Introducing Complications Without Forcing Players to Play the "Mother May I?" Game

[Ovinomancer]

First, I am incredibly thankful for [MENTION=16814]Ovinomancer[/MENTION]'s cogent response. I hope that clarifies some of the matters for you. But I hope that I can expand on that excellent post with some additional points of my own.

Sure. But one of the interesting things about Blades is the decision of what Action (out of typically 12 total) to use for a situation rests with the player. The GM does not get to decide that. In a game of Blades the player could decide to use Sway (i.e., Persuasion/Diplomacy) or maybe Command, though the GM may believe that Sway would actually be more effective than Command. The PC could even try to use Wreck if the player felt that if Frost Giants would show greater respect with a show of force or strength, which may or not be true depending on the GM's sense of the fiction. An example from the BitD SRD:


This is where Effect would come into play. One example they use is that a character could attack a stone wall. There is no "Hard No" with that action; however, using a standard side arm weapon, the Effect would be Limited, if not negligible. But this would likely be understood through the conversation between the GM and players.

I apologize for not explaining clocks. I was in a bit of a rush to wrap things up. Here I will quote Ovinomancer's explanation so that it's readily available.I mentioned Countdown Clocks for the Frost Giant encounter because it would have been one possible way to adjudicate the stakes of the negotiations. The PC had something the FG wanted, and the FG had something the PC wanted. Their interactions and the Countdown clock make the stakes become clearer for the PC such that the issue becomes less a matter of pulling the rug out from under the PC by having the PC's heirloom taken.

Just as a tack on to [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s good stuff, limited effects are more prompts for the player to expend resources/increase risk to get a better effect. A player can spend stress, for example to push an effect up a level, or declate a more desperate attempt instead of a risky one.

Also, the Blades engine rests on the idea that most rolls will be Risky/Normal rolls, and a change in position or effect will be clearly driven by the current state of the fiction.

A good example of a desperate/normal attempt from film is Conan holding up the falling stone so his friends can escape. Clearly a deckaration that entails great risk, and the effect is to delay, not stop, the stone. As Conan probably has a huge Wreck, he got a 6 on his four dice.

 

[Numidius]

This isn't an entirely unreasonable way to look at it, and I certainly do this regularly, though since I use Savage Worlds and don't get to roll a d20 that often anymore, I typically do a straight d20 roll instead of a d100, but the basic effect is the same.

The real issue, and the reason I started this thread in the first place, was because I wanted to get ideas on how to do it better. Meaning, instead of just pulling out the d20 and saying, "Okay, on a 14 or higher, you get what you want," I wanted to find ways to make those "GM determinations" more connected to players' interests. I wanted to find ways to introduce scenes/fiction/obstacles that allowed my players the freedom to really pursue what they wanted without me as the GM simply throwing up roadblocks all the time.

Part of brainstorming for me meant asking how and where and why other GMs make these sorts of decisions. In some ways my situation is a bit . . . paradoxical. I find myself leaning towards less "traditional" GM-ing methods these days, preferring to allow the players more freedom to create more of the game world and to actively pursue character goals and trajectories. I'm very much NOT concerned with trying to create the "illusion" of a living breathing world, or adhering to some standard of "world simulation." Our group only meets twice a month for approximately 4 hours. We are all working adults with families. We don't have time to waste spending an hour of a game session "hunting for that one secret door" or aimlessly roaming through town looking for adventure hooks.

Yet despite my current GM philosophy, my preferred system of Savage Worlds is a fairly "traditional" sort of system in terms of action resolution. It does incorporate degrees of success and does give players some meta-game control with "Fate" points / Hero points / "Bennies", but the core mechanic follows a fairly straightforward action/task resolution paradigm ("I want my character to do this" / determine trait or skill that relates to declaration / roll and see if it succeeds, wildly succeeds, or fails).

Yet I'm fairly committed to Savage Worlds now, because my players want the discrete level of combat-based and skill-based rules that Savage Worlds has. We actually tried Dungeon World for 3 or 4 sessions at the start of the current campaign, but switched back to Savage Worlds when it became clear that they really did want to have a more tactical combat focus than Dungeon World really provided.

