realize they've gone up the wrong path. This happens all the time in my D&D games - players (in or out of character) will get fixated on something irrelevant and make a big deal out of it; and while occasionally I'll up the importance of that element, most times I just neutrally react to what they do and leave them to eventually figure out they've got it wrong.

As someone who's run investigative games for decades, I can honestly tell you red herrings are the last thing you want to intentionally add to an RPG.