Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[pemerton]

Well, in regard to the possibility of illusionism (in the fork in the road sense), that would depend on the GM's intentions. You'd have to actually attempt it, I think. Some GMs might never use the technique in any game system. That doesn't really prove it can't be done. Just that it wasn't attempted.

What would it look like? I mean, I've described in reasonable detail how two sessions unfolded. Where would illusionism take place? What would it mean, in this context?

There is no fudging of rolls - they're being rolled in the open.

The framing is all there, in the open.

What form are you envisaging the illusionism taking?

In terms of the stories, I could step through the description step-by-step and it would work just fine in D&D.

As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a simple recount of some fiction nothing can be inferred about RPGing processes. However, there are some things in the BW session that D&D wouldn't handle smoothly: opposed checks to get to the horse before being surrounded by orcs; opposed checks to unknot the horse before the orcs close in; an Instinct to interpose myself to protect Aramina; determining the presence or absence of treasure left behind by homesteaders on the basis of an Investigation check. Maybe others I'm not thinking of.

There are things, too, in the Cortex Fantasy that D&D wouldn't handle all that smoothly - the players establishing, via asset creation, that the murals have information about the dungeon; the player then leveraging this to bluff the dark elven C/F/MU to take him to the treasure; expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport all the PCs to another level of the dungeon. Again, maybe others I'm not thinking of.

At a couple of points you mention that "mechanically you were thinking" such-and-such.

<snip>

Do you find that the actions in the game are more driven by the rules, or supported by the rules? Or is that more because you're trying to explain what happened?

I don't understand what the contrast is you are drawing between "driven by the rules" and "supported by the rules".

I (as my character) wanted the elf captain come with me back to my ancestral estate. That required persuading him. So, as a player, I called for a Duel of Wits.

Page 552 of the BW Gold rulebook says that the players "have a number of duties", including to "use the mechanics". That's what I did.

For example: "I declared a couple of checks - an homestead-wise check..." Because in my campaign it would just be, "I want to examine the homesteads a little closer to see if I can determine why they were abandoned."

As per the post above this one, action declaration is Intent and Task. I explained that I (ie as my PC) wanted to look around the homestead to see what I could learn about the circumstances of its abandonment. But I also told the GM - as a player - that I wanted to resolve that as a Homestead-wise check. This is me angling for a test, which I got. Ultimately the GM is responsible for ensuring that - given the task - the right ability is being tested, but the player is allowed to express a view - which I did.

As p 24 of the book says (and as I quoted just upthread), "Dice rolls called for by the GM and players are the heart of play. These are tests."

I don't know how a failed scavenging check (to find something - or an investigation check) would result in an orc raiding party infiltrating the homestead before you or your companions noticed. This is the sort of disconnect that I think bothers a lot of people with the Story Now approach. Why not a Stealth check vs. Passive Perception (perhaps with disadvantage since you're focused on something else)?

Well the flip side would be - the repeated insertion of irrelevant stuff is what bothers me with the process-sim/exploration-of-situation-style approach.

The GM, in establishing the consequence of failure, is not suggesting that failing to find something caused the orcs to infiltrate. Anymore then, in the game where I'm GM, the PCs failure to find the mace retrospectively caused the brother to be an evil enchanter of cursed arrows.

The failure isn't being narrated on a causal logic. It's being narrated on a "fail forward", narratively-and-thematically-driven logic. From BW Gold, pp 31-32:

When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . .

When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication. . . .

Try not to present flat negative results - "You don’t pick the lock." Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.​

My intent was to find the homesteaders' hidden treasures. That didn't come to pass. Instead, in the time I was doing this some orcs on the edge of the larger raiding party notice us and enter the homestead. And Aramina is separated from me because I had expressly declared that she didn't help me search.

I get that it's very similar - you were so focused on what you were doing that you failed to notice them. But if your character is one that has a high perception and a low investigation, it could be a sore point.

A good GM won't narrate a complication that doesn't make sense in the fiction. If my PC was (say) a scout with excellent Observation, then I imagine the GM would have narrated something different. If I didn't have a Belief that Aramina will need my protection, then I doubt the GM would have bothered with Aramina being surrounded by the orcs such that I had to choose whether or not to interpose myself.

Again, this is why the focus of this sort of play is not illusionism - which has no application - but GM judgement in framing and narrating consequences, where the GM who makes bad calls will make things fall flat.

So Aramina panicked (obviously not surprised) (not sure a check is needed here, just role-playing)

The GM called for Steel tests. Thurgon passed, Aramina failed, but then Thurgon's command lifted her hesitation. I don't know if the GM was thinking of Thurgon's Command skill when he made this call, but in any event it was a good call, as it provided a context for meaningful choice (again, protecting Aramina) and I - as a player - also made a point of making my horse (part of my gear) an element in the situation. That's an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is getting at when he talks about "playing the fiction".

Many players would object to the actions of another PC taking even this little bit of control of their character (or is she an NPC)? If it's a PC, it would be up to them to decide if they follow your command. If it is an NPC, then it would have been a Persuasion check if it was necessary (as I said, I use passive skills frequently, so this would probably initially be addressed with a passive check since you're probably not intending to use your action to do it).

Aramina is a companion to my PC. Something like a henchman in classic D&D. Even if she was a player, I think in the circumstances she would have to obey my command, as that was my intent in making the check, which succeeded. It wouldn't last any longer than her hesitation which was (in D&D terms) roughly 1 round.

I don't use initiative in my combat

Nor does BW. It uses simultaneous blind declaration and then simultaneous resolution. There is a TotM positioning mechanic - because the orcs had spears and I have a mace, they had a positioning advantage, but I was able to charge through their wall of spears (being much stronger than them) and knock one down, which was the beginning of the end for the orcs.

Not sure how many times you've tied a horse to a post, but I wouldn't expect you to need to make a check to untie it.

This is another instance of the GM framing things so as to drive towards conflict. Here is the rule on ties (BW Gold p 26):

If one character is an aggressor by intent and one is a defender, ties go to the defender. If both characters are aggressors, a tie means that neither side has gained an edge and they are deadlocked. Either the tie must be accepted as the result, a trait must be called on to break it or the contest must be continued in another arena. Do not reroll the test.​

The GM decided that the tie in this case meant deadlock, and so the contest had to be continued in another arena - how quickly can I unloose the horse as the orc's close? Personally, I think I would have adjudicated it differently rather than retest the orcs' speed - perhaps an orc is taking aim to throw a spear at me, and so it is Knots vs Perception with a win to me getting me on my horse and a win to the orc getting him a throw of the spear at me. But I'm not the GM in this game!

I use a lot of passive checks

There is no such thing as "passive checks" in BW. As a general rule, passive checks are not consistent with "say 'yes' or roll the dice".

 

[Ovinomancer]

I'm curious about this first homestead-wise check discussed. You stated you made the check to learn more about why the homesteads were abandoned, succeeded, and the result was narration of backstorumy by the GM. Can you add more detail about the intent/outcome or square this otherwise on how this wasn't learning what was in the GM's notes, ie secret backstory?

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have put these two quotes together because Lanefan's rhetorical question provides the answer to hawkeyefan's non-rhetorical one.

It's important, in my post that was quoted by [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], that I said "player", not "PC". That is, I am not talking just about the PC setting out to prove that the claim of fatherhood is false - which presumably is possible in any game - but the player setting out to make it the case in the shared fiction that the claim is false.

In a "secret backstory" game, whether or not the NPC is the father is (presumably) known to the GM (if it's not, then there's no secret backstory!), and so the player's action declarations can't actually establish this bit of the fiction. All they can do is uncover it (which is what I have referred to upthread as "learning the contents of the GM's notes"). If the PC cast a Commune spell and asked "Who is my father?" or "Is the NPC my father?", the GM would provide the answer written in his/her notes.

But the GM is free to change things on the fly, no matter what style of game is being played. This is my point.

This element of play, while absolutely present in your Story Now approach, need not be absent from a more GM driven game. This "Secret Backstory" approach that you discuss....there is no reason that anything in the GM's note must be written in stone.

Yes, some GM's may decide that is how things should be handled. [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] certainly seems to lean that way, and based on his comments, I can understand why; he feels that it helps create a more fully realized and "realistic" world.

However, I could be GMing in the same manner as him...with tons of notes and backstory already determined....and still be free to allow for changes to those details based on how the game plays out.

So this Mutability of Backstory is a technique that MAY be applied in any game. It just seems baked in to the game style you prefer....but that does not mean it must be absent from other types of games. Essentially, it's up to the GM of any given game to use it or not.

Mystery: is the Dusk War upon us!

