Judgement calls vs "railroading"

[pemerton]

I think some of the disagreement related to "consistency" is related to the concept of Dissociated Mechanics. The comparison isn't perfectly apt, but I think it's close:

When Pemerton decides, as a consequence of a player failure, that the brother was Evil all-along, it's effectively creating a dissociated mechanic for the player on-the-spot (instead of in the game's rules, where the label is usually applied). OOC, the player's decision to search for the mace has causally resulted in the brother's retroactive classification. But IC, the charcter's decision has causally resulted in a failure to find the mace (and finding the arrows instead). I think it's that OOC/IC inconsistency, analogous to a dissociated mechanic, that's causing some posters, like me, who react badly to dissociated mechanics, to feel that Pemerton's approach itself will necessarily lead to an inconsistant game world.

I find that the notion of "dissociated mechanics" is not a very helpful one, because it tries to equate a species of mechanic - metagame mechanics - with a mental/cognitive state - "dissociation" - as if such a correlation is necessary or at least typical, when in fact it's rather idiosyncratic (eg many D&D players use hp, which in any but the strongest "hit points as meat" approach to play have a strong metagame element to them, but don't suffer an "dissociation").

But, as I have already posted several times upthread, there is (in general) no need for the process of authoring fiction to in any way mirror the causal processes that occur in the gameworld eg an author may think of a character, which then causes the author to think of the character's parents - whereas in the fiction, the parents were the cause of the character, not vice . This happens all the time in RPGing. Eg the GM make up a village for the 1st level PCs. They discover a smuggling plot. This leads to questions - where do the smugglers come from, where do they get their stuff? The GM then makes up more of the gameworld, and it continues and grows.

I'm doing that also at the moment of action resolution. It's got no more general tendency to lead to inconsistency at that point that at the point of framing and fleshing out context, as in the smuggling example.

I'm careful to keep the game world internally consistent

So am I.

If the player knows that the revelation his character has just been hit with was just made up in the moment, then there's a disconnect between what the character knows/perceives and what the player does.

<snip>

Of course, if Pemerton had kept the timing of that decision to himself, there'd be no problem.

If I understand correctly, Pemerton keeping the timing of that decision from his players would negate the entire point of having it be a consequence of the player's failure.

Xetheral is correct about my own preferences/approach.

As far as the "disconnect" - I don't see any disconnect. The player learns just as the PC does. And the player is not authoring his/her misfortune any more than the PC is (except in the sense that the player, like the PC, chose to search the ruins rather than just bask in old memories).

This is why the GM role is important in the sort of game I prefer - it is the GM's job to author these failures. The player's check, and failure, triggers the need for the GM to author. But it is the GM who authors the fiction, not the player.

Most of my behind-the-scenes changes are made to increase player agency, not stymie it.

Can you elaborate?

 

[Lanefan]

If the GM is trying to frame the PCs into situations that will put them (and thereby their players) under pressure, and the players have the ability to defuse or cancel the situation rather than actually engage it (eg by teleporting home; by rocket tagging all opposition; etc) - what is, in effect, an ability to reframe the situation so that it doesn't put any pressure on them - then it can be hard to run a game that is all about going where the action is and asking provocative questions.

But isn't that to some extent the players' job - to in theory and in character find the safest and easiest way of dealing with whatever situations the game throws at them? If yes, then one such way is certainly to reframe or redefine the situation into something more favourable...sounds like fair game to me.

Lan-"sometimes the safest and-or easiest way of dealing with a situation is to just leave it alone and hope it goes away"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

This relates to the second of the quoted passages: what makes this a moment that is worth emphasising in the course of play is because the PC - having lost the opportunity to take the living mage to his dark naga master - has determined to take the blood instead. So the availability of a vessel is the "crunch" moment for that goal.

Actually no it isn't, as there's numerous other ways of getting blood to the dark naga provided someone thinks of one; several have been suggested earlier in this thread. It's only a crunch moment if you-as-DM have decided that use of a cup or container is the only way the blood can possibly get to where it's going.

Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?

Sometimes realism dictates the action just might have to stop for a while and take a breather. This is not a bad thing. Repeat: this is not a bad thing.

Think about it: most of the time our characters are in the field they're not engaged in "action": they're resting or camping or travelling or resupplying and sometimes a bit of attention needs to be paid to these things by the table (incluiding the DM). Archer's out of arrows? If the party's got any sense they'll head back to town to restock and the DM "going to the action" will just have to wait.

Lanefan

 

[Lanefan]

The paladin PC in my main 4e game was subject to an effect from an evil cultist - turned into a frog and therefore unable to attack or use powers until the end of the cultist's next turn. The player of the paladin therefore missed a turn in the combat - he didn't want his frog-paladin to move - and muttered about not liking it very much while the rest of the table made jokes about not stepping on the frog as the other PCs moved in to confront the cultist and her flunkies.​

That little excerpt right there I find highly enlightening, in that if it's reflective of a normal bit of play it tells me a very great deal about the atmosphere in which (by choice or otherwise) you DM:

A player misses one combat turn - one measly turn! - and is complaining about it.