At some point I'm actually somewhat anxious to try Genesys, as it seems to fill a similar niche as Savage Worlds, but moves another step in the "narrative gaming" spectrum while still giving a solid groundwork for task resolution and combat.

My three cents:

Use the conversation back & forth with your players to define extra content or new stuff
Like They want to meet the famous bone breaker sect members at the teahouse. You might propose a complication on that. If They have a skill to overcome it they simply explain how.

Also, when dice are rolled: you describe the Success, they describe the Failures, incorporating elements of the situation/npcs/what you agreed is in the scene before the roll (in this way you mantain control of the positive outcome, they gain some control on their failed outcomes, using bits of the ambience that usually are under Gm's control)

Plus: In general ask their opinion in the fields their pcs have expertise on, not always as facts about the setting, but maybe starting with rumours, so everyone is more confortable, and you can elaborate on their rumours saying which is true or false

 

[Alexander Kalinowski]

This isn't an entirely unreasonable way to look at it, and I certainly do this regularly, though since I use Savage Worlds and don't get to roll a d20 that often anymore, I typically do a straight d20 roll instead of a d100, but the basic effect is the same.

The real issue, and the reason I started this thread in the first place, was because I wanted to get ideas on how to do it better. Meaning, instead of just pulling out the d20 and saying, "Okay, on a 14 or higher, you get what you want," I wanted to find ways to make those "GM determinations" more connected to players' interests. I wanted to find ways to introduce scenes/fiction/obstacles that allowed my players the freedom to really pursue what they wanted without me as the GM simply throwing up roadblocks all the time.

My knee-jerk reaction was "This is a fallacy." However, on further reflection I would rather frame it more cautiously: "This is quite dangerous."
Spending a lot of time to make the game more fun from a meta-level is very dangerous. Why? (Warning: Rant!)

It's the difference between Game of Thrones season 1 and the shoddy Game of Thrones season 7.

GoT S07 is full of lazy story-telling, convenient plot developments, making people appear in places (apparently because they're needed for a "fun" scene) and all sorts of transparent shenanigans. If you're doing things to make the game "more fun" (or more connected to the players interests), you're running the risk of your gaming world appearing to be transparently manipulated. It runs the risk of no longer feeling real, as Westeros did in season 7, unless you're quite skillful about it.

Now, if we look at season 1 instead, why did it work? It was full of interesting people and situations and clever dialogue. Obviously meta-considerations ("shock value") did go into GRRM's writing but it did so in a skillful way. Everything was set-up so that it felt more or less a natural and logical development of things. And it did go against expectations of what up to then was considered fun. Had you asked anyone before about letting the supposed protagonist die in such a manner, readers/viewers most likely would have reacted negatively in surveys.

But he didn't ask if readers would want shocking stuff like the supposed protagionist dying. Did FASA back then ask gamers extensively if they wanted a cyberpunk-fantasy crossover? Most likely not.

People don't know what they want. They only know what they like when they see it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

My knee-jerk reaction was "This is a fallacy." However, on further reflection I would rather frame it more cautiously: "This is quite dangerous."
Spending a lot of time to make the game more fun from a meta-level is very dangerous. Why? (Warning: Rant!)

It's the difference between Game of Thrones season 1 and the shoddy Game of Thrones season 7.

GoT S07 is full of lazy story-telling, convenient plot developments, making people appear in places (apparently because they're needed for a "fun" scene) and all sorts of transparent shenanigans. If you're doing things to make the game "more fun" (or more connected to the players interests), you're running the risk of your gaming world appearing to be transparently manipulated. It runs the risk of no longer feeling real, as Westeros did in season 7, unless you're quite skillful about it.

Now, if we look at season 1 instead, why did it work? It was full of interesting people and situations and clever dialogue. Obviously meta-considerations ("shock value") did go into GRRM's writing but it did so in a skillful way. Everything was set-up so that it felt more or less a natural and logical development of things. And it did go against expectations of what up to then was considered fun. Had you asked anyone before about letting the supposed protagonist die in such a manner, readers/viewers most likely would have reacted negatively in surveys.

But he didn't ask if readers would want shocking stuff like the supposed protagionist dying. Did FASA back then ask gamers extensively if they wanted a cyberpunk-fantasy crossover? Most likely not.