Clue - introduced by GM as part of framing: the tarrasque has risen from out of the earth and is wreaking havoc - this is one of the prophesied signs of the Dusk War.

Further clue - introduced by GM as part of framing (partly unprompted, partly in the course of discussion between the PCs and a NPC, partly in response to knowledge checks which were, in effect, requests for more framing detail): the tarrasque is surrounded by maruts who in ancient days made an agreement with the Raven Queen to ensure that no one would interfere with the tarrasque carrying out its rampage at a herald of the Dusk War.

The PCs responded to this by having one of their number attack the tarrasque and single-handedly bloody it, while the other PCs explained to the maruts that they had made an error in their cosmological calculations: this could not be the tarrasque heralding the Dusk War, because the ease with which it was being defeated meant that it could not be the harbinger of the end times. It must be some lesser precursor to that prophesied event. (Mechanically, this was both successful combat actions and success in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)

In a "secret backstory" game the PCs presumably could persuade the maruts, but whether or not the prophesied end of days was here or not would itself be something already known to the GM (if not, then there is no secret backstory).

I don't think most GMs have the actual ending to their campaign in mind, no matter how GM driven it may be. It could be a pure railroad, and yet still the ultimate result will come down to the success or failure of the players.

If knowing exactly how the game ends....not just the climax it builds to (the PCs hunt down Strahd in his castle), but how that climax is resolved (the PCs are defeated and slain by Strahd)....is a requirement of a "Secret Backstory" game, then I think there are very few such games.

I am not talking about a world-threatening villain that the PCs might try and stop. I'm talking about a prophesied end-of-days - the Ragnarok or the Apocalypse.

The answer to the question is the Dusk War upon us is, in the fiction, either yes or no: it's either the end times, or it's not. But at the table, in the real world, the answer is not known. The players, like their PCs, want the answer to be no. There are NPCs - including the Raven Queen, it seems - who want the answer to be yes. Of course, the PCs don't have the causal power in the fiction to establish the answer - it's a cosmological truth. But the players, at the table, have the causal power to shape the fiction. That is the difference from a "secret backstory" game, where the answer to the question is settled in the GM's notes. (Again, if there is no such answer then we're not talking about a "secret backstory" game.)

Yes, I understood what you meant. My "big bad" comment was just an example. As I just mentioned above, I think most games allow for the ultimate success or failure of the PCs to determine the outcome.

So, in your example, I don't see the distinction you are making between the fiction and the table. Is the Dusk War upon us? It's either yes or no in the fiction. It's either yes or no at the table. The players have causal power to shape the fiction in your game (trying to make it so that the Dusk War is not dawning). Players going through the Curse of Strahd adventure also do (by achieving victory against the vampire).

The degree of such causal power is likely greater in your game than in a group playing through a published adventure, but I don't think it's a case of one game allowing for such, and the other not allowing for it.

Sorry, I hadn't realised that any of this had been taken to be in contention.

Yes, the GM has ideas. Otherwise the GM couldn't frame scenes or narrate consequences. But I don't know what you mean by "steering things in this manner".

Consider one of the examples I posted around six or so posts upthread, from one of the sessions I participated in over the weekend: my GM included elves in the situation, because he like elves. And no doubt he had some ideas about what might happen with the elves (just as a GM might have ideas about NPCs and their connections to PC parenthood).

So, with whatever ideas he had in mind, the GM narrated the presence of the elf captain. I initiated the social exchange; and it seemed fairly clear to me that the GM had not expected me (in character as my PC) to try to persuade the elven captain to bring himself and his company to my PC's ancestral estate. The interaction of stat blocks, scripting (ie blind action declarations, which is how BW handles complex conflict resolution) and the dice dictated that the elf captain rebuffed my PC's invitation; but while the attempt failed utterly, as I posted upthread it nevertheless (i) got me some good advancement checks, (ii) let me have fun speaking my arguments as the rules require, and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation. Following the interaction with the elf captain, I was the one who then chose that my PC and his companion would head off in a different direction from the elves without taking any lunch (which we had originally been planning to eat at the ruined homestead).

So anyway, as I've said, I don't know what you have in mind when you refer to the GM "steering things" in an episode of play like this. If you simply mean that the GM determines some elements of the fiction as part of framing - eg the elf, who didn't want to come back to my ancestral estate but rather to return to Celene with a fallen comrade - then as I said I didn't realise that was in contention. But if you mean something more, I'm missing what that is.

Well you had made comments about nothing being established by the GM having preconceived ideas for NPCs or story ideas. So I was showing how such ideas do in fact establish elements of the game, and therefore matter. As I said, it's kind of a subtle distinction, but one that I think could certainly have a large impact on the game.

The example was about the NPC villain turning out to be the PC's father, a la Darth Vader. It would seem your expectation for a Story Now approach to have such a revelation be determined by the PCs actions and how they are shaped by the player. That having the NPC claim fatherhood only establishes the claim and nothing more....but I think it certainly establishes the possibility. The player now has to accept or deny the claim, and then play will likely form around such effort.

Now, based on your description, this is likely fine....I would expect such a question of parentage was based on the player declaring that as a point of interest for his character. But my point is that the GM's idea only was what brought the game to that point. Right up until the point where the NPC makes the claim, the fiction was shaping up for exactly that. The GM was steering things in that way. He was pushing a specific idea, forcing a certain conflict.

The resolution of that conflict (th truth of the PC's parentage) may still be up in the air, but it was the GM's idea that shaped things up to that point. The fact that at the last minute, he could have decided to NOT have the NPC claim to be the father does not mean that the game was not shaped to allow for that to be the case. So, as I said a bit subtle of a point perhaps, but the GM's notion even though subject to change, had an impact on the fiction.

Well, as I've said upthread I don't know enough about your game to form any opinion on it.

But I think the contrast between the sort of approach that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is advocating for - in which the GM authors the backstory in advance, and the players' job includes finding that out in the course of play - and the sort of approach that I prefer, is a fairly clear one.

I don't think it's as clear as you make it out to be. I have described my style as using elements of both. I absolutely have "Secret Backstory" elements that the players are meant to be discovering at points throughout play; my campaign does have an overall theme and "central story", although there are many smaller stories that tie into that. I absolutely incorporate player ideas for their characters into the fiction, both ideas that they had at the start of the campaign, and ones they've come up with along the way. I have a rough outline in a very loose sense....a general idea of what will happen. This outline is always subject to change based on the actions of the PCs and how they handle different aspects of the story. The backstory is also subject to change based on how play takes shape....I mentioned earlier not being married to any idea so strongly that I would not be willing to change it. Very little, other than the most fundamental of story elements, is written in stone.

I take a very sandbox approach to play....the players have goals in mind for their characters, and I have some story ideas....and I've made sure that many of these are in some sense of alignment. So my PCs' stories have ties to story ideas that I have. So at most points, the PCs are free to pursue their goals, and doing so will advance that story and also likely introduce new elements that they can pursue or not. Generally, I let the game go in the direction the players seem to want it to go. At times, this does mean that things become more linear....they set along a path of some sort, and then we play that through to its conclusion. I hesitate to describe these portions of the game as being "railroad" because during these linear times, the players are the ones deciding to take things in that way. They're driving straight despite there being intersections, rather than riding a train, to keep up with the analogy.

This is what I've meant by player and GM alignment....yes, the players are going in ways that the GM wants them to go, but they're also going in the way they want to go. There's no conflict....no force....no railroading.

That's not to say that I don't use GM Force or illusionism at times. I'm sure I have, and I'm sure I will again....but I prefer not to subvert consequence of player choice in that way unless I feel there is a strong reason.

When it comes to the 5E mechanics....I'm very loose in application of the mechanics. I allow the players to decide how they use Inspiration. Yes, they can use it to gain advantage on a die roll...but that's the most basic usage. I also allow them to use inspiration to allow things not covered by the rules, or to allow them to introduce a story element to the game.....I really let them call the shots for Inspiration and abdicate each instance on the fly.

Almost all the elements that you've described as positives of the Story Now style games you are advocating are also present in my game. They may not be ever-present, they may not be enforced by mechanics,but they're there. I don't treat them as necessary to the game's success....I don't have a specific goal like "play to find out" or anything like that, other than the general and all important goal of having fun....so I'm free to use these techniques or not as desired.

I suppose I look at it as no group of techniques is going to always deliver a fun game, or the most fun that a game can deliver, so I don't adhere to any set techniques. I use any and all of them as the situation and the story call for, and set them aside when I feel they won't help deliver a fun game.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

That may well be true! I'm not going to gainsay someone else's estimation of his/her abilities. I'm just wary of generalisation from one's own case across the whole of RPG-dom.