Sheesh!

This puts a lot of what you've been saying both in this thread and others into a sharp context - a context I'd kind of suspected but this is the first confirmation of it - which is, simply put, that your players doth expect too much.

What I still don't know is which came first:

Did your DMing style and philosophies lead to these expectations, or
Did these expectations lead to your DMing style and philosophies.

Lanefan​

 

[Lanefan]

As far as the "disconnect" - I don't see any disconnect. The player learns just as the PC does. And the player is not authoring his/her misfortune any more than the PC is (except in the sense that the player, like the PC, chose to search the ruins rather than just bask in old memories).

The player learning just as the PC does is perfect!

The DM learning just as the PC does is not at all perfect as the DM should in theory have known all along. That's the disconnect.

Lanefan

 

[Campbell]

But isn't that to some extent the players' job - to in theory and in character find the safest and easiest way of dealing with whatever situations the game throws at them? If yes, then one such way is certainly to reframe or redefine the situation into something more favourable...sounds like fair game to me.

Lan-"sometimes the safest and-or easiest way of dealing with a situation is to just leave it alone and hope it goes away"-efan

It's not always the case that players should seek to play it as safe as possible. My preference is that they should have aspirations and go after them with vigor, taking meaningful risks along the way. See my comments upthread about playing your character as if it were a stolen car. No media encapsulates this sort character better than John Wick.

Viggo Tarasov: John is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will... something you know very little about. I once saw him kill three men in a bar... with a pencil, with a ing pencil. Then suddenly one day he asked to leave. It's over a woman, of course. So I made a deal with him. I gave him an impossible task. A job no one could have pulled off. The bodies he buried that day laid the foundation of what we are now. And then my son, a few days after his wife died, you steal his car and kill his ing dog.

John Wick: Viggo.
Viggo Tarasov: Yeah?
John Wick: When Helen died, I lost everything. Until that dog arrived on my doorstep... A final gift from my wife... In that moment, I received some semblance of hope... an opportunity to grieve unalone... And your son... took that from me.
Viggo Tarasov: Oh, God.
John Wick: Stole that from me... *Killed that from me*! People keep asking if I'm back and I haven't really had an answer. But now, yeah, I'm thinkin' I'm back. So you can either hand over your son or you can die screaming alongside him!

I also feel this passage from Blades in the Dark is relevant.

EMBRACE THE SCOUNDREL’S LIFE

The scoundrel’s lot is a tough one, to be sure. The world in which they are trapped is deeply, cruelly unfair—created by the powerful to maintain their power and punish anyone who dares to resist. Some of the systems of the game are built to bring these injustices into play. No matter how cool or how capable the PCs are, the heat will pile on, entanglements will blindside them, the powers-that-be will try to kick them down with no regard.

Depending on who you are in real life, this predicament may come as a shock to you, requiring some new understanding on your part. Or it may be all too familiar. Either way, your character is not you. Their fate is their own. We’re the advocates and fans of our characters, but they are not us. We don’t safeguard them as we might safeguard ourselves or our loved ones. They must go off into their dark and brutal world and strive and suffer for what they achieve—we can’t keep them safe here with us. They’re brave to try. We’re brave to follow their story and not flinch away. When they get knocked down, we look them in the eye and say, “You’re not done yet. You can do this. Get back in there.”

Obviously, not every Player Character is going to be the sort of risk taker John Wick is. That does not mean the game should make it easy on them. I don't really have issues with games that allow players to reframe things on behalf of their characters. Every time we declare an action for our characters we, as players, are attempting to reframe the situation. The problem comes when players get to reframe the situation without significant cost or meaningful risk. When you cast a spell in D&D that spell slot is meant to be a significant cost. Unfortunately when we place characters outside of the intended scope of play, the dungeon, then the techniques and procedures that make the decision to rest a tense one fail to work appropriately. There are also some other impacts related to simply being able to use a resource to cut through the tension of the current moment, but that deserves a post of its own.

 

[Lanefan]

It's not always the case that players should seek to play it as safe as possible. My preference is that they should have aspirations and go after them with vigor, taking meaningful risks along the way. See my comments upthread about playing your character as if it were a stolen car. No media encapsulates this sort character better than John Wick.

I've never watched the John Wick films but I too prefer risk-taking characters, and tend to play them that way myself...often to their detriment.

That said, players more rational than me would probably in-character look for the safe way...which from the character's point of view of self-preservation, only makes sense.

