Illusionism: Where Do You Stand?

[UngainlyTitan]

This has been litigated on this forum not too long ago. In several different threads. I really do not want to go over it again.

 

[pemerton]

There are some RPGs that can't really function without illusionism - eg CoC.

There are some RPGs in which illusionism just isn't possible - eg Apocalypse World.

Whether or not the "quantum ogre" counts as illusionism depends on whether or not player choice of path is intended to be a genuine choice, or is just colour. Different RPGs are different in this respect.

For my part, I generally prefer RPGs in which illusionism is not possible, and in which choice of path is not the main focus of meaningfulness.

 

[MichaelSomething]

What sorts of tools?

There's advice and game rules for starters. There's also campaign worlds, random tables, prebuilt NPCs, and locations.
Does anyone have specific product recommendations??
I'm sure subscribing to En5ider will provide you with all sorts of things to help a person illuzionize less!

 

[aramis erak]

Across the board: don't like it as a player, almost never use it as a DM.

Same.
Consider it one of the most toxic practices from the Gygaxian advice. Right after punishing players for learning the rules, rolling without a reason to build tension, and lying about dice rolls/fudging.

(Rolling to build tension eventually -- in some cases, almost immediately -- inures players to it... so it's short term only value, long term counterproductive. The rest are toxic.)

 

[aramis erak]

The key to reducing illusionism is not to label it bad; but to provide the DM with tools to not need it

I'm lazy AF as a GM... and I don't need illusionism. I was kind of annoyed at it being baked into a few modules I've run...

 

[GMMichael]

I stumbled across this blog post and thought it might be fun to talk to ENWorld about Quantum Ogres and the Illusion of Choice.

If you don't want to click through, the tl;dr is that Illusionism Is Bad. The author is responding to a different blog -- one that advocated for what is being referred to as the Quantum Ogre. That is, the GM prepares an encounter with Ogres and when it comes time for the PCs to choose to go left or right on the Forest Road, the Ogre encounter is going to be placed in front of them regardless of their choice.

That blog post has a significant amount of WTF in it. It ends with, paraphrased, "your GM-planned encounter isn't cool. But your GM-planned encounter in which the PCs got a lucky roll IS cool."

tl:dr: the GM putting planned encounters in front of PCs, regardless of their decisions, is bad. The GM putting planned encounters in front of PCs, if it doesn't nullify their decisions, is perfectly fine.

 

[MGibster]

I humbly submit that railroading only occurs when the GM prevents the players from making meaningful choices. And as I am lacking in imagination, I will simply use meaningful to mean something that is important or useful. Do the players know the ogres exist? If the answer is no, they choosing path A or path B when traveling to Candyland is a meaningless choice.
The meaningful choices comes with the players deciding what to do when they encounter the ogres. Do they hide from them and let them pass? Do they sneak up on them and eavesdrop on their conversations? Do they follow the ogres back to their lair? Do they parlay and offer to trade their delicious rumcakes for some of the ogres rye bread?

 

[Haiku Elvis]

tl:dr: the GM putting planned encounters in front of PCs, regardless of their decisions, is bad. The GM putting planned encounters in front of PCs, if it doesn't nullify their decisions, is perfectly fine.

I haven't read the article so I can't say if I agree with it overall or not but I would say I would broadly agree with the above summary. However the topic is so broad and covers so many situations I could probably think of a bunch of exceptions.

My general guideline would be - could you be honest with your players at the end of the session and they would be fine with what you did or not.

 

[Breaking Star Games]

What attracts me to Powered by the Apocalypse games is that they specifically have you build out prep that avoids harming the fun over player agency. All in order to meet the agenda of Play to Find Out. Instead its often very upfront about the premise, setting expectations and the limitations on agency - so when you agree to play Masks, you know you are playing a Teen Superhero who fights supervillains and deals with teen drama in Halcyon City.

So when I prep for narrative arcs and supervillains, these are problems that can pop up because we defined that this all takes place in Halcyon City. They aren't annoyed about fighting the ogre supervillain because we never had the option to just leave the City. And of course they have tons of meaningful choices around fighting said villain.

In the end, I think you end up with more truly shared storytelling when GMs are more limited in what they prep and what GM Moves they can perform, so you leave a lot of space for players to guide the narrative. Whereas I see my DMs more plot out the story much like published adventures with set pieces. They may have more flexibility to build out their roller coaster to reflect changes in PCs' actions but its not even close to feeling the same to me. It often feels more like the players asking the DM what they are going to do this week.

 

[the Jester]

It's a fine tool to use once in a great while, but it's not my style. I don't care for it, and I almost never use it. I prefer to have the pcs' choices actually make a difference.