Exactly, in reverse. There seems to (at times - and not necessarily you) be the sense that some think all GMs should do certain things. My general point is that there is almost nothing that every GM should do. Even railroading is a useful technique if the players are looking for a specific general outcome of the campaign, such as playing known characters in a known story line (LotR, Star Wars, etc.).

A good DM is able to hide those rails even then. And really, I think that's ultimately the answer to railroading, illusionism, etc. If, for whatever reason, the DM feels they must use a technique that is altering the players agency of their characters (I think that's described as Force on the Forge), the goal is to do it in a manner the the players can't tell and don't know about it.

This is a bit different if the players come to the table and say "we don't accept illusionism as a technique" for example. Although in many cases I think that players that object to specific techniques "in theory" are really objecting to poor use of the techniques in reality.

I count myself in that group, because there are things, like "Eero's standard narrativistic model" that I initially objected to, and I find that in reality I agree 100% with it at times, and probably 80% of it the rest of the time (I'll get into that in a moment). I think my initial knee-jerk reaction is the use of the word "standard" which implies it's part of every game.

I think this may relate to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s comments about "GM steering".

In what way do you see (d) and (e) as instructing the GM to drive the story?

As I see it, (d) instructs the GM to "go where the action is" - it's another statement of the framing role of the GM, whereby the GM has to frame scenes that speak to theme/premise and thereby provoke choices by the players for their PCs.

If we think about [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the PC's brother's hat in the brothel, that is the GM "keep[ing] play driven towards conflict". It's the player, not the GM, who chose to make the brother a significant element in play; and it is the player who will make the choices that determine the outcomes.

(e) is another instruction about framing, and the use of consequences from previous situations to inform new situations. Those consequences will be the result of player action declarations, which in turn were made in response to framings that spoke to the thematic concerns established by the players. So I'm not seeing how it is "GM driven". Are you able to articulate what you mean by "GM driven"?

So this is where I go from the 100% to the 80%. I guess you can say that I'm approaching the discussion in part as a DM of D&D, because ultimately that's what I really know. Despite having run games in the past for other systems, I can't really claim to have achieved a high enough skill level in them to call myself a Rolemaster/MERP GM, or Traveller, Paranoia, whatever.

Having said that, I do think I have enough knowledge of other systems to look at it from a more objective position, although not completely (or maybe 100% accurately) since I don't know all systems as well.

So (d) and (e) might be 100% correct for a story now game (and from what I understand, they are fairly standard). However, if when running/playing your game of choice that you wish to have a different play experience than a narrative/story now game, these are implying that the DM take greater control of the story than I normally like:

d) Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story". Just play The Town. Present the PC's with choices; "provoke the players to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!" Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved. (DitV 137-139)

e) Reflect between Towns with the players. Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "push them a little bit further in the next Town."

These are giving specific direction to drive the story arc itself. That every game ("always") must follow this direction. But there are times, or some of us, that are interested in telling other kinds of stories. They aren't always about conflict. If the instructions are for creating a tense and intense, ever-escalating conflict driving to a shocking and dramatic final resolution, fine. These are great instructions. But if they are instructions for how to run every RPG game, then no.

I get that they are written for a specific game that promises a specific game style. It's an example of how rules that are well integrated into the goal (and possibly setting) of the game helps create a repeatable game experience. That's a successful game. But let's say I'm not interested in that game. What can I learn from it? Quite a bit, but for a smaller portion of my game, because a smaller portion of my game needs these types of rules.

Also, many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict.

The Perception check did determine if the PC noticed that something is there. Of course, a necessary condition of noticing that something is there is that it be there.

So from the fact that the PC notices it - which is established by the Perception check - we can infer that it is there.

This is certainly not opposed to the design of Perception and other knowledge checks in this system.

Which I believe I mentioned - that depending on the game system it's allowable. I also gave an example (in regards to the scavenging check) that showed in D&D it would have been a slightly different set of checks to achieve the same fictional result.

I'll come at it from a slightly different perspective in regards to secret doors. For those who object to the idea that a successful search check can determine the actual existence of a secret door (So from the fact that the PC notices it - which is established by the Perception check - we can infer that it is there.) - This is only possible if the GM allows it. In other words, the GM has agreed that a secret door is possible in that particular location.

Before you respond, let me address that from a slightly different angle (I'm trying to see if my interpretation is accurate): In a story now campaign, if I (as a player) decided to search for secret doors on every single turn, would it be allowed, and if so, would I find a secret door every time I was successful in my search?

By "playing to find out" I mean something quite different from [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]. The slogan comes - I believe - from Apocalypse World/PtbA games. I contrast it with RPGing where "secret backstory" matters to resolution - because in the latter case the GM is not playing to find out: s/he already knows.

And I don't undertand why you disagree with my reference to the players finding out what is in the GM's notes. If (to quote you) the only one who can provide those answers is the DM, then that precisely seems to be the players finding out what is in the GM's notes.

OK, so that makes some more sense, and is also another great example of a poor use of terms for a game rule, when there isn't a standard definition to all gamers what "playing to find out means."

Ironically, I already answered your question in the prior post. Just because I might have had an idea, and even gone so far to write it down, doesn't mean it's right. I, as the DM, and "playing to find out" if it's true. Call it a theory, like in a mystery. Am I right? I'm not ready to declare who did it, where they did it, and with what. I could be wrong.

The game, the story, and the players will all determine that. So for me it's about as far from the players trying to find out what's in the DM's notes. They are tools, helpful to me, and it might be that when push comes to shove, the answer is the exact opposite of what I've written down.

There are undoubtedly lots of DMs that play the notes as the rule. Especially with a published adventure, what's written is what is. No, I use the notes as ideas, fodder for feeding my improvisation, etc. because I'm the sort of guy that thinks of the perfect joke 10 minutes after the opportunity. If I don't give my brain lots of concrete ideas ahead of time, it's often blank or providing the most predictable and boring options in time.

Do I use my notes as written? Sure, a lot of times they just fit. But most of them are just a sentence, maybe two. Or they are something along the lines of, "maybe this, or that, or that," and there is no concrete note to start with.

So yes, the DM is the only one that can provide the answers. But that doesn't mean the answers come from the notes.

The vessel example is a (small) instance of "playing to find out" and the contrast with the players learning what is in the GM's notes: I did not have pre-written notes, nor create some notes on the spot by rolling on a "random stuff in a wizard's chamber" table. It was the resolution of the player's action declaration ("I look for a vessel to catch the spilling blood!") that determined that particular aspect of the fiction. That is an example of what I mean by "playing to find out". And that method can be generalised beyond vessels in wizardly chambers to other things (eg Why did a balrog possess my brother? Is the Dusk War upon us? Why is my brother's hat hanging in the foyer of this brothel? What is the attitude of this elven captain to the human nobility? etc).

Yep. Exactly what I would have described is that the players always think of stuff I don't, and often (usually) have more interesting ideas than I do. It's part of improvisation - notes are one input, the character's actions are another, the players questions and comments another, what's in my head at the moment (I might have just watched a movie, read a book, noticed something on the news, etc.). There are many, many inputs, including from the characters. And as the DM I field those and decide what's appropriate, what's not, and if there is something that is not clear we'll roll a die. In your example with the vessel, the player made a good point, that there probably would be some sort of vessel there, so I would have just gone with it.

And I think that's part of the sense I get from the "standard narrativistic model" and what I've commented about - the model seems to limit the options of the DM. What you seem to be saying is that in those games that I shouldn't be using notes (or things I've thought of before hand). For me, and my players, that would make for a boring game. I need those ideas as seeds. but I may use none of them in the course of a game. It just gets my brain working.

That's the difference between what Ron Edwards calls "exploring setting and situation" and what he calls "narrativism"/"story now" and Eero Tuovinen calls "the standard narrativistic model".

Two things.

(1) Non-4e D&D actually will give you some push-back if you try to run it "story now". One example I pointed to a few posts upthread is the fact that spells, including information-gathering spells, tend to grant players automatic successes. Hence they aren't able to be adjudicated by way of "say 'yes' or roll the dice". Which means they don't support the sort of setting-of-stakes and adjudication-of-outcomes that is important to "story now" play.

I tend to rewrite any rule that gives automatic success. Yes, I have baselines (passive skill scores) that mean you'll automatically succeed at something that's easy for you, barring the impact of circumstances. But divination spells (which rarely come up in my games), don't. Although bear in mind that it's rare for any characters (yes, even after 9-year-long runs) rarely get above 7th or 8th level. So I'm usually only dealing with 4th level and lower spells.