People don't know what they want. They only know what they like when they see it.

I'm not sure where this came from in the quoted post, as "making the game more fun from a meta-level" is both nonsense and exactly what you're suggesting with your "rant." So, I'm confused as to what your point may be.

Given that there are many playstyles other than your preferred one that are quite successful at being fun, your premise seems little more than one-true-wayism. Especially since your example of bad is still wildly popular (late GoT).

 

[innerdude]

My knee-jerk reaction was "This is a fallacy." However, on further reflection I would rather frame it more cautiously: "This is quite dangerous."
Spending a lot of time to make the game more fun from a meta-level is very dangerous. Why? (Warning: Rant!)

It's the difference between Game of Thrones season 1 and the shoddy Game of Thrones season 7.

GoT S07 is full of lazy story-telling, convenient plot developments, making people appear in places (apparently because they're needed for a "fun" scene) and all sorts of transparent shenanigans. If you're doing things to make the game "more fun" (or more connected to the players interests), you're running the risk of your gaming world appearing to be transparently manipulated. It runs the risk of no longer feeling real, as Westeros did in season 7, unless you're quite skillful about it.

Now, if we look at season 1 instead, why did it work? It was full of interesting people and situations and clever dialogue. Obviously meta-considerations ("shock value") did go into GRRM's writing but it did so in a skillful way. Everything was set-up so that it felt more or less a natural and logical development of things. And it did go against expectations of what up to then was considered fun. Had you asked anyone before about letting the supposed protagonist die in such a manner, readers/viewers most likely would have reacted negatively in surveys.

But he didn't ask if readers would want shocking stuff like the supposed protagionist dying. Did FASA back then ask gamers extensively if they wanted a cyberpunk-fantasy crossover? Most likely not.

People don't know what they want. They only know what they like when they see it.

I appreciate your opinion here, but truthfully, never ONCE since I began implementing a more player-centric, scene-framing approach to GM-ing has a player EVER at my table said, "Wow, that's really contrived there, Innerdude."

And I'll admit, it was genuinely a worry of mine that players would start questioning things. "Oh, really, there's another merchant in this town just like the last one?" Or, "How did that bad guy get here so fast?"

And now having 7 or 8 years of experience under my belt, I can tell you that this supposed "problem" is largely non-existent when handled well. And the flip side of it is, my players have been generally highly engaged in the action at the table over that time. Rather than questioning the legitimacy of continuity, what scene framing has done instead is reward the players for looking into a scene and figuring out the connections from a prior situation. "Oh, so THAT'S why that crew of thugs was after us! Oh, so THAT'S why the merchant at the docks didn't want us to go looking for the stolen goods!" In my experience it creates a highly virtuous player feedback loop.

Can a poor GM mess this up? Of course. But when done properly, "scene framing" GM style has never once led my players to start questioning the legitimacy of the causal relationships within the gameworld.

It's odd too, because I hear it preached so often from more traditional GMs that "scene framing" will just be the death of everything they hold dear about their game. "Oh my gosh, it's just going to totally ruin the continuity of the game world, and nothing will make sense, and it will feel like lazy storytelling, and mass chaos and hysteria will ensue!"

For me, switching to "scene framing" style has led to vastly superior RPG experiences---either with me as GM or anyone else---than insisting on "game world continuity because GM reasons".

 

[Numidius]

My knee-jerk reaction was "This is a fallacy." However, on further reflection I would rather frame it more cautiously: "This is quite dangerous."
Spending a lot of time to make the game more fun from a meta-level is very dangerous. Why? (Warning: Rant!)

It's the difference between Game of Thrones season 1 and the shoddy Game of Thrones season 7.

GoT S07 is full of lazy story-telling, convenient plot developments, making people appear in places (apparently because they're needed for a "fun" scene) and all sorts of transparent shenanigans. If you're doing things to make the game "more fun" (or more connected to the players interests), you're running the risk of your gaming world appearing to be transparently manipulated. It runs the risk of no longer feeling real, as Westeros did in season 7, unless you're quite skillful about it.