Obviously, not every Player Character is going to be the sort of risk taker John Wick is. That does not mean the game should make it easy on them. I don't really have issues with games that allow players to reframe things on behalf of their characters. Every time we declare an action for our characters we, as players, are attempting to reframe the situation. The problem comes when players get to reframe the situation without significant cost or meaningful risk. When you cast a spell in D&D that spell slot is meant to be a significant cost. Unfortunately when we place characters outside of the intended scope of play, the dungeon, then the techniques and procedures that make the decision to rest a tense one fail to work appropriately. There are also some other impacts related to simply being able to use a resource to cut through the tension of the current moment, but that deserves a post of its own.

Which then all depends on how generous or not the game is in replenishing resources. But in any case I say that if the players happen to find a win button this time through a reframe, let 'em have it. It's not a problem until and unless it becomes a win button every time.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Sometimes realism dictates the action just might have to stop for a while and take a breather. This is not a bad thing. Repeat: this is not a bad thing.

I was responding to [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s question about mechanics that can get in the way of running a game in the style [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] described.

Yes, if you want to run in another style (eg a "realistic" style) then those same mechanics won't be a problem. But that doesn't change the fact that they can be a problem for the style [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] was asking about.

there's numerous other ways of getting blood to the dark naga provided someone thinks of one; several have been suggested earlier in this thread.

<snip>

It's only a crunch moment if you-as-DM have decided that use of a cup or container is the only way the blood can possibly get to where it's going.

In the abstract the first sentence may or may not be true. At the table, though, the player has fastened on a vessel as the method. That's what the player has chosen for the action to turn on. So that's what it turns on.

Your comment about the GM having decided something would make sense in a puzzle-solving game ("How can we get the blood to the naga?") But that's not the game I'm running

In a Star Wars game we don't decide whether or not to roll to hit the exhaust port with our missiles because, had someone else thought of something else, they might eg be using guided missiles or drones. The crunch is what it is! In my game, at that moment, the player of the PC says "The blood's escaping - is there a vessel?" That's the crunch, as put forward by the player. And so the dice come out.

the DM should in theory have known all along.

Why? This is mere assertion.

You're running ToH. Will or won't a PC get sucked into the green devil's maw? Who knows?

The GM is not expected to know that all along. So why anything else?

But isn't that to some extent the players' job - to in theory and in character find the safest and easiest way of dealing with whatever situations the game throws at them? If yes, then one such way is certainly to reframe or redefine the situation into something more favourable...sounds like fair game to me.

I think [MENTION=16586]Campbell[/MENTION] answers this pretty well - including with his two comments about using spells to reframe without rise (ie (i) outside a dungeon the resource economy is mucked up, and (ii) having it be fiat rather than requiring a check creates some issues around the experience of risk).

 

[pemerton]

A player misses one combat turn - one measly turn! - and is complaining about it.

Sheesh!

This puts a lot of what you've been saying both in this thread and others into a sharp context - a context I'd kind of suspected but this is the first confirmation of it - which is, simply put, that your players doth expect too much.

What I still don't know is which came first:

Did your DMing style and philosophies lead to these expectations, or
Did these expectations lead to your DMing style and philosophies.

I've replied to this in a separate post.


You have no idea what my player was saying or thinking, that I have summed up as "muttering about not liking it very much" - nearly anyone might mutter that they would prefer to be taking their turn then missing their turn because turned into a frog, especially if being ribbed by the other players.

I don't think you've got either the information or the standing to judge the character of my players, any more than I judge the character of yours.

 

[Campbell]

Mechanics that drag attention away from the action, and push towards an ingame-causal-logic-driven continuous narration, can include rest and healing mechanics; resource mechanics; etc. If a PC needs to spend X ingame days or weeks healing, then how is the GM going to go to the action? If the archer PC runs out of arrows, X miles from town, how is the GM going to go to the action?

This is interesting. I think we may have run into a possible area of contention in our approaches. I consider active experience of the fallout of decisions really important to giving player decisions weight. I do not think it is enough to say what the consequences are, we need to show through play what they are and really follow the fiction. I can also see where your go to the action might be subtly different from my make the players' characters' lives not boring.

The experience of being hurt or running out of arrows can provide room for all sorts of compelling fiction and meaningful decision making. Part of the challenge of running any version of D&D to using my favored approach is that it actually turns things like being hurt, death, and the experience of being without crucial resources into purely logistical problems rather than making room for compelling drama. Things like cheap and risk free healing and resurrection spells, automatic healing over time with specific daily healing rates, tracking every arrow to be certain we never run out, and assumed commodity rather than matchmaking markets tend to remove the sting of these as things we actually have to deal with on a personal level.

I think there are better ways to deal with these experiences in a way that increases dramatic tension, provides meaningful choices, and is less sensitive to dealing with minutiae. I don't wish to drive this thread too far down a tangent about resource management though. I plan to create a new thread sometime tomorrow.