But, I don't usually have specific answers, unless it's something simple like when they are in a dungeon and I know what creatures/traps/treasures lie in two different directions. Those are times where the notes are more specific (although potentially still malleable). Otherwise I give it my best shot, and use, gasp!, railroading, fudging, or Illusionism techiques (although usually more in regard to the back-end) if needed.

The fudging one is a great example, though, because if the divination says that they will succeed at something, I can essentially give them advantage, or some other bonus (fudge) if needed. That doesn't mean that it's all they hoped for - the Powers usually think in terms of what you need, not what you want. And your definition of success doesn't always answer theirs...

But I'm curious, in a world where such divination spells exist, how would you handle it in a story now/narrative model?

(2) I feel that some your remarks - in this and earlier posts - are projecting some conception of "story now" that doesn't fit with the reality of these games.

Eg they are not generally "mission based". There is no reason why campaigns can't be lengthy - BW is designed for play over tens of sessions, although MHRP is designed for shorter sequences of play. And the "action" can be anything from gunfights to cooking. My BW PC has Cooking skill, and I'm expecting that to matter. And as I posted upthread, I'm expecting the next session to begin with me trying to persuade my wizard companion to mend the dent in my armour.

D&D doesn't really have the mechanics to make these rather prosaic matters a significant part of the game, but BW does.

I feel you are probably correct, in that I don't know the games well enough.

But when I was talking about "mission based" I was referring more to the framing aspect. In a James Bond movie, every scene is related to the mission or that specific story. The last three (and On Her Majesty's Secret Service) explored his private thoughts and life a bit more. But for the most part, it's all about the mission. Hard cuts (framing) between one scene and the next. Firefly and Star Trek are also similar, in that each story is contained by the framing inherent in the setting. The focus is very tight. The setting on the ship is well defined and well known, and stories within it usually focus on the interactions of the characters themselves. Occasionally others come on board, but more often than not the action and story takes place on a new planet with a new challenge or conflict. Star Wars mixes it up a bit with more ship-to-ship battles, for example (although they happen in Star Trek too).

I don't think most Story Now games are mission based, but I think they take a lot of their narrativistic model from those types of movies and shows. Whereas something like LotR and even Game of Thrones, features a lot of in-between stuff, exploring the characters themselves within the world and the setting. Shows like them often explore the setting itself to a greater degree. Star Wars is another good example as being a bit of a hybrid - it expands the setting a lot (by virtue of so many stories that have been presented) but they tend to be very one dimensional. A desert planet, a forest planet, a city planet, a wookie planet, etc.)

Marvel movies tend to ignore setting to a large degree. Yes it's sort of current day Earth, but more exaggerated. But the stories care little about exploring the setting.

When I consider lengthy, I'm thinking Ed Greenwood's (and my) ongoing Forgotten Realms campaigns, for example. Where the same setting has persisted for 30 years now, and all of the adventures and characters that have taken place in my campaign are part of the setting now. The difference you're describing in length between BW and MHRP sound closer to the difference between a D&D AP and (older style) adventure.

There isn't really a defined definition of "Campaign" although I admit I didn't look at the Forge first. But I see them as isolated adventures and stories tied together by setting and characters. I don't think BW is designed for that sort of approach, where the same characters complete a story over your tens of sessions, then continue another story while retaining the setting elements that have now been defined in the prior game. I could be wrong.

The "action" may be anything, but the rules (especially the specific subset in this discussion) are driving toward conflict. I don't think they are considering burning the garlic conflict.

I think D&D has had different attempts over the years to address such mundane aspects of life such as those to be codified in rules. In many cases I feel that they don't need to be fixed within the rules, but I agree they should be a focus of the game. But that's the way I like to play the game, it's those personal skills, traits, and such that make the person more of a character than a bunch of numbers on a sheet. In the last campaign, one character particularly liked his sleep. And it was a part of the game on a pretty regular basis. I didn't need a rule for that, it's just a question of role-playing the personality of the character. We encourage that sort of play, but it's not reinforced by a rule.

Just because somebody is a good cook, doesn't mean it's going to be part of the game. Like I probably won't introduce a scene where they have to prepare a meal for the king, although if the opportunity does arise for them to use it to serve NPCs, great. On the other hand, the rest of the party will rather quickly insist that amongst their supplies there are sufficient resources for the gourmet to ply their craft. Giving them time to visit the market to purchase spices, complaining about the poor food when they can't prepare it, etc. NPCs that do join them on the road will also remember their cooking skills, and it becomes part of the campaign naturally, without having to force it with rules. If the cook is the best fighter in the group, and they happen to be separated for a while, it's probably more likely that they'll be greeted back with a comment about how they'll have something decent to eat now, rather than anything about their fighting ability. They can survive a battle without his sword, but have to suffer daily with bad food without him.

The 5e ideals/traits/bonds/flaws system addresses this kind of thinking to a small degree.

As far as convincing the wizard to mend the armor? Why do you need to persuade them? Part of our nightly routine includes minor repairs to armor (that can be made in the field), sharpening swords, etc. It's only natural that in a world where you are using weapons and armor of these types that they need to be cared for. If it's more than they can do themselves, and one of the spellcasters can do it, then it's a question of whether mending the armor or that the spellcasting is better used (or saved) elsewhere. It could even be that one of the other characters is a smith and capable of more substantial repairs, it wouldn't have to be a spellcaster. They might say no, for a variety of reasons, but I don't see the need for a skill check.

To me that's also part of good game design. You don't need to codify every action with a mechanical rule. Having said that, I like to support the in-world action with the rules. I adopted the 5e version of armor/weapon damage: -1 to hit or AC each time it's damaged, and it's destroyed at -5, although some are more or less. For example, orcish weapons and armor are typically destroyed at -4. I haven't picked the threshold yet, but once it's damaged beyond probably -2, then it's too damaged to be mended by in-field repairs (or the mending cantrip). But it might be that only "-1" damage can be repaired by the mending cantrip.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

I'm curious about this first homestead-wise check discussed. You stated you made the check to learn more about why the homesteads were abandoned, succeeded, and the result was narration of backstorumy by the GM. Can you add more detail about the intent/outcome or square this otherwise on how this wasn't learning what was in the GM's notes, ie secret backstory?

Agreed, from [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s description:

I declared a couple of initial checks: a Homestead-wise check (untrained) to learn more about the circumstances of abandonment of this particular ruined homestead, which succeeded, and hence (in this case) extracted some more narration of backstory from the GM; and then a Scavenging check, looking for the gold that the homesteaders would have left behind in their panic and which the orcs would have been too lazy to find.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-quot-railroading-quot/page165#ixzz4gbdK9FPS

Isn't that learning secret backstory, whether it's in notes or otherwise? How does that differ from the player's perspective when a DM has notes about the circumstances, vs. making it up on the spot?

 

[Manbearcat]

In what way do you see (d) and (e) as instructing the GM to drive the story?

As I see it, (d) instructs the GM to "go where the action is" - it's another statement of the framing role of the GM, whereby the GM has to frame scenes that speak to theme/premise and thereby provoke choices by the players for their PCs.

If we think about [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]'s example of the PC's brother's hat in the brothel, that is the GM "keep[ing] play driven towards conflict". It's the player, not the GM, who chose to make the brother a significant element in play; and it is the player who will make the choices that determine the outcomes.

(e) is another instruction about framing, and the use of consequences from previous situations to inform new situations. Those consequences will be the result of player action declarations, which in turn were made in response to framings that spoke to the thematic concerns established by the players. So I'm not seeing how it is "GM driven". Are you able to articulate what you mean by "GM driven"?

This is exactly right and your Burning Wheel hypothetical analogue is a proper one (even thought our situation was a bit different due to (a) player action declaration and (b) some procedural elements).

I was originally going to just break down the principles and general procedures initially, but it seems that some folks want to go a bit deeper into system on this, so I'm going to tag [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION] here.

So one of the primary components of Dogs in the Vineyard conflict resolution is establishing what is at stake. This is an area where [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] may have some issues given what I've seen him communicate and essays I've seen him link in this thread. Everyone at the table gets a say and once we've agreed on the appropriate dramatic stakes (this is often pretty quick), we're good to go.

In this situation, the relevant player went a sort of soft version of Unforgiven (when William Money shoots the owner of the whorehouse/tavern) on the owner/operator. Again, this is a border town and disputed territory so you've got a lot of folks who aren't members of The Faith and have pledged fealty to the big-money rancher who subsidized this establishment. They're pretty belligerent about it because of it and the owner/operator is more than game for a fight.