Now, if we look at season 1 instead, why did it work? It was full of interesting people and situations and clever dialogue. Obviously meta-considerations ("shock value") did go into GRRM's writing but it did so in a skillful way. Everything was set-up so that it felt more or less a natural and logical development of things. And it did go against expectations of what up to then was considered fun. Had you asked anyone before about letting the supposed protagonist die in such a manner, readers/viewers most likely would have reacted negatively in surveys.

But he didn't ask if readers would want shocking stuff like the supposed protagionist dying. Did FASA back then ask gamers extensively if they wanted a cyberpunk-fantasy crossover? Most likely not.

People don't know what they want. They only know what they like when they see it.

Very well said. While I agree, I also believe there exists a satisfactory middle-ground approach: root players inputs on their areas of expertise as pcs.
See also my post above

 

[Sadras]

No, it's not. Because combat does have clear mechanics.

Clear mechanics, maybe but the monster's immunity to a certain type of damage means it has clear stats.

What if in my notes I created an NPC and wrote down can not be bribed. That would certainly be a clear stat of the NPC. Now what if the PCs declared an action to try bribe the NPC and the DM informed them despite their best attempts the NPC was incorruptible. Is that MMI even though the NPC stat block was drawn up and clear?

Also does the DM have to stat every creature perfectly and completely, he can't just have an idea of them in his head? You really demand that level of work from your DM?

 

[Alexander Kalinowski]

I can tell you that this supposed "problem" is largely non-existent when handled well.

Thus my refraining from calling it a fallacy. That said, I will grant you another thing: RPGs with player agency do have a luxury that TV shows don't have - they make the consumers (players) a part-time author. Which is a form of fun in its own right.

My point, however, was rather this: if you don't roll the dice to determine if secret organization member is at the hangout but instead you determine it depending on what you think will be most fun for the players, that is running the risk of going MMI. I'd like to refer to my post further above here - sometimes a GM has to dispense with simulating the world for the sake of fun or story. As long as he is simulating the world to the best of his ability, it cannot be MMI play. When he stops doing so, it's always over meta concerns. That's when a GM runs the risk of going MMI, by being too capricious and/or too frequent in dispensing with game world simulation.

Or simply put: if you're too obvious and too transparent in manipulating game world objects and events towards a given story purpose, it might come across as too convenient to your players. You can do that but a light hand would be well advised, if possible. (Also, and that is another caveat, we usually don't have as much time in prepping a game session as GRRM seems to have in writing TWOW! )

 

[Numidius]

Clear mechanics, maybe but the monster's immunity to a certain type of damage means it has clear stats.

What if in my notes I created an NPC and wrote down can not be bribed. That would certainly be a clear stat of the NPC. Now what if the PCs declared an action to try bribe the NPC and the DM informed them despite their best attempts the NPC was incorruptible. Is that MMI even though the NPC stat block was drawn up and clear?

Also does the DM have to stat every creature perfectly and completely, he can't just have an idea of them in his head? You really demand that level of work from your DM?

I'm fine either way, no problem. Btw I was not judging your play style. When I run, I usually don't stat much, but I have friends who stat everything that moves, in their games.

 

[pemerton]

You're suggesting it is better that the GM cannot roleplay the NPCs he/she introduces into the game world, and when I mean roleplay, I mean free of any mechanics (i.e. die rolls). I admit I find that odd.

Fair enough. I see the roles of the GM and of NPCs, and see the nature of the GM's relationship to NPCs, as being rather different from the roles of the players and the PCs, and from the relationship between these latter things.

One obvious difference in most systems is that players are under very different constraints in allocating mechanical capabilities to their PCs than are GMs. (This comes out in your actual play example in which the players don't want to pick a fight with the giants.) But it's not the only difference.

But whether or not one likes it as an approach to RPGing, I think that gating the success of players' actions behind a GM's opinions about what a certain NPC might or might not reasonably do seems clearly to be the sort of thing the OP is wishing to avoid.

Could the FG in your game talk the PC out of wanting the shard returned i.e. the FG makes a diplomacy/persuade roll?

Which system?

4e D&D does not support NPC-to-PC social influence mechanics. Classic Traveller does for morale, but nothing else. Burning Wheel does. Marvel Herioc RP/Cortex+ Heroic does. Prince Valiant does.

isn't the DM ascribing a lower or higher DC to a roll reflecting his/her opinion on what makes good or bad fiction?