The conflict eschews "just talking" (Acuity + Heart dice pool) and goes straight to "physical, but not fighting" (Body + Heart dice pool) with the Dog in question picking up the big registry of customer transactions (filled with unrecognizable, fake names) and throwing it through the foyer window. When a man comes through a door and begins to protest, the Dog confirms he's the owner. He then flings the hat at him violently and tells him to bring the man who owns it to the foyer right now.

Even though the owner/operator has a decent enough pool for this, he almost surely won't win (especially with the other two Dogs helping) and definitely won't if the players escalate it to fighting (they wouldn't escalate it to guns...or at least two of them wouldn't). I'm (as the NPC in question) not going to escalate it even to fighting.

The players think the best dramatic stakes are "did the brother wear the hat into the brothel...or someone else?" In this case, they Give (lose) and the brother comes out...the owner Gives and someone else has the brother's hat.

They win and the man is sufficiently intimidated. He leads them to the door and, as the owner goes to knock, the door explodes open and boom...Follow-On Conflict which I frame, escalating the present situation but respecting their win. No talking, no physical, no fighting...straight to gunfire in a narrow corridor. Things go crazy pretty quickly as a few other members of a gang of cattle rustlers explode out of adjoining rooms.

So its not the brother. But its an enemy of the Dogs' mortal adversary in this Town (the rancher who is the manifestation of the territorial dispute and the primary purveyor of Sin).

 

[Ilbranteloth]

What would it look like? I mean, I've described in reasonable detail how two sessions unfolded. Where would illusionism take place? What would it mean, in this context?

There is no fudging of rolls - they're being rolled in the open.

The framing is all there, in the open.

What form are you envisaging the illusionism taking?

Well, my assertion was originally based off of what I believed illusionism to be, and by definition anytime a choice is given without at least two predetermined potential outcomes, it meets that definition that I outlined. I'm not sure if that's what others were referring to. But I think there's a general idea that since the DM is instructed to drive the story, they have a greater level of control of the direction of the story, be it by illusionism or railroading, than a more sandbox approach where the players are driving the story more. This could be based more of our perception and understanding based on statements and examples given by you and others.

But if the DM had prepared an encounter against orcs, had provided circumstances where you could encounter said orcs, and you went a different direction instead, then his placement of the orcs in this encounter could be illusionism. Likewise, if he loves elves, and decided that you were going to meet elves no matter what you did, it could be illusionism.

The thing about illusionism, if done well by the DM, it won't be detected. It's usually the result of the GM having something in mind or prepared ahead of time, and placing it in the game regardless of where you go. If you had skipped searching the homesteads and met the orcs anyway, it might have been illusionism. Of course, it could have just been because the orcs were following you. So the only person that could answer the question as to whether any sort of illusionism occurred would be the DM.

Despite what the game is designed to do, anytime a DM has something prepared (paper or in their head) ahead of time can present a potential scenario for illusionism. For the type of illusionism I described (two options presented with only one potential outcome), it's easily avoided by the GM providing a second prepared potential outcome.

But I think that in my analysis of that type of illusionism, regardless of whether the DM prepared something ahead of time, or the DM didn't prepare anything before the choice was made, the end state is the same: An option was presented, an outcome occurred, but the second potential outcome remains unauthored. The quality of the outcome may differ, but the end state is the same. The road chosen is authored, the road not chosen is not.

As I've posted multiple times upthread, from a simple recount of some fiction nothing can be inferred about RPGing processes. However, there are some things in the BW session that D&D wouldn't handle smoothly: opposed checks to get to the horse before being surrounded by orcs; opposed checks to unknot the horse before the orcs close in; an Instinct to interpose myself to protect Aramina; determining the presence or absence of treasure left behind by homesteaders on the basis of an Investigation check. Maybe others I'm not thinking of.

There are things, too, in the Cortex Fantasy that D&D wouldn't handle all that smoothly - the players establishing, via asset creation, that the murals have information about the dungeon; the player then leveraging this to bluff the dark elven C/F/MU to take him to the treasure; expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport all the PCs to another level of the dungeon. Again, maybe others I'm not thinking of.

Are you saying that opposed checks wouldn't work smoothly, or that D&D doesn't have them? I'm not sure what you mean by an Instinct to interpose yourself, I think that in any D&D scenario it's a natural instinct of the players, much less the characters, to prevent the wizard from being attacked directly.

I don't see how the BW rules handles those things you've pointed out more smoothly, in my campaign the fiction would have flowed in the same way, just different rules to engage.

As for Cortex Fantasy, the players establishing, via asset creation? I don't quite understand. In D&D the players would ask what the murals show, and the DM would answer. This could be predetermined, could be made up on the fly. In most cases, murals on the wall of a dungeon would likely provide some information of some sort regarding the dungeon, or at least the inhabitants that created them.

Bluffing the dark elven NPC, not a problem. Again, I don't understand the mechanic of expending a GM resource to have the Crypt Thing teleport them. Are you saying this can only happen if the DM has earned some sort of resource to do so. Or to put it a different way, the Crypt Thing, within the world, can't use it's primary ability otherwise?

See, in none of the descriptions you or others have given have really illustrated anything you can do in one of those games that I can't do in D&D. My goal for D&D is for the players to write their own story, with my providing input via the setting and the NPCs/monsters, etc. I have some ability to control where things go (what I tell them or neglect to tell them, direct actions against the characters by the NPCs, etc.). What I'm not interested in is "playing a game."

That is, I'm not looking for a ruleset that encourages action on the part of the players or the DM. I don't like systems that restrict the options of the DM by rule of the game, rather than what's going on in the world. If my Crypt Thing can't use their primary ability because the mystical DM in the sky hasn't earned (or already used) his action points, then that's probably not a game I want to play. Games like that are multi-layered - there's the story and action within the fiction, and then there's the game outside the game, how can I maneuver things so I can get another action point, or whatever.

Thinks like the flat answer below, "you fail to pick the lock." What's wrong with that? Why do I have to introduce another complication? Why not let the players/characters figure out what to do if Plan A failed? I'm not opposed, and actually prefer systems, that allow degrees of success/failure, so that all of those options are available - you just fail, to it takes more time, to catastrophic failure. But I also prefer the system to allow the DM to adjudicate the system and determine that there really isn't catastrophic failure to be had here.

As of yet, I can't think of any scenario that a story now game can produce that I can't do in D&D. On the other hand, by your own assertion, there seems to be lots of things that they can't do that D&D can. I'm not concerned about whether you want to do them, only that you can. You may not want to run or play a standard dungeon crawl scenario. But there are plenty of people that do want to. And from what you're saying, if that's what they want, then BW isn't the right system for them.

I'm not sure that's really true, but it's the sense I get. And really, if that's not true, then I think that it would be importantly to show that that's not the case to better promote the game.

Most of your objections seem to be about what you want or don't want within the fiction of the game. They are objections to the content of the game. The fiction. If that's the case, then don't include them.

My objections tend to be about how events, actions and the fiction of the game occurs and is introduced. And usually my objections are about restrictions or prescribed approaches that require a certain approach.

I expect that a human being will act in much the same manner as a human being in our world. Yes, the circumstances often change what we do. And that's part of what I enjoy exploring in an RPG - how would that character act in a difficult situation.

What I don't like are rules that limit those options, whether it's the scene, the actions, the DM's options, whatever. I want the rules to be as transparent as possible. One mentality that the rules sometimes give rise to in D&D is, "it's OK if he dies, we'll just resurrect him." That's an example of how the rules changed the fiction, or allowed a change in the fiction by player interpretation. A DM made a post complaining that when he attempted a classic scene: the villain held a knife to a villager's throat, that the players actually debated (and ultimately chose) to let the NPC "kill" the villager, they could prevail and then save the villager, even though he just had his throat cut.

So a rule that tells the DM to increase the tension, and ramp up the conflict, and introduce complications are instructions that are telling me what to put into the fiction. In other words, they are limiting my options.

I'm also a big proponent for changing rules you don't like. Yes, you have to work at it sometimes (because changing one thing can often have impacts elsewhere). So if I was to run something like BW on a regular basis, I'd do the same thing.

I don't understand what the contrast is you are drawing between "driven by the rules" and "supported by the rules".

I (as my character) wanted the elf captain come with me back to my ancestral estate. That required persuading him. So, as a player, I called for a Duel of Wits.

Page 552 of the BW Gold rulebook says that the players "have a number of duties", including to "use the mechanics". That's what I did.

As per the post above this one, action declaration is Intent and Task. I explained that I (ie as my PC) wanted to look around the homestead to see what I could learn about the circumstances of its abandonment. But I also told the GM - as a player - that I wanted to resolve that as a Homestead-wise check. This is me angling for a test, which I got. Ultimately the GM is responsible for ensuring that - given the task - the right ability is being tested, but the player is allowed to express a view - which I did.

As p 24 of the book says (and as I quoted just upthread), "Dice rolls called for by the GM and players are the heart of play. These are tests."

Well the flip side would be - the repeated insertion of irrelevant stuff is what bothers me with the process-sim/exploration-of-situation-style approach.

And I see dice rolls an an interruption of play. They pull you out of the game world, out of character, and interrupt the immersion within the game. They are a necessary evil, although they do add their own dimension to the game that can provide some benefit. But I wouldn't call them the heart of play for us. The story and the characters are the heart of play. We don't sit down at the table to roll dice, even though we roll quite a bit. If that was the heart of play, then we'd be playing a dice game.

But see, that's where I think you misunderstand what [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] and I are trying to explain. We don't insert irrelevant stuff. We describe what's there. We can't decide for the players or the characters what is important, only they can.

Rules that instruct the DM to "drive toward conflict," "go to the action," etc. are giving the DM the instruction to choose what's important to him, based on what he thinks is important to the players and the characters. My preferred approach (and I think [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION]'s among others) is for the DM to focus on what's important to the setting and the NPCs, and let the players truly have full control of what's important to them.

This example speaks to that a bit:

The GM, in establishing the consequence of failure, is not suggesting that failing to find something caused the orcs to infiltrate. Anymore then, in the game where I'm GM, the PCs failure to find the mace retrospectively caused the brother to be an evil enchanter of cursed arrows.

The failure isn't being narrated on a causal logic. It's being narrated on a "fail forward", narratively-and-thematically-driven logic. From BW Gold, pp 31-32:

When the dice are rolled and don’t produce enough successes to meet the obstacle, the character fails. What does this mean? It means the stated intent does not come to pass. . . .

When a test is failed, the GM introduces a complication. . . .

Try not to present flat negative results - "You don’t pick the lock." Strive to introduce complications through failure as much as possible.​

My intent was to find the homesteaders' hidden treasures. That didn't come to pass. Instead, in the time I was doing this some orcs on the edge of the larger raiding party notice us and enter the homestead. And Aramina is separated from me because I had expressly declared that she didn't help me search.

A good GM won't narrate a complication that doesn't make sense in the fiction. If my PC was (say) a scout with excellent Observation, then I imagine the GM would have narrated something different. If I didn't have a Belief that Aramina will need my protection, then I doubt the GM would have bothered with Aramina being surrounded by the orcs such that I had to choose whether or not to interpose myself.

Again, this is why the focus of this sort of play is not illusionism - which has no application - but GM judgement in framing and narrating consequences, where the GM who makes bad calls will make things fall flat.

The GM called for Steel tests. Thurgon passed, Aramina failed, but then Thurgon's command lifted her hesitation. I don't know if the GM was thinking of Thurgon's Command skill when he made this call, but in any event it was a good call, as it provided a context for meaningful choice (again, protecting Aramina) and I - as a player - also made a point of making my horse (part of my gear) an element in the situation. That's an instance of what [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] is getting at when he talks about "playing the fiction".

Aramina is a companion to my PC. Something like a henchman in classic D&D. Even if she was a player, I think in the circumstances she would have to obey my command, as that was my intent in making the check, which succeeded. It wouldn't last any longer than her hesitation which was (in D&D terms) roughly 1 round.

My question was really whether your check could force a specific action/reaction from another PC. Something that is generally frowned upon in game design, and actively hated by many players.

All this stuff about context for meaningful choice and making your horse (part of your gear) an element in the situation is to me, irrelevant. I don't need rules to tell me as a player to communicate to my fellow companions a plan I have, and if we have an opportunity to gain an advantage or an escape on our horses, then that's an obvious choice.

Nor does BW. It uses simultaneous blind declaration and then simultaneous resolution. There is a TotM positioning mechanic - because the orcs had spears and I have a mace, they had a positioning advantage, but I was able to charge through their wall of spears (being much stronger than them) and knock one down, which was the beginning of the end for the orcs.

I commented on initiative because I'm running D&D. The fact that I don't use initiative is an important distinction to make because it changes my description of the action substantially from the D&D rules.

It's also a perfect example of how I don't like rules that drive the action, instead of supporting it. Initiative is supposed to (in theory) address the question of who resolves their action first (who hits first). But in the D&D combat system it does much more than that. You can move 30 feet (sometimes more), take your full action, and sometimes a bonus action, before anybody else gets to move. What's more, since usually everybody knows the initiative order, they can take advantage of this rule construct that doesn't exist in the game world itself. They can do so by planning their attacks around the initiative order and maximize their group attacks as well - all while the opponents are seemingly frozen in time. No matter how much somebody tries to explain that's not what happens - it is.

This is another instance of the GM framing things so as to drive towards conflict. Here is the rule on ties (BW Gold p 26):

If one character is an aggressor by intent and one is a defender, ties go to the defender. If both characters are aggressors, a tie means that neither side has gained an edge and they are deadlocked. Either the tie must be accepted as the result, a trait must be called on to break it or the contest must be continued in another arena. Do not reroll the test.​

The GM decided that the tie in this case meant deadlock, and so the contest had to be continued in another arena - how quickly can I unloose the horse as the orc's close? Personally, I think I would have adjudicated it differently rather than retest the orcs' speed - perhaps an orc is taking aim to throw a spear at me, and so it is Knots vs Perception with a win to me getting me on my horse and a win to the orc getting him a throw of the spear at me. But I'm not the GM in this game!

And this sounds an awful lot like the Contest rules for ability checks in D&D. It's a mechanical rule. It doesn't drive toward conflict - it's just resolving who resolves their action first. If you fail (or know that you are likely to fail) then you do something else. I don't see any reason to make it more than that.

There is no such thing as "passive checks" in BW. As a general rule, passive checks are not consistent with "say 'yes' or roll the dice".

Huh? A passive check is a "say yes" if the passive skill is high enough to beat the DC. Otherwise you have to roll the dice. How is this not consistent with "say yes or roll the dice?"

A passive skill also doesn't require an action. So in combat you can choose to use your action to give yourself a better chance at success (such as Stealth or Search) by making an active check instead of relying on your passive skill.

 

[Manbearcat]

So this is where I go from the 100% to the 80%. I guess you can say that I'm approaching the discussion in part as a DM of D&D, because ultimately that's what I really know. Despite having run games in the past for other systems, I can't really claim to have achieved a high enough skill level in them to call myself a Rolemaster/MERP GM, or Traveller, Paranoia, whatever.

Having said that, I do think I have enough knowledge of other systems to look at it from a more objective position, although not completely (or maybe 100% accurately) since I don't know all systems as well.

So (d) and (e) might be 100% correct for a story now game (and from what I understand, they are fairly standard). However, if when running/playing your game of choice that you wish to have a different play experience than a narrative/story now game, these are implying that the DM take greater control of the story than I normally like:

d) Don't have plot points in mind beforehand..."don't play the story". Just play The Town. Present the PC's with choices; "provoke the players to have their characters take action then...react (with your NPCs/The Town)!" Always do this to keep play driven toward conflict, over and over, escalating as necessary, until all conflict in The Town is resolved. (DitV 137-139)

e) Reflect between Towns with the players. Use what they've gained, lost, and given you to "push them a little bit further in the next Town."

These are giving specific direction to drive the story arc itself. That every game ("always") must follow this direction. But there are times, or some of us, that are interested in telling other kinds of stories. They aren't always about conflict. If the instructions are for creating a tense and intense, ever-escalating conflict driving to a shocking and dramatic final resolution, fine. These are great instructions. But if they are instructions for how to run every RPG game, then no.

I get that they are written for a specific game that promises a specific game style. It's an example of how rules that are well integrated into the goal (and possibly setting) of the game helps create a repeatable game experience. That's a successful game. But let's say I'm not interested in that game. What can I learn from it? Quite a bit, but for a smaller portion of my game, because a smaller portion of my game needs these types of rules.

Also, many players that I've played with will object to the DM manipulating the story in this way. They want to be in full control of their players, including deciding themselves whether to escalate or de-escalate the conflict.

So @pemerton already analyzed this and I'm in agreement with what he wrote. But I'll throw a few words of my own into the ring.

While I understand that "provoke the players into action" and "drive play toward conflict" can easily be perceived as "specific direction to drive the story arc", within context of everything else (the rest of the GMing principles, the general play procedures, the specific conflict resolution procedures, the game's Reward Cycle) it really isn't about story specificity. Its about addressing premise. The conceptual difference between the two may be nuanced, but it is absolutely central to proper Story Now GMing.