EDIT: MMI kicks in if there is 0% or less chance of success on the player's action declaration, but 1% possible success or higher is ok?

This is also a system issue. A good system, in my view, establishes ranges of DCs that I trust have been established as appropriate by a combination of mathematical analysis and play-testing.

For instance, in Classic Traveller the roll required (on 2d6) to avoid close scrutiny of documents by officials is 5+ (or 5 in 6) for a character with Admin-1, but 10+ (or 1 in 6) for a character with no Admin skill. I don't think there's any objective test for appropriate prospects of success, but that's probably getting towards the outer limits of workable DCs.

A system like 4e D&D or BW has widely varying DCs (much more so than Classic Traveller) but also has many player-side options for modifying and augmenting checks, so that the GM setting the DC is only the beginning of the process of establishing the chance of success. (This is one of the reasons I've described Classic Traveller as a "dice-driven game".)

IMO only specific/niche game engines can get around this such as Shadow of the Demon Lord or PbtA where there is no GM determined difficulty (thought even then SotDL allows banes and boons to be added through GM discretion and I think some iterations of the PbtA game engine allow modifiers which can create the same effect)... but for the vast majority of mainstream rpg's the GM is deciding the chance that something exists even when he is letting the dice decide the outcome.

I'm not sure which "mainstream RPGs" you have in mind but Classic Traveller is not that obscure and has a very wide variety of subsystems that set DCs for various action declarations. In my current campaign we've resolved: dealing with bureaucracy and with police: assaulting a base on foot; assaulting a base from vehicles; starship combat; small group combat; starship infiltration; EVAs; tracking down a satellite in orbit; curing disease; searching for the Psionics Institute; evading orbital fire in ATVs; hacking computers; engaging in interstellar travel and interstellar trade; seducing an agent to obtain information; and seeking something out on the surface of an alien world. Maybe other stuff as well I'm not recalling at present. The only one which didn't have a workable mechanic for resolving the action, either expressly provided or easily extrapolated from what has been provided, was the last one. Which is a pity, because exploring alien worlds is an important aspect of sci-fi play.

I've already mentioned how BW and 4e handle the issue of establishing odds of success. In the case of MHRP/Cortex+ Heroic, every check is an opposed one, and the system has elaborate rules for establishing and maintaining the Doom Pool which is the default source of opposition if nothing else applies.

Prince Valiant plays somewhat between Traveller and Cortex+ Heroic in this respect - many checks are opposed; where they are not, the system for setting DCs compared to the system for determining the size of player dice pools tends to mean that initial chances are rarely less than 1 in 4 (ie 2 successes on 2 dice), although the complex resolution system can exhibit a death-spiral effect, which is a reason to use it with caution.

Perhaps all the systems I play count as "specific/niche game engines"?

Ah, you mean without forcing players to provide further details for their action declarations so as DMs we can adjudicate the likely chance of success. Such Bad DMs.

I don't think that [MENTION=85870]innerdude[/MENTION] has even indicated what system he is playing, let alone how action declarations work in that system, so I'm not really sure what you're getting at here.

Eric: I try get my shard back from the Frost Giant without starting a fight.
DM: How do you go about that, she has already placed it back in her hair?
Eric: I use diplomacy, I'm proficient.
DM: Cool, what do you say to her?
Eric: Well, I ask nicely, smile a lot and bow often?
DM: Is there something specific that you say?
Eric: Nah, I have a +7 on my Diplomacy roll. My character is really good at persuading people.
Matt: Yeah, but this is a giant, a Frost Giant, who has recently been annoyed with humans for lying to her and her kin. They've been sent on a wild goose-chase, we are lucky they don't kill us.
Eric: All the same, besides who cares about that backstory. My character is a really good talker.
DM sets the DC, Eric rolls a 25 after modifiers.

Eric: I roleplayed the crap out of that!
Liz: You sure did E. (They high-five each other and then, picks up her dice and turns to the DM) I also want to roleplay.

Are you posting an account of how it happened at your table? All my discussion is taking for granted that the people at the table are interested in playing the system that is being used, including making action declarations in the way the system expects.