To play at all in these games is to accept either (a) the tight system premise that is inherent to the game itself (like My Life With Master) or (b) premise that is inherent to (and signaled by) the thematic choices of PC build (D&D 4e, Dungeon World, and the Cortex+ games) or (c) both (Dogs, Burning Wheel, Apocalypse World, Blades in the Dark).

So all the GM is doing in Dogs is their job; (1) create obstacles (Towns) which provoke (hook into premise and demand a response) and (2) functionally and coherently frame conflicts around Dog's inherent premise (and each of the Dogs' inherent premise themselves), (3) escalating them when necessary and sensible (which is most of the time), and (4) respond to the evolving conditions/evolved continuity by framing follow-on conflicts that hook right back into premise until every PC is done for (physically, mentally, or emotionally) or the Town is cleansed. (5) Take a breather as we reflect between towns, the players and the situation evolves, then go right back to (1).

Story specificity isn't a thing in Dogs or Story Now games. Whatever happens...happens. Just address premise and provoke with relevant content. Then react to the players and appreciate the fireworks and fallout.

I know there is this sandbox mental framework impulse that tells a certain segment of longtime AD&D players that serial exploration of setting (with objective temporal and spatial relationships and granular accounting for both) and a broad/varied buffet of premise is fundamentally the only boundary conditions which can maximize player agency.

For them, hard scene framing and "go to the action" (contrast with serial exploration of setting relationships) and focused premise (contrast with a broad/varied buffet of premise) is fundamentally a problem for player agency.

But its just not for these type of games. In fact, smuggling in those sandbox GMing principles (holistically...some Story Now games use certain components) is actually damaging to the player agency (and aesthetic experience) of Story Now games. This is because spending precious play time exploring/investigating premise-neutral setting relationships or spending table time on dramatically-inert situations (either because they are fundamentally so or because the GM has done a poor job of framing) are both negatively impactful to the sum-total amount of agency that players could be expressing around addressing premise/theme in a given session and, just as important, such inconsistent pacing negatively impacts the very precious momentum/tempo that is central to the play experience.

For the players to play at all in a Story Now game and for the game to work at all is to embrace (and expect) that paradigm.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

Fair enough. I used the phrase as it seems to be one that pemerton swears by, to make the point that where in his game everyone is playing to find out in my game everyone except the DM is playing to find out. In either case what they're finding out may or may not be what anyone thought they might before the session started.

I'm not so much thinking of individual characters' secret backstory as secret backstory in the game as a whole. The gate guard is in fact a spy for the Phonecians. The next full moon will bring an unexpected outbreak of werewolves. The party's mentor who supposedly supports the king is secretly trying to overthrow him and the party have been (unknowingly) aiding this. Col. Mustard did it in the Tower with a +3 Mace. All the little (or not so little) things that a DM knows and that PCs (and thus players) don't.

Maybe they'll never meet the gate guard. They might just happen to be out of town when the werewolves hit. But they're starting to wonder about their so-called mentor...

And for the game as a whole if it's on a larger scale. I made it all the way to the end before you lost me. I don't get this one. How can you author (as in, either generate or add to) the fiction without changing it, either from what is was to what it is or from nothing at all to what it is?

Lan-"secret backstory is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists"-efan

The last line:

Just as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] asserts that authoring the fiction doesn't alter the fiction.

Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...s-quot-railroading-quot/page165#ixzz4gcxkahj9

I was basically saying that you can't change something that isn't written yet. In other words, until it comes into play, it doesn't exist. It might be written in my notes, but since it might change it makes no difference, just like I made up on the fly, it's not a change in the fiction, since it hasn't existed in the game world yet.

And yes, I agree with every thing you said here, it's really "backstory and setting" as Eero pointed out.

 

[Ilbranteloth]

In a "secret backstory" game, whether or not the NPC is the father is (presumably) known to the GM (if it's not, then there's no secret backstory!), and so the player's action declarations can't actually establish this bit of the fiction. All they can do is uncover it (which is what I have referred to upthread as "learning the contents of the GM's notes"). If the PC cast a Commune spell and asked "Who is my father?" or "Is the NPC my father?", the GM would provide the answer written in his/her notes.

Upthread I've already posted examples of the PCs trying to solve mysteries, and how this works in a "story now" framework where there is no "secret backstory". Here's one such:

Mystery: why did the PC's brother become possessed by a balrog?

Clue - narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Scavenging check: the PC searches the ruined tower where he and his brother once lived and worked, hoping to find the nickel-silver mace he left behind 14 years ago when fleeing attacking orcs; but instead, he finds cursed black arrows in the ruins of what had been his brother's private workroom.

Further clue - narrated by the GM as a consequence of a failed Aura Reading check: the PC reads the magical aura of the arrows, hoping to learn who made them - it was his brother!​

The clues point towards an answer to the mystery - the PC's brother was evil, and hence a fitting receptacle for balrog possession. They are narrated by the GM in accordance with the "challenging revelation" approach described by Eero Tuovinen.

The mechanics of the system are important here: every action declaration is resolved according to "say 'yes' or roll the dice". There is no automatic success comparable to classic D&D commune. So the aura reading is a check, which can result in failure, which enables me as GM to narrate another clue that points in the unhappy direction.

Here's another example:

Mystery: is the Dusk War upon us!

Clue - introduced by GM as part of framing: the tarrasque has risen from out of the earth and is wreaking havoc - this is one of the prophesied signs of the Dusk War.

Further clue - introduced by GM as part of framing (partly unprompted, partly in the course of discussion between the PCs and a NPC, partly in response to knowledge checks which were, in effect, requests for more framing detail): the tarrasque is surrounded by maruts who in ancient days made an agreement with the Raven Queen to ensure that no one would interfere with the tarrasque carrying out its rampage at a herald of the Dusk War.

The PCs responded to this by having one of their number attack the tarrasque and single-handedly bloody it, while the other PCs explained to the maruts that they had made an error in their cosmological calculations: this could not be the tarrasque heralding the Dusk War, because the ease with which it was being defeated meant that it could not be the harbinger of the end times. It must be some lesser precursor to that prophesied event. (Mechanically, this was both successful combat actions and success in a skill challenge to persuade the maruts.)​

In a "secret backstory" game the PCs presumably could persuade the maruts, but whether or not the prophesied end of days was here or not would itself be something already known to the GM (if not, then there is no secret backstory).

I am not talking about a world-threatening villain that the PCs might try and stop. I'm talking about a prophesied end-of-days - the Ragnarok or the Apocalypse.

The answer to the question is the Dusk War upon us is, in the fiction, either yes or no: it's either the end times, or it's not. But at the table, in the real world, the answer is not known. The players, like their PCs, want the answer to be no. There are NPCs - including the Raven Queen, it seems - who want the answer to be yes. Of course, the PCs don't have the causal power in the fiction to establish the answer - it's a cosmological truth. But the players, at the table, have the causal power to shape the fiction. That is the difference from a "secret backstory" game, where the answer to the question is settled in the GM's notes. (Again, if there is no such answer then we're not talking about a "secret backstory" game.)

First, a subsidiary point: the GM does not seek the player's agreement out of session. That would be making the mistake that Eero Tuovinen describes, of getting the player to author his/her own challenge. It is the GM's job to narrate the murder, whether as framing or as a consequence of a failed check. (As [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] and I were discussing not far upthread, which of these, if either, is appropriate narration is the sort of decision a "story now" GM has to make all the time; if the GM gets it wrong, then the situation will fall flat, or fail to provoke a choice on the part of the player.)

So part of the problem I'm having here is a terminology one, and the second is that despite what the folks at the Forge think, it's not an all or nothing thing.

First the terminology thing: The term in use in this discussion is "secret backstory." If we're basing that on the word secret, then what you're referring to is something the DM knows that the player doesn't. Fair enough.

But to me, particularly from the player's point of view, there is no fundamental difference between "secret backstory" and "unknown backstory."

Whether the DM knew about the villain being your father before the moment he announced it or not makes no difference whatsoever to the player nor the story.

So when we're discussing "secret backstory" my definition is "unknown backstory."

The risk with a "secret backstory" where the DM knows something the player doesn't is the same as with any pre-authored material, whether it's setting, backstory, whatever - the DM might be inclined to steer the campaign toward that prepared material. Steer hard enough and it becomes a railroad.

Second, the main points.

(A) In a "story now"/"narrativistic" game the GM is going where the action is, in accordance with dramatic need. The sister has some significance. The sister's murder has some significance (eg it opens up the town council to control by the PC's rivals). The PC has someone in mind as the suspect. In short, the scene will provoke some choice on the part of the player. That choice will involve action declarations, which will be successful (in which case things unfold the way the PC hoped) or will fail (in which case things unfold unhappily for the PC).

Which leads to the other main point:

(B) It's simply not correct that "you-as-DM are still supplying the answers". Look at the examples I've given in this post; or other examples from upthread, like whether or not there is a vessel in the room where the unconscious mage has been decapitated. If the player's action declaration for his/her PC succeeds, then it is the player, not the GM, who is shaping the fiction. The player's successful Perception check established the presence of a vessel in the room. The players' successful defeat of the tarrasque made it plausible that it was not, in fact, the Dusk War harbinger but only some lesser incarnation.

Think about (A) and (B) in relation to the example [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] posted not far upthread, of the discovery of the brother's hat in the brothel. I don't know DitV's resolution system, but I can easily imagine how this might unfold in BW:

The PC picks up the hat from the hook in the foyer and strides into the main parlour of the brothel. He draws his pistol, holds up the hat, and calls out "The owner of this here hat had better come out here now, or I'll come and find him!"

At the table, the GM calls for a Command check, with (say) Conspicuous, Oratory and Intimidate folded in as augments.

If the check succeeds, some NPC stranger stumbles sheepishly out of one of the bedrooms, and the scene now evolves into a social encounter as the PC tries to find out how the NPC came by the brother's hat.

If the check fails, then the PC (and player) have not got what they want. So the GM narrates the brother coming out of a bedroom into the parlour, pulling up his britches as he comes. Now the situation has taken a very different turn . . .​

Because of (A), there is no fumbling around by the players or the GM wondering where to go to look for clues. The situation is charged with dramatic need. The player can declare actions. The GM can supply engaging framing.

Because of (B), the GM as much as the players is playing to find out. The resolution of the mystery will not be determined by the GM. It's not the GM who supplies the answers. The answers are generated by the consequences of action declaration: if the player succeeds, the PC's intent is realised; if the player fails, the GM narrates some consequence adverse to the PC's intent.

Note that, even on failure, the GM is not sole arbiter. It is the player who established the intent of the action declaration, and hence who establishes the parameters (adversity to or negation of that intent) that govern the GM's narration of consequences of failure.

Would it make my job easier as a baker of cakes for my family to buy one at the shop? To me, that sounds like giving up on my job.

As I've repeatedly posted, I don't want to play an RPG where the main goal of play is for the players to find out what I have written in my notes. And if my players want to find out what I think would make for a good mystery, well, they can read my novels! But as far as RPGing is concerned, I want to play to find out. For me, that's what RPGing is.

Sorry, I hadn't realised that any of this had been taken to be in contention.

Yes, the GM has ideas. Otherwise the GM couldn't frame scenes or narrate consequences. But I don't know what you mean by "steering things in this manner".

Consider one of the examples I posted around six or so posts upthread, from one of the sessions I participated in over the weekend: my GM included elves in the situation, because he like elves. And no doubt he had some ideas about what might happen with the elves (just as a GM might have ideas about NPCs and their connections to PC parenthood).

So, with whatever ideas he had in mind, the GM narrated the presence of the elf captain. I initiated the social exchange; and it seemed fairly clear to me that the GM had not expected me (in character as my PC) to try to persuade the elven captain to bring himself and his company to my PC's ancestral estate. The interaction of stat blocks, scripting (ie blind action declarations, which is how BW handles complex conflict resolution) and the dice dictated that the elf captain rebuffed my PC's invitation; but while the attempt failed utterly, as I posted upthread it nevertheless (i) got me some good advancement checks, (ii) let me have fun speaking my arguments as the rules require, and (iii) established more about my character and his relationship to the ingame situation. Following the interaction with the elf captain, I was the one who then chose that my PC and his companion would head off in a different direction from the elves without taking any lunch (which we had originally been planning to eat at the ruined homestead).

So anyway, as I've said, I don't know what you have in mind when you refer to the GM "steering things" in an episode of play like this. If you simply mean that the GM determines some elements of the fiction as part of framing - eg the elf, who didn't want to come back to my ancestral estate but rather to return to Celene with a fallen comrade - then as I said I didn't realise that was in contention. But if you mean something more, I'm missing what that is.

Well, as I've said upthread I don't know enough about your game to form any opinion on it.

But I think the contrast between the sort of approach that [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] is advocating for - in which the GM authors the backstory in advance, and the players' job includes finding that out in the course of play - and the sort of approach that I prefer, is a fairly clear one.

For all I know, you run a game in which you frame scenes according to dramatic need, and establish the content of the fiction in the sort of fashion that I have described: the interaction of framing, action declarations and consequences. Ron Edwards discusses this in two essays:

Sh*t! I'm playing Narrativist
In Simulationist play, morality cannot be imposed by the player or, except as the representative of the imagined world, by the GM. Theme is already part of the cosmos; it's not produced by metagame decisions. Morality, when it's involved, is "how it is" in the game-world, and even its shifts occur along defined, engine-driven parameters. The GM and players buy into this framework in order to play at all. . . .

Therefore, when you-as-player get proactive about an emotional thematic issue, poof, you're out of Sim. Whereas enjoying the in-game system activity of a thematic issue is perfectly do-able in Sim, without that proactivity being necessary. . . .

The Now refers to the people, during actual play, focusing their imagination to create those emotional moments of decision-making and action, and paying attention to one another as they do it. To do that, they relate to "the story" very much as authors do for novels, as playwrights do for plays, and screenwriters do for film at the creative moment or moments. Think of the Now as meaning, "in the moment," or "engaged in doing it," in terms of input and emotional feedback among one another. The Now also means "get to it," in which "it" refers to any Explorative element or combination of elements that increases the enjoyment of that issue I'm talking about.

There cannot be any "the story" during Narrativist play, because to have such a thing (fixed plot or pre-agreed theme) is to remove the whole point: the creative moments of addressing the issue(s). . . .

Jesse: I'm just still a little confused between Narrativism and Simulationism where the Situation has a lot of ethical/moral problems embedded in it and the GM uses no Force techniques to produce a specific outcome. I don't understand how Premise-expressing elements can be included and players not be considered addressing a Premise when they can't resolve the Situation without doing so.

Me: There is no such Simulationism. You're confused between Narrativism and Narrativism, looking for a difference when there isn't any.​

It's very clear to me that Lanefan is running a game that, in Edwards' framework, would count as "simulationist" because "exploration of situation and setting". I think the same is true for [MENTION=6778044]Ilbranteloth[/MENTION], but probably with a greater focus on setting and character rather than situation. But you, [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION], haven't said enough about how you run your game, or provided examples of play that would illustrate your techniques. So I can't tell.

I disagree, only because from what I can tell [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] runs a game similar to mine, which "includes ethical/moral problems embedded in it and doesn't use Force techniques to produce a specific outcome." I try to avoid what the Forge limits as force techniques as much as possible. We just don't use rules that direct a specific narrative approach. Although we do - skill checks still have success and failure and, at least for me, they also have degrees of success and failure. I don't have a system like AW that gives you 5 sentences to select to build your narration from, for example. I consider the circumstances, which does consider the current thrust of the story, but also looks at whether this particular action/resolution situation would significantly intersect with the characters underlying motivations.

For example, sometimes killing an orc is a moral dilemma, sometimes it's just killing an orc.

When my daughter snuck into an orc hold attempting to get some more information, they came to some holding cells with prisoners/slaves. The two orc guards had their back to her (and the other PC that was with her), and she has a flying dagger that she could use to attack with. There were other orcs nearby (they could hear them) and they couldn't risk being discovered. So the other PC suggested she try to kill them silently with the dagger to the back of the neck at the base of the skull. She agonized over the decision because the orc guards weren't an immediate threat. She was adamant about trying to free the prisoners, but they weren't sure how they were going to be able to do it (other than hoping that the prisoners would be able to help them escape once they were freed and they were making a run for it).

She didn't have an issue with killing orcs, just that they were unarmed and not an immediate threat. Somebody even suggested that they just draw attention to themselves, in which case they would be a threat, but she didn't think that was right either, because they would only be a threat because they made them a threat. She didn't even mention that it might alert the other orcs at that point. It was all about the fact that at that moment in time, they didn't need to be killed.

The moral dilemma presented itself without any need for me to add anything else. I knew there were guards for the prisoners, because I did have a map of the hold, but I didn't expect them to be able to sneak to their present location where the guards would have their backs to them. I really didn't expect them to initially attempt to sneak into the hold for surveillance. They have their morals and know what the norm is in the world itself.

One of the main things I like about the game (and have mentioned before) are these sort of character-building moments. But it's one of the things, there are many, many others.

By your definition above, I must be running a narrative campaign. I'm OK with that, although really it's more of a hybrid approach, trying to build on the strengths of several styles.